Candy Corn baby

Did you know you could buy fabric spray paint? Well you can! And grandma decided to make Little Miss an adorable onesie! This is the most delicious candy corn I have ever seen!

Black Cat Cookies

Every year at Halloween time, I like to make these black cat face cookies. This year I procrastinated and didn't end up making them until today. However, I think they are a fun tradition and I had a little help from Mr. C this year!

The recipe is as follows:

1 cup butter, softened

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

3 teaspoons vanilla extract

3 cups flour

1 cup baking cocoa

1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

assorted candy

*Cream together butter and sugar.

*Beat in eggs and vanilla

*Combine the flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda and salt

*Gradually add dry ingredients to creamed mixture

*Mix until dough forms

Then:

Roll dough into 1 1/2 inch balls

Dip the bottom of a glass onto a plate or bowl of sugar

Press sugared glass onto dough ball to flatten (to about 1/4")

They will look like this when you flatten the dough balls

Pinch the top of the cookie to form the 2 ears of the cat

Using a fork, press the pronged end onto the dough to form 2 sets of whiskers

* Bake at 350 degrees for 10-12 minutes

Have your candy ready to go

Once the cookies are out of the oven and still on the pan, press candy onto warm cookies to make the face. Mr. C helped during this step. We had to be very careful because of the hot pan.

Once they cooled we delivered cookies to the neighbors and some of Mr. C's little friends. Of course we had to taste a few ourselves.
These cookies are cute and festive. It is always fun to make these yummy cookies. It gets me in the mood for the upcoming holiday season and prepared for all the baking ahead!

I got this recipe out of a Taste of Home's magazine years ago

Finally feeling SPOOKY!

I am not a lover of Halloween. I do, however, LOVE the FALL and all the fun colors. It usually takes me a while to put up any Halloween decorations, and even then, it is not very many. So as usual, I'm keeping it really simple.

My sister in law had bought a bunch of scrapbook paper a year ago (on sale! yay!) to make a Halloween banner. She came up with the design and we each made one! After I had made this, I thought, Oh, I should've been doing a tutorial. Oh well. It turned out cute and I like that it says Spooky. That is the word I've been telling Mr. C this year. We are talking about all the spooky things he sees at peoples houses and at his play school.

I also just cut out some simple bats from construction paper, in varying sizes, and taped them to my mirror in the entry way. The wings to stand up a little.
Another thing that has been really fun to use in the "spooky" decorating, are the cute little craft projects Mr. C. has been making at school.
I thought these spiders made from his hand prints were really cute.
He also made ghosts out of his foot prints. I love the placement of the eyes!

Mr. C decided where he wanted to put this pumpkin. On the front door.

As an added bonus: I thought I couldn't post about Halloween without showing off the "un"spooky costumes this year. We have our football players and our cheerleader. (She is lovin those pom poms!)
We like to keep it simple at our house when it comes to Halloween. Maybe as the kids get older it will change. My husband hopes not though. He hates dragging boxes of decorations in and out of the attic!

Featured!

I was excited to hear that we were going to be featured at one of my new favorite blogs! If you haven't checked out Simply Sweet Home, you should. Jerri has great ideas, recipes and give aways! She also hosts link parties where others share their great ideas!

Thanks Jerri for featuring us!

Pinwheels & Polka Dot Party

On saturday we had a little party for Little Miss's 1st birthday. It started off with the invitation. I knew I wanted to do pinwheels and polka dots for the theme. Even though that seems like a summer theme and it is fall now, it is still 10o degrees here so it doesn't feel like fall. I decided on the color scheme and here is our invite.

She looked so cute in her coordinating outfit. I made her onesie with an iron on of the pinwheel I made for her invitation.
So I'm loving pinterest right now and all the cute ideas that people are pinning. This is one that I saw recently and thought it was a great idea. Everybody loved looking at all the pictures through out her 1st year, even little miss!
The super easy bunting I made looked great and went with the party perfectly!
What fun would a polka dot and pinwheels party be if you didn't have spinning pinwheels?!?! These decorated our tables and the kids got to take one home at the end. (tutorial coming soon)
The food turned out really yummy and looked great! Even though my messy kitchen is the backdrop.What we had for lunch:

Pepperoni Pizza Pinwheels with dipping sauce

recipe found HeRe

Fruit skewers

Colorful spiral pasta salad

Vanilla filled Cupcakes

After we got our fill of yummy food and the kids got to play for a few minutes, we opened up presents. Little miss was so cute and interested in all the things she got. She got just what every girl needs: clothes, jewelry, hair bows, a purse.

After the presents we had cupcakes. I made these mini versions of my favorite cake. White cake with vanilla custard filling and whipped cream frosting. Yum.

She could not wait to get her hands on that cupcake! She loved every bite! Even those crumbs that fell on the floor.

It was a great party with those we love most and who love little miss. We came home later that night after running errands and Mr. C walked in the house and said "good party". Yes cuteness, it was a good party.