Picnic with Parents

Thursday, I had the privilege of eating lunch with two of my favorite people. There's nothing that boosts your confidence like walking down the hall having two little people running toward you screaming "Mommy!"

Once I actually got in their room, we had fun sitting on the floor and enjoying lunch together. The kids couldn't wait to pass out the fall goody bags we had brought for their friends. In fact, they didn't do much eating they were so excited!

You can tell Kathryn was very proud of her candy!

I hope everyone is gearing up for a fun weekend. Auburn's playing Ole Miss and, of course, there's costumes and lots of candy consuming on the menu for tonight! This will also be on the menu at our house...

White Chicken Chili
3 tablespoons olive oil

1 medium onion, finely chopped

1 can (4-ounces) chopped green chilies, drained

3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons ground cumin

2 cans (16 ounces) BUSH'S BEST Great Northern Beans

1 can (14.5 ounces) chicken broth

1 ½ cups finely chopped cooked chicken breast

Shredded Monterey Jack cheese (optional)

Sour cream (optional)

Salsa (optional)

In large skillet, cook onion in oil for 4 minutes or until transparent. Add chilies, flour and cumin; cook and stir for 2 minutes. Add beans and chicken broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat; simmer for 10 minutes or until thickened. Add chicken; cook until hot. Garnish with cheese, sour cream and salsa, if desired.

And corn muffins go great with this too! Using a box of Jiffy corn muffin mix, make the mix according to the corn muffin recipe, except add a can of creamed corn and about 1/2 cup of shredded cheese. You could also add chopped jalapeno peppers or pepper jack cheese! These are perfect for dunking in the chili!

Fall Fun

Last night, we went to a fall festival at Cousin Daniel's school. We had so much fun. There were all kinds of fun activities for the kids including rides, games, face painting, cake walks. You name it, they had it!

We were even able to take a family picture. The first in many months. I had to scan it, so the quality isn't great. Here ya' go!

Did I mention I love this time of year!

Waitin' on the Weekend

We are all set and ready for all of the trick or treaters that will HOPEFULLY come to our house on Saturday (I say hopefully because I probably bought way more candy than I should have. And being in a new house, we truly have no reference for how busy the traffic will be.) But we are ready for and hoping for a crowd!

Here's a look at some of the goodies just waiting for all of our little guests...

And of course we had to sample some of the candy!

Would you be surprised if I told you Walker's mouth was still blue when I put him to bed tonight? I didn't think so:)

If you would like to make some spider treat bags of your own, they are very simple. Here's a list of the supplies you will need....

clear party favor bags/twist ties
candy
black pipe cleaners
large black pom poms
googly eyes
glue gun/glue sticks or fabric glue

Instructions are as follows:

Hot glue or fabric glue two googly eyes to each large black pom pom.

Fill clear bag with candy and secure bag with twist tie (snipping off excess length).

Take three black pipe cleaners and wrap them around bag (at the twist tie) until secure (usually one good twist around). Cut pipe cleaners to desired length (or leave them just like they are!).

Glue large black pom pom to center of the pipe cleaners

Voila! A spider!

Itsy Bitsy

We enjoyed an itsy bitsy spider fest at our house last night. You've probably seen Spiderman before...

But have you met Miss Spider? Well, I hadn't either until yesterday about 5:00 p.m. That's when we got back home after a quick WalMart run. Sixteen dollars later, and voila! A (very) homemade spider costume!

I thought it was only fitting that they dine on spider sandwiches, served on spider plates.

And what spiderfest wouldn't be complete without an after dinner showing of this...

The kids were interested in the beginning of the movie (this is the cartoon version), but quickly lost interest. So much for mommy trying to carry out a theme:) It was fun while it lasted!

These are a few of my favorite things...

Kids in new pj's quietly watching a movie before bedtime...

Seeing the kiddos' faces light up when I made these Sunday morning...

New shoes (Walker's are brand new from a local kids' shoe store, and Kathryn's were purchased more than half off on EBay! Oh, and I love a bargain too!).

Creepy Treats

Did I mention that I like easy recipes? Well, here's another easy one for the season.

Ghostly Goodies

18 large marshmallows

6 wooden skewers

1 cup white chocolate chips

1 T vegetable shortening

12 Red Hots

Black decorating gel

For each ghost, push three marshmallows onto end of skewer; set aside. Microwave white chocolate and shortening in a microwave safe dish on med-high for 1 minute. Stir. Microwave in 10 second intervals until smooth.

Holding the skewer, spoon melted mixture over marshmallows until covered; place on wax paper lined cookie sheet. Use two Red Hots for eyes and decorating gel for mouth.

Refrigerate until chocolate has hardened.

Or Lauren's way...

I used white chocolate bark and melted it in a double boiler (I never buy shortening, so I omitted it!). It keeps the chocolate softer longer, giving you more time to cover the ghosts. I also used mini M & M's for the eyes instead of Red Hots. For the mouths, I melted dark chocolate chips in the microwave. I put the melted chocolate in a plastic baggie, snipped off the end, and piped on the mouth.

Here are some pictures to guide you along the way!

The best part, eating the finished product! Walker and Kathryn were very pleased with the results. I, of course, at the "mummy" (pictured to the right).

The best part about these creepy treats is the flexibility to be as creative as you want to be! Here is the batch we made last year. We opted for some dark chocolate ghosts as well! You could always tint the white chocolate with food coloring and have any color ghost you would like!

An Apple A Day

Yesterday, I gave making dried apple rings a try. I love simple recipes, and they don't come much easier than this.

Four apples (McIntosh and Golden Delicious work well...I preferred Golden Delicious)
1 T lemon juice
3 T water

Peel, core and slice apples into rings about 1/8 inch thick. Mix the lemon juice and water together. Dredge the apple slices in the mixture and pat dry with a paper towel.

Place the apples on a wire cooling rack that rests on a baking sheet. Put the tray in a 150 degree oven for 4 hours, turning once midway through. When the rings have no moisture left, remove them from the oven and eat, or cool before storing them!

You can also string the rings on sturdy thread or twine and hang in a warm place. The rings will take 1 to 2 weeks to dry depending on the room conditions.


Before the oven....

And after...

It took four hours to cook and almost 4 whole minutes to eat:)

On a side note, don't you just LOVE my apple corer. I've wanted one forever, and I finally found this cute one at HomeGoods. It's handy for this recipe and others. Like this easy snack idea from this fun cookbook...

Peanut Butter Stuffed Apples

1 package cream cheese, softened

1 1/2 cups peanut butter

1/2 cup powdered sugar

12 small apples, unpeeled

1 cup candy sprinkles, chopped peanuts or graham cracker crumbs

Combine first three ingredients in a small bowl. Beat at medium speed until smooth. Remove cores from apples using an apple corer:)

Using a small spoon, pack peanut butter mixture into core of each apples. Dredge open ends in candy, nuts or crackers crumbs. Wrap apples in plastic wrap and store in refrigerator up to 2 days.

Enjoy!

You Don't Know Jacques!

Tula treated me and Aunt Mak to a pedicure and manicure on Saturday. It was wonderful!

Makenzi and I should get an award for our ability to turn magazine pages with plastic baggies on our hands. The ladies used the baggies to allow the cuticle oil to seap into our nails making the manicure process easy while making magazine reading almost impossible. That didn't slow us down one bit! We were too into our magazines to give up so easily!

Thanks to spying it on a cute girl we met while out shopping Friday afternoon, I decided to give the OPI color "You Don't Know Jacques!" a try! It's not my norm, but I'm quite enjoying it. Well, except for the comments from my peanut gallery (AKA the men in my life). Walker wanted to know why I had purple on my hands, and Matt referred to me as Elvira.

I don't care. I LIKE IT! See what you think!

You can try it on yourself here.

Fun & Family Filled Weekend

We've been blessed to have Aunt Mak and Uncle Brad staying with us this week. And to top off a great week, Tula and Pops came to visit over the weekend.

We started a rainy Saturday morning off at Bogues followed by football for the guys and some shopping for the girls.

That afternoon, we made it outside for some trampoline jumping and basketball throwing.

Tula even got in on the action!

Sunday, we went out for breakfast again (did I mention breakfast is my favorite meal?). This time we drove out to Ross Bridge. They have a fabulous breakfast buffet! My two cannot resist a fountain!

We had a fun weekend visiting, eating and just being together! We love you guys!

Community Helpers

Walker and Kathryn are learning about community helpers at school this week. The kids were invited to dress like their favorite community helper.

Meet Dr. Busbee... And the other Dr. Busbee...

Kathryn, completely in the role, was too busy compassionately caring for her patient, Ariel, to smile for the camera.

I did capture this brief smile...

Happy Thursday!

A Weekend on the River

Walker and Kathryn spent a weekend on the river. Nana and Papa very generously offered to let them visit Camden, giving Mommy and Daddy an entire weekend without little ones!

I don't know who enjoyed the weekend more, Matt and I or Walker and Kathryn!

Here are Walker and Kathryn having a tea party with Polly Pig (seated in the middle chair).

And of course there were arts and crafts!

Nana even created an art gallery to display their masterpieces!

They had lots of fun playing in the shaving cream!

Walker loves the tire swing--well, really anything that goes around and around!

Playing in the sand box...

Dressed for church....

And a little flower pickin'....

Picture-takin' with the "Tree Man"....

Now you've seen how Kathryn and Walker spent their weekend, check back to find out what Matt and I did with all of our free time!