Easter 2019

We had a great Easter!! We celebrated with our work family!

 Started off our morning with Easter Baskets.

 Mason was really wondering what was going on, and where his treats were.

 She LOVES copic markers.

 Also since she is 15 and beyond the basket with toys she got the GOOD chocolate bunny and other treats she loves!

 He loves Beyblades and I found these mini beyblades blind packs!

 And full size beyblades!

Little transformer bot

 Time to start cooking for our party!  I made oven fried chicken - I found this recipe YEARS ago in a Bisquick cookbook and we make it A LOT!

 I also made "deviled" strawberries.  I made some with chocolate mousse...

and some with cheese cake!

 My festive outfit for the day.  I made my shirt and I bought these SO CUTE pants from JC Penney's the day before.  I'm tempted to go back and get the pink pair!

 

 Made me some really cute peep earrings!

Since my wedding ring isn't sized yet, I'm having fun matching my silicone rings to my outfit!

 Dinner time!

 Sides and desserts

 Main dishes.  We always have SO MUCH food!

 We had the kids make Easter bags for their hunt.

 The babies were first up on their hunt.  I bought some really cute farm animal shaped eggs for them.

 The big kid group helped set out eggs for the pre-k/preschool kids.

 Kennedie said she would rather help hide eggs than go searching this year.  She is helping hide the big kids group outside.

 Tim hiding some money eggs.

 We had so many eggs for these kids we were "bowling" them to scatter them!  At some point it wasn't worth hiding them because we were running out of room!

 Big Uncle was "hiding" the $10 silver egg in his pocket.  He was moving so it wasn't until real close to the end that a kid found it!

 He got a golden egg pretty quick and was checking to see what was inside, I told him to not worry about the money yet, grab the eggs!

 Moms helping the kids open eggs and then put them back together for use for next year!

 Cale's loot!

He found $7 worth of eggs!

Halloween 2018

I hope everyone had a great Halloween this year!!  Ours was fantastic!!!

 

At work we were encouraged to dress up, and we had a dessert party at lunch time.  I made sugar cookies that were supposed to have bat shaped sprinkles on them, but they looked more like bow-ties so I just did regular Halloween sprinkles on the rest of them.   

The back of my hair, it was a cute look I thought!

  Bought this shirt for $16 at rosegal in September.  It was so cute!! I loved my bat costume!

My kids were inkling/octoling from the video game Splatoon this year.  It was a pretty inexpensive costume to make most of the stuff they wore they already had at home.

 Kennedie was an inkling and Cale was an Octoling

 She knew most people wouldn't know what she was (and usually that's what she goes for, she is VERY creative with her costumes every year, one year she was a garden flamingo)

 Her paint back (blaster pack) and her roller.

 Cale with his "dually's"

 His blaster pack, and dually's - I attached the paint blasters with fish tank air tubing.

 Met our friends on post for trick or treating (we can't trick or treat in our town because everyone is so spread out and not everyone hands out candy because of it).

 Several people had their teal pumpkins out.  Even if they didn't have a teal pumpkin out ALOT of people had non candy options.  One family gave out toys, water bottles...I was like DANG!

 They trick or treated for about an hour and then they were done, we walked about 2.5 miles (well they ran between houses) and they were exhausted.  I only remembered to take ONE picture of our crew trick or treating...ooops!  

What is great about trick or treating on post is that most people don't even shut their doors between 6-8 or they sit at the end of their walkway and pass out candy.  Living in the country down a dirt road no one knows is there unless we tell them, it sucks because I LOVED passing out the candy to the little kids the 14 years we lived in post housing.  The parents of our Ohana decided next year we were going to sit with lawn chairs and candy near the activity center of this housing area and pass out candy as our kids trick or treat.

We learned our lesson one year about bringing the wagon.  First year our Ohana did trick or treating together we ALL were thirsty, we were carrying costume parts, candy bags were getting heavy.  Every year after that I grab a bunch of waters and extra grocery bags for a candy dump in the middle of trick or treating, and we set off.  My kids take the same buckets every year (Kennedie's is 14 years old!!!) and those plastic pumpkins are full to the brim after an hour of trick or treating and SO heavy!

I look forward to Halloween every year because I enjoy creating my kids costumes from the ideas they come up with.  Kennedie has her own tradition of picking her costume for the next Halloween on Halloween night and she sticks with it every year.  Next year we are going Bendy and the ink machine.

 

While I love Halloween, I LOVE Christmas more - so of course the first chance I got this was playing in the car!!!  MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Chocolate Chip Banana Bread

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups sugar

1/2 cup butter or margarine, softened
2 eggs
1 1/2 cups mashed very ripe bananas (3 to 4 medium)
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
chocolate chips (as much or as little as you desire!)
1 cup chopped nuts, if desired


Directions:
Move oven rack to low position so that tops of pans will be in center of oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Grease bottoms only of 2 loaf pans, 8 1/2x4 1/2x2 1/2 inches, or 1 loaf pan, 9x5x3 inches.


Mix sugar and butter in large bowl. Stir in eggs until well blended. Add bananas, buttermilk and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in flour, baking soda and salt just until moistened. Stir in nuts. Pour into pans.

Bake 8-inch loaves about 1 hour, 9-inch loaf about 1 1/4 hours, or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes. Loosen sides of loaves from pans; remove from pans and place top side up on wire rack. Cool completely, about 2 hours, before slicing. Wrap tightly and store at room temperature up to 4 days, or refrigerate up to 10 days

Tip: I used an small electric blender to blend bananas!

 

Yummy Oreo and Mint Layer bars!

These are GREAT and simple to make!

Ingredients:

2 cups (about 15) finely ground crème-filled chocolate sandwich cookies

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter or margarine
1 1/2 cups chopped nuts
1 cup flaked coconut
1 can (14 oz.) Sweetened Condensed Milk
1 2/3 cups (10-oz. pkg.) Dark Chocolate & Mint Morsels (nestle)
 
Directions:
preheat oven to 350° F. Melt butter in 13 x 9-inch baking pan in oven; remove from oven. Sprinkle cookie crumbs over butter. Stir well; press mixture onto bottom of pan. Sprinkle with nuts and coconut. Pour sweetened condensed milk evenly over top. Sprinkle with morsels; press down slightly. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until coconut is light golden brown. Cool completely in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars.