Happy Halloween!

Will ended up going as a cowboy. His cousin Logan was a cowboy too. Will was supposed to be a very adorable puppy for Halloween. Pictures are proof to that we tried to get him to be a puppy. He even picked out the costume himself!!

Yep, this is what happens EVERY time we attempt to put this costume on, that Will picked out himself. We tried every several days for over a month. Even bribed him with some candy. Bribery is not a bad thing, I promise! He ended up thinking that if he just said the word "Puppy" that he got some smarties... Not the case.

I know, the door behind Will is in focus... sorry, it's what a quick photo of a very pissed off boy does.

Wishing you all a very happy Halloween. Hope you all stayed safe and are now enjoying your candy!!! Your dentists will enjoy seeing you in a few months.

Cake Pops step by step!

You start off by just baking a cake. Any flavor you choose, it doesn't matter. I just use a box cake mix. If you so choose to, you may make it by scratch, but unless you are baking for someone with an allergy, it really is pointless.

After the cake is baked and cooled, you crumble it all up.








See, crumbled!!!


After the entire cake mix is crumbled, you will add half a can of frosting. If you so choose to make the frosting by scratch, just add about that much. Again, unless making cake pops for someone with an allergy, I'd say it's pointless. It's very easy and inexpensive to just use the store bought cake and icing.






I forgot to take a picture of it all blended together. Go figure right?! After it is all thick and blended well together, I use a small cookie scoop (ice cream scoop, whatever really, just make sure it is small, about 1") and start balling the cake mix up. This is one of the most time consuming parts of cake pops.

Once they are all balled up, they must be chilled. If you want to put them in the refrigerator over night or in the freezer for about 15 minutes, either would work fine.








While they are chilling, it is time to melt your chocolate. Note, these white chocolate chips do not melt, I repeat, do NOT melt! I had quite the issue making these cake pops.










Once the cake balls are chilled and your chocolate is melted, you will dip the end of the sticks only about 1/4" and stick about half way threw the cake ball. This needs to harden so the ball stays on the stick.

Once you have all the sticks in the cake balls, the first ones you stuck should be dry enough to do this next step! You will gently drop the cake pop into the melted chocolate. You do not want to swirl the cake pop as it will either fall off the stick or you will end up with cake remnants in the chocolate and will end up making other cake pops bumpy.

You will want to tap your wrist that is holding the cake pop to aid in getting the excesses chocolate off.

Once the cake pop is fully covered, you can sprinkle some cute candies on it while it is still damp. After they are all dry, if you have little baggies you can bag them up. This is not a necessary step, just something I do if I am selling them. It prevents any nastiness getting to them before they are delivered.

I did make a few extra balls and of course, always have left over chocolate to try out a new candy mold I bought. I am planning on making these for Halloween for my few trick-or-treaters, only Halloween colors of course! I'm pretty excited for the way it turned out!!!!

Painting pumpkin- picture overload!

Warning: There are a million pictures in this blog post! I had so many to choose from. Also, I uploaded them backwards because well... I cant figure out after 2 years of blogging that blogger uploads them that way!

Every year, we find it a blast to get the kids together, strip them down naked and let them paint pumpkins. After the kids painted their pumpkins, I took a jab at carving my pumpkin. Just a little disclaimer, I did use a power tool or two ;).

This is the final product of my pumpkin! I know, I should have taken a picture at night with the lights out, it would have showed up a lot better!

See, Will helped!!! After I outlined my little trees and grave with that tool (I don't know what it is, I just know it was left in my car for 6 months or longer... no names...) I had to go back around with the pumkin carving tools to go all the way threw the thick pumpkin.

This is Tara's pumpkin! It's a little ghost! Not sure why I had the top up like that. My Mom got this peanut pumpkin and she wanted to carve it to see it's guts. I think they may try to plant a few of the seeds next year.

Miss Madelynn got all dirty too with the babies. She didn't have to strip down though. Being five years old you kinda know to be careful.

Will right before bath time! I love it when they get all dirty. My Mom had said "No cloth?" Nope! Not at $20 a pop, not taking a chance of washable paint not washing out!

Aunt Tara painting with Kaydence. Hope you don't care I blogged a pic of you Tara!!! Kaydence took a bit to figure out the getting dirty business.



Both babies, getting dirty. So much fun!!!

Will knew exactly what to do! It just so happened that we attempted to do this just a few weeks before hand, so it was quite fresh in his mind.

A cowboy pumpkin???

Yep, looks good!

"What is that stuff?" Will checking it out!

Family update:

I’m a good blogger right? I mean to the point that I update on a regular basis and I apparently keep some coming back to read more. Why is it then, that when I do bake, I have a hard time remembering my AMAZING camera? I keep forgetting to take pictures of the process in baking. In the last week and a half I have made Pumpkin Cheese Cake Brownies, Pumpkin cheese Cake, and I am now working on some cake pops. The good thing is I have remembered to take pictures of step by step process for cake pops. It occurred to me that I had not done a blog about that yet. So, this is just a little update on the fact that I am working on another baking blog!!!

Will update: He loves to watch movies. His favorite movie: The Lion King. It’s quite funny really, when he wants to watch a movie he will bring me any movie that we have. I keep telling him he does not want to watch XXX or Blow or The Barber Shop. If he actually brings me an animated movie that he may appreciate, Aladdin, Pocahontas, Monsters Inc., or the usual, The Lion King. I will start the movie in hopes that he will be entertained while I work on getting supper ready or cleaned up. The funny part (I say funny because no matter how annoying it is now, I will laugh at it when the phase passes) is that if it is anything but The Lion King, he will continue to bring me movie after movie until he finds the right one. The Lion King!

Will is also missing his dad so much. We really can’t wait for some snow, to have Dad around more. As of today we will have 118 head of cattle!!! When I get home I’ll take a picture of our new additions and all the work Dennis has been doing. We now have a huge lot just south of the house. It is crazy at how busy Dennis has been with all the work that is non-chopping related. Once chopping is over we usually get him back, not this year! Hopefully now that the cattle are all in and he isn’t working on the fence until 10 or 11 at night he will be home. I know there is still quite a bit of work he has to do until the lot is up to his standards but the cows will stay in and that’s what matters!

I ordered something from eBay the other day that was by no means necessary! After our doctor’s appointment the other day and this babies’ heart rate had dropped from the mid 160’s to the mid 120’s, along with very little movement yet, I have to admit, I freaked out. I was not only used to Will’s heart rate being in the 160s but I was this child too up until my last appointment. I found a Doppler (like the kind at the doctor’s office only a much cheaper kind). I got it in the mail yesterday and although it is hard to hear it because the volume on the Doppler isn’t incredibly loud, I did get the babies’ heart beat right away! It was holding steady of the mid 120’s to lower 130’s still. It is quit reassuring that I can now hear the little one whenever I want. Especially if he/she isn’t moving much.

18 week doctors appointment.

I had another doctor's appointment this last week and just haven't told you all about it yet! It was a pretty typical pre-natal appointment with just checking the heart rate and blood pressure, yada, yada, yada... So far, whenever we have heard the babies heart rate it has been in the 160's. That is exactly what Will's was the whole time. Up until this last Thursday I was thinking it was maybe another boy based on the heart rate. When she checked this time, it had dropped to the 120's! I was pretty shocked at how far it had dropped. I'm sure this is normal as she would have told me if it wasn't. I know the 'old wives tale' is that if the babies heart rate is more than 140 it is to be a girl.... Well, Will is no girl! He is all boy!! So, with this little ones heart rate at 120, I kind of wonder if that little tale is opposite for us?!?! We will find out on the 27th for sure. At least I hope that this little one cooperates for us!!!!

First carnival

The other day Will and I took a trip to a friends house, about an hour away from us. They were having an October Fest that weekend and had a bunch of carnival rides. I'm not sure Will had even ever seen a carousal before this, and boy did he love it!

I was so excited to capture all the huge smiles he had that I didn't even think to shoot video.

He truly was laughing so hard, I have never once seen him laugh like this before. The only time he has come close is when you do the kissing attacks on his neck.

We had such a fun day hanging out with our friends again. The little boy that is just a few months older than Will is a fun guy. It took them a while to warm up to each other (or rather Will warm up to a new place with new toys.)

Knowing that they will move someday makes me a little sad so until then, we will just enjoy our day trips to them and visa versa!

Another one I love.

Over the weekend we went shopping and well, I just had to have a little Starbucks. I did get decaf since you know, the baby shouldn't have much caffeine. Will enjoyed the Caramel Frappichino a little too much. I actually didn't have much of it at all!

Just because :)