Happy Halloween!

Have fun stuffing your face with candy!
I know I will!

Fabric Pumkins

Oh my word, I actually sewed something! This is like the time I actually cooked something!
I didn't even have to call Wendy over to fix it for me!

I got the pattern and idea from this website: schlosserdesigns.blogspot.com

I changed the stem a little and that made me think a bit but once I figured that out, I decided it was totally doable. I'm gonna make lots in different sizes. Maybe sell them at the Team Chances auction coming up? You should make some too! It didn't take long and you know you have some spare fabric sitting around!

Can I Have Your Stuff For My Garage Sale?

I am planning a huge garage sale in November for my fundraising efforts with Team Chances. I have to raise a certain amount of $$$ so I can run the Sedona Marathon/Half Marathon in February. All the money I raise goes to Chances for Children which is a not-for-profit organization. This program is committed to fighting childhood obesity and improving quality of life by supporting partnerships and programs that provide access to sports, physical education, and character education. It is a very good cause that I really do believe in so I need your help!

This is why I'm asking anyone who reads this to donate items I could sell at my garage sale. I will be happy to come to your house to pick up your donations. Think of it, I remove the stuff you don't need from your house and you get a warm, fuzzy feeling for donating to a good cause and helping me run my race.

Also, if you can donate any goods or services to our silent auction which is coming up I would love you forever for it!

Do we also take monetary donations? Why yes we do, of course! You can even donate on-line. Easy! Here's the site to go to if you are the most awesome person on earth and feel like donating to this great cause: Chances For Children Donations. Please make sure that you select my name (Morris, Alys.) so the credit goes to the right place. And YES it is a TAX CREDIT!!!

I would love your help in any way possible!

Westwood 10 Year Reunion

My 10 year reunion was Saturday night. Yes, I went. It was a lot of fun and I got a chance to catch up with some people that I had drifted away from. My only regret is that I didn't take more pictures. I really only took some shots of our table and then I kinda forgot to take more after that.

Anyway, a funny thing about the dinner. Before we knew what we were being served I said to Dale, "I'll bet you ten bucks that dinner is some sort of wild rice pilaf stuff and the meat is some sort of chicken with a lemony flavor." I said that because has anybody ever been to a catered event where that WASN'T the menu? Lo and behold, that's exactly what it was. But I didn't mind because it was darn good.

After dinner we played games like who traveled the farthest. I thought Heather and I would win that because we drove ALL THE WAY from Queen Creek to Mesa. But somebody else came in from New York so I guess he won. We also played who had the most kids (I lost by a kid, two other girls had four.)

I almost got voted most changed but another girl took that title. Fine by me, the only thing vastly different about me is my hair color. When I was in high school, it was BRIGHT BLONDE! It was also before pomade and straight irons hit the scene so my hair was extra fluffy.

I actually enjoy being blonde more but with 3 kids, it's just easier (and cheaper) these days to buy a box of color and dump it on my head every few months. You just can't color your hair blonde at home and make it look right. Believe me, I've tried and failed miserably.

Here is a pic of (from left to right) me, Heather and Lacey on our graduation night. Why the heck is my nose so red?
Here we are at the reunion.
A few things have changed. My hair color, that's Jerry next to me which I don't have a before pic of. Heather is a little more blonde, and Lacey has a baby bump which was NOT there at graduation!

Here are the rest of the small amount of pics I took:

Heather and Josh
Dale and I
Lacey and Derek
Thanks to Dale for knowing the theme song to Different Strokes so our table could win a candy bar.

I'm one of those coupon ladies now.

I've known about the whole grocery coupon trickiness for a while but never wanted to do it up until now. I can't say why, maybe because I'm a big-time health food shopper and those things never seem to be on sale, maybe because it involves work? Who knows. But my coupon switch got flipped and I'm now officially a "clipper." Today was my very first atempt. My bill was $92.81 and I knocked $32.76 off of it for a grand total of $60.05. I admit, I could have done better but I haven't gotten my artillrey of coupons built up yet. But a whole $32.76 off isn't bad, right? I did run into a bit of trouble at the register because I loaded on-line coupons onto my Fry's shopper card and the lady looked at me like I was speaking Chinese to her. I didn't have my card, only the card number (I've had so many Fry's cards that I can't remember which phone # goes with witch card so I had to use the card number.) So, I had to put everything back into my cart, go to coustomer service, where they understood what I needed completely and it took 1.5 seconds for the manager to fix it. Then I had to go back in line, unload my cart AGAIN only to discover this lady (different from the first) also looked at me like I was speaking in tongues when I told her about my card/coupon situation. Fortunately, the manager anticipated this and followed me and in another 1.5 seconds, he had all my internet coupons that were on my card working.

Here are the lessons I learned today if you want to start doing this too:
a.) unless you want the cashier to look at you like you are crazy, don't leave your loyalty card in your husband's wallet. Saying things like "Can I just give you the card number and you can punch it in?" Or "I have internet coupons loaded on to my Fry's card so I HAVE to use THIS one." just complicates the matter.

b.) Don't use internet coupons if you have paper coupons for the same product because they don't double the internet ones. I would have done WAY better if I had an actual coupon.

Do any of you seasoned coupon clippers have any advice for me?

Halloween Craft Night

Last Saturday, my sis-in-laws Jodi and Tracy and I had a girls craft night. We were all over our Halloween crafts like white on rice. It was a total blast and we didn't finish until 1:00 a.m. Hey, we have dedication.

First of all, I must mention the delicious treats that we stuffed our faces with all night. I even skipped dinner so I could eat just a little more guilt-free.

Jodi brought some awesome treats, but I didn't get pics of them. Believe me, they were good.

Some other treats that we had were Hugs. I love to make these every Halloween. I guess you could make them anytime but Tresure Goates showed me how to make them last year around Halloween and that's what they remind me of.
All you need are pretzels, (you can use any kind but I like the square Snyder's Butter Snap kind) Hershey Hugs (like kisses but they have white chocolate and milk chocolate swirled together) and M&M's. Heat your oven to 200 degrees, place the Kisses on the pretzels and put them in for 8 minutes. When you take them out, put 2 M&M's on top of the Kisses while they are all melty. Then put them in the fridge. They are WAY better cold.

I also made these:
They are called Pumpkin Pie Snickerdoodle Bars. It's like eating a cookie with pumpkin pie on top. Extra oowie gooie. You can get the recipe from Dozen Flours.

And my fave treat of all time:
Oreo Truffles. You don't even know. You have to make them and then you will know but until then you don't even know. I got the recipe from Bakerella. They look hard to make but they are so not.

Sorry, this post was supposed to be about crafts. Back on track now.

Here's what my table looked like during the frenzy:
Looks like Halloween threw up, doesn't it?

Here are the darling banners we made. I cheated, mine was already done. You may have seen it hanging on my mirror on a previous post of mine.
Here is what I spent most of my time on:

I think I might take the bow off just because I don't want my house to burn down. When I was hanging it, I discovered that those bulbs burn HOT. I learned it the hard way.
That is a 2nd (felt like 7th) degree burn! In the SHAPE of the bulbs. Right on the tender underside of my forearm. Crafts are dangerous people.

Stylista

I almost threw these glasses away because they make my nose look humongous. I saved them because I thought Ella might like to have them for dress up. Good thing I kept them because she is rockin' those things! I can't pull the big glasses off like she can.

Perfect 10

Just look at the form! Little Dude is a daredevil.

Craft At Your Own Risk

This is the little number that resulted in my dishwasher turning black. Was it worth it? I think it was. Thanks dishwasher, for taking one for the team!

Card Club Goodies

Here are my goodies from this month's card club! As you can see, I'm the lucky recipient of lots of adorable Fall and Halloween cards.
Here is my contribution:
I had a lot of fun making this one. Probably because I broke my usual habit of making my cards at the 11th hour. I actually started and finished it a whole week ahead of schedule! Miracle, I know.

Maxed Out

Karolee and I went on a little adventure last night. We had to drive all the way to Scottsdale for this but it was worth it. Yes, we did get lost, stupid Map Quest. An hour and a half and $100 in gas later, we arrived at Endurance Rehab and got our Vo2 Max tested. What the heck is that? It's still kind of foreign to me but the best way to explain it is it measures aerobic efficiency via my oxygen intake while I run like crazy on a treadmill. We didn't take any pictures but these are examples of what it looked like:
Hmm, my arms look eerily similar to hers too. I WISH!
Now, by wearing a heart monitor, I know what heart rate zone to stay in to burn fat not carbs. AWESOME! Hopefully, I will become a fat burnin' machine! Heaven knows I have a lot of "fuel" to be one!

I was pleasantly surprised with my test results. I thought they would tell me I have the athletic performance efficiency of a sloth but turns out, I have a good "engine" for running. The guy giving the test said your Vo2 max number is mostly genetic and you can make it only slightly better by training. I guess I got the luck of the draw. Karolee did too! What I really learned, is not every one needs to run at the same speed to be an efficient runner. The test guy put it this way -if you had a big sports car engine, it wouldn't perform best in 2nd gear. Same with running. We're supposed to "shift" as we run. I always thought the faster and harder I run= the more weight I will lose. Not so! It depends on the kind of running you are doing (i.e. track, long runs, interval, etc..) to determine what heart rate zone you should be in. Long story short: Blah blah blah, Vo2, oxygen intake, glycogen, something about lactic threshold. I just need to know what effort I should run at to burn these thighs right of my body.