Sweet, Not Spooky

Last night M and I stayed up late making carmel apples for our church's Halloween Festival. We made these the silly way where you melt carmels and add a couple other ingredients. I feel as though this is cheating, but we didn't have a candy thermometer and the carmels at Winco were super cheap. Who would have thought it takes such a long time for carmel to melt? I imagined it to be like melting chocolate, but in reality it took a LOT longer.

I want to introduce to you the cute little elves that have come to join our home. They are currently hiding out in my bedroom awaiting there grand debut on Christmas morning at the top of my girls' stockings. Oh course I had to show them around the room a bit, so that they could get used to their new digs, they thought M's drum set was a good place for a photo op. They came from a lovely MDC mom in our recent craft swap, thanks El!

When doing the Elf/Apple photo shoot I notice that M took the liberty of having a photo shoot of his own when I was sleeping in this morning. This just shows how awesome of a dad he is. He also gets a wonderful husband points because he has L wearing the hat I finished up this week, so I don't have to take the time to photograph that.

Happy Halloween everybody!!

One Lucky Girl

This weekend I felt like a very lucky girl. I got to do some of my favorite things in abundance. First off I got to do some baking, lots of baking! I made six loafs of this freakin' delicious pumpkin bread. I can't take credit for the recipe though it is out of Bishops Pumpkin Farm Cookbook, man I love that place!


Three of the loaves were supposed to be for pastor appreciation month at church, but alas P was sick so we stayed home and ate one. We took a couple to my moms, and we still have one left. I also made some rocky road fudge for my brother's birthday, but I forgot to take a picture of that before I gave it to him. I am so over giving "stuff" as gifts, I think my new "thing" is going to be bring home baked goodness to people on special occasions.

On Saturday we went to a cute little root beer shop where they sell all sorts of cool bottled sodas. I noticed that they had bottle openers on the wall with a huge Plexiglas bin type thing filled with bottle caps. So of course I had to go ask them if they sell them and they replied that I may have as many as I'd like. So I made M reach in and get me several handfuls, lucky me.

Here are some of my favs. I'm not exactly sure what I'm planning to make from them, although I do have some funky earrings in mind. Anyone have any suggestions?

That evening we took the girls' to a Halloween party. Aren't they cute?

P wasn't feeling to well, because of her cold, but she did at least try to amuse us....

One Down, One On The Way

At the our local yarn store I spotted this nice soft rainbow wool for a very resonable price so I decided I would knit the girls some nice warm hats to welcome fall. They are a super fast knit and I have only been working on them when I'm out and about and have free time. I was thinking I may have the girls wear them for Christmas pictures? I think they would look adorable with some low ponytails.

Finished P's up first and she really loves it. Now I'm working on L's, one down and one on it's way.

My Princess

As promised here is L in her birthday garb. She really loved the cape and crown (mostly the crown though). She also got a little bit of cash and she went to a couple second hand stores and got some treasures too, like the Cinderella dress (which is handmade and AWESOME) that she's wearing in the picture below and a Cinderella doll.


Here she is on her birthday after the pumpkin patch, after her bath, and yummy enchilada dinner eating her chocolate cake (which M and I made the night before).
She got a couple of other things like a fairy in a felted necklace pouch from vermontfairies (look look I did it! I actually made a cool linky thingy) and a cool handmade oilcloth lunch sack. I so loving giving handmade gifts! She also go some "clicky shoes", books and other items fit for a princess. All in all I'm really happy with what she got for her birthday, stuff she will really use, we have room for, and not too much of it. Perfect.

Me Love Swapping!

Some wonderful news, M fixed my camera! It's not the best camera, but it takes MUCH better pictures then my spare. So back to blogging I go, yay! What better way to start off your morning then with yummy homemade biscotti?

Shamefully that was my breakfast, not really great for weight loss, but hey at least it was made with half whole wheat right? This was actually my first time making biscotti and it wasn't that hard at all. The recipe is from my betty crocker cookbook and it is banana chocolate biscotti. No, I'm not obsessed with bananas and chocolate together, I just hate throwing away food, so I'm always trying new ways to use up my brown bananas.

On the swapping front, I shipped out several packages this week including this sweet doll diaper bag set for a mom on MDC.
This is one of the swap packages I got in return
A nice big knittin needle holder.
Here is it all rolled up, I'm so loving the colors!
And my totally cute new diaper bag. I wish I could have shown the print better, it so cute. It's huge and has lots of wonderful pockets. Most of my swaps have been for Christmas, but these two things I got for myself.

As for my wild thing, I think she may be even wilder then before. During this posts production which took about 15 minutes she managed to pull the chair to the counter twice, pull her sisters hair three time, and drag the outside broom inside three time, which would have been more, but I threw it over the fence, I think I should be getting that now, before it's run over huh?

4th Annual Pumpkin Patch Trip

Yesterday was our annual trip to the Bishop's Pumpkin Patch in Wheatland with our home school group. It was also Lydia's 4Th birthday. We had a lot of fun, despite the crazy wind. Everything was such a blur that we didn't get a whole lot of photos and the ones we did get were very rushed. So sorry, not lovely scenic photos of piles of gorgeous pumpkins, squashes, and gourds. Here are the girls having a wonderful time.



It really is a wonderful pumpkin patch with baked good galore, train rides, hay rides, panning for marbles, slides, play places, pony rides so much fun. While in there wonderful gift shop I was reminded of there awesome cookbook which I bought last year and will be cracking it open this week to make some wonderful pumpkin treats. I think I may need to buy a whole case of pumpkin for all I have planned.

Lydia really enjoyed her birthday and all her lovely handmade gifts, I will have to get pictures of her modeling them today.

Lifes Happenings

Hey everybody, I would like you to meet Roxie. She is our one and only furry friend.

Roxie had to go to the vet today, she has another ear infection. Poor thing just keeps getting them. We are going to do our best with 3 different meds and some homeopathic's to make it go away within the next 2 weeks. If it does go away then we will be doing surgery to fix her ears so that they can drain, if not she will have to have her ear canals removed and will be permanently deaf. Her ears are very damaged and nearly closed due to scar tissue from her previous owners leaving her ear infections untreated. We got Roxie 10 months ago and the women mentioned nothing about her health problems and avoided the question when we asked her which vet she took Roxie to. I refuse to be angry with this women, I only feel disappointed you know? Not with Roxie of course, but that people do that sort of thing.

I hate to bring this post down anymore but we also found out on Monday that M did not get drawn for the nursing program lottery this semester. It is so frustrating to M that the program is based on a lottery, shouldn't it count for something that he has almost all A's including an A in frickin' anatomy. I know that there is a reason for all this, that God has a plan for making us wait a little longer. One thing that I do know is that M is doing really well as his job right now and will most likely be getting a promotion in November. He also has a performance related bonus coming in this month.

Sorry for the crafting break and the boring post about what is going on in our lives. Hopefully I will get something wonderful and inspiring up by this weekend.