3 months and going strong

I realize that I have not been posting as often as I would like. I sat down and realized that it has been 3 months since I made the transition from the HBIC to the HMIC. I am finally starting to feel like I am getting the hang of the new role. I have started to explore so many fun avenues of the HMIC.

My bread maker and I have a new relationship I am glad to see growing. I have had this bread maker for over 10 years and up until last month, I have only used it once. Our previous relationship was one of dust collecting and space hog.

I have found so many fun ways to make bread and with some fun ingredients. I have not bought bread from the store in over a month :) Thom loves it when he comes home and the house is filled with the smell of hot bread, we just have to be careful not to eat the whole loaf in one day. I even put my new found love for making homemade bread and dusted off my ice cream maker for an activity at our church. I entered my chili, chi spice ice cream, and honey oat bread in the cook-off and came home with first place for my ice cream. How fun to know that I have some good cooking skills, I shouldn't questioned that, my whole family has gained weight since I started cooking again :p

As the leaves have begun changing here in Las Vegas and the air has cooled down it feels like fall. I have wanted for many years to take the kids to a pumpkin patch to hunt for the perfect pumpkin. Being as we are not truly in an agricultural area we are limited on the selection of pumpkin patches. We found one that is a seasonal lot were they have a good selection as well as games and bounce house for the kids. Sean, Sarah and Emily took off running climbing on all the piles of pumpkins to find the one they wanted to take home. I am sure that I enjoyed the event more than they did, thanks kids for some great memories!

As we get closer to Halloween I find myself putting all the finishing touches on the costumes for my 3 kids and even Thom and I. We did have one rule for the kids costumes: The pieces must come from the thrift store. Over the 12 years I have been doing costumes for my kids, I have realized that I spend more on a costume than I do on their Christmas outfits all of which are items that they seam to only wear once. I have seen so many cute outfits at the thrift stores and so this was the mission. I am so excited to see these costumes come to life and look forward to posting the pictures of the finished products in a few days.