Where To Send Those Expired Coupons

As a hobby and a way to save a little money on the side, I like to clip coupons. Every month I end up with a ton of unused coupons. I used to throw them in the recycling, but now I have learned of something even better: sending them to military families overseas who can use them past their expiration date on base!!

Remember, Remember The Month Of November....

...should have been the quote. It's already December! Where did November go? I guess working evenings, having two small kids, a major holiday followed immediately by a birthday, out of town visitors, and over 2 weeks worth of multiple sicknesses in our house is where the month of November went.

On Halloween I started a seasonal nights/weekends position. It definitely has made time start to move a lot faster than it already was. My intentions were to blog all month about the new job, Thanksgiving happenings and recipes, and party planning for Logan's 3rd birthday pirate party! As you can see by my lack of blog posts, I didn't quite get there.

The sickness in our house began with me. I don't know if it was the lack of sleep or the working around people and handling money (which I haven't done in 3 years) that caused the sick-a-thon to begin, but whatever it was, it really hit us hard! It started with a little tickle in my throat one week. The next week it seemed to go away and then I heard the baby coughing every once in awhile. I was hoping it was just gone, but alas, I lost my voice within two days. It was hard to talk for 4 to 5 days. Towards the end of that my parents came into town. The day after they got here Steve and I both caught a nasty virus that caused us to be fighting over the bathroom all night long. Since we both got no sleep we were so glad my parents were here to help take care of the boys! I ended up missing work and we rescheduled Logan's birthday party for the following day so we had a chance to get it together.

That day Collin started coughing like crazy and sneezing. Steve and I were both not good for a few days. I missed one other day of work due to stomach flu symptoms. The next day we had Logan's birthday party. We still weren't feeling good, the cake totally fell apart and was not at all up to my standards (That's what I get for taking shortcuts) but overall, Logan enjoyed himself so that's all that matters in the end.

After a long weekend my parents left to head back home and we went to the doctor for Logan and Collin got checked too since he was sick. Logan is in the 75th-90th percentile for height and weight. My little turkey is growing too fast! I can't believe he is 3! Collin is wheezing while breathing so we had to rent to own a nebulizer to give him breathing treatments at home. So far they seem to be helping. He has another appointment next week.

For now we all have slightly runny noses and I think the sickness is finally in it's last stages and on it's way out of our home! FINALLY! Time to bring on some fun for Christmas/Winter Solstice!

Jack-O-Lantern Cake

When it comes to cakes, I have a little bit of an addiction with surprise cakes. I think it is actually the reaction that people have when someone cuts into a cake to find a picture or other design on the inside that I love. Putting a smile on someone's face is priceless! I have done a few of these cakes in the past, and eventually I'll blog about those too, but for today I'm talking about the jack-o-lantern cake!

"Blood" Worms - Disgustingly Delicious Halloween Treat

 Hungry anyone? 

Steve found this awesomely gruesome treat while randomly searching the internet. After he sent me a picture of them, I went in search of a "how to". When I came upon this website, www.theidearoom.net/2009/09/jell-o-blood-worms.html, I knew I had not only found the recipe I was looking for, but also a great new site to get future ideas from. I'm officially addicted! 

Back to the worms... If you read the story that goes along with the "how to" then you will note that she says her daughter couldn't even look at them but once she tried one she liked it. That's how I knew that I was making these this Halloween. I really love to make foods that have that WOW (or ewwww) factor! 

Trunk-or-Treating and a Bad Smell Coming From the Bathroom (Not What You Would Think)

First things first, I should've been in bed HOURS ago, but instead I decided to get some errands done since I happened to get four kids sleeping by 9pm and I still had a little bit of energy left! I had actually shut down the computer about thirty minutes ago, but as soon as I stepped into the living room this is what went down...

Steve- Did you write your blog today?
Me- No.
Steve- That's how it starts...
Me-  .......

Me-10 minutes later, after getting ready for bed- Dammit, he's right. I should go blog.

So here I am, with the computer back on, doing what I said I was going to do everyday, blog. It may be past midnight, but to me it still counts as 'today' since I haven't been to sleep yet. Keeping all of this in mind, please don't mind my hyper punctuation and abundance of misspelled words. On that note...On with the show!

Pumpkin Pancakes

It's definitely Fall now here in St. Louis. The weather has finally decided to cool off and more and more of the beautifully colored leaves can be seen on the ground than in the trees. I guess it was this sudden change in weather and atmosphere that really put me in the mood for pumpkin flavored food. I bought a can of pumpkin last weekend at the store and it's been calling my name from the pantry ever since!

I didn't want to do the same old pumpkin bread that I do every year. This year I was in the mood for something different. After searching through pumpkin recipes, I finally narrowed it down to three that looked absolutely delicious. I know pancakes aren't far from bread, but pumpkin pancakes are something that I have never made before. Since it is the easiest of the three pumpkin recipes I'm trying to do this year, I decided to do them first. (That and we needed something for breakfast this morning) Hopefully I get around to the other two within the next month!

Happy Spider

Happy spider. That is the name that Logan gave to this eight legged cutie that he made. (with a little help from me)

We actually saw this craft while watching Barney one day. Logan got so excited that I knew he just had to have his own! Being the good mom that I am, I gathered and prepared the supplies for a day when his cousin and friend were going to be over at our house and turned it into a fun group activity! 

Pumpkin Seeds- Finally Done Right. Yeah!

The last four Octobers have come and gone. We have carved pumpkins each year and saved the seeds to roast in the oven to make a tasty snack. Unfortunately, most of our creations have turned out inedible. The ones that were decent were only good for a few bites and then we agreed to toss them.

We tried rinsing and completely drying then adding seasoning, adding the seasoning while they were still wet, and even adding some oil and then seasoning. We tried all different flavor combos and none of them have worked out.... until tonight!

Homemade Soft Garlic Breadsticks (rolls) with Garlic Butter

A few nights ago, Steve was telling me that he thought I could make some awesome homemade garlic breadsticks if I did a little research. I'm not sure if that was a challenge or not, but that's how I took it. Since I absolutely adore fresh baked bread, the search began that evening. It didn't take long until I came across this recipe from allrecipes.com:

The Princess Cake

So I found a place near my house that rents cake pans! You heard correct! How great is that? That sure makes my job of making birthday cakes a heck of a lot easier! (and cheaper!) Who wants to take a wild guess at what this pan is for? Although it has plenty of other uses, if you paid any attention at all to the title of this post then you would have guessed a princess. You'd be right.

Mummy Boxes (or as Logan calls them, Mommy Boxes)

These simple to make mummy juice boxes are guaranteed to put a smile on any toddler's face. I can not remember where I got the idea for these. I was at Target shopping and decided I needed a giant bag of multicolored googly eyes to keep on hand. You know, for those moments that you feel you just HAVE to add googly eyes to something. I got home from the store that evening and saw the roll of sticky gauze in the hall closet and right then and there I knew what I was doing with it! Mummys!! but on what? I had also just bought mini juice boxes at the store and thought, why not?! So here's what you need to make 2 mummy boxes.

And away we go!

This is the first blog post I have ever written...EVER.

I've finally decided to get with the times and start my own blog. Little did I know that nearly every single person on the planet must have tried before me. It took me nearly a week to think of a blog name that I actually liked that wasn't taken by someone back in 2003 and had one post on it. How disappointing! All of those good blog names gone to waste. From this moment on, I vow to do my best to keep up with my blog at all times so that some person 8 years from now who really wants to use this blog name won't be disappointed that it went to waste!

On that note, let's get posting!!