Halloween is a Habit

Happy Halloween!!

This is one of my favorite holidays, due mostly to the costumes,

but even though it is just now Halloween today, the holiday has already come and gone around here.

As we have the past 2 years, we had Halloween at our weekly Bible Study.

I spent all day Tuesday, some of Monday, and a little of Sunday preparing.

I even added some new treats to the Halloween rotation this year.

^^ Traditional Red Velvet Eyeballs, and Oreo Ghosts

^^Skeleton Bones and Candy Corn Bark

^^Pigs in a blanket Mummies

^^New this year (and my FAVORITE!!) Monster Cookies

I got the recipe here.

They are made with white cake mix, and they are delish.

I might have eaten 6-8 of them yesterday.

Aside from the decorations I showed at the beginning of the month,

I also decorated our "empty room" for the party.

^^ I love this skeleton and witch more than necessary.

They are just so stinkin cute!

^^ Party Prizes and Spiders

Of course, you can't have Halloween without costumes.

*Note to Self: Never, ever get another costume that requires a mask.

This picture doesn't even do the creepiness of Michael's mask justice.

It was pretty bad.

*Another Note to Self: Don't purchase a costume online when you can make it yourself for much less.

The thought didn't even cross my mind to buy overalls at Goodwill, 

and get a yellow swim cap.

Well, it didn't cross my mind until last Friday, and then I was almost embarrassed to wear the costume because I didn't make it myself.

Rough year for the Johns' costumes.

^^Our puppy minion was super cute though!

Lastly, you can't have a Halloween Party without other people.

We played games, gave awards, and told scary stories.

We love these kids so much, and for a few reasons.

1) Almost all of these kids wore their own costumes.

Last year, we gave out about 8 of our costumes.

I love people who love costumes!

 2) All of these kids come to our Bible Study whether there is a party or not.

And that is something wonderful.

Something that I don't like about them: out of all the snacks, they were most excited about Totino's Pizza Rolls.

Awesome.

 

As much as I love Halloween, I was so ready to take all the decorations down and put them away.

I am one month closer to decorating for CHRISTMAS!!

Lubbock Weekend

Continuing my catch up posts:

Two weekends ago Michael and I took a group of the teens to Lubbock.

We went for a college visit at LCU, but we also got to spend time with some of our recent grads that go to school at Texas Tech. 

We left on Saturday morning and it was a looong drive,

made even longer by listening to the OU loss to Texas, with a Texas fan sitting right behind us.

But we finally got there and had so much fun!

 ^^Yep. These boys bought cap guns on a gas stop.

Typical.

But also hilarious!

^^Loved getting to catch up with the Cathey girls

And the other college kids who are unfortunately not pictured anywhere.

I was busy talking and forgot to take pictures.

Bad blogger award.

^^LCU Chap Day

I was extremely impressed by the professors and staff at LCU!

We went to an academic fair and they were all so helpful to our students, even if they weren't interested in their department.

Of course, they all thought I was a high school student too.

One even asked me if I had any dual credits coming in to college.

Really???

It was a great visit though, and a good opportunity for our kids to be exposed to a Christian University.

^^One of the highlights of the weekend for me was getting to see my friend Kruti!

We were in the same graduate school program, 

but she graduated early to go get her PhD. 

She's so smart. And successful!

It was so fun to spend the evening with her and her fiance catching up and touring Lubbock.

After the Chap Day, it was time to head home.

Since we were driving through Texas, we had to get stopped by some construction.

We were literally stopped.

So stopped that one of our students got out and walked a bit.

^^Haha!!

It was pretty funny!

It was a 9 hour drive there, and the same back, and I only slept about 45 minutes total.

We had so much fun talking, laughing, and singing to Kidz Bop!

This trip definitely made me realize how blessed we are to have such amazing kids in the youth group!

I will be so sad to see these kids graduate!

Keeping Up With the Johns

Last weekend we were so happy to have Michael's parents in town for a visit.

It has been almost 2 years since they have been able to come to Houston, so we were pretty excited.

They arrived on Thursday, and as soon as I got off work we all went to dinner.

My mother-in-law waited a whole hour before asking when we were going to have babies,

so that was progress!

On Friday we got up and went to a Holiday Market at a church close to us.

After spending quite a bit of time...and money...there we headed down to the Galleria.

We had dinner reservations later in the evening, but decided to take Steve and Cheryl to the Houston Water Wall.

^^ Michael and Steve checking it out

^^ My guy and me

After killing some time at the Galleria mall, it was time for dinner.

Cheryl made reservations for us at Maggianos to celebrate my graduation, and I was super excited!

I have been wanting to try this place for a long time, and I've never eaten Italian food that I didn't like, so I knew it would be delicious!

They even give you a meal to take home with every entree that you buy.

It was awesome!

On Saturday we decided to go to the Woodlands to walk around down by the river. 

The weather was absolutely gorgeous which was a pleasant surprise!

*Last time Steve and Cheryl came during Fall Break, Steve packed for Oklahoma weather and was sweating it out in long sleeves and sweaters.

This time we needed the sweaters.

Kind of. ;)

^^ We spent time walking by the river, and looking in the shops.

We even found the perfect little English Bulldog for Cheryl.

We ended the day with a yummy dinner at Pappadeaux.

I even enjoyed my second lobster tail ever...and it was delicious!

We had such a great time spending the weekend with Michael's parents.

We are always so thankful when family and friends come to visit us,

because we know how long the trip can be, and we appreciate every minute that we have with them!

Houston is great for family visits because there is always something new to do!

Friday's Five

1) Hair Dresser

A couple weekends ago I got to spend some time with one of my favorites from our old church.

She is the most beautiful girl, and her inside is even better than her outside!

She had asked me to do her hair for homecoming, and I was a little nervous,

but it helped knowing she would look great no matter what.

Here is how it turned out.

I had no idea what I was doing.

But I was pretty pleased with how it turned out,

and she absolutely loved it!

^^ Told you she was a beauty!

I had so much fun doing hair, and catching up with this sweet girl.

2) Happy Pumpkins

As you saw in my decorations post, I love cute Halloween.

I don't like scary,

but the happy pumpkins, witches, and bats are perfect.

It helps that this guy doesn't ever rot too!

3) Fall weather

The weather here has been just perfect this week.

So perfect that Buster has gotten to go on a walk every day.

And one day twice!

On one of the walks with Michael I kept commenting about how blue the sky is!

It screams fall and it is just stunning against the green trees.

So I took this picture while on a walk with Buster.

I could live with this weather for awhile.

Knowing Houston though, we'll be back in the 90s in no time!

4) Days with my boys

Michael and I got to spend all day together today and it was perfect!

We started with a trip to the hospital to pray over one of our teens going in to surgery (all went well and he is at home recovering!)

Then we went to a South African restaurant for lunch.

We bought a Groupon for this place about a month ago and it has been driving Michael crazy that we hadn't used it - so we decided to go.

It was delicious.

Next, the nail salon.

I was way overdue for a mani-pedi, and so happy to get some pretty fall color on my nails!

We ended the day by taking the little Bub out in the car to run some errands.

Nothing is better than spending a day off with my guys!

5) Friday Night Movie

^^ The newest addition to our movie collection

One of my childhood favorites!

*During a part when Ariel when up to the surface Michael became confused and asked, "Does she have gills or lungs??"

I told him Disney does not go into that sort of detail.

Haha!

Happy Weekend!

And BOOMER SOONER!

Beat Texas!

Prepping for a Wedding

Remember this post from way back in July when we celebrated Claire and Trey's engagement?

Well the wedding planning is in full swing now!

 A month ago, when we were in Wimberley with the Sawyers, Claire asked me to stand by her as her Matron of Honor when she says "I do" to Trey.

Obviously, I said YES!

She is just like a sister to me, and I am so honored that she would choose me.

She also asked her sister-in-law, Abigail, and Trey's sister Kinsey to be in the wedding too.

*I had to wait to post these because there were a few people that Claire still had to ask.

We are all on board though and it is going to be such a fun wedding party!

Last weekend the wedding preparations continued with an adorable engagement photoshoot.

Claire and Trey chose to do their engagement pictures at the Orchard,

which is where they are going to get married.

I have never been to the Orchard and I couldn't wait to see it.

Plus, I got to be the stylist for the day, which is right up my alley!

 ^^ The most beautiful canopy of trees as you enter the orchard

The photographer they chose, Christine Meeker, was excellent!

She has done weddings at the Orchard before, so she knew exactly where to go for great pictures,

and she even brought props! 

Here is a small peek into their engagement photos.

So perfect!

They are literally the cutest couple ever!

October, Baby!

We have lived in this house for almost 2 and a half years, 

and this is the first time I've ever decorated for Halloween.

The first October, we were still learning the church and whether it would offend people to decorate with witches, and the like.

and last year I was sick the entire month so decorations stayed in the closet.

Let's just say I was excited for October 1st to finally get here.

First, I made this little candy corn banner.

You could say I've had a little bit of free time.

All you need for this is scrapbook paper in 3 colors, twine, and mod podge.

It took a little time to figure out how big I wanted to make the triangles, but after that, its just 1st grade basics of tracing and cutting.

So simple. And so cute.

The rest is just a bunch of stuff I've had for a few years.

^^ I decided to change out the pictures for ones of us in costumes.

We love costumes.

^^ Love this little witch

 ^^ I can't tell you how many times this spider has freaked me out.

I love it, but it gets me every time.

There decorations are showing that its fall,

now I just need this 90 degree weather to get out of here!

Happy October!