coming out of the dark

I haven't had a chance to post here in awhile because the flu of some sort hit my house this past week. Marek's fever only lasted a few days, but I fought with the germs for the entire week. In fact, even though I'm on my way back to health, I'm still achy, wiped out of energy and congested. Ugh.


The week before Halloween, however, was terrific! Marek had his first Halloween party, which I now plan to make an annual event. I LOVE entertaining.  I love throwing parties of all kinds - baby showers, birthday parties, seasonal/holiday parties, for kids, for adults, whomever. Just love it. He had six of his friends and their parents over the afternoon/evening before Halloween to socialize, play, make Halloween crafts, eat pizza, and have cake and/or cupcakes.

Did I say cake? Here is the cake I made:

I sewed Halloween napkins for all of the kids to take home and I made these owl cans for a toss-the-bean-bag game for the kids.

And here is the most peaceful pirate in town:

He's really trying to make a "sad pirate face" in that photo.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous for most of the week, and luckily Marek was well soon enough to enjoy the sunshine and leaves over at his Grandma's house before the rain set in.

Every time I post photos I always come to the realization that I need a new camera. My point-and-shoot Canon PowerShot is fine for everyday shots and actually takes pretty good short video clips...but I'm not a big fan of it overall. I always get red-eye. Sigh. The images are never as crisp as I'd like. I'd really like to invest in a DSLR... Nikon or Canon? What do you use?