Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!  The kids are so excited about trick or treating tonight!  They had a trial run wearing their costumes last weekend at ZooBoo and are excited to wear them again.  I think they make an adorable Alice in Wonderland and Race Car driver!

 

And here's a flashback picture from a Halloween when Ali and I were about 6 years old.  We were Rainbow Brite and our brother Matt was a Sprite.  Our grandma used to make all of our Halloween costumes for us.  She always did a great job and we always won the neighborhood costume contests! 

Happy Halloween! 

Cinnamon Bun Pancakes

Growing up, we didn’t normally have big breakfasts.  We were usually cereal people. This was partly because our mom loved to sleep in and would get “tuck” in bed!  :) One exception to this was when we spent the night with our grandma.  She liked to spoil us (and still does…check out our Myrtle Beach trip a few weeks ago!).  Ali’s favorite was always pancakes and mine was French toast.  So grandma would make both for us when we spent the night with her so we would both be happy.  Well, when I saw this recipe on the blog How Does She, I knew I had to try it.  I've always been a big fan of cinnamon rolls too so I figured these would be good as well.  Boy am I glad I tried it!  This recipe was really good and my husband and kids agreed!  We’ll be making this again soon for a special weekend breakfast treat!

Cinnamon Bun Pancakes (Source: How Does She)

Dry ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

3 Tbsp white sugar

1/2 tsp salt

4 tsp baking powder

1 Tbsp Cinnamon

Wet ingredients:

2 eggs (whole) beaten

1 Cup of milk

2 Tbsp Syrup

1/4 Cup butter or margarine, melted

1 Tbsp vanilla

In a medium bowl, combine dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, beat together the wet ingredients. Add the wet mixture to the dry. Mix well.

Drop about 1/3 cup of batter onto a pre-heated/greased griddle and cook until the tiny bubbles start appearing on top, then flip over. These only take a couple of minutes to cook.

Serve warm with syrup and eat up!  This made about 10 pancakes.  :)

Pumpkin Patch/Farm Trip

Nick's preschool class (which he goes to 3 days a week but wants to go everyday because he loves it!) went on a field trip to the farm and pumpkin patch a few days ago.  I was lucky enough to have the day off of work so Mamie and I got to tag along.  We got to see the farm animals, go on a hayride, pick out pumpkins from the pumpkin patch, and do the corn maze.  Now as you can see in the picture, our corn mazes in Indiana are much better than the ones in Georgia!  I truly got lost in the maze and had no idea where I was, it was that good and thick. 

It was so fun to see Nick interacting with all of the kids in the class.  I had a great time and look forward to volunteering at his school in the future.  We'll be carving our pumpkins tomorrow and the kids are excited.  Have a great Halloween!

Chocolate Cookies 'n Cream Cookies

I've been baking a lot lately so you'll see a lot of recipes on here soon!  As soon as I saw this recipe on Baking Bites, I knew I had to try it because of my love for anything cookies 'n cream.  I used Halloween Oreos to try to make them look like a Halloween treat, but you couldn't really tell in the finished product.  The original recipe called for dark and white chocolate chips, but I had milk chocolate and peanut butter chips so I used them.  I think it was a great substitution.  The peanut butter just added to the flavors and made them great.    These disappeared in no time in our house!

Chocolate Cookies n’ Cream Cookies (adapted from Baking Bites)

2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 cup butter, room temperature
3/4 cup sugar
 3/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup milk chocolate chips
3/4 cup peanut butter chips
1 1/4 cups chopped oreo-type cookies

Preheat oven to 350F. In a medium bowl, sift together flour, cocoa powder, salt, baking soda and baking powder.  In a larger bowl, cream together butter and sugars. Beat in eggs one at a time, followed by vanilla extract. With the mixer on low speed, stir in the flour mixture, mixing just until no streaks of dry ingredients remain. Stir in chocolate and crushed cookies until evenly distributed.
Drop 1-inch balls of dough onto baking sheet.  Bake for 9-11 minutes, until cookies are set at the edges.
Cool on baking sheet for 2-3 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
Eat and enjoy!

Pumpkin Patch

I was so excited to take Luke to a pumpkin patch this year! A couple weekends ago we decided to go to Pettit Creek Farms so that Luke could pick out his first pumpkin and we could go through the corn maze.

I have to say, I was pretty disappointed in the corn maze. I had great expectations of a luscious patch of tall corn (like in Indiana), but as you can see in the pictures, that's not quite what we get here in Georgia. My mistake!

I think we made record time getting through the corn maze and promptly headed to check out the pumpkins. Luke wasn't quite sure what to think about all of the pumpkins at first, but then he became quite excited.

When it came time to carve our pumpkin, Andy wanted to go with a "cultural theme from our generation". Can you tell what he chose? 

Yep, it's the Kool-Aid Man...Oh yeah! Only 4 days til Halloween. Are you ready?

Pumpkin Treats

Check out the yummy pumpkin treats I made last week! I bought a big can of pumpkin puree and just kept baking until it was gone.  Luckily, this time of year there's no shortage of pumpkin recipes out there. Don't worry, I didn't eat all of these by myself. I packaged up a plate for April (as part of a thank you gift for taking such wonderful pictures of Luke during his first year. I forgot to take pictures, but luckily she blogged about some of the goodies here) and another for the Wednesday night group.

• Pumpkin Butterscotch Cookies - These are so good! In fact, I liked them so much, I made them two weeks in a row. They're not the prettiest cookies (the butterscotch chips sink in), but I love the pumpkin/butterscotch combination. I just couldn't stop eating them!  

• Pumpkin Whoopie Pies with Marshmallow Cream Filling - I'm a big fan of whoopie pies, so I just had to try these. These weren't my favorite, but seemed to be a hit with others (especially Luke!). Plus, they were really easy to make.

• Pumpkin Blondies - I hadn't planned on making these, but when I had some extra pumpkin puree, I quickly decided to make them. Once again, the pumpkin and butterscotch combination is great. These also have white chocolate chips, making them that much better.

Next, I used a silicone pumpkin ice cube tray (from the Dollar Store) to make a couple pumpkin shaped treats.

• "Butterfinger" Owl Pops - It's amazing how much these actually taste like Butterfingers. Butterfingers are one of Andy's favorite candy bars, so I knew I had to make these for him. He was shocked that they are made with just peanut butter and candy corn. As one of those crazy people who do not like candy corn, he is glad to know that "there's finally a good use for it."

• Pumpkin Cake Balls - I think it's quite obvious that cake balls are one of my favorites, so I couldn't resist making them shaped as pumpkins. Aren't they cute?



Less than a week til Halloween...I can't believe it!

Farmhouse Table

Andy and I have had an old antique dining room table in our kitchen since we moved into our house. It was actually a hand-me-down that was passed on from my grandma to my parents to us. We moved the table out of the kitchen (and into the garage) for Luke's birthday party and when we hadn't moved it back in after 3 weeks, we knew it was time to consider some new furniture. I remembered seeing this table awhile ago and showed it to Andy. He liked it too and was ready to get to work!

We started with this...

And ended with this...

Can you believe Andy built this?!? We bought the lumber from Lowe's, Andy cut it down to size, I sanded it, Andy built it, and finally, we stained and polyurethaned it. The best part is, in total, the table and benches cost about $70!

I love how it turned out (and think it looks better in person than in these pictures)! What do you think? If you haven't checked out Ana-White.com, you need to! She shows normal people like us how to build furniture in a cheap and simple manner. Can't wait to try some more of her projects!

Halloween Costumes

Are you dressing up for Halloween this year??

In all the years that Andy and I have known each other, we've only dressed up for Halloween one year. Now that I think about that, it's kind of sad! We had so much fun dressing up that year, I really don't know why we never did it before and haven't done it since.

In 2004 we dressed up for a Halloween party...meet (fat) Elvis and Priscilla!

 We had to pick up a case of beer on our way...think anyone called in an Elvis sighting?

And of course, Sally had to join in on the fun. She's been our little pumpkin every Halloween since 2004.

Then last year Luke joined her.

This year Luke is going to be a Sock Monkey and will even get to go trick or treating to a few neighbor's houses! Fun fun! :)

I'm linking up to The Dating Divas Couples Halloween Costumes Contest and Giveaway!

Luke's Dukes of Hazzard 1st Birthday Party!! Part 4 - Outside

**Don't forget to check out and comment for our Giveaway! It's a great gift package! :)

Since we were planning on about 20 kids and 15 adults, we knew most people would spend most of the party outside. Our house just isn't big enough for that many people inside. Luckily, the weather cooperated beautifully and we had a gorgeous day.

While we had the desserts and candy inside, we had a table for food outside. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of it, but we had BBQ (catered from Scott's Walk-up Bar-B-Q- so good!), hot dogs, macaroni and cheese, baked beans, cole slaw, and chips. It seemed like people were eating a lot, but we ended up with so many leftovers. I guess I'd rather have too much food than too little!
Anyway, I kind of slacked in the outside decorations department. I had planned on decorating with a lot of balloons, but we only bought one small helium tank, and one 36" balloon pretty much drained it. We also planned on getting haybales for people to sit on, but never did. Alas, we were left without seating, so people either sat on the ground, stayed inside, or were forced to stand. Sorry about that to those of you who came!

I did make a simple orange burlap pendant banner that hung on the back porch. I really liked the simplicity of it.
 

We decided to get a moonwalk since there would be so many kids at the party (of all ages). Jen was nice enough to rent it as Luke's birthday gift. Thanks SO much, Jen! The kids really seemed to enjoy jumping around and hopefully were able to work off a little bit of the sugar I fed them. Poor Luke didn't even get to get into it until after everyone left the party, but he loved it too!

We also had a couple yard games for the adults to enjoy (ladder golf and cornhole). Have you ever played ladder golf...it's such a fun game! Andy actually made the cornhole board and I made the "01" decal and beanbags.

That's about it for Luke's Dukes of Hazzard 1st birthday party. I'd say the party was a hit. It was so much fun planning all of the details (big and small) too! Andy said that this was the first and last big birthday party for Luke, but we'll see :)

If anyone needs some ideas or help planning a birthday party or other celebration, please let me know!

Luke's Dukes of Hazzard 1st Birthday Party!! Part 3 - Candy Favors

**Don't forget to check out and comment for our Giveaway! It's a great gift package! :)

So we've already covered the decorations and the dessert table...next step, favors! Most birthday parties have some sort of favor for the kids, and most tend to revolve around candy, so I decided to continue the trend of getting the kids all sugared up on their way home. Candy buffets seem to be very popular these days, so that's the route I went. I gathered up all of my clear glass dishes (and purchased some new ones at Walmart) and bought as much orange candy as I could find (it's harder to find than you would think).

Again, sorry for the picture quality! I used same Dukes of Hazzard fabric backdrop and ruffled burlap tablecloth that I used on the dessert table.

On the left hand side of the table, I had a couple Dukes of Hazzard books, an awesome photobook that April made us of the photos she's taken in Luke's first year, a framed party invitation, and an 8x10 framed photo of Luke. I also took an 8x10 frame, put some Dukes of Hazzard fabric inside, and used etching cream to etch "Happy 1st Birthday" in the glass. We used this as a sort of "guest book" where guests could sign a message (with permanent marker) to Luke.

Then the most important part - the candy! I actually wasn't able to find too many orange candy options, but judging by how much was left after the party, had more than enough. We had candy corn (white, orange, and black), M&Ms (orange and black), Peach Jelly Bellies, Orange Candy Sticks, dark and milk chocolate mini Reece's cups, Peach rings, Gumballs (orange, black, and white), and Orange Slices. I had planned on creating labels for each type of candy, but never actually did. Also, to create balance and height, I used parfait glasses to make tiered stands.

Of course I also had to provide some sort of container for the guests to take the candy home in. I had these brown boxes and simply cut the "Thank You" design out of vinyl with my Cricut. The great thing is that I got two labels for each cut. I also had some Japanese tape so that after filling the boxes with candy, the guests could tape them shut.

And just to pull everything together, here's a (dark) picture of my kitchen where you can see both the Dessert table and Candy/Favor table. I think it all came together quite nicely!

One more party post to come!