Caramel Apple FAIL!

I thought it was brave of my good friend Laura to blog about her foodie fail: managing to mess up Macaroni and cheese! But then, she totally redeemed herself and made an amazing looking turkey.

So, I thought I would tough it out, and attempt to make Caramel Apples for Jack’s teachers using Hope Studio’s guidelines. She is either a food witch or way to crafty, because mine look like the ugly step-children of hers!

My fails:

#1: Each caramel was individually wrapped and a pain in the arse to unwrap! Plus, I had 6 big apples that required 2 bags of caramels. Really?!?
#2: I managed to burn off a few layers of skin whilst “testing the temperature” of the caramel…good to know: IT’S HOT!
#3: I am not a pretty dipper! Apparently, it’s like an art form or something!
#4: I didn’t grease my wax paper well enough, and that damn caramel is sticky! (Refer to #2 in which the caramel successfully removed layers of my skin!)
#5: My white chocolate didn’t melt well. I managed to burn the first batch, and the second batch was not as smooth as my chocolate, which made it look all jabberwocky! UGH!

Can I get an “E” for effort?!?! Hopefully, my Thanksgiving cooking will be more successful: sweet potatoes, the best 7 layer salad ever (seriously, this is like all I eat on Thanksgiving!), and a secret dessert that I’m not telling my mom and sister about so I’ll talk about it more next week! ;)

Gobble, gobble, gobble!

Our Saturday...

Our Saturday was full! Full like a bag of wet leaves. An appropriate analogy seeing as the better part of our Saturday consisted of blowing, raking, funneling, stuffing, bagging, dragging, hauling, all of the leaves from our yard.

Here's Jim looking misleadingly happy...actually, scratch that...he probably was happy because it was the last bag!

Luckily, it was an awesome day outside…and I always complain that Jim and I never spend any quality time together…well, we got it. :)

35, count 'em...THIRTY-FIVE bags of leaves!

And I felt it necessary to demonstrate what a dirty job this was. My hands were (and possibly still are) stained orange, along with my shirt, and the look was complete with dirt under the fingernails. (I'm sure Carey will think it's gross that I showed this, but whatever, Care!)


Oh, and our biggest tree, has barely begun to drop leaves, so we will have a bunch more to come. (Check back for the sequel!)

Photo-Op

While visiting the playground on an unseasonably-warm Fall day, I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to take some pictures.

I felt the results perfectly illustrate why I take pictures the way I do. I SNAP-SNAP-SNAP in a rapid-fire succession while doing anything to draw Jack’s attention to the camera. (most people Jim is highly annoyed by this!) BUT, this is why I take roughly 100 pictures on any given day; because if I take 100, chances are at least 1 will be a perfect, smiley keeper! That's a 1% chance people...

But, the “outtakes”, well, their gems in their own right…

Here's Jack demonstrating his new "Funny Face"! Oh I just love it, but he thinks he's supposed to do this whenever he's in front of a camera now....uh oh!

Ahhhhhhhh!

fall...

Gone Fishin'

The boys (Jim, Jack, and Papa) went fishing last weekend! I was worried about the cold weather, ticks, and the possibility of having to eat whatever they caught!

Luckily, the weather warmed up, but it was still too cold for ticks (yeah!), and I think the biggest catch of the day was lucky to be pushing 5 inches, so my dinner was safe! But they had a great time bonding and doing “boy stuff”! Here's Jack in a hat again...for like 5 more seconds! Apparently, it wasn't fishing attire :)

And here’s their catch of the day! Apparently, Jack loved the fish, as long as he didn’t have to touch it. lol.

This is from the picnic last weekend, not fishing, but I thought it was too cute not to add!

They also met up with Bill and Will, who is just a few weeks older than Jack. Here they are:

Like father like son! Here are a few better ones of them fishing:

And Jim managed to reel in the smallest catch of the day! But they had a fun "Boys-day!"

My pumpkins...

I love my Pumpkins...Jack and the orange ones!

I used the idea from Living with Lindsay to recreate the Pottery Barn-style pumpkins. I'm obsessed! I love my little Spider pumpkin (even though he isn't anatomically correct because he only has 6 legs!) Check out her tutorial and make your own pumpkins!

And the other option I made was the Pirate pumpkin...Arrrrrrgh!

But this will always be my favorite Pumpkin:

And these two make quite a pair...l-o-v-e!

Happy Halloween!

He wore a hat...

...for like 5 seconds! But still, I'm pumped because little man won't put a hat on for anything. Well, once wore a Cards hat when he was bribed with M&Ms, but this time no candy-pushing was involved...but again, it was for like 5 seconds!

and there it goes! It was adorable while it lasted!