Belated Halloween Treats!

I know I know, I haven't posted in FOREVER!!! I have been extremely busy with schoolwork (yay for my last year of graduate school!) and have therefore been spending all of my free time being extremely lazy/baking/reading. Well deserved. Anyway, I have been feeling awful all day (I would get sick right before the two busiest weeks of the semester *angry face*) so needless to say I do not feel like doing homework. I figured that if I wasn't doing homework I should still do something to feel productive, so I am posting to my greatly deglected blog. Don't get too excited.

I'm way late, but here is a fun treat I made for Halloween. They were a great hit!

the table is done!

As you might know, I hate my kitchen table. It has been hand-me-downed for several years, and no offense to any of the previous owners, but I really loathe it. I am very into interior design, and let's just say, it is not my style. It has killed me that through all of my efforts to make our little apartment lovely, I still have to deal with this knotty pine, country table. I told Chris I would be requiring a new table by the time we buy a house. Chris, ever resourceful and having extra time on his hands, offered to refinish the table in order to squeeze a few more years of use out of it. Well, it took a while and it was a lot of work, but it is finally done!!!

here is the before...not working

in progress

and
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here
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it
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is!


need to see it again?
before

and after
chair before


and after

Special thanks to my wonderful husband for working so hard on it for me, it is definitely invited to stay with us a bit longer...

Skittle Vodka?!

A few weeks ago on a Friday night Chris and I were bored and none of our friends were up for hanging out, so the plan was to get together on Saturday. What should we do in the meantime? Apparently Chris decided we were going to make Skittle Vodka for the following night. We hadn't done it before and thought it might be fun for an evening activity together. Well, it was quite a bit of fun, especially eating the extra skittles!

the stuff
sorting the skittles by color/flavor

filling the bottles (after we emptied them, I insisted we drink the water rather than waste it...that wasn't so fun) with the vodka as evenly as possible. I say we did a remarkably great job.

Then we filled them with the respective skittles, shook them up, and put them in the freezer over night until the skittles had all dissolved and the flavor infused. Then just strain the remaining white stuff and it is ready. They turned out fantastic, I've got to say the boys enjoyed it the most, seeing as how they drank all of the vodka in about two nights. They preferred it in shot form, but Leah and I enjoyed our drinks (the only one we got) mixed with some Sprite.

Day with my mom

Last Saturday I had a wonderful day, just me and my mom. First, I went over and we made strawberry jam! My favorite. I feel sorry for those who only grew up on store-bought jam. It is just not even close to the amount of fabulousness as homemade. My husband is also now hooked on this jam, so it was neccessary to make more for next year.

the stuff
the process

the haul

This is just about enough to get Chris and me through the winter. Next, we went to see The Parade of Homes! One of my absoulte favorite things to do, tour beautiful houses. Hello, dream come true. We go every year and I look forward to it every year as the school year comes to a close. Then we ended with the traditional after-parade-of-homes-ice cream. It is always so warm ice cream in needed. Usually this is in the form of a blizzard, as it was in this case. We were also quite famished, so we also split a chicken strip basket (another one of my favorites). So all in all, a great day filled with things (and people) I love.