HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Happy Halloween Everyone!  While we have pretty much celebrated everything there is about halloween already, I still have a few tricks and treats up my sleeve for my kiddos!!  Everyone went dressed up in their black and orange today and us girls have our halloween socks on too!  We've got our semi traditional dinner planned tonight...Kraft pumpkin shaped mac and cheese (thanks Aunt Laura!) and mummy dogs!  The kids are super excited!  Not often they get boxed mac and cheese and hot dogs on the same night!  And carrots...because they're orange and we must have a little something healthy!  I did my usual peanut butter/jelly sandwiches stamped with the bat cookie cutter for one half and a pumpkin for the other.  Sure hope it makes my kiddos smile at lunch time.  Oh...and I threw in a little candy pumpkin for their dessert...that I am SURE will make them smile!

And because their parties were last week I asked both of their teachers if I could make a fun treat for today and they both agreed.  So...to the 3rd graders went Candy Corn M&M blondies (I omitted the oil and used another stick of butter instead and spread them into a 13x9 pan instead of cookies to save time :) and to the kindergarteners went rice krispie treats with pumpkins on top!  Pumpkins picked straight out of here:

I may indulge in a few pieces of this bag today...after all it IS Halloween!  Even though we trick or treated and collected more candy than we can possibly eat and had our halloween parties, we can still enjoy a little bit of fun today....you all know I love my themes and there's not much not to love about  a fun holiday like Halloween!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN....have a Spooktacular day!

Yet another year older...

Yep, today's my birthday.  I love birthdays, not only mine but everyone's birthday.  Its a day to celebrate and have a party and just be fun...what's not to love.  I know not everyone does, but I do so I celebrated...by going to work!  boo!  Oh well, such is life when you are 37...not that I remember but my kids told me and everyone else I saw today that that's my age.  If I ever lose my memory I have a couple back ups :)

Anyway, what I wanted to share is that because of our crazy day that is always a weekday, I had to cook and if I wanted a cake that I could actually eat, I had to make it.  Hubby's late day at work today, busy after school and the kids insisted we had to have cake and/or ice cream for my birthday.  I have pretty much cut out cake and ice cream and I don't do well together on a regular basis so I have been very much cutting back on that too so I really was fine just making my shrimp and chicken stiry fry and having a quiet night on the couch.  BUT....I didn't want to disappoint my sugar seeking children so I compromised and made this cake.  I had to add about 3 T maple syrup to make it taste like a cake to me but otherwise it was pretty good.  I was pleasantly surprised.  The frosting (which I added like 1-2 T honey too but probably didn't have to) was delish!  Could've just eaten an entire bowl of that stuff no problem.  Anyway, served it up with some all natural vanilla ice cream and the kids thought it was some great stuff!  It would have never been my choice for a birthday cake...I am NOT a chocolate cake gal at all, but it was a nice treat and it won't leave me feeling sick tomorrow (I don't think!) which was a good bonus.  And I feel better that I gave my family a healthy treat yet still a treat.  I know some people think that's weird, that you can indulge once in a while.  And I agree, indulge once in a while but today was not the day I felt like indulging, so I skipped it.  I will indulge on a different day and let's face it people...halloween is so close that those kids can miss the sugar and make up for it soon!

I do have to say that I share a birthday with a little girl in my daughter's class so I gave her a balloon today and wrote a note saying that I was so happy that I shared my birthday with a sweet little girl and put a bag of these delicious m&m's (like a handful in a ziploc bag to use as a weight) attached to her balloon.  But..I had to try just 2 as they have been eyeing me up all fall here.  Then I let the kids each have 2.  Yep, 2.  That's it and I seriously never heard a word about it.  That's how we roll around here!

 

 

 

 



Go ahead try a couple..its worth it!!

It's October...or ROCKTOBER!

Why do I say Rocktober?  Only because I've seen that everywhere lately for all different reasons.  I think its appropriate given that October is by far my FAVORITE month!  There really isn't much I don't like about this month.  Let me tell you why in case you may have forgotten!

-My birthday!!!  Yes, I'm turning 37 this year and still LOVE to celebrate my birthday.  Heck, I love to celebrate anyone's birthday.  There's just something fun about having a day that is special for you (even if there are a million people that share that day)

-Halloween!  What is NOT to love about Halloween?!  I do know some people that don't love it, but I can not comprehend.  You can dress up and be someone else or something else for a day and you get candy, and lots of it, for free!!  Hello?!  Now grant it, I don't love candy as much as I used to but the idea still thrills me and well, my kiddos can hardly stand that they have to wait almost 4 more weeks for trick or treat!

-Beautiful colors!  I LOVE fall colors.  Every day that I watch my tree change colors makes me smile.  I love watching the yellows, oranges and reds all over the place.  Makes me happy happy happy!  And on the halloween note...I love ORANGE!  We were decorating for Halloween yesterday and pulled out the purple lights and orange lights and my little girlie got all excited.  Excited because she loves holiday decorating like her mama but she loves purple!  And I said to her, this is the best holiday ever!  We get to decorate with purple and orange (and black)  I love orange and you love purple!  And that put a big fat smile on her adorable face!  She is definitely my daughter!

-The weather!  I love myself some 60's.  Don't get me wrong, I love summer!  LOVE summer!  I love to be warm and not cold.  But, I also love to wear hooded sweatshirts, jeans and fun sweaters.  So, as long as we don't dip much below 50-55, I love October weather.  Cool nights, comfortable sunny days. 

-The food!  I gave into fall food last week when we had a few dips in temps.  That and I could hardly stand staring at squash at the farmer's market anymore and not buying it!  Then, at Sam's club I saw the 3 pack of pumpkin and well, that was it!  I mean I had to buy it, what if we had a shortage again?!  That would be tragic!  Pumpkin anything rocks!  Then, I pulled out the pumpkin blondie recipe.  I tried to make it twice and had to keep reminding myself I was out of a couple of the key ingredients.  But everyone loves those so I can't wait to make those soon!  Yesterday I made some coconut pumpkin bread, nut free cherry chocolate chip granola bars for the kids (that's a secret recipe for now as I created it and I'm not sure when I want to share it), and spiced sweet potato blondies as a little treat for the family but still somewhat healthy.  Yes, I was a baking machine yesterday.  But in fall, on Sundays, I often bake, make and create for the week so we have lots of healthy alternatives to grab for snacks, breakfasts or pre and post sport meals.  I also made some sweet potato hummus last week that was AWESOME!  so I will share that with you soon.  Oh and finally, apple butter...tried that for the first time ever.  Wow!  fun stuff!  See...I love fall food!

-Apple Picking!  Although the apple crop is super slim this year, we still managed to fit in some apple picking.  A little pricey but man did we have fun!  Its a tradition that my parents started with us when we were little and I hope to keep it going for many many years.  We always have fun and what's not to love about a fresh apple!  I only love apples for about 3 months out of the year, then they aren't as good anymore.

-Pumpkin patches and harvest festivals.  Only in October should you go to a pumpkin patch (in my opinion anyway)  Its something we always reserve for a weekend day.  I love to look at all the shapes and sizes and take fun pictures.  I can't wait to go this year!  Seriously, I can't wait! 

-Football!  Yes, football starts in September but I kind of half watch it the first few weeks.  For some reason when sports overlap (baseball and football) I can't quite get into one until the other is over.  Well, last year we had baseball quite a bit into October but this year our poor Brewers will end their season this week and while that makes me very sad as I love myself some baseball, I can now actually sit and watch a Packer game rather than also worrying if the Brewers are winning or not.  I'm not a guy, I can't do multiple sports and remember every single thing I want to remember.  My hubby on the other hand can remember every stat of every player or every sport that day.  Weird.  Maybe they can multi task?  Oh no, they can't.  They can only multi watch!

-Finally, Breast Cancer awareness month.  Now, this maybe isn't something to get super excited about but there are so many great fundraisers this month and actually a lot of fun things associated with raising money for an extremely important organization!  Well and everything turns pink.  I love pink.  Not as much as orange, but I love pink!  I also made a few important decisions this month.  My doctor recommended that I get a baseline mammogram sometime this year and I decided that October was the perfect month for that so I have that coming up (and honestly I'm not really dreading it, I'm looking at it as a healthy decision and maybe something I can do for myself in this important month) and I have been needing some new running shoes and have tried on a few different pairs.  Well, I made my decison based on something rather unique.  Yes, I was price shopping as I usually do, but I have been debating between a couple pairs that are similar in price.  Then I saw that finish line was donating $10 of every pair of these shoes sold to Susan G Komen and that was it, sign me up.  So these babies are on their way to my house soon!  And I've never had pink running shoes before so I'm pretty excited. These are a brand new shoe by Asics, first of its kind.  They are revamping their running shoe line so this shoe is supposed to be very similar to a shoe I have worn in the past and really like so I'm excited to see if it holds to be true.  But even if I don't love them I'll still keep them for bumming around and know that I donated to a good cause by purchasing them.  (oh and don't worry, I didn't pay full price, I had a coupon :)

So that's about it I think.  All the reasons why this is going to be ROCKTOBER!  I hope you all enjoy this time of year as well!  We had a very busy and sort of rough September so my mood already changed this morning when I realized it was a new month and my favorite month at that.  Time to re-focus and enjoy all those fun things I mentioned already! 

Now tell me...what is your favorite part of October? 

Hey, look who's back...and candy corn season has started

This is the time of year where so much fun stuff happens and I think to write about it all the time so finally I just said, do it!  There have been so many things going on and so many changes in my life since last I wrote that I will eventually uncover through various posts but today I wanted to share something COMPLETELY UNHEALTHY but oh so festive and oh so me :) 

See...I discovered these last week on the news while I was working out and promptly finished my workout and RAN to our front desk to share the news with 2 of my co-workers who I knew would be just as excited as I was...and they were.

Then, a couple days ago I got a text from one of those gals saying, I got a present for you at target today, guess what it is.  I knew immediately!!  And then today, she brought them in...and shared them with everyone and the package disappeared in minutes, literally.  It was fall candy sugar heaven all poured into one delicious cookie!  Oh the sweet creations I can make with these bad boys!

They taste like candy corn, they smell like candy corn and to anyone who really knows me they probably scream my name!!  Rest assured everyone, I have tried them and they are delish...almost too sweet (perish the thought!) as I have not been eating many sweets lately, but still too fun to ignore!

 

One last thing I will share as I was talking to my co-worker today is that for those that do indeed love candy corn we decided its only this time of year that we love it and that it is so irresistable for some unknown reason and SO SO good but for 2 months only, then it wears off and the craving doesn't hit again until september.  Is there something in the "fall air" that causes candy corn cravings?  I don't know but I am trying SO hard to ignore mine!  I at least make myself wait until October and this year it may even be til my birthday so as to avoid the ugly sugar high I don't need or want and to protect my poor body from such damage.  I don't think I can let them go completely...it'll be a true test of will power!



Flash Mob

Please tell me I'm not the only one who thinks Flash Mobs are like the coolest thing in the world?  Ok, maybe not in the world...but I love them, seriously love them.  I want to be somewhere where they are, I want to be a part of one...I love watching them!  Of course, I've only seen them on tv or on the internet but they do really exist.  Please tell me you've seen this T-Mobile commercial flash mob?  It's awesome and oh so Christmasy!  If not, watch it now!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_profilepage&v=vcmfCXwAFs4

And if you are one who dreams of being in one, like me, I may know of one coming up in the Milwaukee area.  I can't disclose the information publicly, but if you are seriously interested let me know...we can do it together!!  Because I don't think I can let an opportunity like this pass me by!

To Have the Imagination of a 4 year old...

This is just a cute story that I thought I'd share.  You will appreciate it more if you know my little girlie.  We were in the car, just talking about her morning at daycare and on our way to school...just chatting.  We had our Christmas radio station playing in the background.  All the sudden...Little Drummer Boy comes on the radio and she QUICKLY jumped in, changed the subject and said, "this is Special Baby's favorite song."  I promptly lit up in a smile and said, really?  I didn't know your babies had favorite songs?! 

For whatever reason, that song means something to that little girl and not a bad one.  I am pretty sure it's the rum pa pa pums that do it.  And for those that do know my girlie...special baby is her favorite.  She's the cutest apparently.  Boy baby is the next favorite (because I then asked her if he had a favorite song and she said no.) 

Now every time I hear Little Drummer Boy, I will think of my little girl and her Special Baby :)  and now so will you :)

My Thanksgiving

It's no secret..Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday.  I really don't know why I dislike it so much, I just do.  I guess it's just been one of those holidays that's never been super traditional to me or meant a whole lot.  Don't get me wrong, I am thankful for MANY things and I sort of reflect on that each year, I just don't love all things Thanksgiving.  (I do love the HUGE paper full of ads that comes to my door that morning and all the shopping that now starts at midnight though...which many people despise!)  Its mainly the food...I don't love turkey, I really don't like mashed potatoes, I can do without stuffing and rolls and corn and I hate gravy!  Pumpkin pie is ok if you don't have crust and any other pie I can let sit...I'm just not a pie gal.  I like veggies, but up until I came along there were no veggies at my husband's family's Thanksgiving...weird!  Oh wait..corn!  I remember having to explain that corn is not a real vegetable...ugh!  Anyway, I digress.  There are a couple things I like and like I said those are veggies (pretty much anything except green bean casserole...that's making healthy veggies unhealthy!) and fruit!

I also like the sales that come along in the grocery stores this time of year on that produce.  So, I take advantage of those sales and this year decided to create MY THANKSGIVING!  What I would actually prefer to eat on Thanksgiving.  Much healthier (and yes, I know...Thanksgiving is not the day to be healthy...blah blah!)  Everyday is a day to be healthy darn it!  Yes, I eat sweets and treats and not so good food sometimes, so can you,  but it's not necessary to make an entire day out of it!  My hubby does, I just can't.  I'll pay for it for days...just not worth it.  Anyway, so I had some cranberries, sweet potatoes and a boatload of squash in my fridge just waiting to be used.  Tonight, I used them.  I made my pre-thanksgiving, thanksgiving meal :)

I wish I would've taken a pic, it was pretty! 

Turkey Tenderloin:  rubbed with dijon mustard and sprinkled with thyme, rosemary and oregano...baked at 375 for 50+ min.

Cranberry Pear Sauce:  package of cranberries, 2 pears, 1/2 cup (or less) or agave and a cup of water...to deliciousness!  Very good and SO much healthier than those with 3 cups of sugar!  Recipe can be found here!

Autumn Harvest Salad:  that salad I wrote about here and found the recipe here....I think I'm taking this to Thanksgiving this year.  I will eat it all and be full and happy!  That stuff just screams fall and it's still fall next week no matter what the thermometer says!

Anyway, I loved the meal.  Actually everyone liked the meal.  I think it was the first meal in months (besides pizza night) that my kids didn't complain about anything!  They both asked for seconds of the cranberries and finished their plates, in a timely manner!  Perhaps it'll have to be my thanksgiving everyday!

Are you like most people and love Thanksgiving or are you like me and love shopping?