Halloween is finally here! And, better yet, GAVIN WORE HIS COSTUME!! If you watch the video at the bottom, you'll see that when we first showed Gavin his costume that he didn't want to wear it. Oh yeah, when I built this costume Gavin had no clue. There's no way I could get this together if he knew I was building his favorite character! So Thursday before his Halloween party at daycare we "introduced" them. Then this afternoon was trick or treating. I apologize that I don't have more pictures of the experience. :( I'll try to coax the costume back on him tomorrow for some more cute shots.

Best part of this was as I tucked Gavin in for his nap, he declares, "I love trick or treat." :)

Gavin needs some candy to get started

Did you know you can't open a box of candy while wearing gloves? Yeah, I finally figured that out.

Yay candy!

Honey Baked Chicken recipe

Normally I'd link you to the original recipe but I made so many alterations to it that I'll just give you my rewrite instead.

This chicken is really good, moist with a sweet subtley spicy flavor to it. Best part is the sauce is super cheap to make!! :D I like cheap. So here's what you do:

3 lbs chicken pieces
1/2 stick of butter, melted
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup prepared mustard (I used yellow but Dijon would be dee-lish as well)
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon curry powder

Preheat oven to 350. Put the chicken pieces in a 9x13 baking dish. Combine remaining ingredients and pour over chicken. Cover with foil and bake 30 minutes. Remove foil and baste chicken with sauce. Continue to bake, uncovered for another 45 minutes, basting the chicken every 15 minutes.

Yummy!! :q

My kid is BRILLIANT!!!!

When Rob and I got married, combining two denominational backgrounds was a challenge for us. It was one thing to consider the Big Picture items, like what church to go to, but the little things were even more challenging. Who's table prayer would we use, that our children would grow up reciting? Would we use the short Lutheran prayer ("Come Lord Jesus, be our guest. And let thy gifts to us be blessed.")? Or would we use the longer Catholic prayer that I grew up with ("Bless us o Lord for these thy gifts, which we are about to receive, from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord Amen.")? And yes, I did grow up Baptist but we said the Catholic prayer. ;)

Our solution was to use neither. Instead we went with Rob's Boy Scout background and decided to use what's known as the Philmont Grace. Above, Gavin gives you his rendition of it:

"For food, for rainment, for life, for opportunity, for friendship and fellowship we thank thee o Lord. "

I'm so proud I could just POP!!! :D

Thomas and Mama

So I got it in my head this year that Gavin should be Thomas for Halloween. It's his current obsession so why not, right? The problem though is the Thomas & Friends franchise is CRAZY over priced. And when I looked at manufactured costumes they were just ponchos with faces on them. :p Wooo, so exciting. BLEH! Then I discovered some DIY sites with pictures of what previous Moms in my position had done and they were COOL! The overwhelming majority looked like they'd used old boxes and various other craft supplies so I thought...why not? I can do this...right? ;)

So I used Gavin's only Thomas as my model (above) and came up with what you see below. :)

COOKIES!!

I have hugely fond memories of baking with my mom. Didn't matter really what we were making, as long as I got to crack the eggs and lick the beaters I was THERE. ;) So I keep having to remind myself that my son is only two years old and we have lots of years ahead of us to make messes in the kitchen.

And then there are days like today. Plans to go to the park, run around in the backyard while Mama does some cleanup, maybe cruise down the block on a Harley... all those plans go awry. It is wet, cold, gray, bleak. Can you ask for a more perfect day to make Pumpkin Cookies with Butterscotch Chips?

Making sure the cookies don't burn

Delicious pumpkin cookies awaiting the oven

The mess

My little helper boy!

COOKIES!!

Huge cookies. I think it's as big as his face.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

Naptime Solution...

...for Mama's who cannot lift their kids. :)



My sincere apologies to Aunt Swa!! I'd just hit the Stop on the video when I realized I didn't have Gavin say hi to you too! Rest assured that even though I'm thoughtless SIL sometimes, Gavin adores his Auntie Swa. :)