All Hallows Eve

         Happy Halloween Everyone!  Since I'm a big girl now and have to work on weekdays (even if they are partial holidays), we celebrated halloween this weekend, so here's a bit of my holiday!  Nic and Lindley went as PopEye and Olive while I was Little Red Riding Hood (complete with wolf Yuma by my side and a basket in hand) and Vlad went as a monkey or big teddy bear if you didn't see his tail...

          Monday we carved pumpkins together, but since the weather was poor we couldn't go pick them out so we settled for grocery store pumpkins and my kitchen table instead of my porch.  But we began the evening by baking pumpkin cookies with cinnamon and nutmeg.  Spending an evening being silly and creative with my friends is the perfect kind of night for me!  After cleaning out the pumpkins and drawing our designs, the boys finished carving while Lindley and I toasted the seeds in olive oil with pumpkin pie spice.  Our finished products, though not as perfect as we might have hoped, turned out so fun and festive anyway!

Cupcakes and Sparklers

          For the 4th of July I helped host a festive cookout for our close friends.  Along with watermelon, coleslaw, and strawberries, I made cupcakes for dessert.  Almost homemade, I used french vanilla cupcake mix and added blue marbling to the batter to make them more festive!  I think they turned out really beautiful, not to mention delicious.  They were definitely a party hit!

      With seasoned hamburgers and hot dogs, grilled pineapple, homemade deep fried french fries, out cookout was just the right way to get everyone together to celebrate our homeland!