Mr. Future President please fix the economy so Mother's Cookies can reopen..

This is bad....very bad...

I have been trying to take the fingers plugging my ears approach when the economy is brought up.. I am trying to keep a positive outlook that all will get better..

But you know what I just heard...I am in denial...

Mother's Cookies just shut their doors! Yes, THE Mother's cookies.. you know the pink and white circus cookies....

Can't be true...

So straight to Google I go and article after article goes into how on October 9th they went out of business after 92 years..92 years people! Even Ebay is starting to get listings of people putting their cookie stash up for auction..

So still in denial off to the grocery store I rush to see for myself and my heart drops to my stomach as I find myself standing in the cookie aisle staring at empty shelves where my circus animal cookies use to be.. I tell myself it is just a coincidence..but my heart was beating a bit fast as their entire Mother's cookie shelf was very sparse.. fast forward THREE grocery stores later..no animal cookies..very few leftover Mother's cookies..period..

tears..silly I know but really.. banks aren't even willing to help out the cookie people who provide us with a bit of happiness and nostalgia.

If anyone finds my circus cookies please buy me some... my kids and I will be grateful to you so that we can enjoy our last bag together making all the animal sounds of the cookies as we eat them.

Their Love of Art Preserved..

Luke and Hailie love to color and lately some of their drawings have been pretty impressive..

They have a habit of getting some tape and going around the house and helping mommy decorate by putting them up on a wall somewhere... so cute

I also have like every other mommy the ones that I especially love framed in their playroom

But when I stumbled across these ideas I was amazed... what a perfect gift for any mommy...

I have a couple of pieces of jewelry with either Luke and Hailies name or initials on them but when I saw this I fell in love... It is the Doodle Tag by Mommy Tags

Their site is so unique and inspiring.. they use silver that is recycled from film and all of the tags are made by work at home moms.

And to make it even more fabulous, when you purchase the Doodle Tag they even send you a rubber stamp with the artwork on it as well.. you can not beat that..

I also was blown away by this company called
They bring your child's drawings to life in the form of a pillow or doll..

I think they are the modern version of Gappetto bringing Pinocchio to life.

Look at some of these examples the have on their site...

Adorable right? I can imagine Luke and Hailie flipping out with excitement when they see that their drawings have been turned into a real life doll...

We Are Talking About Meat Loaf..

Yep, you read it here.. I have never made meat loaf before.. ever..so keeping with my goal of expanding my cooking skills and it didn't help that Kyle was making fun of me saying that I could just make a meat loaf for once.. I took his challenge. I found this recipe for mini meatloaves using a cupcake pan...

Perfect... It was pretty easy and the kids LOVED them...

You will need 1 lb ground beef ( I used ground turkey though)
1 pkg of Stove Top stuffing mix
1 cup of water
1 tsp garlic powder
3/4 cup of our favorite BBQ sauce
3/4 cup of cheese

Just preheat your oven to 375
Mix meat, stuffing mix, water, and the garlic powder
Press evenly into 12 medium muffin cups sprayed with cooking spray
Make an indentation in the center of each with the back of a spoon
Spoon in the BBQ sauce into the indentations in the meatloaves
Bake for 30 min until the meatloaves are cooked through
Top with cheese and bake another 5 min or until the cheese is melted
Let stand 10 min

Dinner is served..let me know what you think.. I was pretty proud of myself

Pumpkins...

Let me start this post off by saying that this was the best family night.. It was filled with adventures at the pumpkin patch, laughter, creativity, and love....

The kids had fun pulling the wagon around looking for their pumpkins...And then I was so excited that they had a stand out front selling fresh kettle corn.. that was a must as we headed home to start carving our pumpkins..I have to say here that I was a bit frustrated with how my pictures turned out.. I so desperately need a new camera... we bought this one before Luke was born... I was trying all of the settings and all the pictures I took of the kids at the pumpkin patch were blown out from the flash or too dark and blurry.. I am blaming the camera not the photographer... Santa or Cannon if you are listening please I would really love a new camera... I most likely will be getting a laptop from Santa though as I am starting school in January to get my bachelors in Health Care Management and I need to be more practical about our purchases..wants have to wait and as much as I try..that dang camera will not break..hehe
Mel..why don't you help a sister out and send me one of your million cameras to borrow for awhile.. I know that you can't possibly use all of yours.. :)

So we got the drinks and popcorn out and all of our crafty tools and the kids watched anxiously as Kyle made the first cut and cleaned out the pumpkins... the kids were so good and really did a lot of the work.
Kyle and I asked the kids what type of pumpkins that they wanted to do and Luke said Yoda and Hailie said princess..of course..It was actually perfect as Kyle and I loved the idea to do pumpkins that really reflected what the kids were into at the moment...

Kyle took Luke's Yoda toy and drew the face onto the pumpkin... he really did an amazing job!

Then Luke said he wanted to paint the pumpkin green like Yoda.. this was the first time we have ever painted our pumpkins and the kids really had a fun time with that..glad I had green paint around..Introducing Yoda the pumpkin edition!

Hailie and I decided to do Cinderella's carriage. I turned the pumpkin upside down and cut a hole in the top and she had a Cinderella ring that she got somewhere, so we put that on the top and put crystal around it. Then we took Scrapbook Embellishments to make the door and windows of the carriage.. I just hot glued those to the pumpkin and cut out the insides..

We looked at the patch for a white pumpkin because I thought that would be super cute.. but they didn't have any so we just went with the orange but when Hailie saw brother painting his pumpkin she said that she wanted to paint hers blue like Cinderella's carriage in her princess book..so I lucked out twice as I had blue paint on hand too...

We used miniature pumpkins for the wheels and I had Kyle drill holes in the pumpkin and we put wooden dowels into them and those are just scrapbook brads that Hailie put on the wheels.

Introducing Cinderella's pumpkin carriage!The kids were so thrilled with their pumpkins..and I have to say that I think these are our best pumpkins yet.

The frenzy begins

I couldn't believe when I saw that it had almost been a week since I had posted anything..
(not that I think I have a huge fan base following my blog daily dying to know why I am not posting..) still..things have been crazy with family functions, planned activities and work!


Thought I would give a little preview of what we did this weekend....
I mean you can't get much cuter then that!! We had family pictures done for the holidays and it was the first time we had hired a photographer to go to a location to get them done..usually hit the Kiddie Kandids or whatever.. Anyways all the cousins look so adorable together.. I can't stand it!


Thanks Amber for sneaking in your camera to take a couple preview shots!

Going on the Christmas Purchase List...

My nephews Colton and Preston are into collecting Webkins... but when I saw this I thought of them.. It is called My Meeba and I found it as I was cruising the Internet again for Christmas presents on Amazon...


How cool is this? the little guys are stuck in the tube and you have to feed it, play with it, and groom it and the more time you spend with it the more quickly the little guy grows and then "pop" a real life little Meeba is born! Cool right.. I want one!

*I just wanted to say really quick that as you can see I don't advertise on this blog..doesn't mean that I am not open to it.. I just don't right now. I don't get paid by anybody to post about certain products either... Everything I talk about is just me coming across something and thinking it is clever..cool..whatever..Kind of like in the old days when us mommy's didn't blog/text/email we just chatted in person or on the phone about things we found and liked.. *

Taking it to the soccer field...

Luke's first soccer game was this past weekend..

His team did really well!

Team huddle...

In the zone....

Trying to cool off...It was so hot....

All of the goalies did an excellent job!

Hustling to get that First Goal!!!

Hanging out on the sidelines with his peeps...

Even Hailie made a new friend Rosie..too cute

Great job!!!!

Look out David Beckham!!

Good game baby, we love you!

Kissing Cousins

Why didn't I think of this...

Instead I always end up with a frustrated husband and a ton of nail holes in the wall.

Basically you just trace each piece of framed art onto Kraft paper and make sure you label each one to avoid any confusion. Then you attach the cutouts to the wall with painters tape and then arrange the design to your hearts content and then once you like what you see just use a pencil to mark the location of the hanger on the paper, drive the hanger right through the paper, then pull down the cutouts... I mean genius right?

Look how nice this looks (not my taste but you get what I am saying) and how happy they look while styling that wall...not even close to the scenario that occurs in my house while hanging things..

baby...feel like hanging anything with me...(wink..wink)

Going under the Christmas Tree..

No secret my kids LOVE to build things..including forts.. So when I stumbled upon this on Amazon while looking for Christmas ideas for the kids, I was super excited!
Crazy Forts ..I mean seriously can you have made a better product!
It comes with a mix of sticks and balls and the kids can build away.. and I feel it is really reasonably priced at $39.99.. (sometimes just a little pack of Legos costs that much!)
Their website even says they are coming out with Fort lights soon..which again my kids will have a blast with ..because every good fort needs a little light! Hopefully it will be before Christmas as that would be a great stocking stuffer!

By the way Mel..thanks for sending the American Girl Doll Catalog with the outfit..

Appreciate that...

Hailie was studying that thing for hours..she announced that she has to have a big girl doll to go with with her baby doll now..since she is a big girl now and not a baby...

She had her eye on a little girl with light brown hair with higlights (what the heck, they are advertising they have highlights now), blue eye, and freckles..and she pointed out"mommy, she has earrings on just like me!"

There you go Santa Melissa..get on it...

Brain Tumor Walk, and Angel Adventure...

This weekend was the walk to raise money for Brain Tumor Research that I did in memory of my aunt, Angela Pancrazio...

Thank you to everyone for all of your wonderful prayers, well wishes, and donations!!

We raised over $1300!

Here we all are..Bonita and Lance, and me and my mom..

My Aunt Bonita and Uncle Lance (Aren't they so cute!)

Bonita and Mary Jo ( Angela's sisters)

Listening to all of the amazing and touching stories...

The start of the walk...

It was a beautiful day and it was so comforting to walk with my family..

At the finish line..They also had a silent auction and Shaq's shoes were up for auction.. They were giant!!Then the day got even better as we all went to Paradise Bakery and met Kyle and the kids and had a nice family lunch...I know Angela is smiling..