Busy Week

I've been busy this week... I've been to the eye doctor, I've volunteered in the school, I've stuck to this weeks menu plan [which included a roast, a lasagna, pulled pork sandwiches, and beef dip with left over roast beef] I've taken kids to extra curricular activities, and I've baked. I baked mainly because I spent far too much time this week on Pinterest... [I think I might have a problem] Halloween is around the corner, and so I get to see all these fabulous Halloween-type things. And by things, I mostly mean delicious sweet, yummy type things...

I made these:

I found the recipe here, and I'll be completely honest, I haven't tried a cookie yet... But Madelyn who is always eager to be my 'cookie tester' gave me the two thumbs up as she scarfed one down. Both kids have come home from school since Tuesday and gone straight to the cookie jar, so that's encouraging. The cookies are ginormous. The recipe called to use 1/4 cup for each cookie, and mine are not far from that... They are a decadent treat.

Speaking of decadent, next I made these:

Sweet Mother of Pearl... I changed the recipe slightly [because I could] and added Reece's Peanut Butter Bar instead of plain chocolate... Mmmmm.... Found the recipe here. And this one I did try... And my word, it's good. I under estimated the richness of it though, because I made 2 for everyone. Believe it or not, Madelyn didn't even get half way through hers. I soldiered on, and ate one of mine. Barry, like a trooper, ate both of his, but told me later he thought he was going into diabetic shock. [No offense to anyone diabetic, I know it's not a laughing matter]

Here's my little girl, who has been sporting the new t-shirt I bought her last week. While we were in Disneyland, who was it that she become absolutely enamored with? Not Mickey Mouse, not Minnie. Not Chip or Dale... Not Ariel or Cinderella, even though we got to meet them both. She has a special place in her heart for Jack Skellington...

The Jack stuffie is one of the special things that she spent her money on. I have never seen the movie Jack stars in, The Nightmare Before Christmas, so I really have no idea what kind of person Jack is [although I have my suspicion that perhaps he's not very nice] I do know that we were first introduced to him in the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland, and to be honest, their first meeting wasn't great... She was genuinely scared of him. But she woke up the next morning, told us she realized it was just pretend and from that moment on it was Jack this and Jack that. Jack, Jack, Jack... I even held her off buying 'Jack' until Wednesday night, hoping someone else might tickle her fancy. But no one did.

Here's Jack during the day. It's true, the Haunted Mansion is not nearly as spooky during day time...
Beloved Giraffe has definitely fallen down a notch. Though apparently the two of them have become the best of friends. Jack has been a fixture in her arms ever since he came home from the Disney store. [A fixture in her thoughts as well... here are a few pictures I found last week]


The picture on the right, is what she drew for Ama. Her words were "So Ama can make a blanket for me".

And because it's been kind of fun, this is what the clementines in her lunch looked like this week. And guess what? I'm not saying that the only reason she ate them were because they had his face penned on with sharpie, but that certainly didn't hurt matters.