Gingerbread Village.

Now that I have done a gingerbread house with Elena the past couple years she keeps asking when its time to do them! This year I opted for a little mini village set instead of just one big house. This way both kiddos could have fun!

The icing was just not working for me so I broke out the hot glue gun! Ha! :)

Dom really enjoyed putting the candies on!

Well this is about right - both kids eating candy and me doing the work! ;)

They were so happy with themselves!

Ta da!!

I finally had to just stop Dom from eating all the candy and he was not a happy camper! This picture just cracks me up! :)

The village turned out super cute and definitely kept the kids occupied for quite awhile! (Always a plus in my book!)

Christmas Goodies!

I made a bunch of Christmas goodies this year to enjoy and give out. My mom helped me out with this huge project and this is what it looked like before we got started!! Woah!! 

First we made some easy pretzel/kiss/m&m treats. Always a hit!

  

 The we tried some homemade Turtles -- these were tasty but man that caramel was a pain!!  

These Red Velvet Gooey Butter Cookies were very good and definitely one to make again - my Dad loved them!

 and you can't indulge without Oreo truffles! Another all-time favorite in our family!

 And my favorite hands down were absolutely these Crock Pot Peanut Clusters!!! Holy Moly, so glad that I gave a lot away because I literally could eat them all!!  

Someone else couldn't keep his hands off them either! ;)

 I found some cute boxes at Hobby Lobby and we were all set!

I was a little worried about all the different flavors getting mixed together but figured they wouldn't be around long enough for that to be a problem! ;) 

Halloween 2011

We started Halloween out this year with some yummy orange cinnamon rolls for breakfast! :) 

 Then for lunch we made some yummy mummy pizzas! Elena loved this! Look at that concentration! 

 I also made some fun smiles to go along with the pizzas! ;) 

 Then it was time for some pumpkin carving.

 My parents came over to hang out and we made some more yummy goodies. Monster Munch - seriously delicious! (This was my favorite!)

Ritzy Halloween Spiders - 

 Then it was time to get dressed! :) Elena loved that we were dressed up with her! 

 We decided to go to a trunk or treat that was nearby. It was amazing the number of people that were there! 

Even though we were full on treats we hadn't had dinner yet. So we headed to Applebee's per Elena's request. Yes, still dressed up! We're silly like that. 

 One last stop at a house a couple doors down from us. They always have a crazy display to walk through. Elena thought it was pretty awesome! 

Happy Halloween 2011! 

Final Friday.

This past Friday Linds and I went to Final Friday around downtown Wichita. I don't know why we have never done this before! Free drinks, snacks, cool stores and art - how could you go wrong?! We started out at a really cool store called Bungalow 26 - where Linds and I both bought some goodies. One of Lindsay's goodies was a chocolate bacon candy bar... she thought it would be fantastic but it was a little too meaty - as she put it! No worries, we also hit up Cero's to satisfy our chocolate needs!

One main reason we decided to do Final Friday is that our good friend Jacque just opened a photography studio and was participating in the event. After a couple glasses of free wine I managed to forget to take a picture of her new place but here is her website - she is fantastic! She took some family pics and 2 year old pics of Elena for us and I love them! (The cute picture of Elena in the hat in my title is from her!) Speaking of hats - check out my cool light-up one in the pic below! Lol!

                           

After an adorable dog exhibit at City Arts we saw some cool fire throwers in the square. That stuff is just crazy! I had talked Linds into eating at my absolute favorite place ever - Uptown Bistro - because I had just learned that they would be closing in a week!! I can't even begin to explain how sad this makes me! :( That is the one place I always ask to go for my birthday or other special nights! Apparently the fact that the restaurant was closing scared off people this evening because there was not one single person in it! Frankly, it scared us off too and we opted for Old Chicago and a little basketball madness instead. After dinner we hit up a couple more cute shops before we ended the night with a delicious glass of wine at Oeno. Anybody else think these pictures are just creepy?

I had one of the funnest Friday nights I have had in a long time! Thanks for the great date night Linds!! Can't wait til the last Friday of April to do it all again!

Candy.

Today I took a long lunch break to take Elena on a little field trip to Cero's candy shop.

We go to learn all about how they make candy and watch all the steps too!

She liked this giant mixer that mixes the chocolate. (Note that it is empty or there would be no way to let her get this close to it! Ha!)

Look at all those boxes of chocolates!

Hmmm....which ones should we try?

Happily waiting in line for her chocolates!

We got a nice little sampling of chocolates and headed over to share them with Grandpa!! :)