The Cookie Monster

Unfortunately I have discovered cupcake cake bites. This is unfortunate for a number of reasons. Mostly being that I don't have them. And secondly, i don't even have the ingredients to make them. And thirdly, even if I DID have said ingredients, I wouldn't want to make them, seeing as how I would eat them and ruin my whole "I'm eating healthily so that clothes still fit after the holidays" and it's killing me.

I've been reading bakerella.blogspot.com so many times in the past 2 days that I'm starting to see these little suckers in my sleep. I think about which cake mix I would use (red velvet or white? chocolate or yellow? Moist or bargain brand?) and how I should decorate them (snowmen! snowflakes! Christmas trees? stars?) So while I was at groups last night with husband, while the menfolk talked about their "feelings" I was envisioning where I should purchase the melting chocolate and whether I could use my skewering sticks or if I needed to buy lollipop sticks. You can't see it in this picture (but it's so cute anyway) but you can put them on a stick! Food is always so much better on a stick! Imagine corn dogs with no stick and you see what I'm talking about.

I'm also trying to pretend that I'm not Christmas shopping. All day long. But chances are, if you're getting a gift from me, it's already in my shopping basket. Metaphorically. I just hope you like it! And that's why it's still in my basket instead of on my charge card. What if you don't like it? I'm such a bad friend getting you something so obvious, this is why we're going to have that falling out soon. I don't blame you. I will try and move on to people who don't expect too much from me. Or you'll love it! I'm a good friend and we'll be besties forevs and evs because I got you just what you wanted. I shall bask in your praise at my ninja-like shopping skills.

With this is mind, I have not thought of one solid thing to get for my 2 year old. She of the movie watching variety. We have so many stuffed animals, but wouldn't she just love a care bear? We also have so many Disney movies that she hasn't even watched them all, but we don't have Sleeping Beauty, she would love that! And she's got clothes! A lovely mother is our neighborhood whose daughter is about a year older than Hayley gave us all her hand me downs. She has clothes coming out the wazoo. I only have her wash her clothes about every 2 weeks and that's barely re-wearing the perfectly good jeans from the day before. And I fret. She's tall in her torso, she can wear 3t in most shirts now, so I don't want to buy her 2t stuff just because that's the size she should be in, but sometimes the 2t are still big. So I don't want to buy her clothes, but she has a multitude of toys she neglects to watch more Nemo (again), so I don't want to buy her toys. But I'm afraid her mind and muscles will wither while she watches TV, so I don't want to get her DVDs! Argh! Christmas! Why can't you be more about the baby Jesus then what is in those packages? I'm just as guilty. I finally took pity on my husband and made him a wish list, and also one for my brother who has me in the family gift exchange. I have two separate wish lists! I haven't had a wish list since I was 14 and asked my parents for a Pearl Jam CD (yeah, Pearl Jam, remember when they were cool?)

Where was I? Oh yes, this post is about cake balls. So please, come over to my house with a box of cake mix, some melting chocolate and some sticks, you might just leave with all the ones I couldn't fit into my mouth while you weren't looking! It's a Christmas miracle!

Boo! It's Halloween!

Or it was at least. The day stared off pretty good for me. I spent the day rockin' out as a teen from the 80s. Side pony tail? Check! legging? Check! Awesome and totally vintage Cure shirt? Check! (Technically it's not 80s vintage, but it's old man!)

At work I spent about 2 hours making a Halloween mix for my party and then headed over to my friend Erika's office for a 2 hour lunch and going away party for her assistant. We played my new awesome Halloween mix throughout. I was pleased as I ate my way through all the treats.

After the party I cut out of work early to go home and clean. We were hosting the Halloween party that night and I wanted to take Hayley out trick or treating for a bit before hand.

She refused to where the unicorn costume at any point, but she was such a cute Care Bear, that it didn't even matter. She loved going to houses and knocking on the door. She would only whisper "Trick or Treat" but it was still cute. She was also too shy to say thank you, she would just wave. But she made out like a bandit. The thing about going early, people are more likely to give you more than one piece of candy and be happy about it. We hit a few houses around ours and Husband freaked everyone out by being the worlds ugliest woman. I did what I could, but he still looked like a dead Indian woman in a really ugly dress and bad shoes.

After about an hour of walking around we headed home. I thought I had bought enough candy since the last few years we've had so much left over. Boy was I wrong! We were out in about 30 minutes, but we were lucky that my party guests had brought candy too! Thank you Magen for the dum-dums! Otherwise my house would have been egged and probably your cars too! Trish was the most excellent door-answerer and all I had to do was help eat the food! We watched Poltergeist. That movie is still freaky! I know I've seen it a ton, but it was the first time watching it as a mother, and believe me, I would totally walk into the spirit world if my little girl needed me. It was fun, having good friends over and eating good food and have great conversation. Thanks for the awesome Halloween you guys!

Would you be my Valentine?

I remember fondly the days of childhood spent making pink and red paper hearts and infusing them with white paper dollies and maybe some glitter and then in the advancing years trying to figure out which store bought valentines were the best to give to my favorite friends and boys i had crushes on. I really wish that i could keep some of the paper magic alive after all these years, but really Valentines holds little meaning to me anymore. It's a good time to buy and eat chocolate, but really, I don't think that I need a holiday for that. I like the idea that there a holiday to tell people that you love them, but once again, should we need a holiday for that? Perhaps I'm just a scrooge because I'm at work and I just got down with my "scult and tone" class and it was "butts and guts" day (which honestly, thank you to my teacher as I've been waiting for her work out our butts all semester!) so now I'm tired and faced with the prospect of a long commute home and perhaps that has made me cynical. Even still, it's nice to have a day where even though we don't get work off, we could (if we could be bothered) make little pink contruction paper hearts for our friends and boys we have crushes on and no one will think we're weird today of all days.

Halloween Treats

So Hayley went trick or treating! Sort of. We walked to about 5 houses, mostly to show off her cuteness. She loved it because she got suckers and also there were dogs everywhere! In our short time we got to pet 3 puppies and one even licked her face and knocked her down a couple times because it was so excited! But Hayley was excited too, so she didn't care. It was funny because she walks pretty well now and for about 10-15 feet at a time she could actually stay focused on moving forward with Husband and me before she decided that she needed to eat the leaf/smashed berry/rock on the sidewalk, but those things are hard to pick up when you have a sucker in one hand and your treat bag/purse in the other. Those are both precious things that she couldn't put down, so trying to pick up the debris from the street was difficult and gave me time to pick her up so that we could get moving again and get our little puppy out of the cold.

She showed her grandparents how adorable she was and got some candy before we headed home to make sure we didn't miss the 4 trick or treaters that came to out house. Then Hayley decided that sleep is for sissies and spent the next 1 1/2 hours screaming and not sleeping. I was about ready to call the gypsies or maybe the Goblin King but memories of how cute she was earlier kept me from this.