Witch's Night Out and The Pumpkin Patch Party (a not so tasty Tuesday!)

Since I need to catch up on last Friday's happenings, because I finally got the pics on the computer; I am skipping a Tasty Tuesday but will hopefully redeem myself next week with a fabulous recipe (now I just need to figure out what that recipe is!!)

Moving on...last Friday I went to Witch's Night Out with Tammy, Brandy, Cassidy, Shannon, and my sister Missy. We have been going all together for a few years now (this was Missy's first time) and has become tradition to all get dressed up, go out to dinner, and walk and shop around Gardner Village. This year, like all the others, was a fabulous event! We were able to get in at the Naborhood Bakery and eat some yummy soup and sandwiches, and then hit up all the cute stores. I love that Gardner Village gets all decked out with the Witch Statues there and halloween decor. Every year it also never ceases to amaze me how many women love this fun girls night out and how elaborate some of their costumes and make up are! Here are a few photos from the night:
While I was having a GNO, Christopher took Dawson the Gymboree for their Pumpkin Patch Party. They have one every year, and I thought this year he would really have fun and understand more of what was going on so I signed him up and him and Chris had a "guys night." I of course made sure Christopher was armed with a camera so I could see all the fun they had! It was an hour and a half long, and they did some various fun activities. First they played in the gym area where they "bobbed" for apples, "made" pumpkin pie, and collected little pumpkins that were hidden all around. Then they had a craft time where they made a ghost hand and a little Halloween paper chain. After all the fun they were sent home with a goodie bag filled with a sugar cookie and a juice box. The night was a sucsess! Here are some pictures of my cute little bat and all the fun that was had:

Pumpkin Carving

Well, this is a bit out of order....I wanted to blog about Witch's Night Out and Dawson's Gymboree Pumpkin Patch Party since that happened on Friday, but the pictures from one of our camera's are being funny and wont go onto our computer! So, I will move on to Saturday. We had our ward's annual Chili/Bread/Dessert Cook-off Saturday night and we had a lot of fun! There was tons of yummy soups and chili's it was hard to choose from...not to mention the huge table of breads and desserts. Delicious! Dawson ate his fill of candy corn that night, as it was spread out all over the tables. This caused a sugar high and lots of running around and playing with the kids. He has this problem with getting so excited with other kids he gets really rough and bear hugs them. Poor Landon Tuckett was the victim of it this time and got knocked over! Hopefully he is not too scared of Dawson now. After the ward party we came home and Josh, Summer, and their cute little 4 week old baby girl Reece came over to carve pumpkins. We had lots of fun, trying to figure out what to carve, digging goop out, and carving funny faces. Christopher tried his hand at a template of Sarah Palin but gave up part way through because it was so intricate. We laughed a lot and ate carmel fondue and had a fun INNOCENT time! As you can see by the pictures, we ONLY carved some cute pumpkin faces and thats ALL. So anyone who may be suspicious of some weird happenings around the neighborhood should be careful who they accuse!!! P.S. Go BYU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Whose In the Bathroom??

This evening I was in the kitchen cooking dinner talking to Christopher, when I heard the bathroom sink running water. It kept running and running so I shouted to my sister Missy (who is living with us for a couple of months) "Are you washing your hands or something?" I was answered with a "No, why?" Christopher and I both turned to look at each other with quizzical looks because that meant it could only be 1 of 3....the dog, the cat (who lacks imposable thumbs), or Dawson. We headed to the bathroom and found this (which is recorded from the second time he went up and did it):

Fall Happenings

We have been enjoying the lovely fall weather (sometimes) and great fall activities that have been going on around here lately! Here is a recap from the last couple of weeks!

1. Ride With a Witch- Me, Dawson, Jen, Jeremy, Selina, Cameron, Sheri, Lexi, Parker, and my sister Missy all went to Gardner Village a couple of Fridays ago to go on a Ride With a Witch. We went last year and had a ton of fun and decided to go again. For only $2 a person, you get to go on a horse-drawn black wagonette ride with a spooky witch who tells you tales and has you assist in some scary music making, cackling, and spell casting. So much fun and Dawson was pretty captivated by the witch.
2. Wee Witches Weekend- The following Thursday Dawson and I headed back to Gardner Village this time with our friends Stacey and Addy for the new weekend they do for kids. Dawson and Addy had a blast! They had a costume parade, hayrides, pony rides, finger nail and face painting, various crafts, and yummy food! Addy just wanted to groove to the spooky tunes they had there and Dawson just wanted to eat cookies for dinner. The two of them are so funny together now, they play little games like peek-a-boo and will get each other going in a fit of giggles!
3. This Is the Place Haunted House- Following that, Chris, Missy, Heather, Jen, and Jeremy decided that weekend they wanted to go to a haunted house of sorts. They settled on This is the Place cause they had coupons and our friend Sheri said it wasn't too scary. Where am I in all this? At home, going to get a Jamba Juice with Summer because I just don't do scary!!! The rest of them said they had fun and even got a picture with Beetlejuice. I had the hot chocolate ready and waiting for them when they returned!
4. Halloween Cookies- That Sunday Chris didn't have to go in that night for work so we decided to make Halloween cookies. They looked cute and tasted pretty good too. Dawson didn't even get to frosting his cookie because he ate all the frosting before it could hit the cookie! Such a little sugar-holic!!
5. Scarecrow Festival- We ended our two-week Fall spectacular with the Scarecrow Festival last Friday. Since moving into our house and meeting the Fuller's, we have gone almost every year to see Lexi dance there and every year she does great. This year was even more of a bonus because there were a few other girls from our ward who performed as well! Great job everyone!! After the performance we let Dawson play in the bounce houses, try some games, and get his face painted. I was so impressed! I told him that the girl was going to paint Elmo on his face and he sat as still as a rock. He would keep asking me....All done? And when I would say no he would hold still again. When he saw the end result in the mirror he got a huge grin on his face and kept pointing to his cheek saying Elmo! We headed out the gate with a bag of kettle korn and some pretty fun memories.
Stay tuned for some more fun Fall Happenings....this Friday is Witches Night with a group of gals I have gone with for the last 3 or 4 years! Also coming up is our ward chili cook-off, pumpkin carving, trick or treating, and a party!

Tasty Tuesday

One Word- YUM!!!

Caramel Apple Bars
allrecipes.com

2 c flour
2 c quick cook oats
1 1/2 c packed brown sugar
1 t baking soda
1 1/4 c butter, melted
2 c apples- peeled, cored, sliced
1/2 c chopped walnuts

1 bag caramels, unwrapped
1/2 c evaporated milk

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease 15x10 inch jellyroll pan. In large bowl, mix flour, oats, brown sugar, and baking soda. Stir in butter and mix until crumbly. This is the crust. Press 1/2 of mixture into the pan. Bake for 8 minutes. In small pan, heat caramels and milk until smooth consistency, adding more milk if needed. This is the caramel filling. Spread apple slices over baked crust, sprinkle on nuts, then pour caramel filling over the top. Crumble remaining crust mixture over everything. Bake again 20-25 minutes or until golden brown. Cool before cutting bars. **Note, it's a bit more messy, but I like to cut them and serve them warm with a scoop of vanilla ice cream on top....delish!!

Fall Time in Illinois

Last year in October Dawson and I made a trip back home to Illinois to visit my family. We went and stayed at their camper during the Halloween weekend they have there and also visited Goebbert's Pumpkin Farm. We had such a good time, my Mom and I decided that we needed to do it again; so 2 Tuesdays ago Dawson and I went back to visit and we had a splendid time! We were able to go for a fun-filled week of lots of activities. It was my sister Becca's High School Homecoming; and they had a parade and football game we went to. My sister was on the french float in the parade, and everyone threw Dawson tons of candy and he kept waving to all the high school girls and saying hi and they would "aww" over him and throw him more candy. Talk about working it! The football game was fun, but cold until I felt something warm on my leg, Dawson had peed thru his diaper....fun! So we only stayed the first half. The camping weekend was fun, it's a Yogi Bear campground so we definitly weren't roughing it. They had a costume contest (Dawson is a bat this year), trick or treating, a haunted barn, and many other fun activities. Sunday we left and went to Goebbert's, a family tradition since I was a little girl. They have yummy cider donuts, a petting zoo, corn maze, a farmer's market, and a tractor ride to go out and pick a pumpkin. Dawson would not stop running around to look and touch everything it was hard to get him to hold still for pictures, but I got a couple of cute ones. We had a fun time with my family, Dawson stayed up way to late while we were there, ate too much candy, and played and played with Grandma, Grandpa, and his 4 little Aunties....aka he was spoiled. He also came home saying "ssshuuuurrrre" sarcastically like my sister Becca does. Lovely. PS I would like to thank Dawson himself for sleeping almost the whole way there on the plane and the whole way back!!!