Foodie Friday

Happy Halloween! For our trick-or-treat party, I made some yummy Caramel Corn to further enhance the sugar high we'll be feeling! This is an easy microwave recipe and is my fav for fall.

Caramel Corn

6 cups popped popcorn

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1/2 cup butter

2 tbl light corn syrup

1/8 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

**I usually double or triple the recipe, depending on the number of guests

In 4 cup microwave measuring cup, combine butter, brown sugar, corn syrup, and salt. Mix well. Microwave for two minutes. Stir, microwave 2-3 minutes until the mixture reaches a rolling boil. Stir in baking soda, pour over popcorn, and mx well. Microwave two minutes. Spread onto wax paper and let cool.

See, super easy and oh so good!

Hope you did too! If not . . . get on it. =)

Tea Parties, Date Night, and Pumpkins, Oh My!

Yes, our weekend was jam packed. Again. However, unlike last weekend (which you will notice I did not post on), this weekend was full of family fun. --*Note: we celebrated Josh's birthday last weekend with a VERY stressful family dinner at our house. While it ended up being fun, it was a bit chaotic getting up to it.--

Saturday afternoon the girls and I headed to Salem for a birthday tea party at Spoons for my cousin's daughter Keira. They wore their super cute tutus and sparkly shoes and had a great time drinking pink milk,eating yummy scones, and scoping out the presents with Keira. To be perfectly honest, I had an even better time eating the scones. They were amazing as was the birthday cake from Gerry Frank's. Yum, yum, yum! Sydne's birthday is now in just over a week and I am going to have a hard time competing with this birthday celebration.

My parent's took the girls overnight on Saturday and made Josh and I go to the new Fireproof movie. If you haven't been, I would highly recommend it as it was a great reminder of the importance of your marriage vows. While it was a little on the cheesy side (I don't think Kirk Cameron will ever be non-cheesy), it did make both Josh and I laugh and tear up. It also made for very good conversation afterwards as we spent some time examining our marriage and "issues." Yes, we have them. ;)

Yesterday afternoon we headed to the pumpkin patch which was also a lot of fun. We saw a friend of mine from college and the girls immediately became friends with her son and spent a ton of time playing on the straw bales and in the petting zoo. We found our pumpkins, took some pictures, and bought apple cider donuts for dessert and headed home. Since I worked yesterday, I was too exhuasted to think about carving the pumpkins, so I think we'll do it tonight.

I love weekends where I get to enjoy my girls and my husband. I am so thankful for all that God has blessed us with over these past (almost) 7 years. Yes, life is stressful and crazy and I forget just about everything on a regular basis, but I wouldn't change a thing. =)

Grandma Gigi, Keira, & Sydney Rae

Sydney & her new friend (So Cute!!)

The Fam

The girls & I

Piles of pumpkins

Crafty Saturday

Fall is here and it is one of my favorite times to decorate my home. As soon as I got home from our fun in the sun, I set out to Craft Warehouse to pick up the necessary items for the season. My favorite fall project is making glitter pumpkins and I thought I'd share the idea with you. I did this for the first time last fall and they turned out great and even lasted through Thanksgiving.

To get started, you will need to collect the following: little pumpkins or gourds to "glittify," a jar of Mod Poge (or other gluing substance), a small paintbrush (I use the cheapy foam brushes), newspaper to work on, two paper plates, and various shades of glitter. A note on the glitter - last year I used regular glitter which worked okay, but this year I found this specialty art glitter in fall colors with pretty intense color. It worked great! It is called Barbara Trombley's art glitter and I found it at Craft Warehouse.

Once you have your supplies you just paint glue onto the pumpkins and sprinkle the glitter on. I do mine in sections and use the two paper plates to reuse the glitter after each sprinkling. It takes a pretty heavy coat of glitter to completely cover the pumpkins. After they are finished, I let them dry for a few hours before I arrange them.

As you can see from my finished product, I did a few colors this year. Since I had leftovers of each color, I mixed them all together and used the leftovers to do a few more pumpkins. Beware, the glitter doesn't go too far. I was able to do two pumpkins with each container of glitter, and then two "leftovers".

The end result is glittery pumpkins that look great as a centerpiece or in a clear vase. Lots of fun for fall!

Last Weekend

Well, since the weekend is just about here, I should get my post on last weekend up and running. We came home from vacation Friday night, only to see Josh for about 20 minutes before he headed to work. I was so exhausted I climbed into bed and fell asleep. About an hour later I woke up to Josh standing in the doorway with flowers (I don't think he felt good knowing that someone could actually enter our home in the middle of the night and I would be oblivious). They were overstaffed at work and let him have the night off. Yay!

On Saturday one of his cop friends called and offered us Duck tickets and of course Josh jumped at the chance to watch his beloved team play. He took me (usually it would be his dad), and we dropped the kiddos off at his parent's and headed to Eugene. The game was fun. The Ducks weren't playing great, but they played well enough to beat UCLA and there was a big fight in the stands when one of the UCLA players got hurt so it was fun to watch. =) I'm not a huge football fan, but we had the best time together.

On Sunday we thankfully made it to church and then hit Costco and Winco on the way home to stock our empty cupboards. I was cracking up in church when my number was displayed to pick Annie up in the middle of service. They informed me that she had told them "I'm DONE"!! To be honest, since I'd had only a few hours of sleep the night before, I felt the same way. It was a good service . . . just extra long. We snuggled outside and listened to the rest of church and visited with a friend.

Monday evening we were able to head to my parent's house to welcome 1.5 tons of grapes for the wine they will be making. My little brother's best friend John has a degree in viticulture from OSU and he is going in business with my dad making wine. This is the first year and you have to press the grapes soon after they are picked. They were delivered at 9pm from Ashland and the guys finished the process at 12:30am. Whew! I didn't help because I was too cold and didn't want purple fingers, but it was really cool to see the process. John has spent the last few days babysitting the grapes as they begin the fermentation process, and it will be really fun to watch this dream of theirs unfold.


On another wine note, how do you think a wine shop would fare in downtown Salem?? It was John's idea, but I started bugging him about it this last week at work and now can't get the idea out of my head. The entrepreneur side of me would love to have a retail space and this is way better than my last idea of cupcake sales. =) Currently there is only one shop and it's pretty insignificant. I think everyone around here buys wine from Roth's or Costco - neither of whom offer any advice. Any input would be appreciated!

Happy Friday!

Goofy self portrait at the game!

One container of grapes

This is the most excited I've ever seen John!

Sorting the leaves and BUGS out of the grapes!

The grape crushing machine (not sure of it's real name). It takes the vines off the grapes.

The grapes ready for fermentation

Vacation Highlights

Our vacation was 14 days of FUN, FUN, FUN! Our first five days included Poppa & Josh in Newport Beach. While we weren't crazy about Newport, we had a blast visiting San Diego & Disneyland. We decided to head to Palm Springs early, and as soon as Josh was dropped off at the airport we made the trek to the desert.

We spent the next three days relaxing by the pool (more like chasing the kids around the pool) and were happy to welcome our dear family friends Toni & Sue on Friday. Saturday Austyn arrived to help me take care of the kiddos. What a blessing she was! It was so wonderful to have a helper by the pool, and she even stayed with the girls so I could go out to dinner and shopping with Toni, Sue, and my mom. Dad left Sunday and our girls week began!

Our daily schedule included time at the pool, waterslide, shopping, and yummy dinners! It was a great time to see Toni & Sue and enjoy the girls. Syd & Annie had the best time, but we all missed Josh and were ready to come home.

Now we're home, reminiscing about all of our fun times. I put together my pictures into a (long) slide show. I think everyone else actually had better pics, but these will have to do for now.

Some of our favorite memories . . .

• Disneyland with daddy - the girls had such a magical day and we loved seeing the smiles on their faces!
• The waterslide. It took up a huge part of our trip. Each time Annie would go down she would say "it's gonna be fun" and then say "again, again" as she was going down the slide. The more splash, the better. Sydney observed all the big kids and talked Sue into doing "the taco" by turning the mat horizontally (it was way faster). Sue embellished the taco by asking her if she wanted it spicy or mild.
• Boogers and French Fries. On the last night, it was just Toni and my mom & I left and the girls were DONE. To get them to laugh, Toni turned the "Open them, shut them" song into Boogers and French Fries. It was hilarious!
• Spending time with my dad. It had been a long time since I'd vacationed with him. Since we spend most of our time together at work, it was nice to just relax and have fun. And my mom - I adore our vacations together. It was weird to share her with so many people!
• Pool time with Toni and Sue. I forgot how much I love and miss them!!!

We had too much fun and many more memories, but my post is getting longwinded so I'll stop. Enjoy the slideshow and my video of the waterslide - this is what we did when the girls napped with Austyn. . . and when they were awake. =)

Make a Smilebox slideshow My little fish =)

Palm Springs Top Ten

The girls and I are on vacation right now in Palm Springs and loving every second of it. While my plan was to blog about our trip and post sunny pool pictures, I've been enjoying time away from the computer. I'll try to fill you in on the details soon, but until then here is my Palm Springs Top Ten list (I love it here and wish I could convince my husband the desert would be a great place to live)!

1. Steinmart
2. The sun
3. The Pool
4. Palm trees
5. Bob Hope (inside joke, just ask Sydney about him - he's right up there with God in her book - literally)
6. The Saturday Market AKA Knockoff Heaven
7. Bling
8. The chirpy night bugs
9. Steinmart - it's worth a second mention
10. El Paseo Shopping