Spooktacular Meal #2

This week we had lots of fun decorating these creepy taco salad monster faces:

Robert's was a cyclops! 

The best part is figuring out how to make a creepy face with all of these ingredients. Much more fun to eat a monster face taco salad than a regular taco salad!

Happy Haunting!

Spooktacular Meal #1

'Tis the season to be spooky.

And with that, I decided 'tis the season to eat spookily.

Nothing gets me more excited than festivities. Therefore, making festive foods is a great way for me to try new recipes, and experiment (meaning learn by trial and error!) with cooking.

I have decided for every week in October, we will have at least one "spooktacular" meal at the Center home. This past week was my first every attempt at home made bread (although it came in the form of "sticks"). On the menu: creepy witch finger Italian bread sticks and blood and guts pasta. We were both surprised at the goriness of our meal...but hey, it's Halloween time! 

I think it turned out rather well. 

Witch fingers getting ready to go in the oven

The spooky meal! The noodles are even dyed red.

I got the recipe for the witch fingers at this funny blog.

Happy Haunting!

Act 2; Scene 13: Frantic Frenzy of First Attempt Fabric Flowers

I have always wanted to try my hand at making some fabric flowers. Since girls night out during the Priesthood session led to a stop at a fabric store, I decided now was the time to try. Here is the outcome of my (and my Mom's) frantic fabric flower weekend:

Ah! We had so much fun! And maybe stayed up too late creating :-). I plan to decorate a stick wreath with some/most of them, and keep the others as pins for clothes and hair. Don't worry--I still have fabric and plenty of flowery ideas. More to come!

Act 2; Scene 12: The first of the fall colors

I love looking up at the mountains and seeing patches of red and yellow peeking out. On Friday as I was driving home, I was looking at the mountains and decided we needed to do something about it. So we decided we would do an early morning hike on Saturday morning so that we could see this:

So gorgeous! Can't wait for many more fall hikes.

Act 2, Scene 11: Taking a Break and Eating Toast

Right now I need a little break from work.

For the next three hours or so I will be going through thousands of lines of data and importing them into the awesome HR system that I work for--BabmooHR (had to give a little plug :-) ).

As awesome and exciting as that sounds, I decided that first I wanted a break. Mostly because I really wanted a piece of Great Harvest Beehive white bread toasted with Cox's creamed honey. Mmmmmm. I love whole wheat bread, but sometimes Great Harvest white just really hits the spot.

A good thing about toast? The smell of it toasting is almost like the smell of fresh bread baking in the oven.

Almost.

My brother Luke loves toast. I mean, he L.O.V.E.S. it. He lives on it. Without fail, he eats at least four pieces of toast every morning for breakfast. He has been doing this since high school. In fact, I think Luke would die without toast. Of starvation.

So here's to breaks from work full of delicious toast. Happy toasting, all!

Act 2; Scene 10: It's Coming...It's Coming!

Aren't these just some of the cutest and funniest ways to decorate a tasty treat for Halloween? I love them.

 

Can you believe it? Only a few more days till October.

And now time for hint number 2 in the costume guessing contest: I am hoping to get some latex to use for our faces :-) Go here to see the last hint.

Act 2; Scene 9: The Joy of Shape Tag

I have discovered a game that kids of all ages adore in drama classes.

Shape Tag.

Not sure what it is about it--but my high school students loved it, my junior high students love it, my 5-7 year olds love it, and even in my college classes we loved playing it.

It goes like this: everyone gets into a circle. One person who is "it" goes in the middle and makes a creative "shape" with their body. The next person in line gets to go and make a creative shape, filling the negative space of the other person's shape. Basically, the second person makes the two of them into a statue. Then the first person goes back to the circle while the second person stays frozen in place. The next person in line gets to come and make a shape, and so on. Eventually you graduate to people just jumping in and making a shape in any random order. The goal is to work on going with your instinct--just jump in and make a crazy shape.

People love it.

People love excuses to be crazy and to go with instinct without thinking for hours about what to do. People like having permission to do crazy things. People like making "creative" shapes.

Here is a picture of my 5-7 year old class's shape tag statue. On the last round, everyone stays a part of the shape and becomes one big statue. They're pretty cute, aren't they?