Pumpkin Carving Party

 My neighbors host an annual pumpkin carving party in their driveway. Every family brings a dish to share, their own pumpkin, and a couple lawn chairs. The kids pick a design and the adults rotate between helping carve with sharp knives, to relaxing and eating with the neighbors. It's always a really fun evening, and this year was no exception!

The only glitch was that the pumpkin carving party was the same evening I flew back from NC. In fact, I didn't even enter the house when I got home from the airport. I just put my purse down in the laundry room, and off we went!

Parker decided to "help" our neighbor Avery clean our her pumpkin...

 But really he was just putting seeds back into her pumpkin...not so much of a help.

 She attempted to keep him out, but he kept sneaking them in.

Payton & Brian worked hard to carve a "creeper" pumpkin.

This is the first year Payton has really been able to use the carving tools by himself. He did a great job!

My funny neighbor Kristen didn't quite think through the idea of carving a "wave" around her pumpkin...she accidentally cut it right in half!

Parker had so much fun walking from one person to the next stealing their food and trying to convince people at the buffet to give him another cupcake. Sneaky little guy. :)

In the end, Payton was very happy with how his pumpkin turned out!

And so were all the other kiddos (and adults). :)

After the party, we came home, gave quick baths and then I gave the kids their gifts that I had purchased for them in NC. Parker got a book & a stuffed animal cat. Payton got a bookmark and a boomerang helicopter toy. 

They were both very happy!

And this tired Mama was happy to be home again with all her boys.

Tomorrow is the big day! Halloween! Hope everyone sleeps good tonight in preparation for a night of trick-or-treating, ghosts, goblins & ghouls...

Girl's Getaway

This past weekend, I went out of town to visit my family and to see my grandmother's new condo that she recently moved into. My mom, her cousin Bobbi, and myself all flew in to NC and stayed with my Aunt & Uncle in their beautiful home.

I felt like I was staying at a hotel, more than someone's home. There were no inflatable beds, or sharing bathrooms with multiple people. In fact, my mom & I shared their guest suite which was so lovely and spacious. Check out the view from the living room portion of the suite:

 Here's a closer view. Beautiful woods, rich with fall colors.

We also saw lots of deer on their property while we were there. Here are a couple grazing on some grass in their front yard area.

 

It was so much fun to see my beautiful 93-year old grandmother. She is the sweetest, most loving person in the world. And she's really funny too!

Her new community is only a 15-minute drive from my Aunt & Uncle's house, so we spent a lot of time there decorating and helping pick out paint colors.

This is the view from her patio. It's a lovely vegetable and flower garden that the residents take care of:

And this is the view of the other units across the way:

Here we are hanging out on her patio. The weather was so amazing while we were there.

 

When my grandmother was giving us a tour of her condo. I spotted this box of letters in one of her closets. She said they are all the letters my grandfather sent her from war. How amazingly romantic is that?!?!

 Check out that postmark: 1944!

 The first night we were there, we had dinner in the formal dinning area of the community. It was such a beautiful restaurant! My uncle Bob met us there after work and we all enjoyed a wonderful dinner together.

(Doesn't my grandmother look proud with her son & daughter on either arm?)

I had such a wonderful time with these amazing women!

Talking for hours over coffee...

 Laughing our heads off!

 Shedding some tears, but necessary and therapeutic ones. :)

And I even got to get my doggie fix while I was there. Their dog Desi was very accommodating to my constant scratches, kisses and snuggles.

The weekend was relaxing, entertaining, and a much-needed distraction from everything that has been going on in my own life lately. I'm so appreciative of the strong, smart female role models that I have in my family.
I am also so incredibly blessed to be able to spend time with my grandmother.
It makes me realize how invaluable family is...
People who love you no matter what.
Your loudest cheerleaders.
Your biggest supporters.
Thanks for an awesome weekend y'all! I love you!

Easy, Delcious Salmon Recipe

I love recipes that have only a few ingredients, yet yield delicious, impressive results. If you like salmon, and you like easy, this one is for you!

Stacy's Easy Salmon
Ingredients:
1 1/2 - 2 lbs. Salmon filet
2 Tablespoon vegetable oil
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
3 Tablespoons, choice of: chardonnay, bourbon, or whiskey
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1 Tablespoon brown sugar

Directions:
First, I prefer to cut my salmon into smaller "strips" before cooking them. It just makes for quicker serving once I'm done, but this is totally optional.

1. In a small mixing bowl, whisk together oil, ginger, brown sugar, soy sauce & wine until combined.

2. Pour into shallow dish, place salmon filets on top of marinade, skin-side up. Cover dish and put in fridge to marinate - preferably for several hours, but not necessary.

3. Heat a large skillet on medium high and pour in 1 teaspoon of oil (olive or vegetable).
Place salmon and marinade in skillet and cook SKIN SIDE UP for 5 minutes.

4. Flip salmon filets and cook for additional 5-6 minutes, or until salmon flakes.

5. Remove salmon from pan and place on serving dish. Whisk together remaining marinade in skillet and drizzle over salmon filets.

 This particular night, I served it with quinoa and mixed veggies. The entire family loved it!

 This recipe is SO easy and looks really fancy. Plus it's really quite delicious!

Hope you enjoy it too.

I'll be taking a break from blogging for the next few days, as I'm headed out of town for a girl's weekend with my aunt, mom, grandmother, and my mom's cousin. It's sure to be a wild & crazy weekend with these gals. I'll fill you all in with pictures when I return.

Halloween Craft Idea - Ghost Feet

Although this isn't a new craft idea for Halloween, it's always a favorite for both the kids who make it, and the folks that receive it.

I call it "Ghost Feet."

Essentially, you paint the bottom of your kids' feet white and then have them step on black construction paper to make white footprints. Then add a mouth & eyes and they look like little ghosts. Sounds easy enough, right?

Here's what you'll need:

• Large plastic tablecloth/tarp (something to protect the floor)
• Baby wipes or wet paper towels (to immediately clean off their feet before they walk away leaving a white footprint trail behind them!)
• White craft paint (any kind will do) & a paper plate to squirt the paint onto
• Paint brushes
• Black construction paper
• Black Sharpie marker
• Googly eyes & glue (optional) 

Here's how you do it:

Lay out a large plastic tablecloth (this is our craft tablecloth - we use it for all our messy crafts, so I don't care what gets on it). And make sure your baby wipes are close by! :)

 Get out your paint & brushes and go to town painting the kids feet!

I painted Parker's feet, but Payton did his own.

Then have them place their one foot down on the black construction paper, making sure to get each toe and the entire heel print.

I didn't get any pictures of the actual foot-painting process, as all my concentration was going towards getting good footprints. It's harder than it sounds, trust me.

This is what our tablecloth looked like afterward. LOTS of white paint on it, so be sure to protect your floor!

Leave the footprint papers out to dry overnight.

(Here you can see I did Payton's footprint on one side, and Parker's on the other):

Once they are dry, use your Sharpie marker to draw a small oval for a mouth and either glue on the googly eyes, or draw them with the marker as well.

I took it a couple steps further and cut out the feet and glued them to white cardstock which had the boys names and ages listed under the feet (grandparents like that kind of stuff). :)

 It makes a cute Halloween craft that you can take out each year and see how much the kids' feet have grown. And I'm hoping the recipients of these will enjoy displaying them in their homes too.

Only 1 week left until Halloween! Enjoy these final days of spookiness! :)

Seeing the Light

Just when I felt like I could take no more, I think I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Brian seems like he's recovering from the flu and hopefully will be back to 100% by tomorrow or the next day. Parker is still struggling with a cough, and we may end up at the pediatrician if it doesn't clear by tomorrow, but if that's the worst that this week has in store for me, I can handle it.

The mornings have been so incredibly beautiful this week. The temps are lower, humidity is down, and we even got to wear our sweaters this morning for our walk around the neighborhood! Imagine that! :)

We used to walk Rohy every morning together as a family. Then when his hips started bothering him, our walks became shorter and shorter and eventually evolved into just a couple of driveways. After he passed, we stopped walking in the mornings all together. But I have revived the morning walk with Parker the past few days and it's been so nice.

We saunter around the neighborhood while it's still cool out and the birds and squirrels are busy gathering their breakfasts. There are no noisy lawnmowers running and rarely a person in sight. We get to explore Halloween yard decorations, collect acorns, and chatter to the wildlife. It's probably one of my favorite times of day.

Yesterday, Parker discovered that he could climb into the basket underneath the stroller. Apparently it's quite cozy in there because he refused to come out and ride in the stroller seat. Again this morning, he climbed right into the basket and rode down there the whole time. I'm sure my neighbors think I'm nuts!

And yes, I realize that it's probably not the safest place for him to sit, but we are just walking very slowly around the neighborhood, so I think he'll be okay.

One of our neighbors a few houses down has really decked out their front lawn with all sorts of spooky Halloween decorations. I really thought they might scare Parker at first, but no. He loves them so much that every single time we walk past the house he has to greet every ghoul and skeleton and show me how scary everything is.

This morning after our walk, we met up with an old friend up at Starbucks. Before she got there, we had a little mommy-son breakfast date. He sat up at the counter with me and felt like such a big boy!

After we got our coffees, all 3 of us walked over to the fountain and enjoyed the beautiful morning. We got to chat for a long time while Parker splashed his hands in the water, pushed his stroller and made me chase after him more than a couple times. :) It was so nice to catch up with my friend Jen. Now that we have school-aged kids at different schools with different sets of friends and different schedules it's hard to find time to get together. But I realize that we need to do it more often.

And since I didn't have the energy to post these over the weekend, I also wanted to share a few pics my friend Kristen took during the Gator game on Saturday. She has a really nice camera, so enjoy the rare quality of these photos on my blog. ;)

Parker with her sweet daughter, Avery.

Parker enjoying their dog's bed. (He used to do this in Rohy's bed too - I guess it's the perfect size!)

Here's wishing the rest of the week continues to get even better.

I've got a fun girl's trip planned for this weekend, so I'm hoping everyone is healthy in time for my departure (including me!).