Halloween bark

Today was another calm day at home. I have been gobbling up episodes of Rehab Addict on Netflix and watching the kiddos play. Today we visited my grandparents. We hadn't been to see them in forever. We caught up a little and then my grandpa needed to rest. He hasn't been sleeping much during the night and he was super sleepy and Kellen was getting cranky. We ran some errands and then came home and made a little treat!

Halloween bark is amazing and simple. I keep making trips to the kitchen to break off little pieces. It's addicting.

You need:
12-15 Halloween Oreos
1 cup of broken up pretzels
1 and 1/2 cups of candy corn
1 lb of candy coating/white chocolate
Halloween sprinkles

First, line a pan with parchment or wax paper. Then smash up the Oreos.

We just put ours in a gallon sized bag and use a meat mallet to smash them up. Spread the Oreos on the pan.

 Then smash up the pretzels using the same method. Last top with the candy corn.

Next melt the candy coating according to the package. Pour over the cookies, pretzels and candy corn and give a good mix to coat. While the candy coating is still soft top with sprinkles. I popped the pan right in the fridge and let it set up. After it is hardened, break into smaller pieces!

I hope this will tide us over until trick or treating!!

What I wore Wednesday

This week has been pretty low key, clothes wise. I finally got out the kids winter clothes and I have been venturing into the basement to get out mine more and more this week. I just need to make the final push and bring everything up!

So this post is a mixture of last weeks' school clothes and this weeks' casual clothes...

A fall break look. Mister was fascinated with my shoes!

Top: AE thrifted

Denim leggings: Forever 21

Tank: Target

Oxfords: Payless

Pockets! I don't know why, but dresses with pockets make me happy. It's the small things really. Callie said I looked like Zoo keeper Barbie. That's winning, right there.

Dress: Target

Necklace: Very Jane

Leopard flats: Target

I wore this yesterday and I wish I would have worn boots with it. My feet were FREEZING!

Sweater: Thrifted

Cargo skinny pants: Kohl's

Flats: Target

Necklace: Charming Charlie's

I wore this to the second night of parent/teacher conferences, I was feeling a little country!

Dress: Target

Cardigan: Target

Boots: Shepler's

Randomness

We are on fall break this week, so you think it would be quiet, but no, it's not! So far we have spent a fortune on hunting stuff for Brien on Saturday at Cabela's. He is leaving us to go elk hunting with his brother and some friends for 6. Whole. Days. That's a loonngg time!

 Sunday we spend the day at Brien's parents celebrating his youngest brother's birthday. The weather was amazing and the kiddos played and played!

 Today started out lovely and sunny, a little on the chilly side. We took a long walk this morning while the carpets were being cleaned and when we got back it started to rain. Seriously. I was having my carpet cleaned because of the muddy dog and now they are all fresh and in terrible danger of being messy again. Boo!

The other day I was dropping Callie off at a girl scout party when we noticed the moon. It was one of the crazy harvest moons. So big and pretty in the sky and I got reminiscing. When I was pregnant with Callie, I remember a big harvest moon shining through my windows every night. Since sleep eluded me, I would stare at the huge bright moon and dream of all the things my baby girl would be. They were good nights.

Then I got to reminiscing again, today. It was all rainy and chilly outside and I was thinking about fall break the first year we moved back to Colorado. On the first day of break there was a huge snowstorm and my little Civic would just not drive! I panicked and called my brother, the car guy, and he took me to immediately invest in "real" tires. Nonetheless, even with a car that could drive Callie and I spent most of the rest of the break playing in the snow and drinking hot cocoa.
                                        
We sure had fun! I cannot wait to see how this break turns out. Hopefully full of memories per usual!

Gooey Butter Cake and Frown Lines

Today was a rough day. My face hurts, from frowning. I feel like I might need some botox in the near future. Sometimes my students act like they have no idea what's going on. Then I had to conference with them about their test results regarding reading levels. Those were some tough conversations. I have really nice students but they have come from 5th grade with 3rd grade average for reading levels. Hello growth scores! They are going to be great!

Besides being a loonnngg day, I have parent conferences from 4-8 tomorrow, so that makes for some 14 hour days. Fall break cannot come soon enough! When days like this happen I needs something delicious to tame my frayed nerves. Enter Butter Cake.

If you are ever in need of a quick and easy dessert, have I got a recipe for you! Last Saturday after the pumpkin patch we had a yummy dinner and I was asked to bring some dessert. So I threw together a little butter cake action! I got this recipe for one of my sweet church friends, when I lived in East Texas and I used to make it all the time!

You need:

For the bottom layer:

One box of yellow cake mix

One stick of butter, melted

2 eggs 

1 tsp of vanilla extract

For the top layer:

1 8 oz package of cream cheese, softened (for the record I used 1/3 fat, you know, to make it healthier)

I box or 4 cups of powdered sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp of vanilla

1. Pre heat the oven to 350. Mix up the ingredients for the bottom layer and press into a greased 9x13 pan. It will be a little dry, just smoosh it right in there.

2. Next, Mix up all the ingredients for the bottom layer except for the powdered sugar, using an electric mixer, I used my trusty Kitchen Aid. Next gradually add in the powdered sugar until everything is smooth. Then pour over the top layer and spread evenly.

3. Pop it into the oven for about 40 minutes. I always check on it and end up adding 5-10 minutes of additional cook time. The top should be golden brown and pretty firm.

Like so...

Slice those babies up into brownie sized chunks and you have tasty treat for those times when you need an on the fly dessert OR if your face hurts from frowning!

Pumpkin Patch Shenanigans

Every year we have a family tradition of going to the pumpkin patch! There is one by our house and we usually go there early in the fall. They have lots of fun activities for the kids, games, haunted hayride, face painting,snacks etc, but it has become more and more crowded. This year we ventured way out to the country for the pumpkin patch adventure! Apparently there was a better one out in the country and  our sweet friends live in Strasburg, about an hour from our house. We went to their house and while the boys practiced "field maneuvers"(a fancy of way of saying nerds with guns) Me and Adriane packed up the kids and hit the May Farms pumpkin patch.

It was so pretty outside! I am glad I dressed for a warm day! It was funny to see"city folks" in their boots, sweaters and scarves, looking all sweaty, dragging along, hot children, equally overdressed!

We started our adventure playing on some dangerous looking balance beam and giant tires!

We also tried to take one of these pictures. If you look close, Callie is hanging on for dear life to the top and Kaden is crouched at the bottom very sadly, because he couldn't reach. I think this was meant for tall children!

Next we headed to the never ending corn maze. It seriously took like 30 minutes of wandering and then we finally cheated and snuck out the side and pretended like it was the real end! The kids were proud of themselves for getting through it, I was proud of us for not losing our minds!

Then it was off the to the train and the punkin' chunker! All three kiddos were an excellent shot!

While the big kids played, Kellen tried to lift up pumpkins! It was quiet entertaining!

Silly (drooly) baby!  Still no shoes for this boy!

Finally it was time for the hayride and pumpkin picking. This was very much a struggle for several reasons. I had to wrestle Kellen the whole time to sit still on the tractor and it was stinky! It kept stopping to pick up and drop off  fellow pumpkin patch goers, so we were stuck waiting for awhile!

                                               

Once we had arrived, we thought it would be no big deal to carry four kids and 6 pumpkins, all the way up the hill back to the stroller. Also in the pumpkin you actually have to "pick" your pumpkin. A guy would come by with snippers and cut it straight from the vine. Thankfully my children chose wisely and quickly! Another obstacle was the horrible sticker weeds!

We all survived and headed home with 4 exhausted children, a bunch of pumpkins and day full of fun memories! Also we were very happy to pass them off to their fathers! Another successful pumpkin patch done!

                                            

What I wore last week

This last week has been pretty swell! The kids are good, school is good, home is good. We are blessed! I know that this coming week is going to be crazy! Callie has 2 girl scout events, we have parent teacher conferences for 2 nights, Halloween parties and then finally fall break!

 I love fall break. I think I need it more than spring break and if I had to give up one, it would be spring break. We just need a rest after all the craziness from the 1st quarter and getting back into school!

So onto the clothing choices...

Casual Friday! 

Polka dot top: Old Navy (old)

Tank:Targte

Jeans: Miss Me via Dillard's

Flats: Target

Necklace: Target

Top:Target

Capris: Target

Nude heels: Target

Necklace: Forever 21

Dress: Thrifted

Leggings: Jane

Sweater: Target

Flats:Amazon

Belt: from another dress

I actually wore black heels with this skirt, but I left them at school! I always bring a pair of flats to school if I wear heels. Then I change into them during plan, since it's the last period of the day. I always forget them under my desk when I take them off!

Blouse: Express (old)

Leopard pencil skirt: Loft, thrifted

Necklace: Target

Flats: Amazon.

Castlewood Canyon

On Thursday we had the pleasure of taking our students on a field trip! Field trips are tough at our school for several reasons; We have tons of children 330 in the 6th grade. We have many teachers that teach multiple grade levels, so if we need them as chaperons, we have to find coverage for their classes. We have bad luck with parent chaperons being flaky and unreliable. We have to pay for buses, which are pricy! But this year we managed to pull it off! Our social studies teacher was able to arrange for all of us to go to this amazing park in Castle Rock, called Castlewood Canyon. It is one of my most favorite places to go and the kids always have an amazing time.

I teach children who are pretty urban, they don't really have back yards, as most of them live in apartments. The parks in our neighborhood are not always safe and on the weekends they spend their times indoors or at places like the mall or movies. So taking them on an outdoor adventure is a special treat.

Thursday was a glorious day! It was my anniversary, we were going on a field trip and it was a beautiful day!

It was so pretty! 

The kids had so much fun hiking, running, jumping, playing in caves and in the river. I heard so many students say things like, "This place is so amazing!" "I want to come back and bring my family", and "I love being outside all day."

My work bestie and my student teacher. We had to sneak in a picture...

We were so lucky to be on the last bus, it was the nicest and least crowded. It was just our 2 small classes and we got to spend the entire day together, kind of separated from the huge herd.

After lunch we had an hour to kill. While the rest of the classes headed back to the bus, we waited for them to leave and took our classes up to the top of the canyon to go a group picture! They were such a fun and sweet group!

The remains of the old dam. Castlewood Canyon Dam broke back in the 1930's and flooded all of Denver after a few days of rain. Our kids are learning about erosion and primary sources, so this was a great opportunity to show them both!

Our view was amazing! I was right there with that kid who said I wish we could stay outside all day!

Besides our amazing trip, when I got back to school, I had a big bouquet of flowers that Brien had sent to my school for our anniversary. Last night we stayed up with Callie and had a traditional yearly viewing of our wedding video. 

It was the perfect way to end a rather perfect day!

4 years!

4 years ago today, Miss Callie and I, started our amazing lives being Brien's girls.
                                       

The months and weeks leading up to our big day were a blllluuurrr. I wish that I would have kept better track of all the things that we did and the planning process, but the truth is I didn't have time. I was furiously working on my masters. I was leading the 6th grade literacy team. Leading my grade level content team and I had 3 year old. Life was CRAZY!

Our wedding was homemade and it was just perfect. We had gotten engaged in July and wanted to get married in the fall, sooo we planned an October wedding with a fall break honeymoon. It was amazing!

When I say homemade wedding, I mean that we did everything, EVERYTHING our selves! And by ourselves, I mean our families! It was super low cost, which was great and it was all about everything that is dear to us, our families and friends. We thought it would be pretty small like 50 people. But, Brien has a rather large family, who are very good at planning for big events, so it became an event for about 100!
                                       
We had the ceremony on Brien's parents front yard and reception in the garage, believe it or not, it was gorgeous! Hobby Lobby was my very best friend for all things wedding. One of the Wood's family friends did all the setting up and decorating using what we had gotten from the hob lob.

                                      
We did all of the flowers our selves. 200 pink daisies ordered online for $200 and really simple pretty center pieces that we also done by our lovely decorators!

The weekend before the wedding my mom, Brien's mom and My sister in law and I went to get all of the food, which we also made our selves. Thanks to Phanneth we had the menu and grocery list all planned out and ready to go. This was by far our biggest expense, we had a lot of hungry people to feed and the Wood's apparently don't let people go hungry!

                                                      
The day before the wedding, so much prep! My best friend had flown in the night before to help with everything. I am so glad she was there to stand up with me as my matron of honor!

                                             
We hadn't planned on having a cake, so everyone in our families made a dozen of their favorite cupcakes and we frosted them all the same the day of the wedding. Brien's youngest brother Zack surprised us with a cake to cut. It was so sweet and so delicious!    


                                              


                                             

                      It was truly the best day ever! I will never forget the day we became a family!

Wardrobe choices this week

I am experimenting with titles, I feel like "What I wore Wednesday" sounds snotty today, for some reason. Plus it's not Wednesday! So I am behind and I don't have an alliteration in my title. Any who, what I wore...

One of my kids said I looked fancy in this, I thought that was kind of funny, I always dress like this!

Dress: Target

Zebra sweater: Target

Belt: Thrifted

Flats: Amazon

Chambray: Target

Coral pants: Gap, thrifted

Bronze heels: Target

Necklace: Very Jane

I wore this to mentor seminar this week. I had planned out all cold weather outfits this week and then it ended up being almost 80, so I had to make some early morning on the fly changes. I am not good at that, usually; this actually came out okay!

Tee: Brand unknown, thrifted

Skirt: Loft, thrifted

Flats: Target

Necklace: Target

Tee: Target

Denim skirt: Target

Camo flats: Target

 Tee: Gap, thrifted

Skirt: Target

Flats: Target

Scarf: gift from my sister in law