3 sPooKy DaYs!!

if you read my last post, you know that I didn't do a craft or a dinner tonight either. 

Today's intentions were there and I was going to follow through, then

BAM!!!!

migraine......grrr....hate those.

I especially hate that I have had them sooo often in the last 2 months.

and that the excedrin migraine people have not put them back on the market yet....

help a girl out!

so, I woke up around 10 today.....luckily my kids woke up around 9am, and just played quietly. Helped themselves to their bucket of Halloween candy for breakfast, and woke me up if they needed anything important. They really are such sweethearts when I get my headaches, and they let me sleep as needed, and usually play as friendly as ever. They rarely fight anyways....but, they let me sleep which is awesome. so blessed with that.....amongst the stupid headaches.

But, after I woke up we got a real breakfast in their stomachs and got ready to take my little buddy on his first ever field trip!!!

during this time, my husband called to notify me that 

BAM....AGAIN!!!

someone got my debit card number and was using my number in California....

well, clearly, if I was in Cali, I wouldn't be shopping at Pep Boys Auto store, so....they cancelled my card and hopefully can catch whoever is using my card number. 

lame! 

But, whateves.....

So, after taking lunch to the park for our picnic and play time before the Fire Station....we came home for "quiet time" and getting ready for work/the night.....

so, crafting didn't happen, and for dinner, I was going to make grilled sandwiches and cut them out with Halloween cookie cutters for spooky sandwiches.

So, enjoy your day!!! :) Haha

I will post our craft tomorrow, cause it is happening.....and a dinner is happening too. ;)

thanks everyone for the love and support. :]

-kelley anne

4 sPooKy DaYs!!

it's almost time!!!

I'm obsessed with the weather lately, so we've been spending every minute either outside or with every single window open with the cool breeze! hopefully it stays this way.... 

k, I'm going to be honest here.....

I didn't do a day 4 or day 3 for our Halloween craft. 

gah, slacker....so sorry.

But, that is life. haha

so, yesterday was our 4 days left, but with it being Sunday, we had Church,

our home teachers came over, and then we made chicken enchilada soup for dinner, 

because of the lack of food in my house lol. 

and then we had some friends come over and we played Settlers of Cataan while the kids played away.

By the time we finished playing, I had forgotten all about a craft, so....no kids craft!

so, to all those mommy bloggers out there that can keep up on this, 

good on ya mate!

I applaud your efforts. 

As for me, keep this on the dl, but....

I can be a slacker with things sometimes.

although good intentions are there!

blah, blah, blah.....anyways!!!!

Planned for dinner was BBQ chicken sandwiches, and I was going to call it mashed monster sandwiches. Serve with a vegetable.....easy again. I like to keep it simple here people....

sorry for the lack of blog posts, and the lack of motivation to craft/cook.

this is me lol

-kelley anne

5 sPooKy DaYs!!

blog slacker!

sorry.

between the family Halloween party, our ward carnival, and a neighborhood party this weekend, I was exhausted!

so, quick post of our craft/dinner :)

for our craft, we painted wood pumpkins.

hobby lobby had them for $.50 the other day so I 

grabbed them, and we painted again.

boring I know, haha, but my kids

LOVE to paint. and they think it's fun everytime

because we paint different things. 

Haha. Easily amused I guess....so, here's some pictures of my house this year.....

front entry way:

 banner in the living/family room

 burlap pillow

 witches hat and cute little coffin from bunco :)

 haunted village

top of our entertainment center

woohoo! I love Halloween :)

dinner:

well, we actually had chilli again....haha. So, I don't have a new recipe. sorry! lol

6 sPooKy DaYs

boo! :)

getting closer!!!

Today's craft, paint a pumpkin!!!

The kids each got a little pumpkin from our Halloween party last night to bring home, and since carving pumpkins is hard with little ones, we decided to paint them instead :)

For dinner:

chilli!!!

So, tonight is our ward party.....

it's always a chilli and cornbread dinner,

but it's a chilly day here!!! (I'm cold ALL the time)

 But here's my recipe:

2 cans of Hunt's tomatoes

2 cans of S&W chilli beans

an onion

1-2 lbs. of ground beef or ground turkey

chilli powder

Brown your meat, and then throw everything in a crock pot on low for 5-6 hours.

Delish! :]

7 sPooKy DaYs

o my goodness!

a week left until Halloween!!!

So, for our 7th day of Halloween festivities, we went to a Family Halloween party.

So, I did not make any of the dinner, but gladly ate and enjoyed every bite!

and we kind of skipped a craft....

but, we played glow stick bowling at the party with pumpkin bowling balls. 

So, save any size shape and size of plastic containers, paint them all white, and throw some glow sticks in for a fun party game for kids. Halloween theme, roll pumpkins instead of a ball :)

For our Halloween party,

we ate, and ate, and ate.....and then ate some more.

For appetizers we had fantastic black and white striped pasta with dressing. along with a spider cheeseball with breadsticks.

and dinner was worms....(black bean pasta) and meatballs, salad and witches fingers. (green beans with onions topped with olive oil and salt, pepper and garlic powder baked)-so good!

Desserts, we had candy, of course!!! And rainbow Jello, spider legs (dark chocolate wonton noodles with peanut butter). and my favorite, oreo cake pop ghosts!

here's just some pictures from the night:

tinkerbell

 peter pan

most of the family :)

 peter pan, tinkerbell, and wendy

I will post some of the most amazing Halloween decorations from the party tomorrow :)

-kelley anne

8 sPooKy DaYs!!

Today's craft, wood mask painting :)

So, I grabbed these wood masks last Halloween on half-off sale at Michael's and they

ended up only being like $1. I already have acrylic paint, but

if you don't, totally inexpensive for quick painting projects for kids.

If you can't buy masks, totally use cardstock paper and cut some out! 

Easy peasy..... :)

Let the kids pick their colors, and that's it! 

We paint outside usually where there is little mess....

and if it does get messy, o well.....you're outside ;)

*maybe that's why our backyard looks like this:

and ta-da!!!

can I just tell you, that I LOVE that they wanted to hold hands without being told to.....

they are the cutest!! :)

And for dinner:

Mummy wrapped hot dogs!

My kids are in love with hot dogs. They want to eat them every meal.

We buy turkey or chicken hot dogs for Sydney with her allergies.

Just take the hot dogs, wrap them with some crescent rolls, or

homeade bread dough and bake at 350 until golden brown. 

About 15 minutes. Make sure you cut little slits in your hot dogs so they don't explode!

Enjoy! See ya tomorrow :)

-kelley anne

9 sPooKy DaYs!!

Today's Halloween craft/activity, we decided to make sugar cookies!!! :) 

we invited a few friends over to help decorate them, and 

take the majority of the cookies home, so we won't eat a whole batch....

But super fun for the kids to get permission to frost their own cookies, and use sprinkles all on their own! I usually let my kids have full control of their cookies. And I'll save a few so I can decorate a few that won't kill me with all the sugar from those sprinkles with a taste of cookie ;)

Here is Miss Pink's recipe that we use:

Eggless Sugar Cookies/Dairy free/Soy free:

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter (I replace butter with shortening-so 1/2 cup shortening and 1 Tbs water)

2 Tbs Milk (we use rice milk)

2 teas vanilla

1 cup flour

1 1/2 teas baking powder

1 pinch of salt

3 Tbs flour 1/8 cup sugar

1) Preheat oven to 350.

2) Combine butter (shortening) and sugar in a bowl, mix until light and fluffy.

3) Add vanilla and milk.

4) Combine salt, flour and baking powder.

5) Combine wet and dry ingredients.

6) Add extra flour to make it less sticky (if needed)

7) Roll into 1 inch balls and flatten....cut out shapes if desired.

8) Bake 8-10 minutes. Our oven cooks fast, so I usually will do 7-8 minutes....

(it will make about twelve 1 in balls or so)

Here's the recipe I use for the rest of the Sugar cookies.

3/4 cup shortening

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 teas salt

1 teas vanilla

2 eggs

1 teas water

1/2 teas baking soda

2 cups flour

Combine shortening, sugar, salt and vanilla until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, then add water and baking soda and mix. Slowly add flour just until well blended. Roll out onto a lightly floured surface to 1/4 thickness. Cut with the cookie cutters and transfer to lightly greased cookie sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for about 8-9 minutes or until golden brown and soft. Let cool before you frost and decorate :)

Enjoy!

For dinner tonight, we went with Boo Spaghetti.

simple and cute! My kids loved that the spaghetti had writing on it ;)

Whole wheat pasta with your favorite spaghetti sauce.

On nights that I am working, I try to make dinner for my kids before I head to the gym. 

So, here is their dinners all packed up. :)

My kids are OBSESSED with broccoli and green beans, so that is our go to veggie.

Hope you enjoy everything on today's post!!! :)

-kelley anne

10 sPooKy DaYs!!

well, life in the Garrett house was crazy on Monday.....

so I never got a chance to post anything yesterday, so

you get two posts today! :] 

So yesterday for our activity, we read some Halloween books.

My little buddy is in preschool, so we get the Scholastic book orders.

So, we received our new books yesterday after school, so we 

read them together. We had order a few Halloween themed books, just so we had some.

It's fun for us to read together and get excited about the different holidays.

So.....if you don't have any at home, head over to the library!! :]

We loved all of these ones!

What is your favorite Halloween book?!

For dinner, we decided to have breakfast ;)

With little miss Pink having E.E, we make her pancakes first, and we usually add food coloring to help us remember which pancakes she can and can't eat. 

Usually pink and green are the favorite choices, but we went with orange and black

to be more fitting :)

So, for Sydney's pancakes, we have used the gluten free bisquick before and substituted the milk with rice milk. But this time, we didn't have any bisquick left.....so my amazing husband, Meikle just decided to throw some things together. She LOVED it, and ate 4 pancakes.....

So, he threw a pinch of salt, a pinch of baking powder, and a pinch of sugar into a bowl. Then added flour, followed by water. Then you just mix it to the right consistency. 

We usually just kind of eyeball her stuff since she's the only one that eats it. But we want her to feel included in what the family is eating. So we've been experimenting with alternatives for her.

But anyways.....Yay for ghost pancakes! With chocolate chips for eyes, and marshmellows for mouths. 

Top with syrup.....delicious and just enough "fun" for the kids.

We also made a few bats, coffins, and haunted houses.

:)

One of these days I'll get cookie cutters that are not plastic so we can throw them on the actual pan/griddle. For now, we just cut them out after they've been cooked.

Anyone have a secret for making shaped panckaes?!

Have a good day! I will post today's countdown later! 

It's going to be fun!!

-kelley anne

11 sPooKy DaYs!!

ooooh, we're getting closer!

My kids are over-joyed that it's almost Halloween....

and me too! ;)

For our craft today, we had gotten chocolate molds on clearance after last years Halloween,

so we decided to melt some chocolates and make spooky friends to eat and enjoy :)

I sadly have no pictures to show off for our chocolates, but they were delish.

And for dinner, we're making eyeball taco salad :)

and I apologize for lack of pictures here too....

we just use our traditional taco salad, and add the topping of sour cream with a

 chopped olive for the eye! 

So, here's what we usually have in ours:

ground turkey seasoned with taco seasoning

black beans or refried beans

shredded lettuce

nacho cheese or shredded cheese

tomatoes

salsa

green onions

olives

sour cream

this is one of my kids favorite meals, and I love it too because of the simplicity.

With a crazy hectic schedule and two little kitchen helpers, we like keeping it simple but yummy.

come back tomorrow for another fun day of Halloween :)

complete with pictures this time!

-kelley anne

12 sPooKy Days!

Hello!!! :)

Today's kids project is another quick one, but o so cute!

My kids love them!

Ready?!

when I craft, I try to use everyday items so that way it's pretty much free....

So, everything from today's project I had on hand. 

But you need:

white cupcake liners

googly eyes

string/ribbon/twine....or something similar

*you can also use coffee filters

voila! Little paper ghosts!!! They have an eerie way about them without completely freaking my kids out. And you can hang them wherever you want!!! :) If you get a pack of googly eyes with different sizes, you can make silly face ghosts, or girly ghosts. And then if you use the coffee filters, you can make "mommy" or "daddy" ghosts, and make them look like your individual family :] 

have fun crafting!

For Dinner:

Tangled Spiderwebs! 

complete with spiders and spider eggs ;)

delish. :)

Ok, so start of with a spaghetti squash....

use an axe to cut it open..... (ok, so maybe not an axe, but it takes a very sharp knife, and patience....)

Once you get it open, and smell the pumpkin-y goodness, you clean it out like a pumpkin. Remove the seeds and guts....

Then, spread oil over the open side and sprinkle with salt and pepper. 

place face down in a casserole dish, and drizzle a little oil on top.

fill the bottom of the casserole dish with a little water, this will help it steam it....

not too much that it's drowning, but like 1/2 in or less.

toss in the oven on 350 for about an hour

Let it cool for a minute, and then peel away the squash from the outer peel. 

Should look something like this:

Then we add olives and black beans and parmesan cheese :)

and I throw a little shredded chicken on top, and you can add spaghetti sauce if you want :)

We just like it with oil, cheese and salt and pepper. But it's yummy and healthy!

The kids enjoy having our spider olives and spider egg black beans crawling in it.... ;)

Enjoy and have a great day!!!

-kelley anne

13 sPooKy DaYs left....

Woohooo!!!!! 13 days until HaLLoWeeN!!!!

So excited to start our Halloween countdown! My kids get so excited, and it is so fun to encourage the festivities of the season. 

Our countdown today is starting off with a simple kids activity. I found some Halloween printables to color, and for a busy day for us, I figured it would be perfect! So....we found ours here: 

Halloween Coloring Pages

And for our sPooKy dinner for tonight, I went with our easy/classic Chicken Pot Pie.

Easiest recipe ever, and Yummy!!!

So, to make it more spirited, we made ours into a Jack-O-Lantern

and the kids LOVED helping making the spooky face. 

There are so many reasons why I'm obsessed with this recipe:

*so flipping easy!

*makes two potpies!

*delish!

mmmm.....so excited for this dinner!

Recipe: yields 2 Potpies

4 cups cooked chicken-cubed

4 cups frozen hash brown potatoes, thawed

1 package frozen mixed veggies-thawed and drained

1-2 can cream of chicken

1 can cheddar cheese soup

1 cup of milk

1 cup of sour cream

2 tablespoons all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon pepper

1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

1 package refrigerated pie pastry

*you can add whatever flavoring to the chicken before you cook it, and it will change your taste. So season it however you want, and let me know what you used and how amazing it was! ;) 

1) In a large bowl combine the first 11 ingredients. Mix well and split between two 9in deep pie pans. Roll out pastry and fit to the top of each pie. Trim, seal and flute edges. (Use the extra to make your Jack-O-Lantern face).

2) Bake the remaining potpie at 400 degrees for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown. 

Cover and freeze the other potpie for up to 3 months. 

*To use the frozen potpie: Remove from the freezer 30 minutes before baking. Cover the edges loosely with foil; place on baking sheet. Bake at 425 degrees for 30 minutes. Reduce heat to 350, remove the foil and bake 50-55 minutes longer or until golden brown.

I hope you all enjoy our first day of our countdown!!!! 

Come back tomorrow for another fun kids craft and sPooKy dinner! :]

-Kelley Anne

HeLLo!

Welcome to our new family blog. I keep saying that I want to update and post things onto a blog, but between the last year of craziness, it never got done. So, here it is! :] I'll start by introducing our family....

I'm Kelley Anne.

I stay home during the day to be with my cute kiddos.

I craft any chance I can. I am constantly eating something. 

I usually have a Coke or Dr. Pepper in hand.

I coach gymnastics at Diamondbacks Gymnastics, 

and I love it! 

I am weirdly obsessed with Holidays-pretty much all of them, 

and always have the house decked out with decorations.

I am currently serving in the Nursery.

 This is Sydney, or Miss Pink.

Although Sydney has a disorder called E.E (eosiniphillic esophagitis), 

she eats more than any kid I know.

She loves to play with dolls, stuffed animals, or any other girly toys.

She is obsessed with playing pretend.

She's our spunky little diva, and we love every little bit of her!

Sydney is in my nursery class at Church.

 Meet Kaden, my little buddy.

This kid is the sweetest boy you'll ever meet. 

He loves to play the Wii, and is pretty flipping good at it.

He loves to play with toys, and is such a cutie with his sister. 

Kaden is in Preschool this year, and is obsessed with it.

He never fails to put a smile on our face, and we love him to pieces.

Kaden is a Sunbeam this year.

 This is Meikle. 

This guy is my best friend, and I couldn't imagine life without him.

He loves to be outside and doing any sort of project.

He enjoys playing with the kids and is such a good dad.

Meikle works as an Assistant Engineer and graduated with his Autocad degree.

Meikle is currently serving as the 2nd Counselor in the Young Men's, and as Scoutmaster.

and that's us. :) 

I would like to use this blog as an inside view of our life, from pictures, to recipes, to crafts or projects. Hope you enjoy! 

Since last year I had this plan of posting a countdown to Halloween and never got a chance to follow through with any of the crafts, or recipes.....I still have it, and plan on posting it for the next 13 days. 

So, come back tomorrow for our 1st day of our 13 sPooKy NiGhTs countdown with an inside look at my Halloween decorations, along with a kids craft and a dinner recipe :) 

peace out,

Kelley