Pumpkin Palooza

It's Pumpkin Palooza People! Time to show off your pumpkin decorating skills. Have a creative way you've decorated a pumpkin? Carved, painted, glitter, etc. share your pumpkin creations here.

Update: I've finally finished carving our pumpkin and wanted to share my pix with you. I love this one. It is one of the Pumpkin Master's stencils. I've been up way too late doing this, but I love the end result. Enjoy!

I am going to leave this post running through the weekend and skip doing a Fabulous Favorite Friday post in the hopes that folks will share their pumpkin pix. Have a Happy Halloween and I'll be posting an update on Monday of our Halloween adventures!

p.s. We had a great birthday celebration for little Logan's 1st birthday.

Happy Birthday Boo Baby Logan!

Where did the last year go? A year ago today, I went to the hospital to "meet" my second son, Logan. The last six weeks of my pregnancy were so hard because I was put on bed rest. Really the whole pregnancy was difficult, worrying I would go into preterm labor at any point. And to add insult to injury, I had gestational diabetes and had to give myself insulin shots. But a year ago today, meeting this sweet little boy made all the difficulties I went through all worth it.

Because Logan was born so close to Halloween, I called him my "Boo" baby. We actually brought him home from the hospital on Halloween. He was 6 pounds 11 ounces, such a great little size. Perfect to snuggle.

The last year has been wonderful getting to bond with this special little guy. Watching him develop into a little person with a cute personality has been such a joy. And it definitely helps that he is a momma's boy.

So happy birthday, my sweet Poo Paw Logan. Momma loves you so much. I can't wait to steal some kisses from you today.

Welcome Great Pumpkin!

One of our favorite Halloween traditions is watching Charlie Brown's Great Pumpkin. DH bought the dvd a few years ago, so we can watch it anytime. Which is a blessing and a curse. LOL I think Sawyer has watched it about ten times since October 1st.

We saw that it came on tv last night, but we didn't watch it since we've had it on dvd. But I understand from a girl in my dentist's office that they had another cartoon on after it with Charlie Brown and apparently they tried to update it and make Charlie Brown sound more hip. I saw a Tweet go out from someone objecting. I think I would have objected too if I'd watched it. Don't mess with the classics.

We've also been reading Halloween stories this week. I got a great story at the Christian book store that is called something like, "I'm not afraid of Halloween night". I think it is a great book to explain about scary things to preschoolers and people dressing up and why not to be afraid.

We also have been reading "Biscuit's Halloween" which is a cute story about a dog named Biscuit. You can purchase the Biscuit stories at Wal Mart. And of course we couldn't leave out Curious George's Halloween book.

One other new book to us is called "The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything." I highly recommend this story. It is really cute and tells of the adventures of a little old lady who comes across different pieces such as a shoes, shirt, pants, and a scary pumpkin head. The pieces follow her home to scare her, but of course being the little old lady who was not afraid of anything, they don't scare her. But she finds a clever job for the pieces. I won't spoil the surprise, but I highly recommend this book.

It is a great book for preschoolers because you can get them to interact with you by doing the "wiggle, wiggle" of the pants, or the "shake, shake" of the shirt. Be sure to check it out.

Tomorrow is Logan's big day and we are in Halloween count down mode. Where is the week going?

Hope you are having a great day!

Count down

This is a busy week for me. I'm in count down mode until Logan turns one on Thursday. Then of course we've got Halloween on Saturday. There are so many festivities going on, we are partying all week.

I am hoping that I will get our pumpkin carved Thursday evening after the kids go to bed. Friday is going to be "Pumpkin Palooza" here on my blog. I'd love to see your pumpkin creations. If you aren't carving until Friday night, but you have a picture of last year's pumpkin share that with me. I am planning on putting up a Mr. Linky so you can share your pictures. Mr. Linky will be available here on my blog Thursday evening after 9:00 p.m. EST.

So spread the word and let's see those great pumpkins decorated!

Fabulous Favorite Friday

Happy Friday everyone! What a crazy morning I've had. I think that has been the theme this week. I went to get out the door to preschool when dh called and said I needed to get to the health dept. asap to get the babies an H1N1/swine flu vaccine. (We were told that our oldest is high risk and needs it). So, we jumped in the car and I finally found the darn building. It was like finding a needle in a haystack. We got there and fortunately the line wasn't too bad. I went ahead and took it since I don't want to risk getting it and giving it to the babies. All I can say is praise the Lord for Cheerios & M&M's. That is the only way I made it through the wait with them. But they both did great. So, it has been busy already.

I'm so annoyed at Target. I'd hoped to show you a picture of my Fabulous Favorite Friday pick today and they don't have a picture of it. So, I'll just have to go without pix today.

One thing I've been trying to do is make sure I take better care of myself. With this whole H1N1/swine flu craze I haven't wanted to get sick. When I was pregnant I had no trouble taking prenatal vitamins, but when I haven't been expecting I've been really bad about taking vitamins. I can't stomach them. I can taste the iron in them. Trying to swallow a Centrum without throwing up is tough. I hate, hate, hate those vitamins. Then I found out that they make multivitamins that taste like gummy bears. So I headed on down to Target and found out that they have their own brand "Up & Up" gummy vitamins. I have been very pleasantly surprised. I didn't know if they'd have a funny taste, but lo and behold they taste just like gummy bears. I have to control myself and just take two. LOL

So if you are looking for a tolerable multivitamin to take, check out the gummy vitamins at Target. They aren't bad at all.

It is so hard to believe this is the last weekend before Halloween. And then we are on birthday count down next week. Logan turns 1 on Thursday. I can hardly believe it.

Have a great weekend. Remember to constantly wash your hands and Purell. Stay well people! :)

Come to a blog near you...

Hey. Gotta run out the door, but will be posting my Fabulous Favorite Friday post later today. Hope you are having a great Friday!

Getting Crafty

Sometimes it drives me crazy that I'm not able to be more crafty these days. I miss getting to work on my craft projects. Since the weather has gotten cooler, I've especially gotten the knitting bug. It is tough to work on anything with the two little guys around because they are always trying to pull my yarn. So, I've started working on this scarf at night when they have gone to bed. I just started it over the weekend and I thought I'd share my progress.

I bought this yarn a few years ago in the Target dollar spot. I love how it has many different colors. I think it will go with a lot of fall outfits. I just hope I can get it finished. I love how light weight the yarn is. I will post a picture of the finished product.

I hope that you are having a great day in your neck of the woods!

Yay Winner, Whaaa the rest of the week

What a week it has been already. I'm so annoyed because I can't find out little "thingy" (that is a technical term) to take pictures off my digital camera. I have a bunch of different things I wanted to post. Hopefully we will track that down soon.

My other annoyance is that I stood in line for over an hour to get my son the H1N1 vaccine only to have them run out. It was crazy, instead of just limiting it to students they offered it to everyone. They ran out four people ahead of me. They should only have given it to students and then if something was left over offered it to parents. I really struggled with making the decision on whether we should do this, but we researched it a lot and consulted with our pediatrician who was very adamant that my son get it. With him being born so preamture, he is definitely in the high risk category and should receive it. So, we are praying that we can get this for him.

But, on to more uplifting news. I am excited to announce the winner of the Nature Valley Prize Pack. The random number generator picked number 10.

Comment #10 belongs to:

skaro964 said...

1st entry I tweeted. skaro964

Congratulations! You will love this prize pack. I am already addicted to these wonderful munchies. I will send you an email to get your address information. If I don't hear from our winner by Friday, I will pick a new winner.

Well, I'm off to complain to someone about this whole H1N1 fiasco, so y'all have a great day and stay well.

Fabulous Favorite Friday - Pumpkin Mini Master

Happy Friday everyone. Hope you are having a great day. Last weekend we made it to the pumpkin patch and picked out a baby pumpkin. We figured we'd get a big one later. We always like to get at least one big one to use the Pumpkin Master's Carving Kit Stencils.

My Fabulous Favorite Friday pick today is a cute pumpkin decorating kit I bought at Wal Mart in the seasonal section. For only $3.50 they have the cutest kit that comes with something like 4 sets of ears, 4 sets of eyes, 4 sets of noses, and a tail. I'm trying to remember how many pieces from memory because I left the kit downstairs,
but you get the idea. I was just surprised at how many different pieces you got in the kit.

This little kit really appealed to me because when you have younger kids the idea of letting them help carve a pumpkin is just to exhausting. It is already a challenge to get through a meal without a mess, I can't imagine how many pumpkin seeds and pumpkin guts would get thrown around my kitchen. Not to mention who wants to battle a little one for a knife because you know they are going to want to do it themselves.

These little kits are just like working on a Mr. Potato Head which many kids are playing with in the toddler years, so these kits are a great way for them to work on their fine motor skills while having fun at the same time.

As you can see from our pumpkin model Sawyer, he really enjoyed taking the different pieces and worked on putting them on the pumpkin. Because our pumpkin was a bit tough, I did help him out with pushing the pieces in. He didn't mind the help and still enjoyed the decoration process. I think if you had a child who was older and really wanted to do it themselves, I'd recommend taking a knife and helping your child get a start by making small slits where you'll want them to place the different pieces.

As you can see, Sawyer worked on putting the dog pieces together to make this cute puppy. I
decided to put the other pieces together on our other small pumpkin to make the pig pumpkin. I was squealing with delight when I saw those pieces in the kit. Sorry, didn't mean to go hog wild in my description. LOL You have to admit, they make a cute pair this little dog and little pig.

So, that is my Fabulous Friday pick and that is how the Halloween decorations are coming together here. I hope you enjoy them.

Well, that is all from here. Don't forget to go and
leave a comment on last Friday's Fabulous Friday post to enter my current giveaway. You'll definitely want to win that yummy prize.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Help Rock the Vote!

Hey everyone. Hope you are having a great day. I had hoped to post pix from the pumpkin patch, but I'm knee deep in baby clothes trying to get ready for a yard sale. So, I'll save those.

I wanted to send out an S.O.S. and ask y'all to help rock the vote. Crystal who writes the Money Saving Mom blog is a finalist in a contest on the Bump site for the Best Baby Bargains/Budget Mommy Blogs. Here is a link to the contest. http://pregnant.thebump.com/extras/mommy-blog-awards/articles/budget-mommy-blog-finalists.aspx Please take a minute to go and vote for Crystal. I've been following her blog for a while and she really is an inspiration to so many folks. She has been sharing great deals and also ways she and her family are saving to pay cash for their first home. And it is exciting that they are ahead of schedule! She totally deserves to win this. Let's help her pull out that win!

If you want to check out Crystal's blog, Money Saving Mom, there is a button on the right of my page to her blog. I check it every day and follow her on Twitter. Great deals to be had out there and Crystal is wonderful to share them.

Tomorrow I'll be back to show you my spooky Halloween pick for my Fabulous Favorite Friday post. So be sure to check back.

Also, if you haven't entered my current giveaway, check it out here. http://chiccraftychick.blogspot.com/2009/10/fabulous-favorite-friday_09.html

Have a great day!

Bunco Boo Bash

As I mentioned in my post yesterday and on Monday, I've been getting my house ready to host Bunco. With two little ones in tow who are constantly making a mess, it is a challenge to get anything done and to keep anything straight. But thank goodness that I had some help from my husband to keep the two "wild things" from messing things up and getting under foot as momma got ready.

I thought I'd share a few pictures of the food and some of our Halloween decorations. I wish I'd gotten closer pix so you could see everything. The centerpiece I have is a cute spooky haunted house scene I won at a Bunco in the past.

This platter has mini brownies on it. I just used a regular brownie mix and bought some creamed cheese frosting. I cut a tiny hole in the end of a ziploc baggy and used that to pipe these spider web patterns on each of the brownies.

I got the cutest mini cupcake/brownie papers at Wal Mart. They are Wilton and they come in different designs. I would highly recommend them if you are doing any baking for Halloween. The ones I chose had pumpkins on them.





For my menu I had chips and dip, veggie tray, brownie bites, and little smokies in the mini crock pot and a brie recipe.

The little smokies recipe is so easy. My mother in law gave it to me. You just take the smokies and put them in the crock pot and put in a whole jar of grape jelly and a jar of chili sauce and let them all melt together. I started my crock pot on high 2 hours ahead and the smokies were ready in time.

So, that is how I got things ready for Bunco. Hope you are having a great day!

And there is more to come...

Gotta run out this morning, but I will be back this afternoon and post pix of my Halloween Bunco Bash. Hope you are having a great day!

Shakin and Bakin

I can't believe it is lunch time already. Yikes! I've been trying to get things ready for tonight because I'm hosting Bunco at my house. I've already baked a batch of brownie bites. The house smells heavenly. I am going to take pix tonight of everything to share with y'all tomorrow so you can see my decorations and the food I made. There are a few recipes I want to share because I know y'all will love them and be able to use them with the holidays coming up.

So, back to the cooking and cleaning. Hope y'all are having a great day!

In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue...

So in honor of Columbus day, I'm spending the day with my dh who is off. And we will doing something very exciting. Y'all will be so jealous. We are cleaning the house. LOL

We had a great weekend and went to the pumpkin patch. I"ll be posting more on that later this week. I've got Bunco here tomorrow night so we are getting ready for that. Hopefully I'll have some great recipes and pix to share with you on that too.

If you missed my post Friday, be sure to check out my giveaway I've got going on right now. You really want to win this. http://chiccraftychick.blogspot.com/2009/10/fabulous-favorite-friday_09.html

Happy Columbus day ya'll. Go crazy!

p.s. As you can see a ghostie swooped into the blog to decorate it for Halloween. Hope you like my new "boo".

Fabulous Favorite Friday

Happy Friday everyone! I thought I would pee my pants laughing last night at The Office. I won't go into a lot of detail in case you haven't seen it yet, but I have to say I wasn't disappointed at all. I am wondering where the show will go from here. Such a great show.

So today is my Fabulous Favorite Friday post and I'm so excited to share with you a new product that I had never tried before until last week.

Occasionally I have been given the opportunity to try new items through the My BlogSpark program. I was contacted recently and asked if I'd like to try Nature Valley Nut Clusters. I thought, heck yeah! Sign me up!

When I had gestational diabetes last year, I learned that nuts were a good thing to incorporate into my diet. So since then I've been getting nuts as a snack. I like how easy it is to grab some and go. So the thought of getting to try a snack with nuts sounded great. Especially since I've been getting board with eating just plain old cashews.

I was so tickled to receive the Nature Valley Granola Nut Clusters "Snack Pack" prize pack pictured above. It was like Christmas in October. The four bags of nut clusters are Roasted Almond, Roasted Cashew, Nut Lovers, and Honey Roasted Peanut. I decided to try the Honey Roasted Peanut first. As soon as I put the first one in my mouth I knew I was in trouble. These things are good. And I mean really, really good. Addictive good. You can not just eat one. I liked that the little nut clusters are bite size. They are a sweet and salty snack. They would fit perfectly in those little snack size Ziploc baggies and they are easy to grab and go if you are in a hurry. I have since torn into the other bags and they are all heavenly.

The description I received of the nut clusters says they are made with "100% natural ingredients that include select roast nuts, whole grain oats, and a touch of honey". The clusters are a good combo of all those things. It is hard for me to say which of these I like the best because I think they are all good. I would eat all of them again.

Another cool thing about these is that they have the Box Tops for Education tops to them so you snack and save those for the kids schools. I just love it when packages have those Box Tops for Education tops to them.

So if you are looking for something new to try, I highly recommend these snacks. I will definitely be stocking up on these.

Give Away

I am excited to share with you that the good folks at My BlogSpark have said I get to play Mrs. Claus (or maybe I should be the Great Pumpkin since it is October?) anyway, I get to give away one of these yummy prize packs to one of my readers! So you can have a happy mail day! This contest will run from 10/09/09 until midnight EST on 10/18/09. I'll announce the winner on Monday 10/19/09. The winner will be determined by using a random number generator.

Methods of Entry

Every Reader has four methods available to enter this contest. Choose one of each of any combination of method one, two, three, or four for a total of 4 entries. You will need to leave a separate comment for each of your entries to count.

1.Leave a comment on this post. What are you/your kids/pets planning on dress up as for Halloween?

2.Follow Me on Twitter. Come back and post your twitter name in a separate post.

3. Add Chic Crafty Chick to your blog roll or add my badge to your sidebar. Be sure to come back and leave the link to your site in a separate comment.

4. Tweet about this giveaway. Tweet the following phrase and come back and post a separate post with a link back to your tweet. It would be sweet to win a Nature Valley Nut Clusters prize pack from the Chick Crafty Chick blog http://tinyurl.com/q2ogwx #chiccraftychick

Hope y'all have a great weekend! Happy snacking!

Go ahead, bake my day!

What a morning it has been. Had errands to run and there is always so much to do. Got some good deals and things accomplished, so that always helps makes the day better.

Yesterday's baking project of pumpkin bread ended up being a fun project to help us pass away the afternoon. I really like baking with Sawyer, but I feel like I'm working with an octopus because his little hands are flying and he wants to put things like egg shells into the mix. So, it is definitely a teaching session on what goes in the mixer. LOL

I used a pumpkin bread recipe by Alton Brown from the Food Network website. The bread cooked beautifully, a lot longer than the recipe called for by the way, but when I went to cut it and eat it I was not impressed at all. Actually, I hated it. So, I definitely won't be making that

pumpkin bread recipe again.

But, that is ok we had a fun day making it and that is what counts. I think cooking with your kids is one of the most fun things you can do with them. Yeah it is messy and stressful sometimes, but it is so worth it.

By the way, if you are wondering about the apron Sawyer is wearing, I wish he would have stayed still and cooperated so I could get a picture of the front of it. His Nonni, my mom, brought that to him as a gift from England when she went there this summer. It is made out of an oil cloth type
material which is nice so you can wipe it down. It has Paddington Bear on the front. It is really cute.

So as you can see I documented Sawyer "helping" me through the baking process. He is especially humorous to watch as he is mesmerized by the big mixer going around.

On another note, I'm super excited about The Office tonight. Jim and Pam are going to finally tie the knot. I wonder who will catch the bouquet, Kelly or Angela. Can you say cat fight waiting to happen? Good thing Phyllis got married or that could have been really crazy. Can you imagine her going after that bouquet with Kelly and Angela? LOL

So, is anyone else excited about the Jim and Pam wedding?

Check back here tomorrow for my Fabulous Favorite Friday post. Can't wait to share a great product and also I'll be sharing details on a give away.

Hope you are having a great day!

Later

I'll be posting an update later today on our baking day adventure. Check ya later.

Hope you are having a great day!

Baking Day

I'm so bummed today. Today I was supposed to take the boys to the pumpkin patch with our MOPS group, but I had to bail because the baby has been sick with a cold this week. I think he may finally be cutting a tooth (the child has no teeth and is 11 month old) so it has been a big whine fest here this week. Bless his little heart he has been so pitiful.

One thing that cheered me up was seeing a tweet from Crystal at Money Saving Mom http://www.moneysavingmom.com/ and she is having baking days at her house today and tomorrow. She has suggested that other bloggers join her and tweet about their baking using the hash tag #BakingDay. The whole idea of baking day made me smile and think that I'd like to join in too. I find that when the weather starts to get cooler it usually makes me want to bake.

Just as Crystal is doing with her kids, I plan on letting my son Sawyer help me with the baking. I've been getting him to help me more with cooking in the hopes that he will start expanding what he eats. I love having him help me cook. It is a special time for us and gives me a chance to work on teaching him different skills. I want to teach him and his brother how to cook so that one day when they are on their own they will be able to make healthy, delicious meals. I figure it also will be a gift to my future daughter in laws to have husbands who can actually cook. That may just keep me out of the old folks home. LOL

Crystal has listed a pretty extensive list of things she hopes to accomplish in her kitchen. I think that we will focuse on one recipe and try to bake some pumpkin bread. It just seems like a good thing to make for this time of the year. I'll be tweeting about our baking and try to post an update if I get a chance.

Will you be baking any goodies? If so, I'd love to hear what you are making.

Well, that is all from my neck of the woods. Hope you are having a great day!

Sick Day

I've got a sick, whiny 11 month old here today. So, momma is taking a sick day to focus on this little guy. I hope to be back blogging tomorrow.

Wishing you a happy and healthy day!

We're talkin tights today

I was watching the Today show this morning and was pleasantly surprised to see they were doing a segment on tights. That is one fashion trend I am loving this fall. I was in Stein Mart & Target over the weekend and saw some super cute tights. I have a pair of black footless tights, they are called capris, and I like wearing them with a jean skirt that I feel is a tad too short on me. I love that you can use these to get more life out of some of your summer clothes.

The crazy tight patterns that I've seen that I love are leopard print, plaid, black with black dots, and the classic seam down the back. The black dots and seam tights really look dress with a simple dress.

If you are looking for some fun tights that are inexpensive, then I'd suggest checking out Target. I saw some really cute gray ones, they were sort of a plaid and were under ten dollars. I love the ones I saw in Stein Mart also, they were price under $10. So that is another place you can check out.

Macy's has a selection of tights and seemed to be a great place if you wanted to find solid colored tights. I found them to be more expensive than Target and Stein Mart.

So, I guess at some point I'll bite the bullet and get some crazy tights. I think they will be a fun way to add some color to the darker colors fall brings. Are tights something you are liking this fall?

Hope you are having a great day in your neck of the woods.

Fabulous Favorite Friday

Happy Friday everyone! What a crazy day it has been for me. Was up at 1 and then 5 with both kids and then had MOPS this morning. I don't even know how I'm typing straight. So if you see any typos, kindly please look the other way. LOL :)

Today my Fabulous Favorite Friday pick is a new cereal I decided to buy last week. I found a coupon for Honey Bunches of Oats with pecan bunches. I love this cereal. It has a great taste and the pecan bunches taste yummy. Maybe it something about fall, but I love having dishes with nuts in them because they are part of comfort food to me and this cereal seems like a great fall cereal.

I wish I could find a good picture of the box, but you can go the the Honey Bunches of Oats website to check it out. Actually, I'd recommend going there because you can print off a coupon for yourself to try this cereal. http://www.postcereals.com/honeybunchesofoats/Default.aspx
So if you are looking for a new cereal to try and you like pecans and a slight sweet taste to your cereal, you might want to give this one a try.

I've got a fun giveaway planned for next week, so be sure to stop back by the blog. Hope you have a great weekend!