My Dinner Looked At Me!

I am terribly grateful that there are such clever people out there in the blogging world because I had a ball copying all their ideas. This was the last of our Halloween theme dinners (FHE week 4) and it was hilarious AND tasty. The reaction from the kids had me snickering up my sleeve, even Chad did a double-take when he sat down and saw his dinner staring at him. We ate our meatball people?/aliens?/scuba divers? with great gusto and enjoyed the bone-shaped breadsticks as well. After FHE we had...
Spiderweb Brownies and all rejoiced because Halloween is so much stinkin' fun!

A Present for Mummy

Merritt made this at Scouts and he was pleased as punch to give it to me. I actually squealed because I thought it was so adorable. He told me, with an air of great excitement, that it was full of candy, but even the temptation of Peanut M&M's couldn't make me tear it open. After a few weeks I carefully cut open the bottom and retrieved my treat, but I am totally saving this mummy forever!

I Grew This!

And these as well!

Aren't they adorable? I like to try new things in my garden every year and this was my experimental plant for 2011. I had a bunch more than I have pictured and am using them as decoration. Fun, fun, fun!

Joseph, the King of Babies

That's what the kids call him at any rate. He certainly is treated like royalty around here...Merritt even made him a throne.

Here Merritt bows to His Majesty...

Well, I think Joseph is the King of Babies. I also think he's darn cute. Case in point...
Nuff said!!

Mummy Fun

The first Monday of October was our annual Welcome Halloween party. We had donuts and apple cider floats with guests to boot! My brother Chris, his wife Jennifer and their two fun boys Ben and Isaac were here to visit and they were game for all my Halloween weirdness. Of course, being totally lame, I forgot to take pictures. :( Apple cider floats are good though...yum. The second Monday in October brought our Monster Cups, which were deeeelicious! Week Three was The Day of the Mummy! Merritt helped me make Mummy Dogs, which were very tasty and which I couldn't get a good picture of to save my life.
Don't ask me why they are orange instead of white. It's some kind of camera overexposure or underexposure thing...whatever. The mummy dogs were good and the kids were excited.

Our after FHE treat went with the mummy theme:
The pictures I had seen online were so cute and the bandages were done with a basket-weave icing tip...whatever that is. Obviously I don't have one, but I wasn't going to let a little thing like that stand in my way. I frosted the cookies and "drew" bandages on with a toothpick. Voila! My kids thought I was a genius! The eyes are mini-chocolate chips. I thought they looked so fun! Yeah Halloween!

September Birthdays

Chad and Grant had birthdays in September...a week apart. We know how to stack birthdays in this house. For Chad's birthday we had ice cream cake. It almost gave me a stress heart attack, ice cream cakes are tricky, but I learned a lot for the next time I make one, which may be never. :) Anyway for whatever reason, almost every picture from that night is anywhere from minimally to severely out of focus which makes me sad. It was a fun night though and I count my lucky stars every day that I am married to such a fantastic man. I would talk about how great he is but he reads this blog and hates when I write about him; it makes him embarrassed. I'll just say this: I LOVE YOU CHAD!

The tricky, but tasty, cake.

Out of focus fun (and why is everything orange?).

On to the next big day! Grant's cake looks lots more complicated than Chad's but couldn't have been any easier. It was so fun to see his requested frog cake come together so well!

Ribbit!

Holy cow...somebody give that kid a trim around the ears! Oh, wait; that's my job. It was either make the cake or give a haircut and I knew Grant didn't want a haircut for his birthday! Grant was so excited about about his cake, especially since it was his favorite color; GREEN!

Blowing out the candles...I can hardly believe my little Grant is 4!! Wow!

Grant got lots of fantastic presents, but one of his favorites was one we picked up on a whim; this whatchamacallit that does imprints of whatever you press into it...including Grant's face. Happy Birthday big guy! We love you so much!

No Tricks - Just Treats

I'm so far behind on my blogging that I figured I'd just start where I am and back track from there. It's a plan I'm feeling good about. Life hit hard in September when I started work as an at-home secretary for a local water company. Between work, family and my stake calling, my blog was just muscled out of the way, but now I've got some time to give it some love. As you all know, my "mostest favoritest" holiday-time is here...HALLOWEEN! That means theme treats for FHE!! Hooray!!! I found the cutest idea for Monster Cups on one of my favorite blogs and instantly decided that I MUST make them. Of course there had to be a snag...I have a non pudding eater in my house. How does that happen? Who doesn't like pudding? Well, Grant doesn't apparently. It makes him gag. Whatever! I did, however, find the perfect replacement...Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream!!! And honestly, mint chocolate chip ice cream and crushed Oreos are a match made in calorie heaven. Sooooo good!

The green monster face suffered a bit because there was no way I was giving my little children an entire cup full of ice cream just for the sake of aesthetics, but I thought the effect was still adorable. Certainly my monster cup eaters were happy!