This Week

I'm up to my neck in boxes and packing tape.
I'm on cruise control with a sharpie.
And I've become Craigslist's newest gazillionare. Alright so not really a gazillionare (but really not too shabby.) :)

$old my refabbed table and chairs I gave a leg lift to..


And started on some Christmas gifts.
All this pre-move prep (say that three times fast) made us hungry.. so we took a little bit of a time out to bake.

These babies have vanilla pudding mix in them! Wanna guess how many I ate?
Eh, too many.

Hope you have a fabulous weekend!

{Halloween}

How is it possible that the month of October is almost here?

I found tutorials for this cute DIY Halloween Wreath and Silver painted pumpkins at Remodelholic.




I love these black and white pumpkin toparies from Imperfectly Beautiful.



Printable Halloween potions and bottles labels from Fantasy Jr.



I'm loving how All Things Thrifty used paper and a Cricut machine to turn her staple mirror into a unique Halloween decoration.



And these Pumpkin Spice Brownie Bites from BruCrew. My stomach is growling just looking at them. :)

{Semantics}

Caleb and I had a dentist appointment this morning. After wards, I took Caleb to school, checked him into the office and then walked him down the hall to his class. I watched him go into his class then turned on my heel and started my walk back down the hallway when his teacher opened the classroom door chuckling.



"Mrs. Holmes", he said. "I want to tell you what Caleb just said."

Holding my breath I'm think okay give it to me..

The teacher said Caleb bounced into class and said, "Hi Mr.(teachers name), I'm late because I had a disappointment." (Dentist Appt.)
..............................................................................................................................................................

This afternoon I asked Porter if he needed to go pee-pee in the potty. He nodded his head. So up he went. He sat for a minute, played with the toilet paper roll, touched the flusher, swung his legs, looked up at the ceiling and then said, "Mom, my pee pee's broken, it's not working.

xoxo

{Cooking 101: Follow The Recipe}

For me the hard part isn't the cooking nor is it the following of directions. It's the "finding a great recipe" to begin with that can sometimes be difficult. Finding a great recipe means that the outcome is exquisite and that it doesn't call for 15 different ingredients (3 of which-you've never heard of before nor do you think you'llever use again (you know what I mean.)

No. I want easy. I want simple. And I want it to taste good. I have a handful of these recipes that fit the easy bill. Most of them have come from my dear friends. Because I'm lucky enough to have talented friends and when we have a get-together it usually always includes food.

I have another source for great recipes. You may have already discovered All Recipes.com but if you haven't, trust me- it's great. Why? Because recipes are submitted from every day people and receive star ratings once people have tried them. And I mean if 3,678 have tried a recipe and it gets a five star I think it's worth a trying. :)


I spotted this incredible recipe for meatloaf. Eww, meatloaf? Really? I know. I'm not a real meatloaf eater myself. In fact, meatloaf is not even in my regular dinner rotations. But this recipe fit my criteria for a great recipe so I gave it a go last night. It was such a hit I thought I'd share...

Brown Sugar Meatloaf

Glaze:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup ketchup

Meatloaf:
1.5 lbs ground turkey (original recipe called for ground beef, but this healthy substitute tasted wonderful)
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1.5 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper
1 small onion, chopped
1/4 tsp ground ginger
3/4 cup finely crushed saltine cracker crumbs

Preheat oven to 425. Lightly grease a 5 x 9 inch loaf pan. Mix the brown sugar and ketchup together in a bowl. Set aside. In a separate mixing bowl, mix thoroughly all remaining ingredients and shape into a loaf. Spread glaze on top of the meat loaf. Bake in preheated oven for 55 minutes.

Enjoy!

Thou Shall Not Covet

I came across a blog and I started to drool. Okay so saliva was not actually dripping down my chin.. but my mouth did open. I'm in love with this blue piece of furniture. I believe it's an old dresser that they painted and turned into buffet.

Courtesy of hookedonhouses.net

I love that they've taken an older piece of furniture transformed it into something unique and then placed it in a room that it was not originally designed for.

And it's kinda got me looking at furniture in a different way~

{Die Hards}

We attend our local fair every year. It's tradition. It's been a tradition ever since I was little. And as our little family grows the tradition continues. In fact, it's talked about all year long....like right up there with Christmas. The kids enjoy everything. The animals. The food. And the rides. Well... okay mostly the rides. Me? I love all of those things too. But, I'll personally add that the people watching is particularly awesome. :)



We elected to go yesterday. It was an early school release day. And the forecast was a little bit more promising than our upcoming weekend. So I picked up Caleb from school and we hit it- meeting up w/ Dad later after he got off of work. Except that the 30% chance of drizzle turned into 90% rain with 45% rain showers.




Check out my pant legs. That's not a shadow. We stayed until just after 9pm. That's all complete wetness from the shoes/socks on up. Partly from the rain but I contribute most of my wetness from my youngest- a puddle jumper. Check out his shmants (pants/shorts)...




Rain Shmain.. Kids could care less. :)

{In Nine Days}

Our house sold. Bittersweet. That's how I'm feeling. As I begin taking things down and placing our possessions in boxes I'm flooded with memories. This is our first home. The home where we had two beautiful children. Birthdays. Christmas's. Projects. Parties. Rainy day fires and movie nights. Smiles. Tears and time-outs on the stairs...

{Kick Back}

One of the blessings of motherhood is being able to watch, cheer on and give a thumbs up from the side lines.






There's nothing in the world more fun then to observe your child developing their talents and watching them enjoy it at the same time.

Love you, Caleb!

{A Hot Dog At The Ballgame Beats Roast Beef At The Ritz}

Damon took Caleb to a Mariners game and arrived early enough to watch some batting practice. Caleb received a ball from 2nd baseman, Chone Figgins. Wow! Awesome, Caleb.

Except Chone Figgins batting average eh, isn't so stellar. In fact it's just about as great as his name (I mean really.. who names their kid Chone Figgins?)

See Caleb though?... he doesn't care one bit. He's just plum delighted that he's got mojo and a real baseball.

XOXO

{First Times Three}

Today marks the first day of first grade. It's also the first day Caleb successfully rode his bike without training wheels. "I'm so proud of myself!"... Caleb

... Unfortunately, today was also Caleb's first physical fight at school... but that occurred on second recess. What!? I know. And after all of the information was gathered, it was my son that lost his temper and threw the kick. Ahem.