happy

There were skeletons hanging from the chandelier...
and bats on the table.
And bats on the deck. Cute ones.
Plus a Jedi + zebra.

On the menu this Halloween night:

Monster Mucus: Asiago mac n cheese

Witch fingers: green beans

Eyeballs: grapes

Okay, I lied.

About the waffles.

I mean, the pancakes.

Let's just say I was reconverted back to waffles.

Only because last night we tried these:

my (and everyone else's) new favorite.

AAAAMMMAZING!

Buttermilk Waffles

(by three sister's cafe)

1 stick butter, melted

2 cups flour

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 t. baking soda

1 1/2 t. baking powder

1/2 t. cinnamon

1/2 t. salt

3 lg eggs

2 cups buttermilk (milk is fine to substitute. You can also "make" buttermilk by measure just a smidge under 2 cups and filling the rest up with vinegar and letting it sit before stirring in)

1 t. vanilla

First beat the eggs.

Stir in the rest of the ingredients until smooth.

We do eat other things besides breakfast foods! In fact, tonight we tried out a meal that everyone raved about and in order to not turn this into a food blog I won't be posting it, but you can get the recipe here. Served with southern style baked beans and corn. Prep and cook time only about 20 minutes!

Because he's SIX months.

And I just can't stand it.

He's all kissy + smoochy.

He is a lover-boy.

And he gets me all squishy inside.

His nicknames are punky + monkey.

He's already up on all fours rocking back and forth ready to crawl.

Where did he get such an idea?

I try to sabotage him, knock him down so he won't start that nonsense.

Child abuse? I think not.

A mama's plea:

For the love can't he be a baby just a wee bit longer???

Healthy + Yummy.

But all you taste is the YUMMY!

I'm not much of a basic pancake lover.

They always seemed so blah and flavorless to me.

So I tend to make waffles.

Sour Cream belgian waffles.

Which my family loves dressed with heaping spoonfuls of applesauce.

I'll still make those from time to time, but for now, after the feedback from my family...

these are the new go to:

Brown Sugar Oatmeal Pancakes

2/3 c. MINUS 1 T. quick oats {weird, I know... just do it}

1/2 c. whole wheat flour

1/2 c. all purpose flour

1/2 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1/3 c. packed brown sugar

1 egg

2 T. vegetable oil

1 cup buttermilk

In a small bowl combine the oats, flours, soda, salt + sugar.

In another bowl combine the egg, oil + buttermilk.

Stir the wet into the dry and stir just until moist.

{I had to add a couple more T. of buttermilk to mine}

:: today we were out of syrup ::

just as good with butter + cinnamon/sugar on top

45 minute project.

give or take.

Crayon roll to store those crayons in.

Think Christmas gifts or birthday presents?!
functional + adorable.

Easiest thing ever.

I used the tutorial here.

Fall recipes + stuff.

It's fall...I love it. Except for the too cold, too fast kind of weather we've been having lately. But nothing gets your mind off it faster than cooking, crafting, sewing + playing. A couple things I have enjoyed lately are pulling out the pumpkin recipes, including the old ones and super fun thing, discovering new ones. I've also dusted off the sewing machine and got a start on this:

It's a peek at my attempt of a COIN QUILT.

I love that it's fast, simple looking, super easy and you can see another example of one here.

Brody and I have been working on his fine motor skills with this fun PK website. One of the fun ideas was to take construction paper and trace/print a simple halloween image and then take a tooth pick (with carpet underneath)and poke holes through the paper all the way around the image, when you're done, hold up to the light on the other side. We tried the bat, he loved it.

The kids + I also made a HUGE bowl of GOO the other night. It was a hit. Constarch and water. Equal parts of both. Can't believe I haven't tried this before - we ALL enjoyed playing with it.

Last night for dinner we made these:

Stuffed Pizza Rolls. Bryan + I had fun rolling them up with several different fillings: cubed ham + pineapple [next time I'm going to try with a pinch of brown sugar], sausage [mild, italian, you only need about one] + chopped pepperoni. You never knew which you were going to get, which was half the fun I'd say! Next time we're going to try their cousins.

Another great main dish I made last week that I would make again was this.

Yesterday I made these:

They were gone a few hours later.

You gotta eat fast to get anything at our house!

Yeah, yeah, I know, we've all made pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, but these by FAR are the BEST I've tried

...I'm thinking maybe it's the TABLESPOON of vanilla extract?!

Yum...

1 cup pumpkin

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 c butter

1 egg

2 cups flour

2 t baking powder

2 t ground cinnamon

1/2 t salt

1 t baking soda

1 t milk

1 T vanilla

2 cups semisweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts (optional) I added them, so good!

Combine soft butter and sugars. Beat till fluffy. Add in egg. Stir together dry ingredients. Add milk and vanilla to wet. Slowly stir in dry. Fold in cc and walnuts. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. (I thought just over 11 was perfect in my oven)

I have not made these (yet!), but you can here:

drooling yet?!

Carving pumpkins is LOTS of fun! My kids do it at least 10 times a day! Here is the MESS FREE way.

One of the things I love about this time of year - CAndY COrn!!

This Sunday, I have plans of our side dish including this fun idea:

Candy Corn Jello!
And I can hardly race out to Target later today fast enough to grab me SEVERAL bags of these!

Can you stand it?

Candy Corn KISSES?!!

The recipe for these bad boys is here.
About a week a go I made these:
The most incredible, genius idea I've heard in quite a while...

Pumpkin - Snickerdoodle Cookie Bars!

Half snickerdoodle cookie, half pumpkin pie!

But, I also can't forget about these, I'm making them soon, they are one of my all time fav's.

Ooey Gooey Pumpkin Cake:

A week or so a go, we made these Pumpkin Milkshakes for movie night at our house. They were gone in two seconds flat if I remember right. The recipe has a permanent place in my keepers!

First you add all this yummy pumpkin pie stuff + ice cream:

Then blend and right before your eyes it turns into a little cup of ice cold creamy pumpkin heaven and just incase that is not enough just go ahead and top with graham cracker crumbs!
We've also been loving this:

Archer Farms (Target brand) DULCE DE LECHE hot cocoa mix.

It's perfect in front of the fire place or as Tay and I like to do, in travel mugs watching Connor score goals in his fall soccer league.

There's been so many attempts

I'm aware that one is a cinch. I've got millions of em.

Two is easy-peasy.
Three takes some effort, but still no sweat.
But FOUR?! I feel like it's just darn near impossible!

To get all FOUR in a picture together, I don't think I have one good one yet and Easton's SIX months on Wednesday. I guess there's still time before the Christmas picture NEEDS to be taken. It just seems like it never works out. But today I was determined as ever, as soon as we pulled up from church we piled out of the car and I directed everyone over to the front step, ran back to get Easton and UrGH! Asleep! Maybe next time...

I think next time I need a partner to help me with the corralling/setting up of children.

That would be a husband, right?

Oh wait! I almost forgot! I do have one of those. Have you seen him?

I think I've lost him somewhere in the OR.

Unfortunately our home seems to be his home away from home lately.

Double UrGH!

Every year we go to...

To feast our eyes on halloween goodness...
This year we got to share it in good company... {the Haymore family}

Bryan's best friend since middle school - Jon. He's an Opthamolgy resident in Syracuse.

Leave it to Taylor to find the beauty in the "warty" pumpkin!

{ yup, we're still fighting those warts! Every month we've got a set appt to the derm office}

They won't go away until I spend at least $1000 to kill them off - wait! they should be gone soon!
We still LOVE her. Warts and all...

It was BRODY'S BiRThdAy!! He couldn't stop laughing and running everywhere.

First he fed the miniture donkeys.

One tiny pressed feeding pellet at a time.

It was like feeding a gorilla a tic tac.
Made the fun last longer I guess.

Because he had just enough left over for a cute fluffy sheep.
As we waited for the spooky hayride pulled by a giant red tractor we indulged ourselves in a variety of homemade yummy doughnuts.
The hayride is AWESOME! They add to it every year, it just keeps getting better and better! Sad to know this is our last Power's haunted hayride.
Can't believe he's FOUR!

That went by too fast.
At least he still seems small next to this tire.

Sweet!

(and I don't just mean the picture)

Pioneer Woman picked my picture of Easton!

Smart woman.

Made my day.

Check it out!

{8th picture down)

{love that she captioned "what a healthy, chunky boy!"}

Chunky? Yes!

Healthy? As we speak, no! Poor little guy is feverish + cranky.

{Up every 2 hours the past 2 nights}

Bags under the eyes.

Need I say more?

But like I said.

Made my day!

Must have recipe.

Sour Cream {or plain Greek yogurt} Coffee Cake Muffins

I've made this recipe, but only ever in the bundt.

After now, I'm a changed woman . . . muffins are the way to go!

1 cup butter, soft

1 1/4 c sugar

2 eggs

1 cup sour cream (or as I used this time plain Greek yogurt, I liked it even better than SC)

1 t vanilla

2 c flour

1 t baking powder

1/2 t baking soda

Topping:

2 T sugar

1/2 t cinnamon

Cream butter + sugar. Add eggs, sour cream + vanilla. Beat well. Add dry ingredients. In small bowl stir topping ingredients together. Grease/spray muffin tin. It should perfectly fill the tin. Fill each cup to the top with batter. Sprinkle generously with sugar/cinnamon. Bake 18 min or until golden.