Halloween Arrangements

Several years ago I bought these entertaining buckets with stands from Southern Living at Home.  This was before they became Willow House.  I luuuvvved Southern Living at Home, but that was before three kids.  Now my decorating has to be much more kid proof.  I still love my entertaining buckets and stands, but I am falling out of love with them being by my front door.  I think it's about time to find another home for them within the house, but until I can decide what I will replace them with and where their new home will be I will continue to switch out the arrangements.  I change the arrangements as the seasons and holidays change.  The buckets are huge.  The first time I bought flowers for them to create an arrangement, it cost a small fortune.  My Halloween arrangements were much more economical. 

The easiest, cheapest arrangement yet started by cutting some limbs out of trees.  Cheap.  Love cheap.

Then I had to start forking over some cash.  About $5 worth. . . . . . .black spray paint.  It didn't break the bank.  I spray painted my tree limbs black.  Piece of cake.

Next up, some spiders, spider webs, and two purple glittery pumpkins from WalMart.  About $7.  Still not going over board.  The spiders happened to be on a string like garland so the webs and spiders were easy to wrap around my tree limbs.

Two purple spiders from the dollar store, $2.  These are hanging off my buckets.

Then I needed two birds.  Another $5.  One clipped to each arrangement.

I had some leftover shredded (purple and black) paper from something.  I can't remember what, but it worked good around the base of each tree limb.

That's it. . . . . . .Two arrangements in two huge buckets, $20.

Arrangement one sits on one side of the front door.  The trick-or-treat sign is not part of the arrangement it hangs on the wall.  It was a hand me down.  Love those!

Close up of the bird.  Each arrangement has one bird.

Close up of the spiders and spider webs.

A wider shot of the entry way showing both arrangements. 

The best part is, if one of the kids pulls it over it didn't cost much and is easily replaced!!  One of these days I'll do something fancier, my favorite is the vintage Halloween look, but for now it's kid friendly.  And the most important part is, my kids love it.  Even better.  

Homemade Applesauce

My Grandma has been fighting leukemia for about three years now.  Recently, she finished one solid week of chemo.  Anyone who has been through cancer or is a supporter of someone who has knows that one solid week is hard on a body.  To help keep her energy up my mom makes several meals a week and delivers them to my grandparents.  Last week I contributed some of my homemade applesauce and my Grandma has asked for it twice since then.  As long as she eats it, I keep making it because some food (even if it's just applesauce) is better than no food.  If you would like to try out my recipe for homemade applesauce, here's how the story goes:

I started with some apples.  These are tiny little guys.  About two of these makes up one normal sized apple.  I had about 24 of these little guys.  If I was using normal sized apples I would use about 12.

I peel and sliced them, and then threw them in the crock pot.

I added 1 1/2 cups of water.

1 1/4 cups of brown sugar.

3 Tablespoons of sugar.

1 1/2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice.

Stirred them all together.

Sealed up the crock pot and let it go for about 4 hours.

Here they are, all nice and cooked.

Throw them in the food processor.

And you've got applesauce.  Yum!

New Trees

Darren bought me two new trees for my birthday.  I was so excited, because I'vee been wanting these type of trees for awhile now.  His brother came down to help him plant the trees so his boys came along.  In his brother's family, they have the boys.  Mine obviously has the girls.  They had a lot of fun playing together this morning.

 

I have to admit I was proud to snap this one unassisted, by myself, with an infant strapped to the front of me.  They are all looking at the camera and sort of smiling.  Mission accomplished.

Tree number one.  A blue spruce.  The reason I wanted this tree so badly?  You got it, Christmas lights.  Grace is already asking when we can put the lights on it.  Soon Gracie, soon.

Tree two is a River Birch.  There's this little area beside our patio in the backyard that I want to turn into a little garden.  The Birch is part of my master plan.  You really have to be careful typing Birch.  It could very easily turn into something else. . . . .

 

I'm so excited about my trees!!  Our yard is still a blank palet that needs to be landscaped, but we are getting there a little at a time.  Or, one tree at a time at least.

Dancing Spiders!

Grace's asthma has been a little crazy, so we've had to come up with lots of indoor activities to keep us busy. I got the idea for these little guys from Pinterest (of course).   I hit the local Walmart to load up on supplies.  Here's what we needed:

• Styrofoam cups
• paint
• googly eyes
• pipe cleaners

Step one, the girls painted their cups. 

Abby worked so hard on her paint it ended up in her hair.

We let the base coat of paint dry and then returned to the table to decorate. We added faces, shapes, etc.

After the decorations dried we added eyes and pipe cleaner legs.

The finished spiders.

Here's what I hate, as soon as the girls aren't looking I throw away whatever they've made.  I feel guilty, but I get tired of it laying around the house.  This time I decided they worked too hard on those spiders to just chuck them out to the garbage, so I found some yarn and tied them to the kitchen light.  Now our spiders dance above our heads while we're at the table and the girls feel like they've contributed to the Halloween decorating.  In the top right of the doorway you can see they've also added ghosts.

If you have any spooky Halloween ideas that your kids of have helped you with, I would love to hear about them.  We are always looking for new ideas!

The Great Pumpkin Muffin

At our house we looovvveee pumpkin muffins!  I enjoy making my family breakfast because it brings us all together to start the day.  However, we three little ones I need something quick and easy.  So here we go, the simplest yummiest pumpkin muffin you will ever sample.

All you need for these little guys is this:

Mix one egg and one teaspoon of vanilla.

Add one can of pumpkin.

Mix in one box of yellow cake mix.

I keep this on hand in my kitchen. Brown sugar, cinnamon, and sugar. Used this to top off my muffins.

 

Fill your muffin cups and top with brown sugar, cinnamon, and sugar if you so wish.  Pop these babies in the oven and 20-25 minutes later you will have a scrumptious little muffin.

No adventure in my kitchen would be complete without help from my elves.

Baby E decided she needed to nap, so the biggest one decided to borrow her chair.

Whenever my kids have something sweet for breakfast I make them eat eggs.  This is how I justify giving them something sweet, they have to eat a little protein to balance it out.  Abby is the certified egg maker at our house.

Breakfast is served.

Whip yourself up some of these little goodies, you won't be sorry!!
 

Let's break it down one more time:

1 box of yellow cake mix

1 can of pumpkin

1 teaspoon vanilla

1 egg

 

Mix it all together, fill your muffin cups, bake at 350 for 20-25 min.  If you want a crumbly like topping, add cinnamon, sugar, and brown sugar before baking. 

 

 

Today you can find my recipe over at the Country Cook.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



 

 

What Is CVA? Grace can tell you!

CVA is cough variant asthma.  Grace suffers from CVA.  I get two kind of reactions when her asthma is flared up, 1) what is CVA and 2) why are you dragging that kid around while she is coughing her head off.

CVA is different than other types of asthma because typically there is no wheezing or shortness of breath.  CVA is a persistent dry non-productive cough.  For Grace it's a pretty constant cough.  When she's in her red zone about the maximum amount of time she goes in between coughs is 30 seconds, she will cough until she throws up, and has a hard time speaking.  When in her yellow zone she will go a couple of minutes in between coughs, but the cough is still pretty constant.

She doesn't suffer from CVA all the time, her attacks are brought on by allergies especially when the weather changes.  Changing from summer to fall is hardest on her.  Rain is another trigger event for her.  The rain always makes Grace cough no matter what time of year.  Typically, as soon as the showers pass so does her cough.

Since the seasons are transitioning to fall Grace is in her red zone.  Her cough is pretty constant and she receives treatment and medicine all day long.  During the day she will receive oral and inhaled steroids twice a day, a breathing treatment every four hours, allergy medicine, and Benadryl at night to try and calm the side effects of the steroids so she can try and rest.  The steroids turn her into a caged animal.  Today I noticed her visibly shaking and she couldn't drink her medicine from the cup on her own, I had to help her.  She can't focus or concentrate and we can't really send her outside to play because that will trigger the asthma to get worse.

Her cough is so constant that you get a lot of stares in public.  People don't know her so they don't understand that she's not suffering from a viral or bacterial infection, she's just not moving air through her lungs and having a hard time breathing.  There again, she spends a lot of time at home when in her red and yellow zones.

Grace doesn't complain about the medicine she has to take or the breathing treatments.  Often times she will ask why she can't quit coughing, or how can we make the coughing stop.  Her throat and chest get sore from the constant cough but she keeps on going.  She's a trooper!! 

Swingin' Happy

Baby Emma loves it when her sisters are close by.  I'm constantly telling one of them to go sit with her so she will quit fussing.  Grace is the best at it.  For being such a young girl she's pretty maternal, and she loves to make Emma smile.  Baby Emma gets a kick out of Grace sitting there with her and floppin' Elmo in her face.  It works.  Look at this big gummy smile, how can you not smile looking at this?  Happy Friday!!