Halloween night

That is a whole lotta black and orange.  Justin had originally planned on being a police officer for Halloween, but changed his mind.

 Here is the loot from our street alone.  3 full size candy bars!  And he hit up another street later with his dad and got 2 more full size bars.

Once again Justin truly enjoyed handing out candy to the trick-or-treaters that rang out doorbell.

Halloween day

We raked up the scattered leaves today - didn't want the masses of trick-or-treaters to slip on the slimy wet leaves.  It is a BOO-tiful fall day today and the count down to darkness is on.

eat drink and be scary

Halloween Party!

 The cupcake table! 

Jimmy and Justin digging into some kid friendly jello shots.  Next to my awesome tray of caprese kabobs.

Snow White and Beaver fan #1.

Snow White, Witch, Vampiress.

Scott and Jamie! 

A couple of scary dudes chillin' on the sofa!

spooktacular day

It was Halloween dress up day at work.  Out of 49 people only 7 of us sported costumes.  But it was still well worth it, yielding me a $25 gift card prize.  I think I make white and pasty look good!

And after work Brandi came over to help Justin and I dig into all the pumpkins we had acquired.
Justin isn't a big fan of getting the goop on his hands, declaring "I am NOT goin' in" - so he supervised and decided on designs.  

halloween cake

I got hired to bake the October birthday cake for work. This is what I came up with.

It was the Guiness chocolate stout cake with Orange tinted buttercream topped with a ganache drip.

peanut butter eater

One of Justin's favorite snacks is spoonfuls of peanut butter.  He eats his daily jelly sandwich each morning and often has peanut butter in the evening for a snack.  Maybe some day he will discover that they are tasty when combined.

favorite fork

 Two things about this picture: 
1.  Justin put two straws in his milk glass.  Before I knew what he was up to he asked me what my favorite color of straw was {I said red}.  It was so sweet, he wanted to share his milk and wanted to make sure we both had staws of the right color. 
2.  The fork in his bowl was one I stole from my mom's silverware drawer.  It is a loner.  It doesn't match anything else, and yet I still have it.  I always loved it because it was just the right size.  Justin recently discovered it and I love that he has declared it his fave.

Justin came home tonight with R2D2 ane C3PO.  He is starting to get into Star Wars. 

fall wreath

Scored this awesome fall wreath 70% off at the Craft Warehouse this weekend.  I love that store, thankfully it is far away from me, so I don't go very often.

an epic battle between good and evil

 Justin was playing with his legos while I cleaned up mass chaos in the kitchen.  I stumbled over the aftermath.  Looks like the "good guys" ambushed the "bad guy" castle.  All the bad guys lay dead with their heads removed.  There were no good guy causalities either - those good guys really know how to kick some butt. 

sugar cookies

We made some delicious Halloween sugar cookies today.

Today was very stormy!  Lots of wind and rain.  It was a good day to stay in and bake.  I even cleaned the kitchen today - top to bottom - but then we destroyed in fast fashion.  Such is life :) 

Although we did venture out to hit up a fun Lego event at Toys R Us!  Justin got to build a lego race car and race it against others.     

reason #458 why I love Justin's school

Today he made these:

eyeball cake pops!

We'll call them faux cake pops - because they were actually a doughnut hole inside and not cake {which in a pre-school setting would be WAY easier than actually making cake-pops a la Bakerella}. Regardless I was so impressed and just loved these.

mancala

I just taught Justin how to play mancala and he picked the game up very fast.  It is nice that we can play this game together with no frustration over rules or winning on either side.

fall feet

I was kinda shocked to walk through department stores and see clothing items from the early 90's returning.  Leggings?  Who would have guessed?

the leaves are turning

halloween yard flair

The neighbors put out a few more halloween decorations.  There is a good bit of festivity happening on my street and I adore it.

fun time

We attended Corey's birthday party today.  Corey really liked his cake and after blowing out his candles he got the zombie head and held it like a trophy and smiled for pictures.  Later he retreated with his prize and ate the fondant eye balls one by one.  I loved that he loved his cake, and as much hard work that I put into all the cakes I bake I get a thrill seeing them eaten and enjoyed.

After cake and presents the group went out back to take turns whacking at the eyeball pinata.  Justin loved it.

After we left Justin declared that he had a lot of fun at the party. And now I think that he wants a big party for his upcoming 5th!

bonus goofball pics

Amanda sent me the following text today: We play OSU today so make sure Justin doesn't wear any of that nasty orange!  And for the record, I had absolutley nothing to do with his clothing choice today. He wore the orange shorts because they were halloween colored.  His attire choice was purely coincidence, but it made me laugh none-the-less.  The Huskies won anyway!

I could have posted 20 of this shots of Justin.  He wanted to play good guy/bad guy.  I think he was the bad guy here.  His facial expressions were great! 
Other random Justin-ness:
Justin:  Can I have/watch [insert snack, tv show, etc here]?   I'll be so happy!  Puleeeeze! I'll give you this many [holds up 10 fingers] kisses.  His request usually involves a snack after he has already had one to many or another episode of SpongeBob.

zombie cake

fall colors

We have/are having a pretty awesome fall.

more zombie construction

I had to dive back into zombie construction tonight.  I was scared to screw it up and was kinda procrastinating.  At one point I was dying fondant blue and kept noticing red streaks in it - which I figured was left over dye from some previous fondant I dyed for Justin... but no - I had somehow ripped the cuticle on my ring finger and was bleeding all over the fondant.  The bloody finger totally creeped Justin out but it seemed appropriate for the cake I was working on.  The fondant had to hit the trash and I needed a bandaid and rubber glove to move on.

Despite the little extra gore I made some progress on this guy.  I wonder how he is going to turn out?

warm laundry

I tossed a pile of fresh out of the dryer sheets and towels onto Justin tonight.  His response:  "I love this part!"  Since I am pretty bad about getting clothes out of the dryer, folded and put away - I often have clothes in the dryer and so in the morning I turn it on to warm them up and put Justin in warm clothes.  Which is awesome on chilly fall mornings.

hoot hoot

I have a fondness for owls and have a few here and there in the house.

another cake WIP

What are the odds that I will be able to turn this glob of rice krispy treats into a "scary zombie"?  Justin playgroup buddy -from back in the pre-work days- is having his 5th birthday party this Sunday and I offered to make the cake.  Little did I know at the time that he wanted a zombie cake.  To be more specific, he wants a scary zombie.  Oi!  I have until Sunday at 11:00 am to make it work.

more fall faves

Pumpkin cookies awaiting their cream cheese frosting swirls.

My kitchen helper Justin working on some potato soup.

It rained all weekend which I didn't totally mind - but... I know all the rain will get really old come March. 

fall around my house

We have orange mums and purple violas planted out front.

This awesome tray was a recent purchase and I plan to change it up seasonally.  Loving the smell of my favorite pumpkin candles too.

Our pumpkins.  I don't think you can have too many of these orange orbs. 

 

a dangerous combination

Justin and the Lego isle at Target... 

at the patch

So yesterday was an amazing beautiful fall day and I was in the lunch room taking a look at the weather forecast and lamenting the fact that it was going to rain this weekend. I had a pumpkin patch visit planned and really had no desire to go in the rain. No biggie though because we still have a few October weekends to go. Well as I was saying this my boss was in the kitchen as well filling up her coffee cup and declared that it was okay for me to leave early today if I wanted "life is short" "take Justin to the pumpkin patch". Wow! Totally unexpected. The only problem was that I had attire on that was totally not pumpkin patch appropriate and I likely would have killed myself walking around out there. I figured I would go on Thursday and prepare, with proper footwear and have my camera at the ready. So that is what I did and today I left work early, I picked Justin up early, and we hit up the patch. The weather was a little bit chilly and the sky was gray, but we had a great time. We got our pumpkins and even hit up the big huge scary slide for a few rides down. Yay for free afternoons!

sigh

This photo-a-day stuff is starting to drag. I still love it, but some days I have no idea what to snap a picture of. Hence this:

And other totally random notes:
I listed a few things on craigslist today.  Hoping to free up some garage space and get a little more cash {aka:  Lego money}.
Justin is really excited about Halloween this year {still not sure if he will actually dress up}, but he told me the other day that Halloween was his favorite holiday.

Snickers thief

Justin busting into the Halloween candy - he loves Snickers! 

puzzling

It has been awhile since I have worked a puzzle, but with the cool fall air rolling in, I felt inspired.