I hope you have a Choc-tacular Thursday!
BOO!
Heather

Supper Club 2012

 

My husband and I have been part of a Supper Club for 7 or 8 years now.  We meet once a month with each couple hosting one month a year.  Some months are more formal dinners with fine china and good conversation amongst friends whereas some months we party into the wee hours of the morning.  We have done cookouts and tailgate themes and even game night.  Each year I try to give my guests a Dinner Experience.  It may be the main meal or the "House Drink" or it may be just the overall evening itself.  I  try to come up with a menu that is different...a menu that consists of food I may normally not coook or a recipe that pushes my cooking skills...(If I have any skills!)  I have cooked a Dr. Pepper Glazed Ham, Roasted pork chops with a bourbon-cider glaze, Pork Roast with sausage, fruit & nut stuffing, a Tenderloin of Beef and oh, yes there was the year I cooked a Standing Rib Roast for like 24 people and even with double ovens and an outdoor grill I think it was like 11 pm before we ate!!  Maybe its my crab cake appetizer that people really enjoy or the Cambert with Cranberries & Port.  Perhaps its the "House Drink" that people talk about or maybe the Chocolate Martini's that were appartently so good we slurped down one drink after another and we...well lets just leave it at that.  A signature I learned from my mom is party favors or a small gift at each person's place setting...it may be a box of cookies or a Christmas Ornament...it just depends on the time of year.  Sometimes I get my menu inspirations from the Food & Wine Magazine or a family recipe.  One year I was watching The Today Show and there was a chef who made several dishes but the soup recipe was not provided...so I spent 3 days tracking down the name of the Chef and where he worked and I got a hold of him at a Resort & Spa in Arizona and he happily had his assistant send me the recipe!  So here we are, and it's my turn to host supper club in November.  But my menu inspirtation has not hit me yet.  So, I thought I would reach out to the web and ask, "What should I cook for Supper Club?"  I am not sure how many readers I have...I think I have a few, maybe!?...hopefully!  But if you are reading this and you have a suggestion, I would love to hear from you!  Maybe it's a family recipe or a menu from our own Supper Club.  Food Trucks are all the rage...does anyone own a Food Truck they could pull up to my backyard?  Maybe you read a Food Blog and you saw an idea there.  Whatever or wherever, if you have a suggestion for my November Supper Club...please send it my way! 

I am excited to share another Halloween Creation with you.  We are heading to the Pumpkin Patch this week so I thought it was fitting to make some Sugar Cookie Pumpkins and sit them in the "Patch." 
I hope everyone is getting excited about Halloween!  Whether you are dressing up yourself or finding a costume for your child...or dog or cat...we want to hear what you are going to be for Halloween.  Having a party or going Trick-or-Treating...share your ideas with us.
Hope you are having a Spooktacular start to your week!

It's time to BOO!

I love Halloween...ok, I really love every holiday.  But what I love most is my children love to get just as excited as I do and get involved in the decorating, baking and crafting.  Although I do custom design and printing for invitations, I love that my kids enjoy making cards for their friends.  So when it came time to make our "BOO" signs for our "You've Been Booed" deliveries, I offered to design and print the BOO signs.  However, my children insisted that they make the signs and design them themselves.  So, here we are....the cookies are baked and the BOO bags are ready.  It's too hard to pick just one friend to BOO, so we try to be the first ones to "Boo" and we BOO several friends to help get the tradition started.  We decorated white paper bags and attached the "BOO" signs with a little peel and stick sticky dot so our friends could easily remove the BOO card from their bag and display on their front door.  Now I know that my childrens art might not be exactly what my friends want hanging on their front door, but I can't resist the beauty of children's art.  I love watching children be creative and so proud of their works of art...what's a mother to do other than tell them what a great job they did and keep encouraging their creativeness. 

BOO!!  It's me...I know it's been awhile since I posted, but it was a crazy busy summer.  But now it's fast approaching some of my favorite months of the year and I have some fun, simple and creative ideas too share!!  Here is a Pumpkin Spice Cupcake topped with a cinnamon cream cheese frosting and a candy pumpkin...a perfect fall treat!
Check back often for some more Halloween ideas!

BOO!!  Don't be scared...come back soon! 

The Pedestrian Friendly Road

During my 40 years of life, there are a lot of events that have shaped who I am and how I think.  One of those events happened when I was in grammer school when I was about 10 years old.  We had a snow storm and had off from school.  When we returned to school, we learned that one of the boys in our school, who was about a year or 2 older than me, had died.  He was sleigh-riding down his neighborhood sidewalk and a car did not see him.  He was hit & killed.  I don't go to church that often, but when I do go, to this day, he is still on my list of people in heaven to say hello to and wish a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter. 
30 years later, that incident still sits in my head.  When I drive my gigantic SUV, I try to take extra caution to look around at my surroundings, especially when I have to back out of my longer than average driveway.  I try to be extra observant when driving thru the neighborhood.  And I will always protect my children, and the neighborhood children, from speedy drivers on neighborhood streets.  I have made a few enemies in the neighborhood voicing my opinion about their unsafe driving.  I am not proud of the enemies I have made, but I believe in the safety of a pedestrian, most especially children.
An avid runner and a mother of 3, I have been pushing a jog stroller for 9 years now.  I can not tell you how many times a driver appears to have no idea that there is a pedestrian close to their vehicle.  Drivers speed.  They don't look.  I do not like when a driver approaches a stop sign, wanting to turn right.  Instead of stopping and looking left, right, left, right and then left again, they simply roll thru the stop sign only looking left as they turn right...then suddenly they jerk the steering wheel because they are startled to see that there is a pedestrian on their right.  If you would LOOK, you would see me, and my child(ren) in the jog stroller.  I believe that pedestrians should have the right of way.
So the other day, I was out running around a lake front neighborhood.  No jog stroller, aahhh, just me.  As I can around a bend, I could see up ahead a family of ducks waddling in a single file line across the road.  Two BIG ducks and 4 or 5 baby ducks.  Having been bit twice by dogs and chased a few times, I instantly went into my "Panic-Think" mode.  How do I get past these ducks?  Do I stop and wait for them to cross the road?  Will they chase after me?  I am not even sure if these ducks can fly.  I mean, I have seen ducks flap their wings enough to skim across water, but I haven't personally seen this type of duck flying high thru the sky.  Do I run in front of them or in between them?  Who has the right of way...me or the ducks?
Well, much to my surprise, the ducks saw me coming and they stopped.  I slowed, not sure what to do.  The ducks continued to stay still and look at me.  So, I proceeded to run past them.  They never moved.  They just watched.  The 2 big ducks, the baby ducks...all of them patiently waited for me to run past them and then they quacked and continued their waddling journey across the road.
So, drivers take note....learn from the ducks...remember to help make your neighborhood a Pedestrian Friendly Road.

A good laugh

So our 5 year old is terrified of Mascots.  Whether it is a mascot dressed head to toe in a costume or a mascot with a "real face,"  (like a Disney Princess) she is terrified.  She will ask me to call ahead to Chick-Fil-A and ask if the Cow is there and if he is, she would like me to ask if he could leave and go out for awhile so she can come eat there.  Last year while we where at Disney, we had reservations to have Breakfast with The Princesses.  Well, she took one look at them and she screamed and cried so hard she turned purple and went running out of the restaurant and never came back in to eat.  So this year in anticipation of our annual trip to Disney, she asked if we were eating with the Princesses.  I told her no because I know she is scared of them.  A few hours later, she came to me and asked, "Mommy, I really want to eat with The Princesses, but I am so scared of them.  Do you think you could dress up as a mascot and we could practice having a tea party and then maybe I won't be so scared?"  I said, "Oh Ella, I am not sure mommy can find a costume to dress up in before we leave for our trip."  She said, yes you can, all you have to do is ask Daddy to bring one of our mascot costumes home from his baseball teams and you can dress up as Slugger or Tommy and we can practice having a tea party...and then I won't be so scared.  I was speechless....can you just see me sitting there dressed as Slugger sipping tea?  Not sure what Slugger or Tommy look like?....check out http://www.wilsontobs.com/ or http://www.hitoms.com/ so see Slugger and Tommy.