Pictures

Part One: Random Madie Cuteness & Muffins

Madie loves to help me in the kitchen. On this particular morning she was using the slap chop to help me make...

...these super delicious muffins! I just took a boxed blueberry muffin mix and made according to the package directions except when it came time to stir in the blueberries I also added a pinch of cinnamon, some white chocolate chips (this is where the slap chop came in, since I was making mini muffins I wanted mini pieces of chocolate) and some coconut and then sprinkled coconut on top so that it would get nice and golden. I don't think I can eat a plain blueberry muffin again!

Random cute picture of Madie in her jammies

Part Two: Birthday Celebrations
I wanted a Black Forest Cake for my birthday treat and this is what I came up with. I took a boxed chocolate cake mix and added some extras (which will not be named in case my dad is reading this) for moistness. I put sweetened whipped cream and canned cherry pie filling in between the two layers of super moist chocolatey cake and on top - chocolate ganache topped with more pie filling and surrounded by whipped cream swirls (wait for ganache to set up before you try to pipe whipped cream swirls around the edge of the cake or they will slide off...don't ask me how I know this!).

When we celebrated my birthday, we also celebrated my aunt Wendi's and Katie's. Katie got this Curious George toy that zooms around the floor and lifts his hat up to play peek-a-boo. The kids had so much fun playing with it. They would push the button to make him go and then run away so that he couldn't get them. There was a lot of laughter and screaming coming out of that kitchen.

Zach gave me this rose when he got home from school on my birthday. The way the light was hitting it just looked so beautiful that I had to take a picture (or three). While if I were to buy roses for myself, white would not be my first choice, they have sentimental significance to Zach and me. He brought me a single white rose on our first date and 2 dozen when he proposed, so I always think it is sweet when he gives me white roses.

Part Three: Girls Time
We have spent a lot of time with Jenny & Katie recently. Madie loves those girls so much, it is so cute to watch them together.

Here the girls are decorating turkeys with food. This was something Jenny had to do for school and so Grandpa made copies for each of the little girls also. Good thing Elmer's glue is non-toxic!

Jenny & Katie spent the night last night. Jenny is such a good big sister (and cousin, although I think if you were to ask her, Madie would tell you that Jenny is her sister also).

Chicken, Daddy & Pooh Bear

What do all of these things have in common?

Well, let me share with you our conversation while on the way home from church on Sunday:
Me - (after noticing that her lesson in nursery was on being thankful) Madie, what are you thankful for?
Madie - chicken
Me - (after laughing) What else?
Madie - chicken
Me - Besides chicken, what are you thankful for?
Madie - Daddy
Me - What else?
Madie - Pooh Bear

I know I missed a chicken in there somewhere because she gave that answer three times! I must admit, the girl does like her chicken :)

After a quick perusal of my blog I didn't notice this pic, so here you go. Please disregard the poor quality, but what can you expect from a camera on a cell phone?

Thanks Amber & Jessica for the fun play date yesterday! It was nice to feel like I have friends again.

On two other random notes -
I got the coat I previously posted about! :) It makes me happy...and warm, which makes me even happier!

I've featured on someone else's blog! (In case you don't have a clue what I'm talking about, basically this means that some random person found my craft site and liked one of my projects so she blogged about it). I felt excited, proud, and unworthy all at the same time. It is an interesting combination of feelings to have all at once.

I have several pics that I would like to upload and blog about, but (I'll be honest with you) I just don't feel like walking across the house to get the camera out of the diaper bag. Plus I would have to find the cord to plug it into the computer and that doesn't sound like much fun either. Maybe tomorrow?

October Updates

I figured that I better get caught up on posting before anything else blog-worthy happens!
We took Madie to a pumpkin patch where she got to pick out her own pumpkin, decorate it, go through a hay maze and look at some farm animals. She had a good time.

Trying to decide which one to take home...

She really enjoyed putting stickers on the pumpkin...and then taking them off...and putting them back on...

I think you get the picture.

She got all excited when she saw this little cabin but as we got closer she wanted nothing to do with it. Zach had to go in with her.

It took her a little while to figure out what was going on, but once she did she had fun running through the maze.

Our little butterfly right before we started the loop.

We went trick-or-treating with Kristi, Cliff and their girls and one of Jenny's friends and Ana and her friend Matt. We walked around the block that my aunt and grandma and cousin live on. It was the perfect little loop. There were enough houses that Madie's basket was over half full (still way more candy than she needs) but short enough that she was ok walking for most of it. I think I only carried her for the last 6 or so houses. I was pleased that she wasn't scared during the whole process. I figured it would go one of two ways...she would be terrified at all the strangers or she would realize that she got candy at each house and be excited. What can I say...she likes her candy! As soon as we were done with one house she was ready to go to the next one!

Helping herself to some candy.

She also enjoyed all of the pumpkins and other decorations. I think Christmas is going to be fun this year!

This is the only pic I had of Jenny. She was Dora the Explorer...

and Katie was Boots the monkey!

Thanks for inviting us to go with you, Kristi!

p.s. - Kohls is having a sale this weekend, get 20% off $100 or more, so between that and the $20 in Kohls cash my mom has the coat would only end up costing a little over $50. There will probably be pics of me wearing it in the near future :D

I'm in love...

...with this coat! I saw someone wearing a similar one last Saturday and instantly fell in love and decided that I wanted to find me a similar one. I saw this today at Kohls and tried it on and LOVED the way it looked on me, but there is one tiny (ok LARGE) problem...

...it costs $180.00!!!  It is on sale for $90 right now and I do have a birthday coming up...but the coat would only get worn for part of the year (plus on Sundays, I know it's wool but it really is that cold in our church building) and I could really use some new clothes that I could wear all year long.
I'm hoping I can find something similar at Ross (or any place that it won't cost me 100 bucks)!