My favorite time of year...

I love fall.  I love the cooling temps and the beautiful foliage.  Most of all, I love Halloween.  It's my favorite holiday.  And that's saying something since I like to go all out for all holidays.

I love trick-or-treaters.  I love scary decorations.  I love candy.  I love parties.  I love everything about it.

Saturday night, Philip and I had a Halloween party.  Our house looked absolutely fantastic.  I wish I would have taken pictures of everything.  I'm still in awe of how awesome everything looked.  

Philip and I as the Joker and Harley Quinn.  Unfortunately, by this point in the night, I'd already lost my mask.  :(

Then, tonight, Philip had to work.  I was sick.  I can't tell you the last time that I was sick.  It's been forever ago.  I can't believe that this cold chose to pop up on my favorite day of the year.  

However, the neighbor kids gave up their night of trick-or-treating to help me set up the yard.  Then they helped me pass out candy and scared the older kids (my yard is the "scary yard" in the neighborhood).

The Harvester of Souls (Video)

A witch, a cauldron full of candy, and Little Luci (video).

Zombie Bait (video)

Giggles the Clown (video)

Philip and I made this ourselves after seeing this one and this one at Spirit. 

Creepy Crawly Zombie Girl (video)

Rosemary (video)

 

The kids drew chalk outlines around themselves in the driveway and then smeared fake blood all over them.  :)

Also an addition from the kiddos. 

Creepy girl hid underneath my car and crawled out at people while moaning.  We had the fog machine set up so she wasn't very visible until people were right next to her.  :)

Another shot of the prop Philip and I made.  :)

Haunted Hedges

Part of our cemetary.  I had another fog machine set up here to make it creepier.  :)

 So, despite being sick, I think I will still retain my title as "Halloween lady."  Thanks to the kiddos (and their mom) for the help in actually making this Halloween another success.  :)  

I'm guessing that my house will be egged when I wake up tomorrow since I sent several kids away.  Only kids in costumes get candy at my house!  However, over $60 worth of candy went out to the kids who showed up at my door in costume.  And we only believe in getting the good stuff!  Happy Halloween, everybody.  :)

My husband must hate me...

...because there are way too many clowns in my house for my comfort!  

I've allowed about a dozen clowns in our house, so it must be Halloween.  For those of you who don't know, I am terrified of clowns.  However, we're having a Halloween party on Saturday and there are a few other people coming who are afraid of clowns.  So, clowns are obviously a must-have.  And Philip keeps buying clown after clown for our house!

Philip and I have spent entirely too much money on Halloween this year, but our house is going to be the best house in the area (as if it wasn't already!).  I'm still known as "the Halloween lady" in my neighborhood because of our spectacular show last year.  :)

I still have a bunch of cooking and baking to do before tomorrow, but I'm super excited.

And now, for your viewing pleasure:

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This is the image that has haunted my dreams since I was a little girl.  I still won't walk near the damn sewer grates under the sidewalks.  

Happy Halloween, folks!  Be safe and enjoy!  :)

"How's Married Life?"

I seem to be getting this question a whole lot lately.  Honestly, it's exactly the same as engaged life... just without all that wedding planning in the way.  

Philip and I have lived together for almost our entire relationship.  We know each other inside and out.  There's no changing just because we said "I do."  

And then I get the, "So what now?" people.  When are we going to start a family?  Honestly, I've got baby fever bad.  We want kids.  Three of them.  However, we've still got a few years to go.  We've got some traveling to do first (a cruise next year and possibly another international trip the year after).  We know we won't be doing a lot of traveling once we have little ones, so we need to get that out of our system first!  

Also, we need to be more financially stable.  Philip and I actually do really well.  We are great at budgeting and make the best of what we've got.  However, when we have kids, I will be a stay at home mom.  That's $25-30k less a year.  So, we've got some preparing to do before we can afford kids.  

We need to buy a house.  Philip's credit won't allow that until 2013.  Besides that, we don't know where we will be living.  Philip is trying to find a supervisor job with Sysco.  We don't know where that will lead.  Hopefully a lot closer to my family (the Chicago job would have been nice, but that didn't pan out).  

So, Philip and I will be doing our normal thing for the next few years.  Just hanging out and enjoying the life we have together.  :)  I'm okay with that.  I'll just satisfy myself with drooling over baby clothes until we're actually ready.

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I mean, how stinkin' cute is that??  :D

I Milked A Cow!

Okay, so I've been gone almost a month with the wedding, honeymoon, and Indiana reception.  You'd probably think that I'd first blog about one of those things.  You'd be wrong.  ;)  I probably won't be doing a whole lot of blogging about the wedding and honeymoon here (I'm going to be posting all of that on my wedding blog instead).  If you'd like to read about those things, you should scoot on over to my other blog: http://taragettingmarried.blogspot.com. 

Anywho, back to what I want to blog about.  I MILKED A COW!  It was awesome.  For those of you who don't know, I love cows.  I spent my high school years dairy judging and I have spent lots of time visiting cows.  However, I've never had the opportunity to milk one (not for lack of want!).  

Well, my sister's boyfriend finally gave me the opportunity on Saturday night.  

I milked her using the milking machine and by hand.  Well, actually I milked one cow (Millie) using the machine, and one cow (Tugs) by hand.  :)  And then, for good measure, I bottle fed a week old calf!

And, of course, Philip thought it would be hilarious if I posed as one of the cows.  Since I was in such a good mood, I obliged.  ;)

And, there you have it.  I'm a happy camper!  If I lived closer, I'd definitely be milking the cows more often!  :)