.... dressing up for Halloween

Every girl loves to dress up.

Whether it is once a year, every day.... whenever

I was surprised Katie wanted to dress up for Halloween this year.

She told me last year she wasn't doing it again.

She changed her mind.

She's a witch this year.

I'm such a mean mom and would never let her be a witch.

I gave in this year.

I wonder if she can wear those hose to church...

Miss Maddie is Sharpay from High School Musical.
We do almost all our costumes homemade (or attempt to).
I found her purple plaid hose from Target for only .94! Deal!


Pink is her favorite color.
At least, it was last week.
I think purple is her new favorite color.
Oh well... at least here we're using BOTH colors, so we're covered!


Look at those chompers.
I think braces are in our future.

finally, one peaceful picture together for me.

...making apple pie with katie

Apples are on sale here for $1 a bag for 3 pounds.

Naturally, I think "apple pie!" when it reaches this price.

So last night I set out with Katie to make a

crumb topped apple pie.

My recipe for the crumb topping comes from my sister in law Tiffany, which came from her cookbook from ....somewhere. But it's out of this world, it really is! Plus, it helps me not have to make a top crust. I hate making crusts. I make a good crust, I have to admit, but it's not pretty. They break, I can't roll it over the rolling pin nicely, and frankly, I give up halfway through it all.

I dig out my good old trusty apple peeler/corer. I found a Pampered Chef's one at a garage sale for only $5.00 years ago. I only use it like once a year... when I make apple pie.

I put Katie in charge of peeling the apples. I told her "at least 6 cups worth of apples!"

Katie gets a little excited at the thought of a huge long peel that didn't break.


YUUMMMMM! I love apples!


Katie gets tired of standing and peeling (plus it's not holding on to the counter very well, so she moves to the table & is able to sit)



Now, here is where the story gets .....
interesting.

I put Katie in charge of making the crumb topping. Now, it's only 6 ingredients. Katie grabs her iPod to listen to. She's measuring & singing along to some singer ... I'm folding out my ::gasp:: Kraft's refrigerated pie dough (my first time ever buying pie dough already made!! no lie!).
All of a sudden, I hear a
GASP!
"Uh-oh"
::silence::

*chirp* *chirp*

I turn to look at Katie. She's bright red.
I said "what happened?"
she said "uh... I measure 3/4 of a cup of cinnamon instead of 3/4 of a teaspoon"
Excuse me while I say what was going through my mind:
"*$&%@:# KATIE!! What were you thinking? Where's your common sense?"

Now, that was going through my mind. I did get a little peeved at first, but then I tried to scoop out some cinnamon (hey, 3/4 of a cup is a LOT of cinnamon!)....
and I made her do it all over again.


Let's just say she wasn't happy with me,
and some foot stomping was involved.




In the end, it turned out just perfect.
Very very delicious! A little heavy on the cinnamon.
Hey, a momma can't watch her girl ALL the time!

....make your own pizza night

I have been dying to have a "make your own pizza" night for weeks.

Katie invited a friend over and I thought it was the perfect opportunity to have some fun!

I made the dough (recipe here). Everyone piled on their favorite toppings.

Now, one thing I didn't realize, was to put the oven temperature at a HIGHER temperature! I had it on 350, and it took FOREVER to bake! Next time, higher temperature. OK, who am I kidding? Next time, order a pizza in! It was a ton of work!

TA-DA!! The final look!

...i heart fall

i love fall

i miss the changing colors of the leaves

i miss the cold air and the rain that seems to come more often

i miss drinking hot apple cider ~ the good kind

i miss having decent pumpkin patches around town to take my girls to

i miss watching my girls rake up the leaves and jump in the piles

i miss fall

so.....

i made do with what we had here

we bought pumpkins at the grocery store {spent too much if you ask me}

i splurged and paid $5.99 for a gallon of louisburg kansas apple cider

it reminds me of home because i used to buy louisburg cider at home

and we made caramel apples

nothing says "fall" like caramel apples

now if we could just get the darn caramel to stick to the apples!

....she's growing up

Maddie will be turning 8 in a month. That is a BIG age for all the kids in our church. That's the age they are able to be baptized if they choose! When Katie was almost 8, she was finally able to get her ears pierced, so naturally, Maddie was given the same opportunity.

Now, Maddie freaks OUT when she hears the word "shots".

It's a "hold-her-down-with-arms-&-legs-until-it's-over" kind of incident.

But, she didn't bat an eye this time. All for beauty, huh?

We went to Claire's. Let me say that I researched where to go to get my girls' ear pierced. I've always been told "stay away from Claire's". So, I did with Katie. We went to Libby Lu's. Well, Libby Lu's closed down last winter. I had a friend tell me she had a great experience with Claire's this past July, so decided to go for it.

Wrong decision. Now, I'm a blogger. I take pictures that are important to me and I take pictures to document things we go through in our life. I wanted to get a picture of my baby in the chair, before she had her ears done. The lady at Claire's wasn't even READY yet! I got my camera out, told Maddie to smile (by then, she was getting nervous and the waterworks started), and the lady turned around and glared and said "no pictures allowed". I said "uh, this is my daughter, and if I want to take a picture, I will". She said "fine, take it outside and take a picture there." WHAT?!! I told her I wasn't taking a picture WHILE she was doing it, just before! OK... c'mon people! So, no picture of Maddie before she had it done, just after.

I'm still a little peeved about it all.

But Maddie loves her earrings. She wanted diamonds. (aka cubic zirconia)

and now this side....

...brandi carlisle

***edited to add... not sure why the video isn't available, but you can view it here at this link:

Last week I had the opportunity to download Brandi Carlisle's new CD....

One2One wanted me to blog about it

so I said

YOU BET!

At first, I wasn't sure I liked it.

But now, I LOVE.LOVE.LOVE this CD! & Brandi's voice!

I can't tell you exactly what type of music she sings, but whatever genre it is, she's got a major fan in me now!

Check out her latest hit "Dreams" from this CD. Her CD is called "Give Up the Ghost"

...caution! enter at your own risk

My sister in law Marcie started something... yep, this year she turned Katie into a

teeny-bopper-poster-loving- tween

Aunt Marcie sent Katie a magazine for Teens/Tweens (Teen Bop... Teen Beat?.. I think?). I used to read Teen Bop! That was like AGES ago! With Kirk Cameron on the cover!

I was shocked they were still in business.

Well, inside of the magazines are posters. Katie went out and bought another magazine this summer...and turned their bedroom into a tween's room. Literally.

I didn't even know she liked the Jonas Brothers. She doesn't.

She just wanted posters on her wall.

Oh, she did splurge for the Taylor Swift poster. Oh, and can't forget that steamy scene in Twilight. THAT'S a must for any girl to dream about.

My poor parents & father in law... they had to sleep in this room full of posters. Kind of creepy when you think of all those eyes staring at you...

I still remember MY posters when I was a teen... gorgeous men in a tuxedo (yes, fully dressed). I was so proud of that poster. Sadly, I had one more poster, but for the life of me, I can't remember what it was.

...enchanted rock, the finale of portraits

Johnny Scott took binoculars with him.

I imagine he wanted to view the world up close.

See the beauty.

.....or not.

I was taking so many pictures by now, his binoculars turned into a camera.

He just took a picture of me.

This is Mandi & her cute blondies.

Then Johnny Scott said "I take picture of you"

and he did.

With his binoculars.

I posed... of course.

These are my two cute blondies.

and finally, me with my two cute blondies.

They get it from their father.

He's a blonde.

But Maddie gets her nose from me.

THE END!!

... enchanted rock... KING OF THE WORLD!

This is Johnny Scott.

This is Johnny Scott on top of Enchanted Rock.

Isn't he perfect?

On top of Enchanted Rock, it is rather flat, and it has lots of "holes" in which becomes little mini ponds. We just had a huge rainfall the day before, so there were a ton of little "ponds" on the top. There were tadpoles in one of them!!

"Hey Maddie... I'm taking your picture, so be still"

...or not.
Fine... don't be still.
Go off and explore.
I don't want to get a cute picture of you.

This is Brian. He is also a major sweetheart.

He's also got the biggest smile that will melt your heart.

Brian was facinated with the tadpoles.

He's trying to catch one.

He finally did catch one, a teeny tiny little baby frog.

I didn't get a picture of it.

These two gals are very close friends.

Too cute!

YAY!!

We are KINGS {QUEENS} of the WORLD!!

WAHOOOOOO!

We DID it!!

...enchanted rock, THE climb of our life

This is in the middle of our journey.

We're only halfway to the top.

We're also huffing & puffing.

Stopping every 100 feet to try to get a breath, or to let our ears pop.

Even though it's colder on top, we're sweating. So, our jackets come OFF!

But our cheeks are rosy.

Love this picture of Katie.

Looks like she's contemplating the beauty of this earth.

All that God has given to her.....

....or not.

She's probably just exhausted.

In fact, she was exhausted.

She wasn't contemplating nothing.

Only the fact that "wow.. this is a MAJOR hike Mom!"

Yes, I'm aware of how it looks like it's a cliff (and it's only halfway!)... it really is kind of scary when you think someone could stumble and just roll down. But no one fell. Thank goodness!

Some people needed some help, and got it in a form of a piggyback ride.

It lasted 5 seconds though.

Poor Mandi had to carry a backpack full of our water AND Johnny Scott!

Maddie felt bad for her.