High Five for Friday

Today I'm linking up Jennie to share some of my favorite stuff from the past week.

1) Actually this was last Thursday, not last Friday but since I was off on Halloween I baked a fun treat to share at the office. I think this is the third year in a row that I've made this cake, so this year I added green to it. It's always such a hit and no one seems bored with it yet :)

Fun on the outside...

...and on the inside!

2) Friday was Halloween! I took the day off and tried to make this year special for Grant with some good trick-or-treating and fun dinner too. (You can read more about the day HERE)

Ready to trick-or-treat at a local park!

With the spooky scarecrow at one of our neighbor's houses!
(He loved these decorations!)

3) Saturday we went to Chuck E. Cheese (a first for me and Grant) to celebrate the birthday of one of Grant's school friends. Grant's BFF was there and two of them were stuck together like glue. Its so fun to watch them play together!

4) At some point last weekend (Sunday?) I got out for a run. I wasn't really feeling it but I still managed 3 miles. Sometimes I consider it an accomplishment to just make it home without having to call for a ride.

5) I got to make two birthday cakes this week! My friend & co-worker Janis got a fun little chocolate peanut butter cake for one that I've been wanting try. And Husband requested a Red Sox cake for his friend & co-worker Barry who turned 50 this week. I was really excited about how they both turned out (though as a Yankees fan, that Red Sox cake hurt my soul!)!

Fun little cake for Janis!

Red Sox cake for Barry!

Happy Friday everyone!

Have a great weekend!

Halloween 2014

This year I was determined to not let Halloween sneak up on me. This year I said "Who cares about the Fair, I'm going to do fun Halloween baking!" This year I was going to decorate early and carve a pumpkin and all that.

And it snuck up on me anyway. And I did very little fun Halloween baking. I did decorate but it was very little and it was the day of Halloween. But Grant was just so excited about Halloween this year that I couldn't help but be excited too. I wanted to make it a great Halloween for him this year. So I took the day off (I needed one anyway!) but Grant went to school most of the day for his class Halloween party and they trick-or-treat around the classrooms. I spent the day running a couple errands and then getting a "spooky dinner" ready for that evening (and cleaning because I invited my in-laws to come).

Grant has never been trick-or-treating with a lot of other kids. Our neighborhood doesn't have many small kids and very few houses participate on Halloween so usually it's just us walking around the neighborhood. This year I wanted to take him to a local event at a park called Trick-or-Treat the Trails. Local businesses and what-not set up booths at the park and the kids trick-or-treat along the walking path. I picked Grant up early from school and took him straight there. SO MUCH FUN! I've wanted to go for a couple year and never make it. This year I was determined and I'm so glad. Obviously getting treats (and all kinds of other stuff) was great, but Grant had the best time looking at the other costumes and seeing all the people. 

Ready to hit the trails!

Some had their booth decorated and wore costumes. If we go
to this next year (and I plan to) I'm totally dressing up!

Grant loved that local fire departments & EMS people had
their vehicles out there!

When we got in the car he told me "That was so fun!" It made me even happier that I got to take him. We were in a bit of rush to get home because I had a few things to do for a our spooky dinner but I told Grant that I did have time to decorate a little. When we got home and he saw my decorations (very meager decorations) he gasped and said "Mama I love it! Those are awesome decorations!" It's the little things, right?

Our "spooky dinner" consisted of Witches Brooms (string cheese with pretzels), Mummy Dogs (hot dogs wrapped in crescent dough), Zombie Eyeballs (meatballs), Bat Wing Pizza (pizza with bat shapes cut out of cheese), spinach dip, chips, and some cookie bars for dessert. A little silly perhaps, but so fun to see a 4 year old's face light up when you tell him he's having Zombie Eyeballs for dinner :)

And Grant got to pass out candy to one of our three trick-or-treaters (not kidding, we have a lot of leftover candy) before heading out to trick-or-treat at the five houses that had their lights on.

Ready for more goodies!

He told us he wanted to go by himself.

This house was his favorite!

And he even got treats from Gramma & Grandpa when we got back!

We finished off the night with some Pumpkin Floats (orange soda - caffeine free! - with vanilla ice cream).

I know this year was the best time Grant has had trick-or-treating and he loved being Optimus Prime. It was a pretty great Halloween!

High Five for Friday

Today I'm linking up with Lauren and Jennie to share some of my favorite stuff from the past week.

1) On Friday, my brother-in-law & new sister-in-law got married! It was such a fun & busy day. They asked me to be their photographer so I had a lot of fun with that. Plus, Husband and Grant were in the wedding (Grant's first!) so they looked super handsome. Grant was so excited to be going to the farm again and he had so much fun playing with my sister-in-law's nephew. It was a great couple of days!

Me pretending to be a photographer for a day :)

Newlyweds! Congrats to Sparky & Natasha!

All handsome and what-not :) (PS he loved this outfit!)

Grant gettin' down on the dance floor!

2) The morning after the wedding, Grant and I finally got to take advantage of the hotel pool. One of Grant's favorite parts of a road trip is all the swimming we usually do so I was very glad we were able to make time for it.

3) EASTER! With the wedding that weekend too, all of our Eastery things happened on Saturday. Egg coloring, planting the "magic jelly beans" my sister sent, cooking for Easter lunch...everything. Grant got to open his package from Aunt Shauna too and then see what the Easter bunny brought the next morning!

Opening his basket from Auntie Shauna

Coloring eggs!

4) So random, but I brought home a large box from work and one night this week we made an airplane out of it. Last year I made him a jeep out of a box and he thought it was the best thing ever. Apparently a box airplane is awesome too because he was immediately enthralled with it. Last night "the engine broke" and I found Grant on the floor with his play tools "working on it".

5) Thursday we had to take care of my car title so I got to have a lunch date with Husband! We don't do that often so it's always nice. This time we tried a place we'd never been (Jason's Deli - if you're interested) AND they have free ice cream there! That made it a doubly nice lunch, ice cream being my favorite dessert and all :)

Happy Friday!
Have a great weekend!

High Five for Friday

It's November! Which means the state fair is over and my fall season can finally begin! Today I'm linking up with Lauren to share some of the good stuff from my week (and then end of my October).

1) The state fair does fireworks every night of the fair at 9:45, which is way later than Grant's bedtime. But as a treat on Saturday we met for dinner after my shift at the fair was over and then parked near the fairgrounds for Grant's first actual fireworks display. They were much closer than we thought they'd be but that wasn't a problem. Grant loved them! I'm so glad he's not scared of them (my sister was for years...now she just hates clowns) because fireworks are great!

Waiting for the fireworks to start!

Open-mouthed amazement the whole time. Except for the
few minutes that he spent pointing out to us that the fireworks
didn't come from where we first told him to look. Smarty pants.

2) Even though I spent 6 days at the state fair for work, I couldn't let Grant miss it just because I was sick of it. So on Sunday, the last day, we took Grant to the fair. We ate, went on some rides (ok, I was the only one who rode with him), people watched, ate...the usual fair stuff. Grant had a great time and even rode one ride by himself! (That doesn't sound like a big deal but, to me, it is considering it's the fair.)

Riding all by himself!

His souvenir from the fair...love at first sight!

3) Monday I surprised Husband and Grant with some cupcakes after dinner from Sugarland in Cameron Village. They were so good!

I bet you'll never guess which one was for Grant. 

It's possible that I may have stuck his face in it...

4) I didn't have time to carve any of our pumpkins this year, which makes me sad (but I will definitely be harvesting their seeds for roasting - which makes me happy!). However, Grant and I made time to use this Mr. Potato Head Pirate kit that I bought after Halloween last year and have been saving! It wasn't nearly as easy as they lead you to believe, but we got it!

5) Halloween! I baked a Halloweeny cake for my coworkers and last night we took Grant trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. No hesitation this year! He loved every minute of it.

Cake for work - fun!

Trick-or-Treat!

6) BONUS: Did I mention the state fair ended and my schedule is back to normal! Thank goodness it only comes once a year.

HAPPY FRIDAY!

I hope you have a great weekend!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

At some point last month, I had an afternoon of just me and Grant. We plans to get a snow cone and then play some baseball at a park. In between those two we stopped at Party City so I could check out their costumes. Grant is loving many things right now but I think superheros have moved to the top of the list. He looked at their wall of costumes and said something like this: "I want to be Iron Man! No, I want to be Buzz...no, Iron Man. I want to be a pirate! No...I want to be Iron Man. Iron Man. I want to be Iron Man." Of course, he wanted the puffy one that looks like muscles (aka more expensive) so I humored him...thinking it would be too small. Wrong. Fit and he loved it...and it went home with us, but only after finding the matching gloves as well.

It was a smart decision. My work schedule got cuh-ra-zy after that weekend and I was glad we went shopping at a time when the selection was good. Also, Husband loved it. I think he may have even called it "bad ass". And of course, Grant loved it. He couldn't wait to try it on for Daddy and informed us that "I'm not gonna take this off. Not ever." He's asked often if he can wear it "just for a minute" or show people when they come over or sometimes just asks to wear the gloves. It's the little things, right? 

Trick or Treat!

I took some pictures of him a while back so we could sent out some Halloween cards to family. Grant was only too happy to oblige. He loves to stick out his hands and make a noise like Iron Man shooting something or, as he likes to call it, "getting power". 

This is his "Tony Stark" pose...so I couldn't
resist adding a goatee :)

I couldn't resist playing with this one either.
When I showed Grant he gasped, looked at his hands,
and said "Oh my gosh, I have power in my hands! But I can't
fly because I don't have power in my feet."

So today is the big day! He gets to wear his costume at school for their Halloween celebration and then trick-or-treating tonight. He's so excited! I'm glad the costume is a little big so he can play with it after we're done with it tonight. Now I just need to keep him from saying "Trick or Treat! Smell my feet!" when we tour the neighborhood tonight...

You know you want to give that face some candy.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!