(*cue music*) It’s beginning to look a lot like…..Halloween!!

Well, there’s nothing like waiting until the last minute, especially for Halloween decorations that I’ll need to take down in three days.  I haven’t really done a lot of Halloween décor in the past, but now that Elin is here, I feel like I should.  Or maybe she’s just my excuse for it, I don’t know.  Also, it’s not just Elin.  Our friends, Jon, Ali and their girls are coming down from Phoenix for Halloween.  It has sort of become a family tradition to celebrate Halloween with them.  It’s a tradition that has grown in population each year, because the first year it was 4 adults and one little baby – Amelia.  Last year it was 2 adult men, 2 pregnant women and 1 bigger baby - still Amelia.  This year we’re ready to trick-or-treat with 4 adults and 3 little girls - Amelia, Olivia and Elin.  I’m just hoping that these statistics aren’t linear.  They should start rounding off any time.  I’ll be sure to update my blog with lots of pictures.  Until then, here is what I’ve done so far to prepare for Halloween.

Bats!

When I saw these on MADE, I knew I had to make them.  They really are the perfect Halloween decoration because they’re cheap, easy and not ridiculously tacky.  Win-win-win.  I know it’s late in the game, but here is the template if you’re interested.  I just used the original size and then also scaled it down to 70% so I had a little variation.  I used a manila folder for my template; the paper was too flimsy.  I picked up some black cardstock at target (fyi – apparently Office Max doesn’t carry black cardstock), fold each piece in half, trace, cut and voila!  A colony of bats!  Just get some double stick tape and you’re ready to go!  Duct tape if you’re putting them outside.  Obviously, the cardstock won’t last forever, but I’m guessing I can get a few good years out of these babies.  Elin loves them.

Pumpkins!

Yes, I know, these aren’t REAL pumpkins.  These are the foam ones from Michaels that I love.  The first year we were in Arizona, I discovered the hard way that if you spend hours carving an incredibly detailed jack-o-lantern a week before Halloween, by the next night it will start to curl in on itself until it eventually just collapses and starts to smell.  Yep.  You’d better take lots of pictures of your pumpkin the night you carve it because they just don’t have much of a life span in 94 degree heat.  Yes, it was 94 degrees today.  Sooo……I turned to my good friends, the foam pumpkins that never die.  I do a new one each year, and this year I honored the bats.  I really enjoy bringing out my pumpkins from Halloweens past.  I just wonder down the road, say 10 years or so, if Matt is willing to build me a pumpkin shed to house them all.  If he loves me he will.  J 

Not to be outdone, I do have 3 real pumpkins that we bought in Wilcox at the pumpkin patch.  They’re holding up surprisingly well.  I think they’re actually gourds, and I don’t really know if they can be carved, but I think I just want to keep them out and see how long they last.  They’re really cool, and I think they’d be pretty for Thanksgiving, although I doubt they’ll last that long.  So I have my foam jack-o-lanterns and real gourds, but the purist in me still wants to carve an actual pumpkin.  Don’t worry, we have plans to do that with Jon, Ali and the girls.  So everybody wins.  I’ll be sure to give updates on that as well.  Until then, have a very Happy Halloween weekend!

"Yeah, I'm a big girl drinking from a sippy cup. What?"

I'm Baa-aaack!!

Our boat.

About to walk onto the boat!  Getting excited!

The main lobby.  This piano player kind of creeped me out.

Yes, it’s been a while.  I should have given an update on my blog before I left but I just didn’t get a chance.  I, along with my 4 best friends from high school (Alana, Allison, Jessi and Megan) went on a little cruise.  I’m not going to lie, it was pretty sweet.  After years of saying, “We all should get together!”  and “We should totally go on a trip or something”, we finally did it.  We’ve been planning this trip for almost a year.  It started as just something fun to talk about and then it slowly became something that might actually happen.  After some discussion about what we should do we decided on a 3 day cruise from Miami to the Bahamas.  This meant that we all met up the day before the cruise in Miami, for a bonus day of fun. 

The first things each of us enjoyed on the ship.

Even though we bought our tickets in Feburary, I was still in disbelief that this trip would actually happen until all five of us were on that boat.  But all five of us did make it onto the boat, thankfully.  And then the fun began.  As soon as we got there, we each enjoyed the following:  Me- a pina colada, Megan-a strawberry daqueri, Allsion-a gin and tonic, Alana-ice cream and coffee, and Jessi- potato salad.  Yep.  See the picture to the left if you don't believe me.  We had some amazing food (like warm chocolate melting cake) and several really expensive drinks.  We went to a comedy show one night and a dancing/singing show another night (kind of like when Jessi was in Show Choir).  Some of us went power snorkeling (like James Bond) and we did a lot of laying out in the sun and reading. 

Allison rockin' the mic'.

One of my favorite nights though was karaoke night.  There were a lot of interesting performances, one performer, for example, went by the name, GiGi and wore a brown leather vest with fringe on it that went to the floor.  She was very fun.  My favorite singer though, by far, was by our very own, Allison.  I swear I’m not being biased, she was definitely the best.  The guy in front of us thought so too, he got really into it. 

This trip gave me some much needed girl time and while I missed Matt and Elin very much, it was a nice break from all of the poopy diapers.  Mostly though, this trip was special because all five of us girls live in completely different cities, and we all came together in Miami for this cruise.  I don’t get to see these girls very often, but when I do we definitely live it up.  

The wonkavators.

We're about to go power snorkeling.

Dinner time.

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

So Friday was nightfall.  Saturday was recovery from nightfall.  And Sunday we loaded up the baby and drove to Wilcox, about two hours away.  “What’s in Wilcox?”, you ask?  Not much.  Not much at all, except for Apple Annie’s Orchard!  Believe it or not, there’s not a lot of produce being grown in the middle of the Sonoran Desert, unless you count prickly pears.  Wilcox, however, is higher in elevation and therefore much more conducive to agriculture.  Driving on the dirt roads with cattle on one side of the car and apple trees on the other, I almost thought we were back in Missouri. 

We went to Apple Annie’s Orchard first, where they had everything from apple butter to apple pie to apple salsa, which is only so much fun when you have a husband that doesn’t like apples.  I swear, I will never understand that.  There’s still a part of me that wonders if he’s just playing a big joke, and on our 50^th wedding anniversary, he’s going to say “Gotcha!  Of course I like apples!!  Who wouldn’t?!?”.  Until then, he says he doesn’t like them.  So we didn’t spend a lot of time at the orchard.  We went on to Apple Annie’s Pumpkin Patch, which is open seasonally.  

The pumpkin patch had a gigantic corn maze, which took just long enough for us to get sick of being in the corn maze.  Then we took a hayride out to the pumpkin patch.  You could pick your own pumpkin, which was cool, but we ended up just picking some gourds at the produce stand.  We also bought some zucchini and winter squash for baby food (also for us).  I know that next year will be very different with Elin running around, so we’re appreciating the ease of the baby bjorn.  It was a very good day, and I hope to make this a family tradition for us.  

This is actually an aerial photo of the corn maze!!!

Corn.

Hayride!

Sunflowers!

Pumpkins!

Big pumpkin!

Tasting the big pumpkin.

What time is it, Daddy?

I heart Nightfall.

Things have been crazy lately and we had a very busy weekend.  That’s why I’m still the…..Worst.  Blogger.  Ever.  Anyway, on Friday we had a big night.  Matt and I got a babysitter and went with Jennifer to Nightfall.  This is our 3^rd year in a row that the three of us have gone, and it’s always, always a good time.  I’ll back up.  If you’ve ever heard of “Old Tucson Studios”, that’s where Nightfall is.  Basically, ‘Old Tucson Studios’ are the remaining movie sets where they used to shoot a lot of the old western movies.  They’ve taken the sets, preserved them, and turned them into sort of a theme park, for lack of a better term.  If you go any month besides October, it sort of looks like Silver Dollar City, but without any rides.  That’s the best way I can describe it. 

So, during the entire month of October, Old Tucson Studios transforms into NIGHTFALL.  All of the old buildings turn into haunted houses, there are different “scary” shows going on, the train becomes a scary haunted train and there are creepy goblin monsters that walk around the park trying to scare you.  Oh yeah, and they serve beer, that you can take with you all around the park.  Yep.  We love this place.  

This is inside one of the haunted houses.

Jennifer with a clown.

Scary monster on stilts.

Me kissing a scary monster because I had had too much beer.

Worst. Blogger. Ever.

I know, I know, don’t even say it.  It’s been *gasp* three days without a word, or even a picture.  I really have no excuse other than the six month old that orders me around all the time.  (Yes, my teeny tiny little baby girl turned 6 months old on Tuesday)  It’s all Elin’s fault.  Also, this whole blog world has been motivating me to do all kinds of things, which is good. The problem is that it hasn’t been super helpful as far as motivating me to do laundry or pick up the house.  So I took some time to make our house livable again. While I was taking my blogging break though, I did get a few fun things accomplished:

-I made my sister’s Halloween costume (another apron) which I will post later. 

-I turned my guest room into a crafting/sewing room (and it’s still a guest room, don’t worry to all of you that use it).  It’s going to be pretty sweet, so I’ll make it into its own post later when it’s ready. 

-I got the materials for Elin’s Halloween costume; she’s going to be a pterodactyl.

-I also made a couple of cards that my sister needed to give to her bosses for Boss’ Day.  (see right)

The most important thing though, was on Wednesday.  My husband and I celebrated our 3 year wedding anniversary!  Yay!  Actually we went out on Tuesday because that’s when Aunt Jennifer could watch the baby.  We saw an awesome movie, Catfish, you all should check it out.  We also went to one of our favorite restaurants, Amber.  Good stuff.  And then last night, since it was our “real” anniversary night, I made a dessert that Jon had told me about.  Oh yeah, Jon’s totally trying to out-Suzie-Homemaker-me.  Over the weekend he made his own yogurt, cheese, butter, bread, and then this dessert.  Whatever, Jon.  J Anyway, he gave me permission to share the recipe with you.  It’s not healthy in any way whatsoever.  Deal with it. 

Chocolate Bread Pudding

4 c. bread, cubed, crusts removed, 6-7 slices
1/2 c. pecans, coarsely chopped
1 1/2 c. milk
2 (2 oz.) sq. unsweetened chocolate
3 eggs
1 c. brown sugar, firmly packed
1 tsp. vanilla extract
Whipped cream; optional

Grease a 1 1/2 quart casserole. Place bread cubes and nuts in prepared casserole. Heat milk and chocolate in a small saucepan until chocolate melts. Beat eggs and sugar, at high speed. Stir in chocolate mixture and vanilla. Pour over bread and nuts. Cover and let stand at room temperature (about 30 minutes). Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Bake pudding uncovered 30-35 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean, cool 1 hour. Serve with whipped cream.

I followed the recipe almost exactly, I used 3 oz of chocolate instead of 2, so it was more like dark chocolate.  Mmmmmm…………..pure heaven.  Soooooo good.  Even my non-dessert-loving-husband loved it.  We enjoyed this cuddled up on the couch with a glass (or two) of pinot noir.  And that makes a very good anniversary.  Enjoy!  

Aebleskiver or Oxtail? I’ll have both.

 Last night we went to ‘Tucson Meet Yourself’, a festival of ethnic foods, cultures and lots of interesting people.  I definitely had some high expectations because going all the way downtown on a Saturday night takes about an hour and a half with traffic, parking and dodging of drunk college kids.  Luckily those expectations were met, if not exceeded.  The main attraction here, for us anyway, is the food.  


Everywhere you look there are stands selling the most popular cuisines of various countries.  Each stand gives you several options, and most are small portions and small prices ($2-$6).  I loved this because Matt and I just shared one item at each place, letting us taste a lot of different cuisines.  

We had food from Costa Rica, Sweden, the Philippines, Korea, Jamaica and Denmark.  All of it was good, some was better than others.  My favorites were the Filipino noodle/chicken/eggroll dish and the Danish Aebleskiver (sorry Sweden, but there’s only so much you can do with a meatball).  Aebleskivers, from what I understand, are made from a batter that is similar to a buttermilk pancake, but they are round and cooked in special aebleskiver pans.  They are served with powdered sugar and raspberry jam.  Var sa god.  We also had oxtail stew, from Jamaica.  Not my favorite, but now I can say I’ve had oxtail.  There’s also quite a bit of entertainment.  There was the African group on one stage and then an ‘Iron Chef’ competition at another one.  A group of bagpipes marched by us at one point too, which was fun since I just found out that I’m part Scottish.  All of the sudden they sound much less like noise to me.  All in all it was a good night and worth the headache that is Tucson traffic.  Hejda!

Man I love my kid...

...because she let us sleep in until 9:00 today.  Elin, that officially makes you my favorite baby EVER.  That hasn't happened in about 6 months, probably longer.

“Ward, I’m very worried about the Beaver.”

I apologize for the wordless, pictureless, titleless, Thursday.  The day just got away from me, and to be honest, it didn’t even cross my mind until I got a harassing e-mail from my sister about it.  Hi Jenn.  I did technically did have two posts on Wednesday, though, so that should count for something. 

Anyway, after finishing my first apron, I stumbled upon Anthropologie’s website.  I often forget about Anthropologie because it’s almost too painful to look at.  I love EVERYTHING about this store.  If I designed my own line of clothes or home furnishings, I’d have some major problems because everything would end up looking exactly like their stuff.  I take it back.  I love everything but the prices.  At $78 for a t-shirt, I don’t love the prices.  I can hear myself now, “Sorry, Elin, you don’t get any diapers this month because Mommy REALLY needed this $148 sweater.”  I actually haven’t really even purchased much from the store for that reason alone, but I love to look and fantasize about winning the lottery so I can buy the store out.  Ahhhh…one day. 

So back to aprons.  Anthropologie has aprons – really cute ones.  Once I saw these I couldn’t help but make another one.  This one will be my hostess apron.  Or I can vacuum ‘June Cleaver style’ in my heels and pearls with it.  You know, just like I do every day.