Elmo's World

This year I finally settled on Clark being Elmo for Halloween. I was talking to Clint's mom and she said, "Let's make the costume!"
Umm, doesn't she know I have no idea how to sew? Or the slightest idea of how a sewing machine even works?

So with a little hesitations, I said sure.

I went to the fabric store and found this awesome fabric that would be perfect for Elmo's fur.

When I went up to the cutting counter, I told the lady I was sent to buy the fabric but had no idea how much I would need. I said it was for Clark, who was in the cart with me. Some ladies chimed in and helped, saying that we would need more fabric then we originally thought, so I should get extra. Then there were comments like, "Man, I wouldn't want to work with that fabric." and "Yeah, that's going to be a challenge."

So I left the store with a bunch of red furry fabric and seriously hoping Diane had some mad sewing skills.







Not only did she have mad sewing skills, but she taught me how to sew! Probably not the easiest fabric to work with and as you can see it made a crazy, insane mess, but I LOVE IT! I told her that Clint was going to be mad at her for teaching me a new addicting craft.

(Sorry the pictures are out of sync. Blogger is being lame and not uploading the pictures in the order that I assigned them.)

After working hard of the body of the costume we couldn't convince Clark that the costume would be fun to wear.

This is what happened when I put it on him:


He hated it!


Tonight we had our church's Trunk or Treat. Not knowing if Clark was going to wear his costume or not, we dressed him regularly and brought the costume. Surprisingly, he was ok with wearing the hat but refused to put the costume on. I spent many parts of the day putting the costume on my arms and dancing around the house and playing around to convince him that wearing the suite would be fun. When we arrived at church I showed him all the kids in their costumes and he couldn't get changed fast enough.






It didn't take him long to figure out that if he stopped at each car, he would get candy to put in his Elmo bucket. :)

Clark is also going through this stage where he doesn't smile regularly, but funky. But I like it!



Cooling off while eating dinner. It was a hot day and the costume was very warm.



This is the mess of a child I had once I was home and allowed him to eat some of his candy. Sticky candy, drool and the red fuzz from the costume made this:

Pumpkin Patch

This week Clark and I went with our neighbors to our local pumpkin patch. The boys had fun!

Jen turned 29...

...FOR THE THIRD TIME!







This year for my birthday we celebrated at the Beach Club. Thankfully it was warm enough that we could even swim! The water was a little cold, but Clark, Logan and Merrik didn't seem to mind.







I'm so thankful for having a loving husband who listens to my constant complaining about wanting a stand mixer.


I also got some really cool Stampin Up supplies and I will post pictures of the invitations I am making for Clark's birthday.

I definitely got spoiled this year! :)

Food Adventures

After Diane, Grandma and I all read The Last Chinese Chef, Grandma thought it would be a good idea to do a food competition of our own.

Here was the official invitation:

"On Saturday afternoon the Shrimp Fairy will deliver a 2 pound bag of medium sized frozen shrimp (very meaty) to the Clint household, the Diane household, and the Barbara household. It is up to each household to come up with a Super Shrimp Dish to be served during family dinner time on Sunday. The dishes can be hot or cold - any type of dish will do such as shrimp bisque, shrimp and rice, shrimp and spaghetti, shrimp and vegetables - just whatever whatever strikes the culinary imagination. A green salad and artisan bread will also be served.

Households may not reveal to each other what they are going to serve.

The Shrimp Fairy"

Then there was some "friendly" words of competition:

"Hark ye of little faith, the Goddess of Shrimp will lay waste the shallow artifices offered by the clumsy and the inept with a dish of such exquisite delicacy and divine perfection that the Heavens will open and pour forth the blessings of butter and wine upon all mankind forever and ever."


"Competitors,
I intend to take those shrimp and produce a thermonuclear level of destruction that I will rain down upon your heads. The fierceness of my cooking prowess will create such intimidation that none will be willing to compare their shrimp to mine. For in so doing they would experience so much shame at their own unworthiness that they would disembowel themselves on the spot. I intend to dominate this challenge and nobody is capable of resisting."

"The hour of your culinary destruction is nigh at hand. REPENT!"

Can you tell who wrote each quote?

And here was the feast:



We had everything from Coconut shrimp, shrimp scampi, a lemon garlic shrimp, shrimp/corn chowder and shrimp aspeck (spelling?). Jack, Clark and I were suppose to be the judges. Unfortunately everything tasted so good, that we couldn't pick just one winner.

The other food adventure that Clark and I experienced was going to the Orange County Fair grounds and eating from the food trucks. Many of the trucks were from the Great Food Truck race that was on foodnetwork tv.

The two that I recognized were the Seabirds truck and the Lime truck. They were two of the competitors that were on the episode that was in Manhattan, Kansas.






Neither of these trucks were my favorites. The Seabirds were Vegans and I was disappointed that they won a challenge giving them sol access to Aggieville (the big bar/restaurant area in downtown Manhattan). Kansas is cow land, not vegan land.

As for the Lime truck, one of the guys made a comment about having to dumb down their menu. I was very insulted. Even though I'm not a native Kansan, I'm still proud of the state and the many friends I made while we lived there.

Unfortunately while there, I didn't remember that the Lime Truck guy made that comment and because the Lime truck had the best menu, and the guy taking the orders was kind of cute, I order this:


Ahi Tuna "Poke" nachos. It was really good. Between me, my brother and my dad we managed to get food from pretty much all the trucks.

We plan on heading back when Clint gets back because he missed out due to having to work late that day. :( We want to wear our purple proudly and tell the Lime Truck guys how it really is, but we might have to dumb down our sentences for them.

The Joys...

...of sleeping with your gorilla:




...of picking tomatoes from your Moogies garden:






...of playing with trucks in the dirt with Daddy:




...of getting to play with friends at the park: