Pumpkin cupcakes, yummy!
John and I were Dr. Seuss' Thing 1 and Thing 2, but I just realized John and I are out of order in this picture. We should have switched signs or switched places. The kids were Care bears.
Me and my Claire bear:)
Our costume winner this year was Ashley Castle as "Annie".
Jude enjoys a caramel apple.
We took two group pics since some came late and some left early. This way we were sure to get everyone in a picture.
A picture frame fell off the wall and onto Jude leaving a pretty deep cut on his forehead. I had to keep it pinched together while my friend ran to the store to get some butterfly bandages. I didn't want to take him to the ER for stitches if I could avoid it. Meanwhile Claire destroyed my kitchen. I guess she could tell that I was a bit preoccupied because she got into the pantry cupboard and dumped out cereal, flour, goldfish and oats all over the floor. Ugh, is was not a good morning.
A big kiss from little sister.
Jude in his dinosaur pajamas with his two dinosaurs. He's been kind of on a dinosaur kick lately.
Claire's first ponytail. It's not much, but it's taken 17 months to be able to do even this, so I'm happy:)
Claire with Jude's T-Rex. It's almost as big as she is.
Jude and Claire enjoy watching cartoons from the ottoman.
This is how Claire wears backpacks. They're more of a neck pack:)
Claire and Jude watching Daddy play Angry Birds. Jude loves to watch people play it even more than he enjoys playing it himself.
Peek a boo
Here was my solution to the problem of my stand mixer not matching. I put up a backsplash so the greens aren't right next to each other. Now the difference in color is not very noticeable. The best part of it is that it only took me a few hours to put up and only cost me $17. I used peel and stick floor tiles. It's been something I've been thinking about doing anyway so the mixer was a good excuse to finally get it done. I think it turned out really well and I love the way it makes my kitchen look.
John got me a new KitchenAid mixer! I love it. The green was not quite what I expected. Online it looked like it matched my kitchen perfectly, but as you can see, it does not. Oh well, it still works great. The stipulation with John getting this for me was that I had to make whatever he wanted with it. His request was whoopie pies or pumpkin roll. Since I don't have a jelly roll pan, I chose the whoopie pies. These aren't just any whoopie pies however, they're sugar free and low-carb. You'd never know it though. They're made with xylitol and stevia extract instead of sugar and are wheat free. The cake is made with BLACK BEANS! I know, it sounds gross, but you really can't taste the beans and the result is a very moist chocolate cake. Honestly, I don't think I'll ever make a regular cake again. This recipe is much better. The original recipe is for chocolate cake not whoopie pies, so I had to modify it a bit to meet my whoopie pie needs. The frosting recipe I made up myself. I've had a lot of trouble making frosting using xylitol because too much xylitol will give it a crazy cool aftertaste that I'm not fond of, but I finally did it!
My taste tester:)
Jude, being silly as usual.
My little diva:)
Jude is watching a DVD while Daddy cuts up a downed tree we found on craigslist. We wanted the wood for our fireplace.
