My First Tutorial

I just learned this and had people ask me how these were made. I have seen other tutorials...so here goes!

First, Make a batch of cupcakes. (I used my new favorite... Butter Pecan from a mix).

Then take a bag of white choc. chips and melt them in the microwave. (I did about 1/3 of a bag at a time) Be careful not to burn them.

Then cover a baking sheet with wax paper. Using the back of your spoon, start to shape the head and arms of you ghost.

Then spread the w. chocolate on down to make the bottom of your ghost.Add 2 chocolate sprinkles for eyes. And put them in the fridge to harden.
Meanwhile, frost your cupcakes with orange frosting (I cheated and used some out of a can and added yellow and red food coloring). Add spinkles of your desire. Then slice your cupcakes right down the middle. (you may only want to slice it just in the middle so that the edges are still in tact depending on how wide your ghosts are.Peel your ghosts off of the waxed paper.

Slide your ghosts in the slot.

Ta Da!!! Give away as gifts or let your kids inhale!

Boo-tiful Day!

Whew! I can remember my Grandma Ann telling me that her mom used to say that as you get older the days get shorter. I swear they do. When I was young, the 12 hours that I was awake for, seemed like a lifetime. I am usually surprised how much I DON'T get done in one day. But today was good. Some things that made this day good were:

* Realizing that this is Bridger's 1st full week of preschool. (going everyday as he was only going 2 days before)

* My Big Scientist Guy came home from a weekend business trip at 2pm today and didn't go into work!

* Carli and I seemed to giggle and get along so well today! (There is a mother/daughter bond forming between us and I love it!)

* Feeling Accomplished. Shopped for and made dinner for our dinner group (including these cute ghost cupcakes that were the inspiration for this blog!) and even did some laundry.

* Being Content! My Lil' Family is cute and I love them so much!

Hope Your day was Bootiful too!

Cheese, It's Friday!

Nolan and I took a date one night last spring and we were talking and decided that it would be great to start a Cheese Friday, where we try a different cheese every friday. I told him it would be funny to see Dad every fri. and say, "Cheese Dad, it's Friday!"

So we got the ol' Raclette oven out (if you don't know what a raclette oven is, click HERE) and decided to try our cheese melted on french bread, crackers and over lil' smokies. Hansen's cherry vanilla soda accompanied the meal (even though I discovered I didn't much care for that soda).Nolan really wanted to try goat milk cheddar. Carli and I picked out garlic and dill medium cheddar and I bought a Gruyere' which I knew that we liked (just in case we didn't like the other 2). Carli and Jon cut the cheese ("who cut the cheese?"- one of Nolan's jokes)
And we had a great time trying something new and getting a little cultured at the same time!

(Do you like my family and their "Cheesy" grins?!?!-

and the cheese jokes were on for the whole meal)

The nest Friday we tried 3 new cheeses. I wanted to try the blueberry faye so much (the kids sure didn't) but they put it in the cart for me to try since I couln't stop talking about it. And it turned out that I didn't care for it all that much. It tasted like a cheesecake without the sugar. But the Beemster was one of my favorites melted and the Jarlsberg was pretty mild.
Then, the friday after that we decided to try a dish that we had in Amsterdam. Dutch Pancakes with Ementaler cheese and ham. I brought back 2 dutch pancake mixes when we went to Holland, the only prob. was that the directions were in Dutch- duh! But we managed to make it anyway!


The next few fridays after that we had pizza (that has cheese on it, right?!?) It is expensive to try new cheeses every week, not to mention it is hard to eat tons of cheese every week. But every once in awhile, I will have to pick up the kids from school and say, Cheese Kids, It's Friday!!!

Yearbook Photos

I found a fun little site, HERE. You can make photos of yourself in a different decade. Here are some examples.

1960s

1970s

1980s

I even did one of Jon just for fun!!!

1970s

(I love the comb- over bangs!)

Tagged!

I have been tagged by THIS super gorgeous lady.
7 things about Moi!

1. I love love love black liqorice (Did I mention I love it?)

2. I am terrified of heights.

3. Three's Company was my favorite show growing up. I wanted to be called Terri for awhile cuz of the character on the show.

4. I took a bowling class in college. (but I really don't know anything anymore) I would tell people that it was my major. hehe

5. I cried when I was pregnant with Nolan cuz my butt got so big.

6. I HAVE to wear chapstick. Have for years. Can't go ANYWHERE without some and if I find that I forgot it, I look for a store where I can quickly get some!

7. I always felt so bad cuz when I was in the Young Women's program in church, I never earned all my medaliions. But that is okay cuz Jonny never got his Eagle in scouts. So I guess it was meant to be!

I tag Karey, Laurel, Sonja, Kori, Heidi, Debbie A. and Hillary

Hording!

Last year we discovered these wonderful candies. Candy corn flavored Hershey Kisses. They make the best cookies. The only prob.... is that there is only one store in which I have found these. Target. I went this year and bought 4 bags. I counted 60 kisses in a bag, so I figured out I could make 20 dozen of these before Halloween. They sell out fast and then they are impossible to get. (In fact, they were already gone at the Target that I went to). I won't even let the kids have any. Why are the good things always so hard to get?

The folks in our dinner group will be feasting on these beauties tonight. I have had many different variations of these Kiss Cookies, but this is the one Mom used to make. I will share the recipe. (Believe it or not, the candy- corn flavor really tastes good with the peanut butter in the cookies!) I like to make them and then freeze them before I cook them. (I swear they are softer this way!)

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Cyclops Cookies

1/2 cup Marg. or butter

1/2 cup peanut butter

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 brown sugar

1 egg

1/8 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 Tablespoons milk

1 3/4 cup flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt

milk chocolate kisses

sugar

- In a large bowl, beat butter and peanut butter with electric mixer on med. for 30 seconds. Add the 1/2 cup sugar and brown sugar and beat until fluffy.

- Add egg, milk, and vanilla, beat well.

- In med bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, salt and soda. With a mixer on low, gradually add the flour mixture.

-Turn oven to 375 degrees. Shape dough into 1 inch balls. Poll in additional sugar. Place about 2 inches apart on ungreased cookie sheets.

- Bake at 375 degrees for 10- 12 mins.

-Immediately, press a choc. kiss on top of each cookie. (Wait until kiss is completely cooled).

Also- I just tried their pumpkin spice kisses. MMMMMM- Those are good too!

Look, Jonny's Famous!

Only in the Proteomic World. Click HERE to check out what My Big Scientist Guy does at work! (And then tell me cuz I am still trying to figure it out!)

Jack Attacked...What?!?!

Jack, Where did you get Oreo cookies? I don't have any in house. Oh! wait.... what did you just do???

oh no!

You sure left your mark...

and that poor plant didn't

do

anything

to you...

Jack was here!

S... L.... O... W...

Okay, so this isn't a blog about my brain. Instead it is about the 2nd slowest thing in our house,(or rather WAS) our computer. I can remember on occasion when my mom would use the term, "slower that molasses." Like when referring to traffic. "That car that just pulled out in front of us is going slower that molasses." So it got me thinking, just how slow is molasses? With my short encounters of working with the gooey substance, I can say that I know for a fact that our old computer was indeed "slower than molasses". We bought it when Carli was an infant and it didn't take long to become obsolete. Carli is now 7. So in computer years, our poor computer was about 5 jillion years old. After a terrible virus that was causing the computer to become very ill and extremely absent-minded (the poor thing was suddenly on non-speaking terms with the printer and in fact wouldn't recognize it even though they made many beautiful babies (copies) together as Saralyn pointed out to me) we realized it was time to find a new computer. So we got online and ordered a Dell. A beautiful, SLEEK, new Dell. It was great when we opened it up Thurs. and played games on lit and fell in love with the flat, wide screen. It was even great on fri. until it crashed that night and kept on crashing through the weekend. After many frustrating hours on the phone with the Dell Technical support technicians who were all from India and had the thick accents to prove it, we finally had someone come today to take 15 mins (exactly) and give us a new hard drive. That is why we haven't been blogging lately. Also, I will never take advantage of having a computer again- Having a slow computer is certainly NOT as bad as not having one at all!

Catchin' Up!

I have been so behind on my bloggin' lately- so here's the news for Aug and Sept. in the Jacobs 6 Household:

We came back from our trip and shared our Belgium chocolates with the kids and a lesson about where we traveled to.Jack got his little locks cut for the 1st time. (b4 pic)After Pic!- Much Better!We went to Leavenworth, Wa on Labor Day Weekend

(a Geman/Swiss influenced town in Wa)The kids were introduced to the wonderful world of miniature golf!Carli did pretty good! Nolan Cheated and Bridger counted every swing but insisted on kicking the ball into the hole instead.Carli cut her finger (with a pair of scissors- she cut part of her finger-pad right off) It is completley healed now- but bled like crazy at the time! Jack-Jack learned to walk- (Even though this isn't a pic of it)We cam back to a boomin' garden. I picked 23 peppers one day.
I made salsa...and blackberry freezer jam and syrup (not pictured) from our blackberry bushes.

We had an Enrichment fair at church and I got to get crafty and make the awards. I thought of my Mom-in-law when I chose to put York peppermint patties in the center of each award.

Oh Yeah! and the kids started school. Nolan in 4th grade, Carli in 2nd grade and Bridger in another year of preschool. Boy- I sure missed blogging!!!

Propaganda

If you are related to us (or just super good friends) and if you haven't already, you will probably receive a note in the mail about magazine subscriptions as a fundraiser for the kid's school. I'm so sorry- but they get the kids so hyped up and excited about the prizes that they will receive if they turn in the note cars with addresses of friends and family members on them! So we did this and the kids each received a ball that lit up when thrown in the air (which they broke before they got it in the front door). Anyway- you don't need to respond to the postcards that you will get. I promise you that the kids were happy to get their toy and have forgotten all about the magazines. Sorry- that is Public School for ya- Gotta Luv it!

Belgium... not just for waffles!

Antwerp, Belgium
This was the first city that we stopped at in Belgium. We immediately thought that it was such a neat little town. We stopped here and bought lots of chocolates- (Belgium chocolates- Yum!)

They had things like this all over. This was a statue- but one of the guys was real. We were walking buy and saw him move and smile. It was a neat trick!

Brussels, BelgiumOur guide pointed out how there was a lot of French influence in the building- designs in Brussels. You can tell cuz they look more floofy than other buildings in other cities.

Brussels was incredibly crowded. Our guide said that it was normally that busy.

It was hard to get anywhere cuz of all the people. (you can't tell how crowded it was by this pic though) But it was still gorgeous!
During our time there, we discovered that we planned our vacation just right. We were able to see The Carpet of Flowers. It is something that they do every 2 years in Brussels. The carpet was made up of individual flowers in the design of a real carpet pattern. It only lasts a few days. We could see some of the flowers were already starting to wilt. But it was still beautiful!

Mannekin Pis- hehe! The title makes me laugh every time! Our guide told us the story, but you can find it here. Our guide also said that everyone is always disappointed in the size of the statue. I guess I thought it would be bigger too. Apparently they dress him in a different outfit frequently. I guess there is a museum that houses over 700 of outfits already worn by Mannekin Pis. (Hehe- it still makes me laugh!)Love, love, love the cobblestones everywhere we went. Although, it would be hard to push a stroller on them. Yeah- I'm a dork and took a pic of the ground!
Ghent, Belgium

Ghent was a "hidden jewel" that I fell in love with right away. Even our guide said that he liked Bruge a lot more than Ghent, but I LOVED the buildings. It had a lot of old world charm.
Bruge, Belgium

I loved Bruge- cuz I loved the tourist-y shops!

Belgium is known for their lace. (I went into so many dang lace shops!) There was this old(er) lady sitting by a back door making lace- so I took a pic of her. It was neat to see how lace is made! (very tedious!) I was able to go into a church and see a work of Michelangelo. This one is of Mother Mary and the baby Jesus. Our guide said that it is one of the only pieces of Michelangelo's that isn't in Italy.
Ahhh! I miss it already!

I remember when I was Preg-o with Jack, I was watching Rachel Ray's Tasty Travels on The Food Network one night and she went to Belgium and got one of these waffles that you ate just like a cookie. I think I craved one for months after that and told Jon when we went to Amsterdam, I wanted to travel the 1- 1/2 hrs to go into Belgium and get a waffle. He thought I was a dork and said that he was sure that Amsterdam waffles would taste the same as Belgium waffles. This was our debate for months (my side: who has ever heard of an Amsterdam Waffle?) Well- in the end, Jon had an Amsterdam waffle after tasting one from Belgium and guess what- They are pretty different! Yes- if you want a Belgium waffle- GO TO BELGIUM!!!

Now where can I get some authentic Belgium waffels in the U.S?