Candy corn cookies

Well, for some reason these posted in the reverse order from which I wanted them too, so bear with me as I give directions for candy corn cookies. Obviously we are looking at the finished product first! So, scroll down to the end of the post, and we will start there! :) Very yummy! Happy Halloween!!
cool on a wire rack. Then melt white chocolate in the microwave (I did it for 1 min. 30 sec. on 50% power), did the end of each cookie in the melted chocolate and then dip in orange and yellow sprinkles (the cookies with yellow bottoms got yellow sprinkles and the plain bottoms got orange)
Transfer snakes to floured surface. Cover with parchment paper and roll out until you have a 15" x 4" rectangle. Then cut on an angle back and forth as shown above. Bake at 350 oven for about 10 min.
with 1/4 of each color, make a 12" long snake (do not flour dough at this point, or they colors won't stick in the next step!)
Divide a batch of sugar cookie dough in 3 parts (I used the Martha Stewart Sugar Cookie recipe) Leave one part as is. To 1/3 add 1 tsp lemon zest and yellow food coloring. To the last 1/3 add 1 1/2 tsp orange zest and orange food coloring (I used red and yellow, cause I don't have orange) Divide each 1/3 into two pieces. (I doubled the cookie dough recipe and forgot to divide into 1/4s so my first batch was really big!!)

still here!

just busy getting ready for a party we are hosting on Sat. and making cookies for both boys classes for tomorrow, and "ghosting" friends, and getting halloween treats ready for Jackson and Chase to bring to school tomorrow (vampire teeth, halloween pencils and for some reason stretchy frogs)
I will be back soon pictures of the candy corn cookies I made for Jackson's class and the after pics of our dining room. Nothing like having a party to force you to get the house done!!

Cheers!!

Meal Plan Monday and cookie of the week

Menu for the week

Monday - sausage and spinach lasagne
salad
bread
(pasta for C, since he doesn't like lasagne!)

Tuesday - Hamburgers, Oven fries, green beans

Wednesday - Chicken Stuffed With Bacon and Feta
Buttermilk biscuits, broccoli

Thursday - homemade pizza, crudites

Friday -Baked potato bar

Saturday - out at a party! woohoo.

Cookie of the week - Chocolate Chip. Made from the Toll House recipe in my Betty Crocker cookbook. I have discovered that it is slightly different than the recipe on the chocolate chip bag. It calls for 2 tsp. vanilla instead of one. That is my little chocolate chip cookie secret!

I spent a good part of the day painting the dining room. Many thanks to everyone who offered wall paper stripping advice :) I will hopefully be able to post some "after" pics later this week.

I finally pulled all the boys shorts from their dressers. We need to pick our battles right? I was all done with the shorts battle in 47 degree weather! (just in the mornings, the afternoons have been warmer- just not warm enough for shorts!)

Oh, the ballet was wonderful! We had second row seats and C loved that he could see who was standing backstage. The costumes were great. It was set in the '20s. Very cool. The ball gowns were more like flapper dresses and they were all black and silver. ( I even got some inspiration for our daylight savings party -I am going with a black and silver theme) The rest of the set was very art deco and quite colorful. So glad we went. I can't wait for the Nutcracker in December!

Cinderella

photo courtesy of Boston Ballet

We are off to see Cinderella this weekend. I am really looking forward to it! I took ballet for years as a girl (although you'd certainly never know it now!) and I am thrilled that J and C both seem to really enjoy the ballet. We have been to the Nutcracker (of course!) and Swam Lake and both of them really wanted to see Cinderella when we mentioned it. And both said they love the ballet! I do think this will be a great show for kids. It is supposed to have a very comic feel to it. And just look at the pumpkin coach! How magical. Maybe we'll have to make some pumpkin coach cookies next week....
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!

any helpful hints??

Update: We borrowed a steamer from a contractor friend and all the paper is finally off! We will sand and patch tomorrow, and hopefully I will have an "after" soon!

As I mentioned in my last post, we are moving over to the dining room. Here is the mess we have created to date! Does anyone have any good advice for removing stubborn wallpaper? This just doesn't want to budge!

and we have the after....

This is still a work in progress...but a great improvement from what it was! I am waiting for two chairs to be delivered for the space across from the sofa. I can't wait for them to arrive!

as you can see, we are starting on the dining room next! I was given most of the furniture from my grandmother when she moved into assisted living. At first, I really didn't like it, but it filled the space. Now, I have embraced it and had fun picking out some pieces that will compliment it. What do you think?

Long weekend

We headed over to Nantucket for the long weekend (we got Monday off for Columbus Day)
What a beautiful, fun filled weekend we had. We actually left on Friday morning, so we arrived on island at noon. Perfect timing to go to the house, get the car and head into town for a quick lunch before heading to the beach.


here we are on the ferry. We took the fast ferry, since we weren't taking our car. Since we usually take the slow boat, this was quite a treat, and much faster!!
after a great walk on the beach, we made jiffy pop for an afternoon snack. I don't think the boys had ever seen jiffy pop before! They had a great time watching it pop!
sitting waiting to go in to dinner.
beautiful centerpiece on the table at dinner. I love hydrangeas in the fall.
The conservation foundation held its annual cranberry festival. We got to see the flooded cranberry bogs, go on hayrides, pick a couple of cranberries and watch a huge truck being filled with berries. Great time. This used to be the largest cranberry bog in the world!
looking at all the berries!

on the hayride.
we went to our favorite breakfast restaurant (actually, twice since our coffee grinder at the house was broken!)
to the bakery for herb bread to freeze for Thanksgiving stuffing.
more autumn hydrangeas. Love them!

and we walked to Sankaty light. It was open to the public, but we opted not to climb it. There was an hour wait and we needed to pack up and get ready to head home. Also, after our previous lighthouse climb this summer, I was OK with not climbing it! Beautiful day though. We also brought home a great rug for our kitchen. I will post pictures of that soon. I love it!

Busy Busy! hgtv style...

Here is our living room Before I will be able to post some After pics soon, I promise! We spent last weekend painting and putting up crown moulding (I do NOT recommend attempting to install crown moulding the morning after being out until 1:30 the night before!) We had absolutely NO idea what we were doing when we set out. I actually took our mitre box and a piece of scrap moulding to the lumber yard to ask for assistance. A very nice contractor offered to come over and help us. On a Sunday. he wouldn't let us pay him. How awesome is that??? I stopped by Tuesday morning with a really nice bottle of red wine for him. Anyhoo, getting a little off topic here! We have moulding, new wall color, window treatments hung, china cabinet moved along empty wall to make more room in the dining room and we are awaiting 2 new chairs. I can't wait to see the whole thing completed! I think I successfully found two chairs to complement my grandmother's furniture. I really lucked out that I had the space for her living room set. At first I didn't really love the style, but I have to say, it has really grown on me! I love being able to incorporate her things into my house.