I miss my grandkids on holidays

Even though I really am not that big of a Halloween fan, I miss the babies being here. We never did go all out for this one, but the kids did dress up and 'go out' around the neighborhood. We carved a pumpkin and put it out, but didn't decorate and go crazy like so many other people do.

I sent the kids an outfit this year, I thought they fit their personalities perfectly. Olivia put hers on so Karen could send grandma a picture, but Noah wouldn't, he doesn't like pictures all that much. Here she is, such sweetie.



This one she looks like she's tugging on her pants, I got her some of those legging type pants to go under her skirt. I thought they could wear their outfits to daybreak today. This is a 3 hour break that Karen and Bryan enroll the kids in, it is set up in a church, the kids go for 3 hours while Karen does her grocery shopping or whatever she wants or needs to do, it has made a huge difference in her home life. It is difficult at best to get all things done with the kids, they are pretty active. Steve and I had them for a week while the kids went to Disney, we were worn out completely at the end of that week, but had so much fun!



Karen will try to get Noah's outfit on him for a photo today. He is my shy one, Olivia runs to the camera to ham it up, esp. if Karen tells her it is coming to Grandma. I'm her favorite, you know how much I hate that????

Noah turned 4 yesterday, karen offered him a pizza party, or she would make him an orange dinner. He picked the orange dinner, I think she got pretty creative. You can buy bread from grocery store bakeries tinted in different colors. I have had them tint the bread purple for Olivia and orange for Noah before. Karen had her store do orange for Noah, she made grilled cheese, there are pictures on her blog.

Halloween Spooktacular is making me TIRED!

Just finished up with the last of the Creepy Witch's Fingers. It is late, around midnight. My little sister, Michelle came over to help me get my treats made for the party. I can't make just one thing, of course, I find all these neat things on the internet,then I overdo it and go crazy. HA! Here are the Witch's fingers, no self respecting witch would be caught dead without her nails properly painted. Recipes for Halloween can be found HERE.



My favorite thing is the Chocolate Mice I found on All Recipes.com, I thought it would be great, there is no baking to do, so it would go easy..........HAHA, they weren't easy, but worth the effort. If I could find an easy way to get the tails and the eyes to stick on, it would have been a cake walk, but the eyes kept falling out, and the tails did, too. We thought they were cute, and worth sharing:



I made eyeballs last year, they are neat, a little work, but so fun when they are all done. I didn't get as anal with the painting this year, it is so late and I am so tired, but they are OK.



The last thing I will make is Mummy Toes, they are cocktail wieners wrapped in breadsticks, with a little almond slice sticking on the end of the wienie to make it look like a toenail. I think they will be neat, but they have to be done right before the party. We'll see, if I do, I promise a photo.

Bead Rendezvous in Omaha

I did the bead Rendezvous in Omaha a little over a week ago. THe beads will go to the Hope Bracelet Project, and Beads of Courage, a program for children with cancer. Here is a very small portion of the beads that were made:



I have photos at home of some of the girls, I'll put them up when I get time. We had such a fun time, we decided to do it every 3 months.

My grandkids are growing

Noah will be 4 Oct. 30th. Olivia is 3 in January.....time sure flies! Here's one of Olivia:



They love to play in the leaves:



Noah likes to have his picture taken only occasionally, so this is rare:





One of them together, they are so close, I hope they stay that way. Each morning when they get out of bed, they ask where the other one is, it is really neat:


Hope you all are having a good day, tonight I am making a new pasta dish, Asiago Sun Dried Tomato Pasta from allrecipes.com. I'll let you know how it turned out.

Busy Weekend

Steve and I decided we were going to stay home this weeeknd and relax on Saturday. On friday night I zoomed home, did all of my cleaning, laundry, dusting, etc. so it would not loom over my head for the coming weekend. We stopped by the coffee shop to visit Charles and Cindy, had a little dinner, then came home.

Steve was browsing his Chips and Chats woodcarving magazine while I folded laundry, he found there was a carving show in Omaha on Saturday. The plans to relax flew out the window. Instead, Saturday we jumped out of bed in the rain, drove into Omaha, clear out West to see the show. One of the gals I graduated with used to do the show, her work is known all over the world. Tammy Wynette used to collect Desiree's pieces. Desi wasn't at the show, so we browsed around and left. Steve had a gift certificate to the Woodcarving shop, so we headed up there so he could spend it. I love the store, I look all over at the wood, the pen kits, the power tools, the books, etc. HE made his choices, we got Isaac a few things for his birthday next month, and left.

We stopped at Applebee's for lunch. They have this new Quesadilla Burger, we had that and it is great, a LOT greasy, but it was OK, I couldn't eat it all anyway.

Next we had to go get the groceries, my least favorite thing, and off to get a new toilet seat and a new blind for the living room. We fell into our chair about 5pm. I started to bake chicken for soup on Sunday. We had a steak on the grill for supper later.

I was planning on torching all day at Sandy's for the two projects mentioned in my last post, so I had to go pack all my tools and glass into the car. that took me an hour or so, the toolbox was full of glass that had to be put back onto the shelves, and then I had to pack glass for the different beads we were making for the children.

Sandy had a DVD for us to watch regarding the Beads of Courage project. It brought tears to my eyes, and all the other girls that were there. The kids get a purple glass heart bead when they complete their Chemo, so I spent the day working on them. I stink at using the little thin pieces of glass to draw designs on the beads, so I focused on making designs all day. It was a ton of fun. The food was great, Sandy's son works at Newman's Pasta Cafe in Omaha located in Lakeside Plaza. He made us a dish from there, it was bow tie pasta (my favorite) with a creamy pesto sauce, with mushrooms and chicken. It's called Italian Basil Pesto. Deelish!

The session lasted until 6pm, after we cleaned up our glass shards and benches, we visited for an hour or so. I got home at 8pm, (I left our house) at 7:30 in the morning. It was rainy and drizzly, so I took a hot whirlpool bath to warm up before I got comfortable. Watched "Brothers and Sisters" and turned in, the weekend was over before I knew it. Next weekend I will practice making meringue bones for the Halloween Spooktacular at Michelle's.

Beer Bread Recipe

WOW, two posts in one day, I rock!

I discovered this beer bread recipe when we were making all the breads to sell for our Halloween Spooktacular. I'd like to share it with you. I love it, it's great with and without the spices.

Easy Beer Bread

INGREDIENTS
• 2 1/2 cups self-rising flour
• 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 3/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning
• 1 (12 fluid ounce) can beer
• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

DIRECTIONS
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Lightly grease a 9x5 inch baking pan.
2. In a bowl, mix the self-rising flour, all-purpose flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt, onion powder, and Italian seasoning. Pour in the beer, and mix just until moistened. Transfer to the prepared baking pan. Top with the melted butter.
3. Bake 45 to 55 minutes in the preheated oven, until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

There are pictures of the bread on the site where I got the recipe.

Not much to tell

I have been pretty busy with many things, but seem to have nothing to show for my efforts. This Sunday I will go to the Flameworx design Studio in Omaha to make beads for the Hope Bracelet Project and Beads of Courage Approximately 8 of us from the Omaha area will make beads all day on Sunday, donating to the projects whatever we are able to create in one day. It will be a fun time. Sandy's son is a Chef in the Omaha area, he's worked at restaurants such as Mahogany Prime. He won first place in the Taste of Omaha competition last year with pork medallions in an apricot sauce. He's also a cutie, with big dimples in each cheek, he looks like he's about 12, but is married with 3 adorable little boys that look just like him.

All of my sisters are discussing a trip to San Diego in the early part of 2008 to visit an Aunt of ours. Wilma lives in Oceanside, a retired teacher. Since our dad passed, we have only been able to see her twice, she's such a neat person, but her health is failing.

During a trip to Phoenix 2 years ago, the group of beadmakers I was traveling with scheduled a trip into Del Mar to see Cirque Du Soleil. We drove over from Phoenix, then flew out of San Diego. Such a beautiful area. We stayed right on the beach in a little hotel.I really enjoyed watching the surfers, I mean the dolphins while visiting. There was a great little shopping area just up the road from where we stayed. Matt and I ran up each morning to get coffee and scones. There was a neat little cigar place there. Aimee collects cigar boxes. We ended up with quite a few unique ones to bring back home. Imagine dragging along 12 or maybe 15 cigar boxes in your luggage, along with the piles of beads and crystals we managed to amass during our trips to the gem shows. We kill us, it was too funny.

I haven't mentioned it until now, but Steve and I are taking a cruise in January, compliments of his mother. We haven't had much contact with her over the years, I first met her when Steve and I were married. She came around a little when Karen was small. Didn't see much of her the last 20 years. Steve was raised by his grandmother and grandfather since he was 3 years old.

We are surprised and interested that she invited us on this trip. (It's not as thought we are the Walton's or anything) We are very grateful she thought of us, we didn't feel comfortable accepting, it took a long time to make the decision to go. We were not going to go, but Karen talked us into it. Margie is aging, I think she is the same age as Steve's dad, which would be 73. You never know about the health of your parents, this may be his last time Steve will get to see her. I think the last time he saw her was a couple years ago when we took a trip to see Karen. I haven't seen her since his brother died from a heart attack, I don't even know what year that was, but it has been a long time ago.

Oh, and I added a link to my favorite blogs, I love the Pioneer Woman!

WHEW! That stunk!

I had a bad cold last week, while the kids were here. The grand babies are growing like little weeds. They played hard all week in Omaha at their other grandparents house with their cousins. They paid for it at Vala's Pumpkin Patch. They played so hard, jumping on the new pillows they have there. The pillows are installed in the ground surrounded by sand. The kids were all excited when they saw them, they couldn't wait to get their shoes off and jump all over them. They ran up the sides and back and forth, not to mention jumping up and down, and running all over. When we were done, Noah looked like he was a wet noodle. Poor guy.

I will try to post photos when I can, the new camera is not making it easy to do this.