Halloween dinner '11

 I'm always on the lookout every Halloween for something new to serve my family, that's creepy, but not gross.  This year I made Dead Man's hand Meatloaf.  I stuffed the hamburger mixture into a latex glove, and then slit the fingers and carefully slid the glove off.  It's hard to tell from this picture, but it worked really well, and really looked like a severed hand.  The cheese added on afterwards gave it the look of skin.

 Our table.  I was missing my big black cauldron in storage.  I bought dry ice 2 days before to use, but it evidently evaporated because the bag was empty!  I don't think even Irelynd would eat that!

 I liked this dish the best.  These are jello "earthworms".  I found the recipe on Pinterest; they're made by pouring a Jello mixture into upright straws, letting them set, then blowing them out.  It was labor-intensive, but the result was so cool!  At first the twins and Brighton refused to touch them.  It took some convincing that they were not really worms.

And dry bones breadsticks.  Yum!  I love Halloween!

Halloween breakfast

I made these fun ghost and pumpkin pancakes for breakfast one morning before Halloween.  The recipe for the pumpkin ones was from Family Fun and they have become one of our favorite breakfasts!

Patriotic Berries

 I made these chocolate dipped strawberries for a neighborhood July 4th "Sidewalk of Fire" party we had.  They were all over blogland this year.  They were so yummy!  I think they were originally from Family Fun?

Happy April Fool's day!

For April Fool's day this year we did our usual tricky lunches and silly dinner.  We didn't do as many pranks this year.  We tried the saran wrap across the door thing.  Totally didn't work.  We also stuffed their shoes with newpaper, and short-sheeted their beds.  I'll have to up my game next year. 

For their lunches, I switched the bags of chips around, so Savannah got Doritos instead of the Cheetos she was expecting, Sprite instead of water, gummy worms in her strawberries, and a plastic snake in her ham and cheese sandwich.  You can see the head sticking out if you look closely.

The twins didn't even bat an eye when I sat them down to this table setting.  Keaton acted like he eats every day with a huge serving fork. 

I printed a menu of silly names, and everybody decided which items they wanted first.  So, we ate cupcakes first, got our napkins halfway through, and water almost at the end.

These are waffle and ice cream bowl, intended to look like taco bowls.  I didn't fool anyone with this.

I made these cupcakes with inspiration from mymixofsix.  They have cotton balls baked into them.  I had to turn them upside down and frost them to hide the cotton ball.  It took the girls a few bites to find them.  When they did, we convinced them it was cotton candy.  Irelynd kept eating it, saying "yum!"  One bite and she realized it wasn't "yum."  Scott and I were busting up.

Jello in a cup.  I had Savannah and Brighton fooled with this one, which is funnier because Brighton helped make them.

Pizza bundt "cake."  This fooled no one, and was really gross.  Which was very disappointing because it smelled so delicious cooking.  Not a fan of Bisquick.

I'm so grateful for all the fun blogs out there and the creative women who share their fun ideas.  I would never have thought of making April Fool's day into a fun family tradition.  My kids look forward to it, though they have yet to pull a prank on us.

Valentine's Day 2011

This year, because we were moving and unpacking during much of February, I felt much like the Grinch when he says, "It came without ribbons! It came without tags!  It came without packages, boxes, or bags!"  I LOVE holidays, and it killed me that this one came and went without any fanfare.  I did make a Valentine's dinner on the actual day, but everybody was so cranky and yelling at everybody; it was HORRIBLE.  We put all the kids to bed and wondered, where's the love?  So, after unpacking all last week, I decided that I couldn't let the holiday pass us by without expressing my love for my kids and husband.  So we celebrated Love Day all week long.

This was Irelynd's Valentine's box for her class party.  She thought she was going to be extra loved when she picked this very LARGE box! 

Savannah celebrated her last Valentine's class party this year.  I'm so sad to think she's moving out of elementary school and in with the "big kids"!  No more holiday parties. 

She designed this cute mailbox for her Valentines, and Scott made it for her.  I was pretty impressed.

She had big design plans for it, but didn't get it done in time.  I thought it turned out so cute anyway!  I was lucky and got to help with Savannah's class party that day, which I LOVE to be involved with.  We played a game called Who's my Valentine?  I read love notes written by fictional males to their fictional loves, and they had to guess who wrote it, and to whom.  I thought it was fun, and interesting to see which ones they knew and which ones they didn't.  No one could get Superman's love interest, not even the boys.  Only Savannah got Edward and Bella without any extra clues.  I guess Mother and daughter think alike, huh?  Here's an example.  See if you can guess, and look for the answer at the end!

 Dear Valentine,

I have secretly admired you since we were kids and next-door neighbors. I have wanted to tell you so many times that you are more than just a friend, but I’m shy and kind of nerdy, and you are an outgoing redhead. Please be mine and we can “hang” out together.

Love,

__________?

PS, how do you feel about spiders?

 

We started our week with a heart and pink breakfast of heart-shaped French toast with pink butter and pink buttermilk syrup, lil smokies, pink milk, and fruit salad.

For dinner we had heart-shaped pizza, and I made these jello parfait cups that I saw online somewhere, but couldn't find the link again.  I painted a chocolate heart on a clear cup, then layered strawberry jello and whipped jello and cool whip mix.  I thought they were so cute!

We celebrated with some Martinelli's too, since we made it through the last 3 stressful months and no one died!  Amazing! 

For dessert, we had strawberry mousse-filled cream puffs.  The kids weren't a big fan of the cream puff part.

Celebrating a holiday late wasn't that bad an idea.  Everything was on clearance, like these light-up mailboxes from Walmart for only .87, plus a lot of the stuff I put in them.  Score!  I wish I could have recorded Waverly's reaction to her Tinkerbelle mailbox.  It was so funny.  I love how little things make little kids happy.  The kids put their mailboxes out to be filled every night.  I guess I must have mentioned that Cupid will come fill them, because Brighton kept wanting to know all about this little winged cherub.  Someone described him as a chubby fairy in a diaper; Brighton had this perplexed expression on his face, while he tried to imagine it, I suppose.  I won't do this overnight again though;  a few mornings, the little ones were up before 7am so they could claim their prizes.  But it was fun to see their anticipation every night.

These gum cards were only .25 on clearance. 

I found the idea for these heart-shaped boxes on http://rootsandwingsco.blogspot.com/.  They have lots of fun holiday ideas.  These boxes are made from toilet paper rolls.  They were too much work for kids though.  I'd suggest them for only adults, or someone that will appreciate the amount of work put into them, and will treasure them for the rest of their lives.  I filled them with candy. 

Another day I made rice crispy kisses, using cocoa marshmallows and cupcake Pebbles cereal.  They were very yummy!

The answer to the riddle is Spiderman and MJ (Mary Jane).  Nobody was able to get that one without hints, so if you got it, go get yourself a treat!

Annual Henry family lights-less soup night

Our tradition of seeing the lights at the park and a soup party afterwards was kind of a bust this year.  We still had soup and hot chocolate, but because it was raining, a hay ride wasn't exactly sounding fun, and one of the kids broke her arm earlier in the day.  Our kids were very disappointed, but we shut them up with cookies and hot chocolate:)  Better luck next year!  It wasn't feeling the same without Grandma or Grandpa either.  These are the only photos I got of the night, but I wanted to record that it did still happen, just a watered down version.

I did, however, discover a yummy gourmet hot chocolate recipe that I tried out before our wrapping party with my sisters-in-law the following week.  It's a copy cat recipe developed by my neighbor, who is an awesome chef.  It's salted caramel hot chocolate, and I found the recipe here.  I'll repost it here too.

Salted caramel Hot Chocolate

INGREDIENTS

Hot Chocolate

3 Tbs caramel, lukewarm, plus 1 Tbs for garnish

4 Tbs chocolate ganache (see recipe below)

6 oz 2% milk

1 tsp hazelnut syrup

1/2 tsp vanilla syrup

Pinch medium coarse sea salt

Whipped cream


Ganache

8 oz semi-sweet chocolate chips

1 cup heavy cream



DIRECTIONS

Hot Chocolate

1. Coat inside of mug with caramel

2. In medium saucepan, bring ganache and milk to desired temperature

3. Pour into mug

4. Add hazelnut and vanilla syrups

5. Stir well to combine

6. Garnish with whipped cream, caramel and sea salt



Ganache

1. Scald heavy cream in medium saucepan

2. Pour into a bowl with the chocolate chips

3. Stir until smooth, then allow to cool

For time's sake, I used liquid caramel ice cream topping.  The thicker stuff would probably work better, as this stuff slid down the cup and ended in the bottom.  Oh, it was divine!  Pad-the-butt good, but worth it!

 

Cookie Exchange party

Our book club did a cookie exchange again this year.  It's always so fun to see what everyone brings!  I couldn't decide among all the yummy Christmas cookie recipes I found online, so I made 4 different kinds.  And, alas, I didn't take pictures of 2 of them.  Below are the triple chocolate peppermint cookies.

These are Thanksgiving Point's sugar cookies with buttercream frosting.

I also made peanut butter mice, and egg nog thumbprints, which look like deviled eggs.  Here's the wealth I came home with from book club.  The ones I tried were all very yummy!

Fun with D

Brighton often asks for "a fun lunch", so we had a D-themed lunch, with a D-shaped sandwich, donuts, Doritos, and dill pickles.  I've realized there are very few foods that start with D.  Geez, at this rate, we might get to G by summer.

Toddler Time

Today we did a toddler time activity, and I got really adventurous and included the twins.  We all lived to tell about it.  With inspiration from toddler boredom busters, we made these poinsettia pictures.  Brighton kept calling them "Christmas devotional" pictures, I'm guessing because we watched the First Presidency's Christmas devotional service on Sunday, and it's still fresh in his mind.  They were fast, easy, and the twins loved the green light to rip things.  That's usually a no-no that gets mom all red in the face.

Here's Brighton's finished masterpiece....almost.

And the twins'.  We had to add a lot more petals/leaves in order to accomodate all the tissue paper they ripped up.  When it's this fun, why stop with just 6? 

Keaton took his job very seriously.

Please notice the protruding tongue on Waverly.  See?  What'd I tell you?  Family trait. 

After Brighton was done, he had to "bam it".  Everything Brighton does involves bamming. 

Next was snacktime, so borrowing another idea from the same site, we made apple wreaths.  Here's Keaton's.

Again, very easy and fun for them to do.  Even the twins were able to do this.  Keaton was very meticulous in placing his cereal, and stuck with it until he was satisfied.  Waverly was less so, and had it eaten before it was halfway completed. 

Clean up is always fun. 

Turkey Day 2010

This year Thanksgiving was spent at my mom's house with my sister Julie and family, and brother Kevin and family.  I love Thanksgiving; it used to be because it meant my birthday was near.  Now it's for more grown-up reasons.  (plus the addition of pumpkin pie doesn't hurt either!)  Here's a few pictures of our Thanksgiving day this year.

Scott carving up the turkey with Waverly sampling.  "like turkey" was the decision.

My mom always sets a nice table. 

This child hates long sleeves; she always pushes them up.  It used to be because she sucked her arm when she was upset or tired.  She still does that occasionally, but the habit stuck. 

My mom the head Chef 

This was one of my contributions this year.  Normally I shy away from cheesecakes, even though I love making desserts.  But my sister-in-law Sallie gave me the confidence that I could do one, so I made pumpkin spice cheese cake.  I made chocolate leaves to go on top of the spiced whipped cream dollops.  It was pretty, I have to admit.  That's until the twins got to it.  This is the before picture. 

I just love Keaton's expressions.  They vary so greatly. 

Nice bum shot of my mom.  Sorry, Mom!  As we sat down to dinner, everyone read a fill-in-the-blank grateful statement.  Such as, "I am grateful for my friend ___."  Sallie, you'll be very glad to know you were my blank.  Everyone needs a great sister-in-law to commiserate the ups and downs of being married to brothers:)  Anyway, it was funny to hear what people filled in their blanks with.  My sister Julie was grateful for the movie The Sound of Music, because it inspired her to become a nanny and resulted in a great experience in Hawaii for her when she was a teenager.  See, I didn't know that before. 

I love the expression on my neice Aislynn's face (in the pink).  She's an adorable, precocious, 5-yr-old that had Brighton playing house with her all weekend.  I'm not sure that's been done before.  She had him whooped.  It was good for him.

After dinner, we have a tradition of doing crafts.  It started when I was a teenager, and we've been doing it ever since.  The kids made Christmas countdown calendars and trains with Grandma, 

while the moms made washer and tile necklaces with Julie.  

See what I mean about expressions?  I wonder if that tongue was directed at me. 

I mistakenly gave Scott the camera and he turned it on me.  DOn't look to close or you'll see the patch of gray that's grown up.  These little suckers took a lot of time and concentration to match up.  But the end result was beautiful!  Of which, I'm realizing I did not get a picture. 

Food and trains.  Brighton's in his element. 

While doing crafts, someone forgot to check the twins.  Inevitably, something perished.  It was my cheesecake.  Ok, maybe it didn't perish, but it sure got maimed. 

See me on the far left?  Speaks volumes, doesn't it? 

Keaton's face shows a mixture of "oh crap, I've been caught" and "who said cheesecake isn't good for my hair and complexion?"

I'm thinking they probably helped rub it in each other's hair.  We also found it on the wall, cupboards, and inside the cupboards on the flashlights.   

Luckily, with a little extra whipped cream I was able to hide some of the damage.