Pinterest Pulled Through

I can't believe it's been over a month since my last posting! I've been really busy lately, whoever said you would have more time when you home school?  I feel like I never have a free moment! But I love it, so don't take that as a complaint! :)  I'll just recap this month for you. 

At the beginning of the month Emma turned 7!  She said she wanted a dolphin cake, (I don't know where this came from, except for maybe it was that she was holding a stuffed dolphin right at the moment I asked her what kind of cake she wanted. LOL!) so I went on Pinterest to get some ideas.  I found THIS to be the perfect cake:

Since we have just a small family party on off birthdays, this was the perfect size.  It came with a template that I printed out and used to cut the cake rounds.

It was pretty fun piecing it together.  It took some maneuvering, but this is what it looked like when I finally had all the pieces lined up:

 She didn't want just any dolphin cake, she wanted a PINK dolphin cake.  Which I thought that sounded more like her style.  Did you know that there actually are pink dolphins in the Amazon?  Google it....it's true, and they're really pretty.  Mine was pretty as well, I think:

The bow helps, LOL!  She really liked it, and that's what it's all about. :)  Can you tell she's happy?

She REFUSED to make a decent smiley face, hahahaha!  That's Emma for you!  It was a good birthday.

I got the chance to make another cake for a friend that I did THIS MYTHBUSTERS cake for.  This time it was for her 9 year old.  He was a hoot!  When I asked what he wanted he told me he wanted a statue of himself!  I thought that was too awesome, and I wanted to take him up on it, but then I thought that might be just too much for me, so I suggested a bust.  He liked the idea and I was so excited to do it for him!  I was really proud of this one:

I made the bust out of Rice Krispies and covered it in fondant.  The whole column part is pound cake covered in more fondant.  The disc that the bust is sitting on is foam board covered in fondant.  It was fun and delicious!! (....the cake, not the foam board...) ;)

We've had a few Art crafts this month in preparation of Halloween.  Here are a couple of our projects, both found on Pinterest:

 This one is made of glue and glitter.  You just make the outline of a spider web with glue on either wax paper or parchment paper, cover with glitter and let dry.  I let them dry for a whole day, then I could just peel them off the paper.  I used double sided tape to put them on the front of our screen door.  Mines the top right, all black, I have no creativity...below mine is Hannah's and she went with a Mardi Gras theme.  Emma's is beside hers and went with a Patriot theme, although it could work for Spiderman as well, ha! Then Miriam's is a little more glamorous than mine because she added some silver glitter with the black.  They did good, and I think they look good.  Tobie was too macho to play with glitter, that's why you don't see one for him.

 This was a really easy one as well.  You take old egg cartons and cut out 3 egg holders, paint them black and add googly eyes.  I hot glued some pretty festive ribbon to the top and then taped them up.  Little egg carton bats!  The fun thing with this is, I didn't have any black, so our lesson was learning how to make black out of the primary colors.  Can you guess who's pink bat is right there in the middle?  That's right!  Emma's!!  LOL!

Cute, easy and cheap...my favorite kind of craft!  I love when Pinterest actually pulls through with great ideas! =)

Halloween Treats

We LOVE Halloween around here.  Theo loves Halloween so much he came into the world on that day, and I love it so much I found a man that was born on Halloween and married him. :)  The downside is it is the beginning of the slippery slope holiday season.  There is no way around it, the candy, the parties, the food, the candy!  And it one right after another...Thanksgiving, then Christmas, then New Year's, then Valentine's, then Easter...then it's swim suit season.  Isn't it such a cruel world! 

But of course I had to contribute to it tonight at the Ward's Halloween party by making my chocolate cupcakes with cookies and cream filling and buttercream icing on top dipped in Oreo cookie crumbs to give the appearance of dirt, then a chocolate covered graham cracker on top with RIP to represent a tombstone. 

They were a big hit, and that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.  One lady even told me that was the best tasting cupcake she has ever had!  Now that's a true compliment.  There wasn't one cupcake left! 

This past Monday I made this stuff called Monster Munch that I found on Pinterest:

Oh my goodness...talk about good!  This stuff is freaking awesome!  Popcorn, white chocolate, peanuts, Reese's pieces, candy corn....can it get any better!

But I think I have caught on to something this year and my kids have helped me come to this solution, they loved this stuff so much they wanted to share it with all their teachers.  Tobie has 5 teachers, Miriam has 2, as well as Emma.  So I made up 9 goodie bags with some cute tags and sent off this magnificent munch off.  There was only a little left that I divided between Hannah, Charlotte, Theo and myself.  I didn't pig out, because I gave it away so I wouldn't have enough to pig out with!  I'm so smart.  Ha!  That's what I did with the cupcakes, I taste tested a plain cupcake as they came out of the oven, and then I had only one with all the icing and filling and then gave the rest away.  I feel good about it, I still need to make sure that I run at least 5 miles tomorrow, but at least I don't feel completely riddled with guilt for gorging.  And since I love to bake and cook, this is a win win.  I don't have to give that up, and I can enjoy the rewards of good food.

With this new plan I'm ready to take on this holiday season....Bring it on.

Terror Behind the Walls

 I have to say, this place was pretty AWESOME!  It's been Theo's goal to take me to a GOOD haunted house ever since I can remember, but I'm not too big on haunted places.  I should clarify that, I'm not too big on 'pretend' haunted houses.  I just can't disconnect myself from the fact that the people trying to scare you are just actors with make-up.  All they do is get right in your face, and I'm like, "Dude, personal space!".  It's not scary, it's annoying.  This place did a little of that, but it actually was successful in scaring me a bit!

 Eastern State Penitentiary.  The first official jail in the history of America.  It was housed Al Capone!  It's built like a castle to intimidate anyone who even thinks about breaking the law.  It's so menacing, what a cool place!

They still have the original heavy oak doors to the cells.  They focused on isolation as a recovery, so the prisoners had no windows, just a small vent at the ceiling.  They had a small courtyard right outside their cells, that they were only allowed to come outside for 1 hour a day, and the courtyard was enclosed also, so they didn't even get to interact with any other prisoners.  They even fed them their food through a slot in the door.  Pretty lonely if you ask me.

They did an awesome job of scaring throughout.  There was those few who would just get up in my face and stare, but their make up was unbelievable!  I was staring more at the make up than the whole scary picture.  The one place the really got me was this room where the prisoners were in cages yelling and banging on things, and then all of a sudden one would actually come out at you!  It wasn't the prisoners that frightened me, it was the anxiety of not knowing which one was going to come out at you.  Then they would redirect your fear, you would see you're coming up on something scary and then BOO! someone is waiting behind you!  They got me so many times with that tactic!  It was so good!  No wonder it's rated in the top 10 scariest Haunted Houses to go through in the nation.

I found myself trying to look around more in between the acted chaos just so I could get a look at the place, I can't wait to come back during the day to take the daytime tour!

Halloween 2011

  The whole gang dressed up in our finest for the church Halloween Party.  Theo's a pirate, I'm a witch, Tobie's Wario, Miriam's an Alabama cheerleader (ROLL TIDE!), Emma's SuperGirl, Hannah's Minnie Mouse and Charlotte is my little chunky monkey!

Those stockings actual inspired my Halloween costume.  I wasn't sure what I wanted to be until I saw those awesome things in Target and the only way I could justify buying them was if it was going to be a part of my costume.  Now if I wear those out on a regular basis I consider it just getting my monies worth! ;)  I also have these crazy long eyelashes on that were black and pink, you know to match my tutu skirt, but I forgot to get a picture of that.  And those I will NOT be wearing again, I feel confident that I got my monies worth from those, so....we're good.

Also from the night I won the Dessert Cook-Off!  Yay Me!  I made a Layered Pumpkin Pecan Dessert which is just pumpkin heaven!  Maybe I'll post the recipe some time since I didn't take a picture of the actual dessert when it was finished.  I still have to get used to photographing food, it just seems so unnatural to me.  Right now in my mind it's: Step 1.) Make food; Step 2.) Eat food...see what I mean.  I have to add another step in there for the picture taking.  Maybe next time.

Halloween has always been my most favorite holiday, so of course I planned it that I find and marry a Halloween baby!  Theo turned 34 and he has actually been asking for a cookie cake for a couple of years now.  I finally got brave enough to try it.  This is his Tombstone Cookie Cake.

But of course I couldn't do just a plain ole' cookie cake, this is my Double Doozie cake!  That means sandwiched in between 2 large cookies is a layer of my Vanilla Buttercream icing.  Then to top it off I used marshmallow fondant to give it that smooth stone look.

You may be saying, "Holy Sugar Coma, Batman!" and you would be right!  There are no sugar dainties around here!  It ain't dessert unless your teeth fall out.

We had a great night of Trick-or-Treating.  I thought I was going to have to stay home with Miss Charlotte while Theo took the kids out, but then I got a brilliant idea (I know, I'm full of them!) to have the missionaries stay after dinner and hand out candy so we could go out as a family!  They get to do a service and Theo and I both get to enjoy walking all the kids around.  Win-Win!

I hope everyone had a safe and wonderful Happy Halloween!!!  

BUY CHOFFY HERE

Halloween Spirit

We absolutely LOVE Halloween here, maybe because that's also Theo's birthday?? ;) I've always loved Halloween, to marry a guy whose birthday is actually on the holiday is mere coincidence....or is it?

Our favorite part is decorating, okay...okay...it's the candy, BUT second is the decorating. I'm not crafty on my own, I need friends to help me and hold my hand through all these papery projects. If it doesn't involve icing or cake, I'm screwed. So a friend of mine set up a crafting night where she had everything laid out for us and all the letters cut out and ready to stick. My kind of crafting! It was super easy and super cheap, BONUS! This would easily be $30 at Hobby Lobby or Michael's, but because I had a friend hook me up and then I did the assembly it was only $8!!! You can't get any better than that my friends.

Looks pretty awesome on my mantel! I get happy goosebumps all over just looking at it!