Fantastico Fall Break

This year, fall break was good for my soul, all our souls, really! The weather was perfection, I took care of some serious cleaning and catching up business and we had SO much fun doing cool things.

The first real day of fall break we went back to Hudson Gardens, where we had the family pictures a few weeks ago. The kids were asking to go back when we had time to play, so we did just that!

I think we saw every square foot of the gardens and my kids climbed on everything. Most of the flowers were already gone for the season, but it was still beautiful! I really want to take them back next summer when everything is bloom. I'll have to remember to put that on the old calendario.

Another glorious day in the CO!

Then nature trails were super fun!

There were monarch butterflies everywhere! They were pretty magical. Every time you walked they fluttered by in herd, it was like a Disney movie!

The mini hay maze was super fun!

Callie was in love with this old barn, for some reason...

It was a fun trip and we can't wait to go back!

Besides going to Hudson, we went to Hammond's candy factory with my aunt Carol and Grandma it was a blast as well!

Silly boy! So Hammond's is a candy factory, the oldest in Denver and they still make candy with the old timey machines, the old fashioned way. And they give free tours every day and free samples. If you have not been, you should. But do not drive the way we did. We went some crazy way, through all the factories and more "industrial" parts of town. I got a whole new view of the city I have literally never seen before!

They were mesmerized...

Love this family of mine!

We had a great time on our candy factory adventure and I so glad these gals were able to spend the day with us!

The rest of fall break, Brien was gone hunting, well mostly hiking with guns, as their group likes to call it. So I was on my own with these crazies and we made it a pretty fun few days!

We cheers-ed OJ

We helped get the yard ready for winter to help daddy

We made crazy race tracks!

We made gross cookies...

We snuggled and watched the Broncos lose...

We played with our sweet cousin...

We played with tractors at Grandma's office...

It was a red letter week! Now we are refreshed and recharged and ready for a few more weeks of school! I heart fall break!

Pumpkin Patchin'

I don't know what it is, but I love the pumpkin patch! We started off fall break last week with a good old visit to the patch for family fun and it never disappoints.

I LOVE this place!

They have grown a titch since last year!

Some new fun cut outs! How cute us this?

Callie was feeling brave so we went on the haunted hay ride and it would have been terrifying if not for the super funny family in front of us making us laugh. 

Brien wore him self out riding these crazy tractor bikes. He said Kellen better learn quick so he can do it by himself next year!

Some old favorites! Kellen is obsessed with this talking pumpkin!

Aunt Jenny came and brought her little pumpkin...

So freakin' cute! I hope they put her in a pumpkin this year. I want to live vicariously through them because I never got my baby in pumpkin picture. Not all babies love being put in a cold slimy pumpkin, whatever....

Love my people!

It was  perfecto kind of day! Happy pumpkin season!

Dolla' Tree Pumpkins

This here is a super quick one! So our Halloween/fall decor was looking a titch bare, so we needed some cheap stuff to jazz up the old Wood house for the big day!

So back on Pinterest I went! I found this cute little link with all kinds of fun ideas for CHEAP, like 3 bucks!

Aaaandd off the $ Tree we went! They had just a few of these bad boys left...

Some super crappy Styrofoam pumpkins! I think next year, I will stock up early!

I also had some left over black chalkboard spray paint from various projects. They were clearly asking to be chalkboard pumpkins!

Literally all I did was rip off the stems on two of them and the spray paint them. Two coats, that fake foam just soaks up the paint! Once they were dry, I free handed with some chalkboard markers and I  finished off my cute, new little pumpkins...

Then hot glue them together using the stemless ones on the bottom and middle and stemmed one on top. Done and done and oh so easy! Gotta love a quick and cheap craft! Happy Monday!

Crafty Mummy

Yesterday we had a marathon Halloween fest at our house! It was super fun, I am not gonna lie, Fall break is good for the soul and good for the craftiness. We checked a bunch of things off from Pinterest!

First up, this mummy cuteness from an old cookie sheet. Here is the pinterest version...

You need need:
A cookie sheet (we used an old rickety one so now I can buy a new one!)
White paint
Gauze of white fabric cut into strips (we used an old pillow case, I couldn't find the first aid kit)
Google eyes
Ribbon
Hot glue gun
Old English furniture polish

First, paint the pan, we ran out of white spray paint so we used some left over white paint we found inn the garage.

Once it's dry then start gluing on the gauze. Be so super careful, Callie and I both sustained pretty serious burns from my new hot glue gun (thanks high heat glue gun). I am talking gross blistery burns that we had to sit with our hands in ice water all night kinds of burns, ouch!

We tried to make a criss crossy patterns and then glued the ends down on the back side of the pan.

Add your google eyes and a cute bow (because you know girl mummies had bows, right?)

Then use the Old English on a wet rag to "dirty" up the bandages. I am sure you could use brown stain or paint on ink pad too, but we were working with not much here!

So stinkin' cute! Well played, Callie!

We added some burlap (That's how I sustained my injuries) to the back to hang her on the front door!

Whilst we were working on our cute door mummy the kids were feasting on some mummy pizzas, which were equally adorable!

You need:

Mini pizza crusts (I went with good old store bought, but you could make the dough or use bagels, English muffins, what ever you have on hand)

pizza sauce

pepperoni

sliced olives

slices of mozzarella cheese sliced into strips

Sauce em'

Pepperoni em'

Cheese and olive em'

They were adorable!

But not so much after we cooked them! They were mummy, I mean yummy though!

Yummy Fajitas? Yes, Please!

I haven't done a recipe post in a spell, well actual real life dinner food, that was not a dessert. Mostly because we eat the same things over and over again. I am in a bit of a dinner rut these days!

Last week we had a hankerin' for some fajitas and this recipe was pretty much everything you want in a recipe, pretty to look at, easy to make, and yummy to eat!

You need:
1-2 lbs of chicken breast sliced into strips
3-4 bell peppers, I used red, orange and yellow ( we are not green pepper fans)
1 onion
1/3 cup of olive oil
2 tsp of each cumin, chili powder, garlic salt (I am certain you could throw some other spices in there, but we like these and we stick with what we know!)

Isn't it so lovely?!

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees
Slice up chicken, onions and peppers into strips.
Mix together the olive oil and spices.
Toss the spice/oil mixture over the veggies and chicken to coat them.
Pop into the oven for 30-45 minutes until chicken is cooked through and veggies are tender. I usually mix half way through just to recoat everything in sauce!
I tend to let mine cook a little longer so the peppers are nice and soft!

Ta-da! Yum yums!

Serve with what ever mexican-y things you want. We do tortillas, salsa, sour cream, guacamole refried beans and spanish rice. Ditch Taco Tuesday and get on with Fajita Friday!

October, Mountains, Fall and All the Nonsense

Its been a interesting few days, I am not gonna lie! My Mister went out of town, we had another round of strep throat roll through the house, we did family pictures for the first time in 20 years, it went from summer to winter and we had a great mountain get away, whew, I need a fall break asap!

It's a good thing that it will be happening in just a few days. I have said it before and I will say it again, I HEART fall break. I love it more than spring break by far! I never need rest as much as I do after the first quarter of school. I don't know how this hasn't caught on everywhere. Seriously teachers who do not have fall break or just adults in general who do not have teaching jobs; How do you get through?!?

 We have been keeping busy with random shenanigans...No she is not going to be a taco for Halloween, but how hilarious is this costume?! Callie was all like, "How would you even hold a bag for your candy?!" Always thinking ahead, that one!

Family picture shenanigans. This was pretty much his face in every single picture. Yeah. Hopefully we were able to get a few good ones. More on that later!

Do you trade out your clothes for the seasons? I have always kept everything all mixed up together my whole life, because, I like options. But for the past few years we have been switching out summer and winter every October and March. It is stressful! I got a facebook thing, you know the one, "on this day" thing, and it was a post from 9 years ago that said, "I can't find our coats. This is stressing me out." I was dying! It was the first fall after Callie and I moved home and everything was still packed up in the my parents basement before our apartment was ready. Good old Colorado decided to be like 30 degrees one day and I spent  3 hours rifling through clothes just looking for something with sleeves to dress my 2 year old in! Oh life! 

So this weekend after our mountain weekend, I spent most of the day going through the boxes and boxes of winter things to get out our clothes for the SNOW STORM  on Monday. Usually I wait until fall break to bust all the jazz out, but this year just could not wait!

It was also a little depressing, I was looking at piles of clothes and thinking, "I hate everything I own right now!" Do you ever wish that you could just throw away all of your clothes and just start fresh? If only there was enough money and time to get a whole new wardrobe...

I digress, back to life...

So the mountains! We usually do a Wood family trip to Winter Park every year, but this year was busy and we were struggling to coordinate everyone's schedules. So it was just us, the kids and Brien's parents. It was such a lovely time. I love the mountains and if they were warmer, I would live there, but for me, they are a swell place to visit!

Thanks to Callie's Meme and Daddy Ty we were able to book a weekend and away at their condo!

The best time out ever...

The trees were just amazing! 

We played and hiked and relaxed. 

We ate at a super fancy restaurant, so unlike us!

We hit the outlets...

We saw foxes and moose!

It's pretty great what 48 hours away from real life can do for your soul!

On Sunday we came home, crazy searching for warm clothes and planning for my observation on Monday, it was back to real life!

Then this nonsense happened. GAH! Already, with the snow, Colorado. I was looking back and it has been exactly 6 months since the last snow. It's not enough time, I need more warm!

So that's been October, a little of this and a little of that! Hopefully fall break will be a brief reprieve from cold weather and more fun with the family!