Blurb It Baby!

I might be the last one to know but I made an amazing discovery this weekend. You can turn your blog into a book! Check out www.blurb.com! It seems fairly affordable as well. Wouldn't it be cool to have a hard copy, pictures included, to look through in years to come. Wouldn't it be neat for your children to have something each year that chronicled your thoughts, struggles, interests, recipes, photos, etc.? I've heard it is time consuming but easy. I was at a SuperBowl party and a friend showed me a copy of a book done by one of her friends. The friend had spent a year in Italy and blogged about it. At the end of the year she had this beautiful book with all of her travels and pictures of all of the sights. It was AMAZING! So if you're like me and you're not good at journaling but you love blogging, check it out!

Tricky Treats

Okay, for those of you at MOPS yesterday who wanted to know how to make the cute little pumpkin cakepops, here you go.

First, no I'm not that creative. I didn't make these up, I'm just good at copying. As you can see, the originals look much cleaner than mine. I'm not sure how she gets the candymelts that smooth. If anyone has any tips, please share. I wish I had a picture of mine but, thankfully, you ate them all up! My cakepops were a combination of these amazing treats invented by the ever so talented and widely famous Bakerella...


And these sweet treats inspired the insides of my pumpkin pops...

Thanks and full credit for the pumpkin spice cake idea go to Bridget at bakeat350.blogspot.com. LOVE her site. She is so talented and I found her blog courtesy of my sister-in-law Montee. Okay, so here's what I did.

1. I bought and baked a pumpkin bread from a mix right out of a box (no cans of pumpkin or anything hard like that). I let it cool completely and then crumbled it all up with my hands in a large bowl.
2. I used about 3/4 of a can of ready made cream cheese icing and mixed it completely with the caked. It ended up looking like a bunch of mush. Add the icing a little at a time so you don't get too much. You want it to be sturdy enough to shape it.
3. Shape the mixture into truffle size balls and put on wax paper on a cookie sheet.
4. If you're going to do pops, dip the tip of stick in a little bit of melted orange Wilton candymelts and then still into the cake ball.
5. Put the whole thing in the fridge to let them get a little more solid and sturdy.
6. Dip the balls in melted orange Wilton candymelts and then stick pops in styrofoam to dry. If you're not making pops, just put them on more wax paper. Bakerella used tic tacs for the stems, I used green cereal pieces from a sugared kids cereal. You could also probably use pretzels for stems. Stick on the stems before the candy can harden.
7. When everything is completely dry, use an edible pen from Betty Crocker to draw on faces. Done.

I got the lollipop sticks and orange Wilton candymelts in the craft section of Walmart. I got the pumpkin bread mix, icing, and edible ink pens in the baking section of Walmart. It was really super easy and fun and here are some examples of some of the other spooky treats Bakerella made.

You can use any cake mix and icing so I am going to try some different combos. Red velvet cake with cream cheese icing dipped in white or dark chocolate, chocolate cake with chocolate icing dipped in a minty dark chocolate coating...the possibilities are endless. Let me know if you try these and how it works out. If you want more detailed instructions, check here.

Great Deal!

Check out these cute outfits I got at Target. If you have girls sizes 5T or smaller, Target had these for $4.00 per piece. $8.00 for an entire outfit and it's cute. Notice the detailed applique. I don't think I could do that well at the consignment sales. (Sorry about the sideways pics)

Kids Meal Deals

I recently wrote a post for isurfsumner.com on Kid's Meal Deals. To find a list of weekly deals for eating out with kids, check it out HERE. Please feel free to add any additional deals you know about in the comments section. I'm going to print out the list and keep a copy on my fridge and in my car. Today, we were all in the car at lunchtime and Jeff said, "Hey, let's go eat where the kids are free." Turns out Tuesday is a big day for kid's meal deals. We ended up at Dos Margaritas where kids eat free all day. I was so glad I had done the research and thanks to all those who helped compile the list! Check it out!

Coke Zero

Okay, I totally didn't get the commercials when they first came out. They are the ones where they meet with a lawyer about suing themselves because Coke Zero tastes just like Coca Cola Classic. Now I get it. Have you tried it? Am I just the last one to know? I figured it was just another marketing thing like Diet Coke with Splenda. Another diet coke that just tasted the same. But NOOOOOO friends. This is different. If you love regular coke but only drink diet because of the calories, this is the soft drink for you. I swear, I feel guilty every time I drink one. It's that good. No, I am not being paid to say this. I just want to share the love. From now on, it's Coke Zero for me. Now if only the restaurants would get on board. So far the only place I've seen it is Chuck-E-Cheese and...well...need I say more?

P.S. To all you addiction-free-superhealthy-water-only drinkers...I love you and I'm sorry.