Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Damsel in Distress

So you're dying to know what we are going to be for Halloween?

Well here we are


Colton is a dragon

This was taken at my parents house a few weeks ago, we did a parade with all the great-grandchildren for my grandma

Mommy is the princess that Daddy has to save


But Lucy thinks she is better than a Knight


But maybe the best way to beat the dragon is to give him his very first Kit Kat


Yep I think that worked. Or maybe just give him the Knights sword...and he'll take care of himself...


Happy Halloween and may your Halloween baskets be full by the end of the night!

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Weekend Recap

Wow we had a jam packed weekend. Mr. took Friday off with me. I don't think I told you, but Mr. has been working CRAZY hours the past month or so. This was the first weekend off in a month, we definitely enjoyed family time.

Friday:

Baby Fox wanted to watch the pool man do his pool man things...cleaning, sweeping, chemical pouring. Baby Fox was sad when pool man was finished, tears were shed.


Then we headed to the mall, and Baby Fox went on his first escalator ride...and then again, and again, and again...

Going UP!

Going DOWN


Then Baby Fox went on his first Ferris Wheel ride, cool malls have carousel and Ferris wheels rides, didn't ya know?




After nap time Baby Fox made these for his Grandparents



and then he made everyone dinner, Baby Fox Style (on the ground with a wooden butcher knife)




 I did get a sandwich too, but was too busy eating to remember to take a picture.

Saturday:

Was low key, we were preparing for the Halloween Party we were going to.

You didn't think I was going to show you our costumes did you? Think again!

Sunday:

Baby Fox stayed up extra late...like 3 hours extra late...so he slept in till 10am! When we woke up he helped daddy do this:

So we could do this:

And go here:

That's Walmart, I wanted to get a greeting card, but instead got some windshield wipers, isn't that how it always works, go in for one thing, walk out with something else. The bucket was left at Walmart, my backpack wasn't big enough.

 and here:

Then we went here to look at some plants for our backyard, but he wanted to stay and watch these go round and round:



All in all we had a great weekend. Hope yours was as fun as ours! Till next time!


The Life Of Faith




Monday, October 29, 2012

Candy Corn Cookies


This past weekend we went to a Halloween party. I thought I would be festive and make this Candy Corn Cookie recipe. This particular has orange zest in it, if you don't want that flavor you could try this recipe, which is your basic sugar cookie recipe. I am going to have to try that one out next time.For this tutorial though, we're going to use the first recipe.

What you'll need:
  • 1 cup butter room temperature
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 Tablespoons orange juice
  • 2 teaspoons orange zest
  • 1/8 teaspoon salt
  • 3 cups flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
  • orange gel food coloring (I used icing gel, found at Micheal's)
  • yellow gel food coloring (I used icing gel, you can find them separately too)
  • sanding sugar (I actually used crushed Sparkling Sugar)
Instructions

   1.   Preheat Oven to 375°.  Cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.




   2.  Zest Orange and squeeze orange for juice




   3.  Add the egg, orange juice, orange zest and salt.


   4.  Combine

   5.  Slowly add the flour and baking soda. Beat until combined.


   6.  Place parchment paper in loaf pan. If you don't have parchment paper, you can use plastic wrap.


   7.  Here comes the fun part. Divide the cookie dough into three portions.Add the first third of the dough to the loaf pan pressing it evenly in the bottom.


8.  Add a few drops of orange to the second third of dough and press that into the pan.

Thank you to the Mr. for helping me out, I actually made the orange last and didn't have orange (they had a copper that would have worked, but I'm OCD like that, I wanted bright orange) in my icing color pack, so I had to combine yellow and red, and my hand was getting tired of trying to mix them together.


   9.  Do the same thing and make yellow and press it into the pan.


From the side view this is what it will look like:


   10.  Wrap the cookie dough and refrigerate until firm. At least two hours or overnight.


   11.  Unwrap the cookie dough

 This picture is totally deceiving, I thought this would work, but in reality it didn't. 
I dumped it upside down, and then pulled on one of the corners.

   12.  Slice into 1/4 inch slices



   13.  Slice the dough into triangles.


Mr. wanted to get in on the fun too




  

14.  Put sugar into baggie and using rolling pin, or spoon or whatever to crush them a little smaller (you don't have to do this, but I figured since the cookies were so small that the sugar would be too big, in reality it wasn't so this step isn't totally necessary, but didn't realize that till after I crushed it, so I'm sharing my wealth of knowledge)

  Please ignore my chipping nail polish...there was no way to take this picture without showing you my nails, 
don't worry I took off the polish just after this picture was taken.


   15.  Dip one side of the cookie into the sanding sugar.

Okay let's get real for a second...this method takes WAY  too long, but it makes for a good picture right? In reality this is how I did it:

I took the whole row, put in sugar


Place on cookie sheet and then separate


and there you have it!


   16.  Bake for 7 to 10 minutes (I baked mine for 7 minutes 30 seconds). Cool on a cooling rack.


   17.  Enjoy!

 Yep I put this on a paper plate, I didn't have any cute Halloween plates, and I knew that I would probably never remember to bring my plate home with me...

Bet your wondering what we are for Halloween? You'll have to wait till Wednesday to find out! Now go out and make some cookies!