Homemade Halloween, Part the Second

Hey y'all,
So I have the second installment of Homemade Halloween for ya.  But first, let me tell you what I have been up to.

I literally spent hours baking last night, to make 3 dozen cookie cups for, my baby, Albert's kindergarten class.  Today they had an ice cream party to celebrate completing the alphabet, so I baked cookie cups for them to put their ice cream in.  I originally got the idea on pinterest and I experimented with them a couple months ago.

This is the picture from pinterest.  However, mine didn't exactly turn out like this.

 

Here are my cookie cups.  They still turned out pretty good.  And I used the rest of the dough to cut out letters, since they were celebrating the alphabet.

I found that used I thicker dough that you can roll out and cut shapes with works best.  You can find my own, original recipe here.  And all you have to do is roll out the dough about a 1/4 inch thick and use a circle cookie cutter, or a cup or anything else, to cut circles.  Make sure you grease your cupcake pan REALLY good, because they can still be difficult to get off even if you slather it in butter (I prefer to use butter over sprays, I heard it is better for your pans and you don't get any funny tastes.). Cut circles that don't completely cover sides of the cups when you flip your pan over, make them a couple centimeters from the bottom because gravity will make them droop down to the bottom.  Then you just bake them until golden brown, you just have to watch them but mine took around 12 minutes to bake...

 

Here's Albert's class.

 

And here's my baby enjoying his well-deserved ice cream.  Doesn't that ice cream look delicious in it's little cookie bowl.  The cookie cups were a huge hit!

 

And here's our favorite teacher, Mrs. Melcher, she also taught Albert's big brother, Fernando..  (She said the "k" tastes like a "k") 

And you know those funky colored ones, everyone told me they looked like play-doh and I said, "You watch, I betcha the kids eat all of those.  And guess what,

 

they did! I was worried they were going to start fighting over them.  But Mrs Melcher warned them, "You get what you get and you don't throw a fit!"

Anyway, so on to Homemade Halloween stuff.  Today I made Albert a costume.  So, you know the video game "Zelda"?  I THINK I remember my mom telling me that Zelda was the name of the princess on the game and that the guy in green is named Link.  But I don't know for sure and I never really have been to into video games.  But we'll go ahead and say I'm right and call him Link.  So Albert wanted to be Link for Halloween.  So today we went to Goodwill and got him a green shirt for men, some brown pants (for girls ;]) and a belt all for $8.

 And here's what we came up with!  It's much cuter in person. So, I probably should have just gotten him a boy's shirt that was a couple sizes to big, but as soon as I walked into the store I saw a shirt in the perfect color green and I DO NOT like rummaging through all the clothes at Goodwill.  So I just grabbed it. So I had to hem the sleeves and the bottom hem of the shirt because it was just a bit longer than it needed to be.  But because I bought a shirt that was way too big, I had plenty of extra fabric to make his hat.

I didn't get a picture where you could see the hat really good, but I pretty much just sewed 2 triangles together and it turned out great!  You may have noticed the boots (also for girls).  They were an extra $6, but once he saw them, there was no convincing him I could make him cool pretend boots out of fabric.  So I went ahead an bought them.  Eh, what's $6 (a soda and a cheeseburger, if you didn't know).  He was happy and that makes me happy!

I'll holler at y'all later!

-Ashley

 

Homemade Halloween; Part 1

Hey guys!  So y'all know how I love fall, so of course, I have to start getting ready for Halloween!!

This weekend I made some costumes for nieces.

 

First up, a Ladybug! You can't see her antenna too well in this pic, but I even made those with stuff from my stash and put them on a cute little hairbow.  My poor lady bug was trying so hard not to smile, she's self concsious about her front teeth that are barely starting to grow back :(

 

I made little yarn pom poms and then I covered flower wire with the black yarn and hot glued the ends.  I even found that cute little lady bug button in my stash! You never know what you'll find raiding your own house.  I found everything for my youngest son's costume (He's going to be a scarecrow to match my niece at the bottom, they're going to be soooo cute! I can't wait to get pics!!!)

I saw this pic on pinterest.  I use to buy a little pom pom maker and I would always lose it and have to buy another, but you can just use a fork (which is what I did.)

 

And, my adorable scarecrow. (I think I blinded her with the flash, sorry!) Everything, except the tulle to make her dress, I found around my house! And the dress, just an extra long tutu with a ribbon tied right below her "bust".  I know, I know, she doesn't really look much like a scarecrow. but wait until you see her with her face painted...

  So we're going to have this kick-ass Halloween costume at my sister-in-law's house, I mean, that's if some people actually show up... But, if they don't, I guess more candy for us!

But I have so many great ideas, I'm so excited!  So, each week I'll show you guys what I'm making leading up to the big event on October 31st, when I'll have lots of pics to share with y'all!

Happy Autumn, y'all!

Count your many blessings name them on by one

     Hey y'all, I have been so busy with making cakes and getting my kids from here to there and just life in general, that I realized yesterday that I was letting my house fall down around me.  So I spent the ENTIRE day, literally the entire day, cleaning. And I'm satisfied that I got every room and even the outside of my house clean.  I even planted some shrubs that have been hanging out in planters in front of my house for a couple weeks and put out a couple fall decorations.

This is the first time that I have actually wanted a picture of my house.  It took me almost 6 months to finish painting it (I had to do it ALL by myself and I still had to cook, clean, do laundry, and work) But I think that all my hard work is paying off. 

This is a fall wreath that I made with supplies from Dollar Tree. I think it turned out pretty good.  I'm always pinning wreaths on Pinterest but this is the first one that I've actually made.

     Today, while I was doing all this work around my house I had a lot of time to think.  For the last couple months I've been wanting to go back to Texas (where I am originally from and where I met my boo) because our house in Texas is much bigger than this one here in Southern California.  It's not just that I want a bigger house, our home is too small for our family, it's only a 2 bedroom and one bath for our family of 5. (Of course, in February we will be converting the garage into an additional bedroom),  But because of circumstances, we had to come out here.  So a couple days ago, I prayed that God would either make it possible for our family to return to our home in Texas, or to make me content with our home here in California.
    I'm sorry to tell you family and friends, that while I was cleaning and working today, I realized that God had filled my heart with a contentment with our home.  We are a very blessed family.  My husband has a decent job, but we're definitely middle class, probably even lower middle class.  But Bobby was once a professional athlete and made enough money to buy some assets, houses and cars, and because God blessed us in this way, we're able to live quite comfortably.  It may be a tiny, old house, but I know that there are people who have bigger houses and envy us because our house is payed for.  And that makes it possible for us to get and do a lot of things that we otherwise may not be able to afford.  It makes it possible for me to try and build a cake business from home.

    This Bible verse has been on my mirror for years (and that picture too, but my babies were so cute I don't want to update it yet lol) I kind of lost touch with the meaning, that God provides what we need and if we don't have it, God will carry us through without it.  It's so easy for us to get caught up in the "American Dream," which seems to have become "Get more and bigger stuff" and keeping up with the Joneses, and we often forget about all we got.  I once read about a woman who thanked God every time she walked into a room in her house for that room and everything/everyone in it.  I'm thinking about making some kind of little signs to remind me to be thankful for my little blessings every day. Especially those little blessings in the picture :)
    But, even with all the cleaning and working I've been doing today, I still had time to bake a delicious treat for my best friend, just as a blessing.

Red Velvet is her favorite so I made her a couple dozen since we haven't got to spend much time together lately, being busy moms.

Take care y'all!