Family Faces

It's been busy around here, so as you can tell, I haven't made time for blogging. I was so tired of looking at those pilgrim hats from Thanksgiving , though. I thought I would share some of our family pics we had taken a few months ago. (If you are my FB friend , I know you've seen these a lot. Sorry. But you know you love us) Our friend, Jennie,that we go to church with(when she is home from going to school at BYU) and of Jennie Rae Photography took these for us at Goldstar Park here in Wetumpka. You should look up Jennie Rae Photography on Facebook to see some of her work. She's awesome. Love her work. She has such a great talent for photography. Here are just some of the pics of our family. The top one made it on our Christmas card this year!

Pilgrim Hats

Last night the girls and I made pilgrim hats for our family night treat!! They turned out pretty cute and tasted good, too!! Kind of like a Moon Pie! These little hats are easy to make. All you need are large marshmallows, fudge stripe shortbread cookies, chocolate almond bark and yellow squeezable icing. Just melt the almond bark according to package directions, coat a marshmallow with the chocolate(just roll it around in there with a fork) and put it on top of the fudge side of your cookie. Let them dry and pipe on a yellow square for the buckle of the hat! Too cute!

A half-eaten pilgrim hat! Yummy!

Vipers Win! Vipers Win!

The fall 2010 soccer season came to a close last Saturday. Trent's team, the Vipers, finished up the season with a win over the Pumas. Way to go!! I know it's hard to see in these pictures but my son is out there playing. He's #13. In the dark purple jersey.

The Vipers had a good season and I think Trent matured a lot as a player. He did a great job this season of encouraging his team mates as well as passing and getting himself in positions to score. In the last game he scored 3 goals!! His team did a good job together!! We were also happy to have a good coach for our boys and girls!

Monster Munchies

I know Halloween is over, but I want to share some of the "monster munchies" we had at our party!Maybe you can keep these in mind for next year! Yeah, I know I said I would share them yesterday, but I just couldn't fit in blogging yesterday. Before I share the treats, take a look at my goblins up there. I realized I didn't show a pic of them together. Laci, the skeleton girl;Trent, the 80's rocker(although he didn't have on his outfit or his super cool inflatable guitar. He was feeling very back-in-the-day Bon Jovi,btw!);and Ivy, the nice witch!

Monster Munchy Menu
Frankenstein Fingers
Pumpkin Bites
Mummy Cakes
Monster Munch
Eyeballs
Goblin Goop & Chips
Assorted candy
Moldy Bones & Blood
Swamp Juice

Moldy Bones & Blood. You can find the recipe here. Although for these, instead of using one whole bread stick, I cut each bread stick in half length wise first to make them thinner.


Always a favorite in our house, finger cookies. This year instead of the regular version I make that looks like the fingers have blood(red gel) and jagged fingernails(blanched almonds). I made my friend, Kim's, variation,Frankenstein Fingers. The kids loved them! You can find the recipe on her blog, Kim's Korner, here!

Along with the fingers, I just did a store bought pumpkin cookie, too. Some kids will just not eat those fingers! They are a little creepy!


I made mini cupcakes and piped rows of vanilla icing with my leaf tip to look like a mummy face. The eyes are mini chocolate chips.


Our favorite cheese dip was the goblin goop!I thought that was appropriate since the kids tell me that dip looks like throw up! I know . Gross, right! But it tastes soooooo good! You can find the recipe here!


Also on the menu, were gummy worms and peanut butter cups. I thought I needed some fruit on the menu, so I put some grapes in a dish and called those eyeballs! Yummy! Swamp Juice, green fruit punch, was our party drink. Monster Munch was served in these cute treat holders from Hobby Lobby! I simply added green food coloring to melted butter and mixed it in with the pop corn. I don't think I'll do this one again, though. The kids ate it, but the pop corn sat there and got kind of stale and yuck! This one is off the list!

Halloween Bash 2010

Friday night we hosted our first Halloween bash!!! Our house was FULL!! I think we had a total of 14 kids come to the party! We had food, games, music, dancing and most of all, FUN! I have to admit, at first, I was a little overwhelmed. I mean it was 14 kids(plus 5 parents), but I just went with the flow and the party turned out pretty good! Thanks to my husband who jumped right in and helped make food,provided us with some Halloweeny tunes and lead some of the games! Here are some pics from the party! Tomorrow I will share pics and recipes for the party food!


Our first game: The Mummy Wrap! Laci and Anna are wrapping Grace, their mummy!


Next game: Witch's Brew. Their were 3 teams and each team had to suck up paper bats and ghosts with a straw and put them in their bowl without using their hands. The team with the most won!


I think their favorite part of the party was doing the Cha Cha slide, Cupid Shuffle and attempting the Thriller dance.


Last game was the Spider Web game. Basically everyone stands in a circle and one person holds a ball of black yarn,holds on to one piece and throws it to another person. When you're done you have what should resemble a spider web, although the kids said it was a star.

So Very Busy

Okay, so as you can tell, I'm waaaaay far behind on my posts. The past two weeks have been so very busy for us! It's been this practice, that practice, church activities, and yada yada yada. I know you all are very busy too! We all enjoyed Halloween and its festivities and now I feel like I can breathe a little easier. Oh wait...... Christmas is coming! Let the fun(and craziness) begin!

These pics are from a few weeks ago when we went to the Grand Ole Pumpkin Patch in Clanton, AL. It was a fun time! We went on a hayride, picked out our pumpkins, and had some yummy treats! Those pumpkins were painted by Laci and Ivy just a couple days ago in time for the trick or treaters!!

Halloween Cake Stand

Today I have a Halloween cake stand to share with you. Okay, it's basically just a black cake stand, but I'll be using it for Halloween goodies. I'm also linking this up to Skip To My Lou's Made By You Mondays.

I've posted before about my obsession with cake stands and pedestals. Love 'em!!! Really! I do! The first thing my husband said when I made this one was, "Hmmm. So where are you gonna store that?" I guess he knows I'm running out of room because I have so many of them. But I couldn't resist making this. A black cake stand has been calling my name for a while now. I found a super cute one at Hobby Lobby, but didn't want to pay their price.......even with a half off coupon. So when I was in Wal-Mart I found black plates and bowls in their section with dishes and serving pieces. Best part, the plate was $1.75 and the bowl $1.25. Total price=$3.00! That's what I'm talkin' about! To learn how to make these easy cake stands go here!
When it was all dry, I tied on some Halloween ribbon to dress it up. I also see that this picture doesn't do it justice. The lighting is very bad, but trust me it's super cute!

Key Lime Pie Time!

It's Fall and the weather is getting cooler outside,although we have still had weather in the upper 80's here. I think of apples and pumpkins, but not key lime pie!! That's a citrusy summer dessert right?!.......No, not at our house!

After a mommy/daughter date to Chili's, Laci wanted to make this yummy pie for dessert really bad! What brought all this on? She and I had one of their delicious little key lime pie desserts. You know the little tiny ones in the glass. Mmmmm. Mmm. Mmm. The key lime pie one is our favorite, although the cinnamon roll one comes in a close second. So I set out to find an easy key lime pie recipe for her to make because I didn't have any key lime pie recipes. We used one you can find here from Breezy Mama for Oh So Easy Key Lime Pie. It is super simple to make and tastes delicious. Very good citrus flavor paired with a yum graham cracker crust. Enjoy it any time of the year!

Mantel Makeover-Halloween Style!

I love it when it's time to pull out the Halloween and fall decorations. It's so much fun! So last week I started making over my mantel for Halloween, trying to use things I already had on hand. I'm happy to say that I only spent $8 and most of that was on candy for the apothecary jars! I like the way it turned out and what I like even more is that I didn't spend a lot of money!
My three little goblins also love our mantel makeover!


I used a black frame I had in my stash and simply cut out a black #31 with my Cricut and applied it to the glass. My $1 black crowe and $1 pumpkin from the Dollar Tree go great beside it!
The apothecary jars are my kids' favorite thing about our mantel. Everyday my 3 yr. old asks me if I'm done with the candy yet. Nope, not yet! I made these a while back and love to use different fillers for them. For our mantel I went with( $2)candy corn and ($4)chocolate eyeballs. Eek!



I have had this set of three black frames from Target dollar spot stashed away in my loot for sometime just waiting to be used. I framed orange card stock and added the letters that I cut using my Cricut. To finish it off, I used a vase I had from Dollar Tree and filled it with some little branches I pulled off one of our trees and spray painted them black. Easy peasy!