Happy Halloween!

I so enjoy this time of year. It feels so nice outside and kids everywhere get so excited. Pumpkin carving is messy but fun, one day I'll make a really complicated pretty one. I just really enjoy all that comes with fall, the festivals, the colors in nature, the fresh crisp air and warm soup . Fall is one of my favorite seasons.

So Monday night Family night was over before it began. So we moved it to Tuesday night. We carved our pumpkin for our activity. And I think it turned out great.

Little Miss Charly's new trick. She will grab on to anything and do a body press. I guess this is the first step before pulling up on things. Yesterday she crawled perfectly! She has been working on the alternating knees and hands, well folks she's got it!

Our perfect pumpkin.

Hard at work poking little holes in the pumpkin.
It's just what every pumpkin needs.

Dut Dah Dah Daaaaaaaah! It's Superman! It looks great lit up too,
I just couldn't figure out how to get a good picture with no flash.

Happy Halloween everyone! Be safe and have fun!

I Feel So WICKED!

Last night Garett and I went and saw Wicked the musical at Fox theater. It was wonderful! The singing was amazing and the story was just as great. I would love to see it again. Thanks Rhonda and Joe for watching the kids. The first thing Owen said this morning was "Where's Rona 'n Joe's house". :) He had a great time.

Scroll Down if you want the cake recipe

What Your Jack-o-Lantern Says

You are a naturally cheerful, happy go lucky person. You're the type of person to see Halloween through the eyes of a child. This Halloween, dress up as something cute - like a bunny. The candy you should give out: candy corn

The Jack-o-Lantern Quiz

Old Problem / New Problem

Even though you cannot tell from the picture, this costume (non returnable) is way too tight. And the back is wide open. Being so tight there was no way that we could put clothing under the costume to keep the little guy warm. Owen doesn't care as long as he is Superman.

I fixed the tight in the torso problem and here is our new dilemma. We have a belly shirt. :) We are on the way out to find a shirt that will mask the problem.

Banana Split Cake

A yummy experiment :) This Banana Split Cake recipe looked so easy to make I had to try. It was super easy and delicious! I liked it best served hot. It is suggested to serve it with vanilla ice cream, chocolate ice cream topping, a slice of banana, strawberries and a cherry on top.

There was a little more chocolate than suggested, but that was no accident.



HERE IT IS....

1 cup butter 1/2 cup milk
4 eggs 1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups all purpose flour 1/2 cup strawberry preserves
2 teaspoons baking powder about 10 drops of red food coloring
1 teaspoon salt 1/2 cup presweetened cocoa powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda (not low calorie)
1/1/2 cup sugar 1 12oz jar chocolate fudge topping
1 1/2 cup mashed banana (1 lg) cream topping
1/2 cup dairy sour cream vanilla ice cream

1. Allow butter to reach room temperature. Let eggs stand at room temperature for 30 minutes. Grease and flour a 10-inch fluted tube pan. In med bowl stir together flour, baking powder, salt, and baking soda; set aside.

2. Ina large mixing bowl beat butter with electric mixer for 30 seconds. Add sugar; beat until fluffy. Add one egg at a time, beating well after each addition. In a small bowl combine banana, sour cream, milk and vanilla. Alternately add flour mix and banana mix, beating on low-speed. Mix each addition well.

3. Stir in 1/2 cup strawberry preserves and red food coloring into 1 cup of the batter. Stir cocoa powder into another 1 cup of the batter ( I used a little more batter to keep the batter loose) . Spoon half of the remaining plain batter into prepared pan. Spoon all strawberry batter over the plain layer. Top with remaining plain, then the chocolate batter.

4. Bake in a 350 oven for 55 to 65 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Cool in pan on a wire rack for 10 minutes; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack. In a small saucepan heat chocolate ice cream topping until warm. Drizzle over cake (only for show - if you are keeping the cake for a few days just drizzle over individual slices) Serve cake with ice cream and any other topping you want.

Our Weekend

This weekend we stuck mostly to home and relaxed. Saturday I spend half the day trying to set up Garett's office in the newly painted blue room. And I bought that paint from Sherwin Williams (2 gallons) for $4. Awesome, I know. So when I had finished that and Owen was restless enough to leave the house without telling anyone we headed down to the neighborhood Fall Festival. We made it just in time to see a few things while they packed up. :) Oops! Owen didn't know the difference and was thrilled with it all.

The bird. I think it had enough of people visitors because
it kept hissing at Owen. He thought it was saying hi.

There were two camels. He didn't really care much about them.

But he loved the pony.

And Willy the goat who squeezed through the gate to visit with us.

He played on the slides at the play ground.

He also got a wonderful Giraffe balloon! This totally made his day. The best part is he kept saying "It's a giraffe! Ruff Ruff!" That's right my kid knows all the animal sounds. :)

He was so excited to show Daddy his balloon he ran up what we call Killer Hill. It's a steep beast, myabe not in the picture, but it's a good work out, and a bit dangerous.

"Look Daddy it's a Giraffe balloon Ruff Ruff"
(He's holding it upside down.)


Sunday was usual is most ways. Owen helped himself to breakfast. We went to church. Came home ate lunch, made the house a little messier that it was. And we had company! I wanted to see them so much that I let them into my messy house. You know, I think it's time to stop pretending that it is usually straightened up and put together. That is more of a rarity these days. Sad but true.

Do you think I could sell this on EBay as art work?

He was so cute all dressed up that I wanted a picture.
Then he got mad that I was taking the picture. Still cute to me.
On the way home from church I gave him some gum. Bad idea.
By the time we had arrived home he had made cuff links out
of his gum and stuck them to his shirt.

Here is the gum in the hair to match the cuff links.
He had a unibrow of gum too. I'm just going to buzz it out tomorrow.
Not the unibrow, the back of his head.

Choo Choo Charly (as Owen calls her) is teething, hence the rosy cheeks. Poor thing looks miserable, but she really is quite the trooper. I think the two bottom ones will be in any day now.

Last but not least I call this picture, "You stupid pieice of crap",
it's a Trent household original.

A Busy Week So Far

As of Tuesday Garett is working from home on Tuesday's and Thursday's! That means I will have the car and a chance to escape and have some fun during the week! Or do the grocery shopping. Usually our kind neighbor Rhonda is the only way we get out and change things up, I appreciate her letting us tag along. This week we went to play group in Kennesaw and one in Bridge Mill. I like the Kennesaw play group because we are always going to a new park and exploring new play areas. The other is just getting started and since I'm in charge I hope it continues to go well.

Saturday I didn't post it but we went to Michael's craft store and made this
Clark Kent pumpkin for Owen. It was a lot of fun and he is very proud of it.

Charly having fun swinging at play group.

Slow-mo down the slide.

I like to put myself on the blog every once in a while just to prove I was there.
I'm always behind the camera.

I have been cutting tv time and looking for other fun things to do,
painting is one of his favorites.

Before today he wouldn't let me touch these papers since they were Taylor and Mya's.

Our Little Chef

Hi Christi

He was wearing the jacket Christi gave him so we
just couldn't stop taking about Christi.

Oh Yes They Did

I just went upstairs to grab some fresh clothing for the kids and what a mess they made. A brand new box of Honey Nut Chex. Just yummy enough for a 2 year old to love and just sweet enough to leave a sticky spot on the carpet. This was 99% of Owen's doing, Charly just joined in for the food and fun.

No remorse what so ever.

You may be wondering what I did about this mess.
Well I had Owen pick up all that he could and put it back in the box.
This will be his personal box of cereal until it's all gone.
I'm not wasting just over three dollars worth of cereal,
and I'm not eatting it either, that would be gross. :)

For the Grandma's

Just wanted to post a "Charly" post for the grandma's that she belongs to. Charly is doing so well. She is doing a really cute but fast floppy crawl, she basically gets on all fours and throws herself forward. Not so efficient, but it works. She keeps making a "Ma" sound, it probably has nothing to do with "Mama", but I still like to think it does. She is so totally in love with her Daddy and completly idolises Owen. She is easy in that she is not attached to anything except to those she loves, so there is nothing to keep track of. :) She is easy breesy and starting to take long naps. :) We miss all of our families since you all far from us now.
We hope you can hug her soon.

My cuti-patootie

Call it what you want, I call it funny. Charly grabbed hold of her bow and pulled it most of the way out of her hair. She spent the next 10 minutes batting at it like a little kitten. I did finally take it out. I just wanted to give her the opportunity to handle it on her own.

The Unlucky Fly....

Silly as it may seem, I was totally amazed at this poor fly's death. Owen was "keen'n up" and tossed a ball to the toy bin and squash! Totally hit this fly buzzing through the air and... well you see. What a cool shot Owen! (what are the odds?)

Getting out of a rut

I've been feeling like life has been boring, it's only been a few days, but it feels like forever. Yesterday was better, we played a lot and had a good Family Night. It was just as quick and noisy as all the rest, but there seemed to be some sort of understanding amongst all the running and noise. One can only hope.

For some reason Owen refused to wear clothing most of the day. One less thing to wash, right? This is Owen's Snowman, his is very proud of how it turned out.

This is when I decided it was time to put up the clay.

Even Charly had a great time looking out the window at the birds, watching Owen and playing in the exersauser(sp?). She is so easy to please.

We started Family Night (FN) with singing and a prayer as usual. The lesson was on learning. We talked about reading books and asking for help to learn new things, and we read a story. Honestly the lesson didn't get much further than that, but hey, it works for the attention spans of kids 2 and under. We ended with another prayer and lots of songs. Wheels on the bus is very popular in our house.

We played Hungry Hippo's for our activity.

Then the cranky's came right on time for bed time.

TAGGED, BUT DIFFERENT

TAGGED, BUT DIFFERENT

Thanks for the Tag Jennifer. :)

1. I love to read other people's tags, it is such a fun way to get the answers to Twenty Questions without being in their face asking endless questions.

2. If I was a collect-y type of person I would collect kaleidoscopes. They are number one on my doo-dad list of really cool things I can enjoy for hours.

3. I enjoy reading but seldom find time to do it. Same with quilting.

4. I love (I know it's gross) to pick at other peoples ears. You want someone to clean your ears, hand me the q-tip. I think it's gross too, but I'm weirdly interested.

5. I would love to be am amazing dancer and piano player and singer, but I'm not willing to put in the time or effort. Sad, but true.

6. I like the smell of carbon paper.

7. I make awesome cookies. And I never share the recipe, even if you think you got it from me, I always leave out a secret or two. :) It's not even written down anywhere, just in my brain. Mu Ha Ha Ha!

I Tag Rhonda, Heidi, Christi, Wendi, Erica, Gina, and Mom - Just cut and copy into your own blog and change the answers.