A time to be Thankful.....

I took all the Halloween decorations down yesterday, and put up a few      Thanksgiving things......

I have been doing a little bit of "crafting"  we made these cute wooden stands with some great sayings on them

Blessed beyond measure...  yes I am!! So grateful for the many blessings in my life- Is it perfect? No- but there are so many GREAT things in my life everyday!!!

This one is probably my FAVORITE!!!  Everything looks better with a Grateful heart!!!

I put this chair up in the entry for my Halloween things & loved it- so I kept it there and stuck some fall things on it....

Oh how I love fall.....

Hope all of you take some time during this time of year and think of all the things in your life that are so GREAT!  It won't take long to see just how blessed we really are......

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!!!

We had our Family Halloween party- it was a lot of fun!!! This year I kept it pretty simple-

Halloween is all about the candy- at least that's what the little boys think.

But we did have more than candy.... these are pineapple & Mandarin oranges with whipping cream on top...and a few cockroaches on the side-

there were spider egg sacks..... (white cheddar cheese balls)

witch brooms made with string cheese & pretzel sticks.... I made these last year & they were a hit- so I made them again!

of course caramel apples too

I found these cute Halloween cups at walmart- and made green Frankenstein rice krispy treats in them  

It's amazing what a few things put together can look like....  we also had taco soup, rolls & salad

very easy graveyard pudding cups with crushed up oreo's on top, and a candy corn- I looked all over for the ghost peeps- but couldn't find them- they would have been darling!

mini cupcakes- perfect size for the little monsters to eat-

a jar full of little cuties - made to look like Jack-o-lanters

and straws of course .... for the Italian soda's and other drinks- everything tastes better with a cute striped straw!

add a few games: Balloon popping,  Halloween Bingo & Bobbing for apples and you've got a fun party..... I can't believe it's already Halloween.  Time goes by so quickly- take time to enjoy it and make some memories with those you love the most! :)

Happy Halloween

October is going as fast as September did.... I've got a few things up for Halloween-- but really need to start planning our Halloween party!!!  Any ideas? What are y'all doing this year for your parties?  I would LOVE some ideas.  

Diaper Cake

I hosted a baby shower last week for a Mom having TWINS a Boy & a Girl!!!  How fun is that going to be?  I am way excited.... I'll be getting 3 Grand-babies in the next few weeks!!  FUN-  I wanted to make a diaper cake for the center piece at the shower & after looking at them on line- I decided the ones I looked at were really complicated.  So here's what I came up with- it was easy and worked up in less that an hour. I bought 2 pkg. of the newborn diapers and didn't use all of them on the cake- I should of counted how many I had left, but I didn't I just tied them up with some bakers twine & put them in with her gift!  So if you buy 2 bags you'll have enough to make this cake & have extra!!

First lay the diaper down like the first photo- then starting from the bottom roll it upward as it shows in the 2nd photo

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when you have 3 diapers rolled, bundle them together with an elastic. 

Continue to roll them into bundles of three until you have as many as you want for your bottom layer.  I used a glass cake plate to put them on. Set all the bundles on top of the plate and then with some string wrap all of them together. Tie them secure and then take the elastics off- it will look like this.  I had around 40 rolled diapers on the bottom layer. Once they are tied together, if you need a few more just roll them and stuff them in with the others to fill out the circle. 

Do the same thing for the next layer.. making it a little smaller to stack it on top of the bottom one.

And again for the top layer- I used 6 diapers on top.  Now it's time to put the ribbon on.....

Wrap your ribbon around each layer- I attached it with a couple of straight pins, just poke them right into the diaper.  It worked so much better that gluing or taping them.

Then you're ready to decorate with some cute fun baby "stuff" rattles, ducks, toys, booties, medium size bottles of lotion, shampoo, wash, oil, and powder. I tied all the bottles & the ducks with ribbon and just sat them on the diaper ledge and on top of the cake. The rattles and other things I also tied with ribbon and bakers twine then I attached them the same way I did the ribbon around the cake... with small straight pins.

And that's it... it took less than an hour to make and turned out darling!!! So if you have ever wondered how hard it would be to make one- try it, I promise you will be surprised how fun and easy they are!! 

Fall is in the air!

Well, it's up!!! I was ready for a change inside....so I switched my table-scape from summer  to fall.  I love the fall, I love everything about it, the colors, the crisp mornings, the harvest, the cooler days.  I haven't gotten everything out, but here's a peek at what I did get done today! 

Play Sign

Now that School is back are you having a hard time with kids knocking on your door right when it's homework time or dinner time? Well, why don't you give this sign a try. It has worked wonders for us! Simply print out the picture. Cut out the signs glue them together (or have them laminated if you are like that) and hang it on your door.

yes/no Can Play Sign by Jamie Jesperson Hamblin

Tomatoe Basil Bread Stacks

I told you - you were in for a treat.. here it is!  Oh don't they look delish?  A year ago I shared with you one of our families favorite summer snacks.  Tomatoe, basil & mozzarella cheese mixed together with balsamic vinaigrette.  Well here is another version RuthAnn made us after we decorated cookies with her. First slice a baguette, then place a slice of mozzarella cheese on each slice of bread. Then add a slice of tomatoe, and a basil leaf.....      

place them on a lined cookie sheet & drizzle with Paul Newmans balsamic vinaigrette dressing 

place in the oven and broil them until the cheese melts and the bread is toasted. Look at that- healthy never looked so good!!! One bite you'll be hooked!! Did I mention my friends can cook? And yes... I do love that.  Thanks RuthAnn- you're the best. Love ya!

 

Missionary Sugar cookies

Oh I have a fun one to post today!!! A couple of weeks ago I was asked to help one of my favorite people make cookies for her Grandsons Mission Farewell.  I love when I get to hang out with this fun group of friends.  RuthAnn, Jean, LuAnn, Shirley & Dave.  Five of us out of the group have been doing things together for 20 years now.  They are all Teachers I met when my children were going to Elementary school-and oh how I love them!!  So when RuthAnn asked us to help with the cookies I was so excited, I had never made Missionaries before, but Dave had helped make some for a couple of his Nephews----so he was the expert.  They are made out of a gingerbread man cookie cutter- how cleaver is that?  I thought they turned out so darling......

we used the glaze frosting recipe I have used for a few years, it's easy- you pipe around the outside edges and then flood the center with the frosting, and it works great. I'll post the recipe soon

they have to set for a while to harden, and you can freeze them once they are set- it was such a fun day- all of us helped in some way......some of us had more stressful parts than others lol- and I totally passed on the ties- Dave had that one under control :)  There were a couple of moments I wondered if they were really going to be presentation worthy for a farewell- so I decided to share the "before" we cleaned them up picture for you all to see- and here it is......

See what I mean?  The oozing, dripping, running frosting had me a bit nervous... I thought oh no they are a disaster-- so you can see from the picture that they really do clean up very nice!!!  All you need is a tooth pick to scrape around the edge- so scroll up one picture and see how they transform from mess- to perfection!!  Come back Wednesday and see the LOVELY snack we had after the cookie making was all done-- you are in for a TREAT!! 

AHOY MATEY'S - Pirate Party

We had our Pirate Party/sleep over this last week... I had been crazy busy with 2 weddings- so it was simple, but everyone had a lot of fun. Adam helped me make this sign to welcome the little scoundrels.  I had them each take a pirate flag as they came into the back yard.  

We had pizza for dinner, so I just had a table set up with some treats and snacks to munch on through-out the night

Cookies, drinks, chocolate coins in the treasure box.... the center piece was made of small paper treasure boxes filled with "Treasure" of course.  They each got to take 2 boxes....

I had extra nacho containers from our movie night, so I stapled them in the middle to look like a boat- filled them with crackers, pretzels, & popcorn. Then glued a flag onto a stripe straw for a pirate boat.

There were treasure maps to color 

they loved the treasure hunt... I had clues attached to sm. pirate flags for them to find. They were simple clues like "go give the scruffy mutt a bone."-- which lead them to the dog kennel and another flag with a clue.....

the last clue lead them to the sand box where they had to dip up the treasure.... it was everything they needed to dress up as.......

PIRATES... of course.  Aren't they the cutest little scallywags you've ever seen??

we played pin the eye patch on the parrot & walked the plank- then told pirate stories around the bon fire while they roasted marshmallows... then it was time for bed!!!

It turned out to be a very fun party... they just like to be together!  This was our last summer play day- I'm not sure how I feel about that!!  But I think there will be many more parties to come. :)