Makin' Mommy and Daddy proud

It took a few Sundays to convince Stephanie that she really ought to sit with us until the Children's Sermon instead of going straight to the nursery, but she finally agreed. She was timid and wanted us to go up front with her. Then, this past Sunday, she didn't even hesitate. When it was time for the kids to go up front, she went right up front all by herself. She sat up on the stairs in the middle of the crowd of kids, listened intently and bowed her head for the prayer. When the sermon was done, she went straight to the lady who brings them up to Sunday School and didn't even look back at us! She looked like such a big girl.

Sunday was also potluck Sunday. After lunch, Stephanie went out to the playground all by herself and played with the other children. This was also a first for her - to not require one of us to go with her. It was a beautiful day and the older children got together to play a little soccer.

I went a little nuts for the potluck again. I just have too much fun. The theme was Thanksgiving. So, I brought Tyler Florence's Sweet Potato casserole, an apple pie, a pumpkin pie and 2 9x13 pans of sticky buns. Just in case you ever go to a potluck and need to keep your dish warm, I wrapped 4 bricks in foil and baked them next to the casserole and sticky buns. I put 2 on the bottom of a large cooler and stacked the food on top of them. I put the other 2 on top of the food. It worked great. The bricks were still almost too hot to handle 4 hours later when I was cleaning out the cooler.

Never happy!

Stephanie requested pancakes again. She wanted a pancake that looked like a house. While I was making the pancakes, I was playing around with shapes and ended making what looked like a little bunny (I put the batter in a ziploc bag and snip one corner). So, I got inspired to make her plate look like a little picture. I arranged orange wedges to look like the sun, the eggs are supposed to be the ground and then the house and bunny. She wanted one pancake to have syrup and the other to have jelly. So, I thought I had done a pretty good job. When Stephanie came to the table, the only thing she said was, "But Mommy, I need 2 bunnies!"

Funny sisters

We had a crazy week last week and spent most days out of the house, but one day we just hung out at home. We had fun playing in Erica's room.

We played "Merry-go-round" with the chair. At one point, Stephanie claims she doesn't like it. However, she says it while giggling.

Playground Fun

We took a walk today after lunch and enjoyed all the Halloween decorations in the day time. :) Not so scary in the sun light. We stopped at the playground and the girls shared a ride on the frog.

Halloween Fun

Halloween in Rowlett is FUN! What a fun night. It was 80 degrees out and there were tons of kids. Every other house was decked out in full Halloween garb - lights, music, inflatables, props, etc. There were so many kids that most people were just camped out in their driveway handing out the candy. We took Stepahnie out for almost an hour and she was great. She said, "Trick or Treat" and "Thank you" at every house. When we got home, Christian, Stephanie and Erica sat at the door giving out candy. Erica was loving every minute of it. She was thrilled to see all the people come to our door. After a while, Stephanie got into handing out the candy, too. We had a steady stream of kids for about an hour and then it dwindled off. Poor Stephanie was so upset. She wanted more people to come get candy. Even Darth Vader made an appearance!

Daddy helped get the costume on.

A neighbor's house. Stephanie didn't go to this one - too scary!! Ha ha.

Ft. Worth Air Show

We indulged Daddy and went to the Fort Worth Alliance Air Show on Saturday. We were joined by our friend, Josie, and her daddy (co-worker of Christian's). It was a great show and we had a great day.

More cooking fun

Well, I went a little crazy again. I had already committed to making gluten-free cheesecake (followed my usual America's Test Kitchen recipe for NY style cheesecake, but used a nut crust made with gluten-free baking mix) for our church community group tonight. Then, I heard about the Fall festival that the church is having Saturday night. Our community group was supposed to bring hot chocolate and marshmallows. Before I could buy any, though, another lady in the group found them in bulk and bought a bunch of it. I was already inspired, though. Then, I decided to make macaroni and cheese for dinner Friday night. Normal people might plan better than me and not do it all in one day, but not silly me! We had fun, though. In the end, I made homemade marshmallow ghosts, chocolate spoons (to stir into hot chocolate), gluten-free cheesecake, and macaroni and cheese. Since I had cake scraps left over from Erica's cake and left over frosting and I was going to have melted chocolate for the spoons, I thought I'd go ahead and just make cake balls, too. I am nuts, but I love it!

So, here are the marshmallow ghosts. Stephanie helped me paint eyes on some of them. She had a ball. I got distracted at one point and realized that she had started eating them. I asked her how many she had eaten and she said, "Twelve ... or thirteen?" Ha ha! I know that she really can't count that high yet, so I don't think she had that many, but it was cute.

Here are the chocolate spoons. I experimented with different decorations and added Andes candy mint chips to some.

Here are the cake balls. Yum!