Pumpkins & Cookies!!!

This past Tuesday, the kids had the day off from school, and I didn't have to work! So the kids and I decided to have some "Fall Fun." We all made sugar cookie dough in the morning and then let it "chill" in the refrigerator for a few hours. While making the cookie dough, Madi also helped me throw dinner in the crock pot. Then the kids and I headed into town to run some errands, which included getting Flu shots, meeting up with Tyler for lunch, and picking out some pumpkins to carve later!

After we got home, it was cookie time! We decorated half of the cookies before they cooked, and saved the other half to decorate with frosting after they had cooked. We only had time to do the pre-cooked cookies on Tuesday, and then decorated the rest with frosting after school on Wednesday. I LOVE making homemade cookies with my kids, and the new sugar cookie recipe I tried was SUPER yummy!!!

Tuesday's Cookie decorating session!



Wednesday's Cookie Decorating session.. with frosting!!! :-)




Our table of cookies!!! Who needs candy?!?! Mmmmmmm!!!


Tuesday night we carved pumpkins! I look forward to this every year, mainly because I don't have to do it! For as long as I can remember, I have hated sticking my hands into that pumpkin "gunk". Tyler and the kids do it all, and I get to take pictures! The kids and I actually went online for our pumpkin stencils this year and found some great *free* ones! Madi and Caiden actually did most of their pumpkins by themselves... they both had VERY little help, and did a GREAT job!!!

Pulling out the seeds...



Kami's not too sure she likes the "gunk", either!


Such a goofball....


Caiden "eating" the "gunk"


Hard at work.....



The finished products!!!!

Kami's was her Halloween namesake... Minnie Mouse!



Caiden's was a cute little Frankenstein titled, "Der!" The lit pumpkin picture is kinda blurry, but you get the idea.



Madi's was a "Creepy Cat", but it turned out more "Cute" than "Creepy". Again... the lit pumpkin pic is kinda funky...

Trick-or-Treat!!

Halloween 2008 has come and gone!! And that's actually probably a good thing this year, as we had two very moody and emotional pre-adolescents! Definitely NOT how I had envisioned Halloween with my kids. Oh well... once we finally left the house and started Trick-or-Treating, it got a lot better!

Madi was a 50s waitress! This was her "curtain warmer" costume for "Bye Bye Birdie"!


My sweet, Minnie Mouse!




Caiden as Darth Vader... it's a good thing he has a mask on, cuz it hiding his GRUMPY face!!!!


Off to the base where we met the Leggetts so the girls could go Trick or Treating together!

Minnie Mouse & Cinderella.... AKA Bestest friends in the whole wide world!


Paulette, me and the girls! We realized after knowing each other for just over 2 years now we have ZERO pictures of us together! So here's our first one!


Tired from walking, cold and getting hungry we headed home. We did quite a bit of walking all over base housing, for not very much candy. But they definitely got enough, and honestly, with the "holiday" season now officially begun, who really needs all that candy anyways?!?

Inspecting the "loot"!!!

Our "Perfect" Gingerbread House!

Since I already admitted to my lack of interior designing skills, I'll let you in on another little secret.... I'm a bit of a perfectionist. There, I said it! Being a perfectionist isn't always a bad thing.... in fact it served me quite well in my school years! It's not such a great quality however when trying to have "fun" with the kids, or trying to "craft", or "create" with them. And being a perfectionist actually adds quite a bit more stress than necessary when trying to "create". It's something I have to work very hard on controlling and keeping at bay.

So I was quite proud of myself last week when we decided to spend a Family night constructing a Halloween Gingerbread House I picked up at Michael's, after seeing pictures on my friend, Mary's blog of her and her family's Gingerbread House.

I made the icing before the kids got home from school, and got everything prepped and ready to go, so after homework and dinner we could get right to work!

We assembled the house quite easily, and put it aside so the walls could "set." After dinner we got right to work. I actually read the instructions, step-by-step, to the kiddos and let them each take a turn decorating! I realized that this wasn't going to be the "picture perfect" Gingerbread house, when almost I noticed almost immediately that my icing that was the "perfect" consistency hours earlier, had now gotten a little watery. It was too late at this point in the evening, to try to fix it. So I completely backed off, and although the kids still tried to follow the "script", I let them go for it! We had a great night together, and this project that could have been extremely stressful for me, turned out to be soooo much more fun! I guess I'll have to restrain my inner perfectionist more frequently if it means less stress!



Caiden really concentrating!


When we finished following the "instructions", we still had three sides of the house, some icing and some candy left over, so I each of the kids got to decorate a side however they wanted! Fun!


Crazy kids!!!

Halloween Fun

I'll admit... I'm not the best interior decorator. Some people just have that knack, but I don't. I wish I could say I was, and I wish even more that I had the money to go and purchase all kinds of cute seasonal items to decorate my house with, but I don't. Every year I have these grand ideas, and wonderful intentions to at least decorate a little for Halloween, but then I get busy, and frankly, money runs out, so I don't. This year, however, I was determined to do something!!! So here's my very feeble attempts at decorating for Halloween this year... not shown in the pictures is my too cute Scarecrow out in my planter in front of the house.

I have had these window clings ever since our first Halloween here in 2004. They seem to "magically" change positions a gazillion times before Halloween comes, but my little ghosts and goblins have actually let them be this year!


It was lots of fun putting up these spider webs before Madi and Caiden got home from school. They were so excited when they got home and saw them!



I love my little Pumpkin luminary... only ended costing like, $1.50 or something at Michael's. What a deal!!


One of my new favorite things to do around the holidays is to decorate my kitchen cabinets with the many art projects and drawings my kids do at school!! I got this great idea from my friend, Christi!

And they say TV isn't educational!!!

So yesterday morning after I dropped off Madi and Caiden at school, Kami and I ran home to finish getting ourselves ready for work. She was brushing her teeth in the bathroom and I went in there to check on her and our conversation went a little something like this...

Kami: Mommy (with toothbrush hanging out of mouth), wanna know what I learned on TV?

Me: No, what?!? (All the while thinking "Oh no... what's going to come out of her mouth next?)

Kami: I learned that you shouldn't leave the water running while your brushing your teeth. See?!? Look, I turned it off!!

Me: Very good, Kami! That's absolutely right!


And they say TV isn't educational! :-)