Getting By {Halloween/Fall Edition}

Way busy crazy week.  I wanted to stop in and at least say hi yesterday, but alas, there was zero zero zero time.  From the minute we woke up, we hit the ground running and didn’t stop until 11ish last night.  Between Monday and yesterday I have baked 5 gooey butter cakes, a double batch of these chocolate chip cookies, whoopie pies and what I thought was a double batch of these snickerdoodle cookies, but after further review of the recipe I think lack of sleep got the best of me and I did not double it even though I thought I had…anyways, they are delicious.  And yes, I strayed from my normal family snickerdoodle recipe because when I saw “The Best Snickerdoodles” as the title of the recipe, I just had to try it.  I’m such a sucker for those claims…the best, world’s greatest, etc.  Happy to report they are super yummy.

Sidenote:  Funny story from a few years ago.  The chocolate chip cookie recipe from above is seriously my favorite.  My mom actually has a chocolate chip cookie recipe in our family cookbook, but right after she died I was feeling all mopey and wanted to bake something that was hers.  I went with her famous chocolate chip cookie recipe.  While crying and stirring and throwing a full on pity party for myself, I start adding the chocolate chips and caught a glimpse at the recipe on the back of the chocolate chip bag…same recipe.  My mom had swiped Nestle Toll House’s recipe and all these years I had thought she was the genius behind it.  I had a good laugh about it.  End Sidenote.

Halloween is Friday and it is one of my favorite holidays, but this year we just haven’t done much at all.  I mentioned a few posts back we only had one costume and am happy to report 3 out of 4 Kelley children now have costumes.  We’re getting there, we’re getting there.

Sol’s hands make me laugh so hard.

Hudson said he wanted to be a skeleton and I thought this was going to be his and Sol’s first year not to be a themed thing together…they have just always liked similar things, but when Hudson’s saw how muscley and “I’ll snap your neck silently in a dark alley way” Sol looked, he wanted in on that.

It kind of made me secretly really happy.  Hudson and Solomon have been peanut butter and jelly, two old guy with mustaches, Buzz and Zerg, Batman and Green Lantern and last year Obi Wan and Anakin.  I should really dig all those pictures out for you to see…the best!

I also am in charge of fun Halloween cookies and cupcakes for Harper, Hudson and Solomon’s classes on Friday.  I needed something super quick and then remembered something I had seen on Pinterest a while back…didn’t even pin it, but I really think it was from there…just rolos and candy eyes.  That’s it.  Boom.  Done.  They are seriously the easiest cookie and cupcake toppers ever.  And the kids loved them.

(Joanns has candy eyes all year long.)

And I do really like friends who say “We haven’t done a thing festive for fall or Halloween either…want to come over and carve pumpkins?”  Why yes, yes we do.  So we headed over Saturday night to our friends’ house.  We stuffed our faces with Mexican food, dug out pumpkin guts, carved crazy boy drawn faces with a jig saw…using a jigsaw to carve your pumpkin = genius…and painted our hearts out.  Pretty sure Harper, Ashley and I enjoyed ourselves more painting our pumpkins than anyone else.

Now all I have to do is figure out what Amon will be for Halloween.  I was thinking Michael Jackson or Prince or a purple minion, but now, now my brain is gone and I’m thinking we’ll just let him wear Solomon’s baseball uniform and call it a wrap.  We shall see.

Have a great rest of the day and happy Wednesday.