Happy Happy Halloween

I saw this fella hangin' out in the bushes in our front yard and thought he would be a fine addition to today's post! Yuk!! I do NOT like spiders at all!

Yesterday was "Boo to the Flu" day at our school district. Our District Office staff wore our official "Boo to the Flu" t-shirts that Tresa's company made for us. Here is a picture of some of us sporting our awesome t-shirts!

Our four "germy" nurses came by in the afternoon for a brief photo shoot with our two "hip and happening" hand sanitizers. They all looked so funny. I took a couple of pictures and then off they went to entertain the kids at the two grade schools.

Here is a germ getting wiped out with hand sanitizer!

Can you say "Good Sports"?

Have a Happy Halloween everyone!!

Halloween Past

Well Halloween is almost here. Since being asked to make the costumes for work....I have had nothing but costumes on my mind. I dug into my photo bins and pulled out some of our Halloween pictures....and then it all came back to me.

Tresa the Farmer with her best friend Maribeth the clown. They were 3 years old.

I finally figured out that to satisfy MY need to be creative...I talked my kids into some of the most awful costumes you can imagine. I really think poor Tresa got the worst of it, being my first born you know. I just always thought I was being the good mom by making costumes instead of buying costumes. I don't think my kids would agree. There were times when all the boys wanted was a cheapie super hero costume with the mask....the ones that use to come in the boxes with the see through lids.....but oh no, not my kids. They had to be something cute and fun and oh so special! I also had a knack at convincing them that it was really their choice....when in all honesty...it was usually my choice.

Tresa the alien and Maribeth in 1979 at the age of 5.

Matt and I were e-mailing about this the other day and he said something about me finally getting around to apologizing for it! HAHA! It's a wonder they all turned out so "normal"...if you can call anyone in this crazy family of ours.....normal. I laughed and told Matt that they always liked the prizes they won though, and he replied that I was teaching them to think materialistically if it was all about the prizes. Then I got the last jab when I told him that I taught them that you didn't have to buy costumes....that handmade is always best. He agreed....end of argument and I won....like I always do...because I am the mom!!

I'm guessing this is either 1980 or 1981....Tresa the flower complete with a bee.

This is the one where I really lost it. What little girl would want to be Hickory Dickory Dock? The poor thing couldn't see, could hardly hold her bag and couldn't even walk! She had to shuffle. Yes, that is a stuffed mouse on the top left! Poor, poor Tresa.

Michael the Mouse....1982 at the age of 2. He actually had a huge rat trap attached to his long tail that dragged on the ground and he was carrying a huge chunk of "cheese".

Tresa, cousin Lenny and Michael round 1983. Don't they all look sooooo happy?

Recycled part of the clown costume for Matti in about 1986.

Ah, here they must have liked their costumes. They are sort of smiling...except the little devil.

Now here are some really, really old pictures. Irv and I use to bowl on a league many, many years ago. We always had a Halloween party and wore costumes. Here is me and Irv as Superman and Wonder Woman. Like Wonder Woman's mustache? This was 1977!

Mr. and Mrs. Count Dracula

And this is everyone's absolutely favorite picture of Irv! Tweety and Sylvester in 1975. The heads were paper mache and not very comfortable. Do you like Irv's little yellow tail?

Hope you all have a very Happy Halloween this year. Are you dressing up??

The End Is In Sight

Everything is starting to fall into place for our "Boo to the Flu" Halloween campaign at work. The orange bracelets I ordered arrived Wednesday and I spent most of that afternoon and yesterday dividing them up to distribute to our 2000 plus students and staff. Quite a task in itself.

They are cute though aren't they?

The costumes are done!! I am so glad. It's been a crazy couple of weeks running back and forth from my office to my boss's office. I would go to my desk to check e-mails and phone messages, handle what needed to be handled and then run back and sew for a little bit and then repeat over and over throughout the day. I wanted to keep up with my work as much as possible, because I hate being behind.

Anyway, you remember the hand sanitizer costumes. My boss and another staff member will wear these.

Here are the germs that our four nurses will wear. They'll be wearing green or purple tights and long sleeve t-shirts under them. It should be pretty funny. Keep in mind I did not create the character. It's straight off a picture on the Internet. I could never come up with something like that!

Now I am just waiting for the t-shirts to come in so I can get those out to the district office staff and the principals and assistant principals. My daughter's marketing company did them for us. They are black with a white ghost and say "Boo To The Flu" on them. They are really cute.

The plan is to wear this stuff the Friday before Halloween. It is our effort to keep flu prevention in the forefront. We don't have any confirmed cases of H1N1 in our district yet, but Irv's little Catholic school has 2 confirmed cases this week. We know it's coming, but the more we can do to remind the kids to cover their coughs and wash their hands, the better off we will be.

There is a high school in our area that is closed this week because 1/2 of their 2000 students called in sick the other day. They don't have any confirmed cases of H1N1 yet, but just a lot of sick students and staff.

So say Boo To The Flu and have a great day!

BOO TO THE FLU

A couple of days ago I hear my boss yelling from her office, "Oh, party planner Kathy. We need you." I knew that couldn't be a good thing. "We have another thing for you to organize for us."

I said, "I suppose you need it tomorrow." (Mind you....my boss is awesome. We have a great relationship, so I can be a smart ass if I want to) A few weeks ago she gave me two days to order and receive custom t-shirts, make raffle coupons, banners and buy decorations! I pulled it off....so now I have become our party planner and my services are required once again.

This time I am being given three weeks to make six....yes, six Halloween costumes, order custom t-shirts and order custom stretchy bracelets. The t-shirts are already ordered and so are the bracelets. That only took a couple of days....now the costumes.

We have an anti-flu campaign going called "Boo To The Flu", so they want our four nurses to be germs for the Halloween parties and parades and then my boss and another staff member are going to be bottles of Germ-X hand sanitizer!! How cute is that? Here is the germ I found on the internet. It will be two pieces but that's about all I know so far!! HAHA!

I bought some lime green fabric and some purple and white felt for his spots. I have no pattern because everything that might have worked is out of print.

I drew a sketch of the hand sanitizer costume and that one won't be too bad, except for the "pump".


I really thought my costume making days were long behind me, but not so. Thank goodness I don't have to do this at home. I have fabric coming out the wah-zoo and tons of stuff to make and get listed in MyOtherShop for the holidays. No, I will doing all of this at work thank goodness! That does mean toting a sewing machine, ironing board and iron to the office, but oh well.

Today I cut about a zillion circles out of felt to glue on the germ costumes! This is what my desk looked like today.

I will give you little updates as I make progress with my project.

I had a nightmare last night that the ugly green germs were chasing me down the halls of the school trying to give me the swine flu, but the hand sanitizers came and squirted goo all over the floor and the germs were slipping and sliding and fell down and I escaped!!! Chee Hoo!!

Just kidding. No nightmares....all is well in party planning land. :)