Papel Picado Pumpkin

Thanks to my dad for the nomination for next year's pumpkin carving contest.

Here's this year's:


Inspired by the traditional Day of the Dead art papel picado, planned and executed between the time I got home from work and before the first trick-or-treater arrived, my pumpkin did receive a few compliments from parents. One asked me how many hours it took me, which makes me think that if I actually had the opportunity to spend hours on a pumpkin, (it took me longer to post this picture than it took to carve the pumpkin) it could result in some success. But then again, knowing myself, it would probably spiral out of control into a mess of complexity.

Still, I think I'd better start now if I hope to hold a candle (so to speak) to the competition in Minnesota and L.A.

Autumn Happenings

Ryan and I have been extremely busy this Autumn. I put away all of our Summer decorations and pulled out our Autumn ones. Its always nice to have Autumn-type things in your house, especially since the leaves don't change here. Ryan bought me a sewing machine, which I am still trying to figure out. I was able to use it to sew a "button hole" which I was pretty impressed with. I am excited to make more projects in the near future.
I have also been very busy with work. I FINALLY finished decorating the library, which is something I love to do. I will have to post some pictures of my library when I get a chance. I am also getting the hang of everything much better now. I am excited because I just got a new computer and printer and will hopefully have internet sometime this week. It will definately make my work a lot easier! The kids are great (mostly), but its hard to keep track of 200 students. It is getting better, though.
Now that Autumn is here, we are also getting ready for Halloween time. This means, of course, that I bought a new bandana for Indy and make him wear it around the house. Here is what he looks like:


Here is Indy wearing my cat costume ears- it took 50 pictures to get this one shot. But he looks sooo cute!
Tomorrow we are going to a pumpkin patch with our friends the Hagens. We are looking forward to picking out pumpkins and carving them. We will have to put up pictures of that later this week.
Hopefully everyone's Autumn is going as well as ours!