Clafouti! Say it with me. Cla-fou-ti. I also sometimes resorted to calling it Cloud-footie. For those of your who don't know what this is--I certainly didn't before I saw Alton Brown make it on "Good Eats"--this is a really simple French dish. Here's the recipe...

As the weekend approaches, I know some of you are going to go off to parties and such, but if you're in the DC Metro area and you don't mind hightailing it out to Fauquier County then you definitely should stop and visit at Buckland Farm Market.

Have you ever had an itch that you scratched, and then you had to scratch it some more? I fear I have this itch. I thought it would go away with this craft. It didn't. It got worse. Much worse. More on that later.

My itch began over the summer and it resided in the locale of  my laundry room. I thought I could make my laundry room a smudge more tolerable by adding this window art.

Its pretty, but it didn't help.

So its nothing new for a crafter hoarder to have paint lying around. Its not even odd that they'd have several dozen shades of latex paint around along with a slew of acrylics, possibly some oil-based and fabric paint along with all sorts of mediums and glazes. I know I do. You do to. Admit it. I'm glad I'm not alone in the raising of hands for our hoarding crafting tendencies.

So what do you get when you mix paint, stippling brush, lampshade, and a homemade stencil? You get paint on your pants, or your kitchen floor after the brush leaps to its death from your hands. Pfffft, a slightly suicidal brush is not going to stop me from updating a part of my family room that has been bugging me for a few weeks now.

This little guy is from PB. He's cute.

I don't know if you guys have noticed, but this little blog of mine has reached 250 followers! Yay! I can't believe that back at the end of February the only followers I had were family and friends, and now....well just wow. So I think I will need to think of something to celebrate. Maybe you guys can help. What would you like in order to celebrate reaching 250 followers? Another giveaway? A theme week? A monkey jumping up and down on my head? Sorry, the last was just to see if you were paying attention. :) So anyways, while you guys mull over that...Here's what the front porch, dining room and mantle look like now. They're not over the top crazy for Halloween. I only go over the top for Christmas {which I can't wait for!!!!}, but this is what I've done. :)

Okay, maybe that should be, "When Recipe Creators Lie!", but it's a bit cumbersome, don't you think? Anyhoo, let's cut to the chase and talk proper recipe nomenclature for a moment. If a recipe is to be called "_____ and _____ casserole/soup/sandwiches/etc", the two title ingredients should be included in equal or very nearly equal portions. Think about it. Peanut butter and jelly. Macaroni and cheese. Green eggs and ham. The list goes on. My recipe this week attempted to deceive me, but I'm no fool! Oh no, I'm a wily one, but more on that later. Firstly, for those of you asking yourselves, "Um, is she always like this?", the answer is a big, fat YES! I am very funny about anything having to do with words and writing. Don't get me started on my position on parentheticals and punctuation placement...

Ok, I'm actually more like more than halfway done because my costume is cut out. I guess I'll have to start sewing on it, because Dev has become the ultimate manager.

Two days ago, I'm finishing up Harrison's booties (which we are not going to be wearing because they are humongous) and Dev was examining the first one. He says - Oooooh that looks so pretty, Mommy. Now do the other one.

I'm telling you....future manager/slave driver. He comes by it honest though. He gets it from me. I can't complain. I shouldn't complain, but it rankles a bit when your 4 year old is bossing you around.

Good morning all! I was actually hoping to have a different post up today, but its not done. None of them. I haven't made very much headway on my other projects. Harrison's costume is done, which is the only one that officially 100% done, buuuuut I have no pictures of it yet. So I will go with this, because I thought ahead when I was making it and took pictures. :)

I cannot express how incredibly amazing the silhouette is. I've been having so much fun designing and planning. Unfortunately I have not had time to fully explore all of this machine's awesomeness. I did get to play with some of the heat transfer material on Saturday.

Saturday was a terrific day for one of Dev's very best friends. It was the day of his birthday party, and J is a HUGE fan of anything action figure. So amongst all of the Hasbro merchandise, I included a t-shirt with a transformers twist.

Well the first of three costumes is done! Hallelujah!

Dev is very excited about the fact that his costume is done, except that we have not made it by the shoe store to pick up light brown boots. Don't worry we're not buying the shoes for the costume...we buy him boots every year. Aren't I lucky that Yoshi wears boots? :)

Oh and I have decided that I am never sewing another costume that has a tail or anything resembling a stuffed item that is attached between two seams. For Dev's 2nd Halloween I made a dragon costume I ended up putting the sewing needle through my thumb, multiple times. I did this while trying to attach that dragon's tail to the body suit. My thumb healed faster then my machine though, because I ended up moving the shaft that extends the needle down into the dog feed a 1/4" to the right. So into the shop it went. I ended up having to borrow my sister's machine so I could finish Devlin's costume in time. While this time was better, and I did not have the needle meet my thumb, attaching the spikes and the tail was still a PITA.

So here is the last tailed costume I'm ever making.

Race for the Cure Results: Okay, so I didn't make 30 minutes, but I wasn't too far off. I completed the Race for the Cure 5k in 37 minutes, 19 seconds. Yes, I know that's a really big spread for a 5k, but it was my first one ever, and I learned from the experience. More importantly, almost a million dollars was raised for breast cancer research and awareness. That's. Just. Awesome!

Now, onto the food...

I'm not here today. I'm visiting Polly Want A Crafter today! Go check it out, and since my post will be up before hers....she's over in CST ya know. :) Then I'm just going to shoot you guys over to her main page.

In case you didn't know....Polly Want A Crafter is the crafty blog of Remodelaholic! Love her blogs! Oh the ideas I've swiped borrowed from them. :)

Go check it out, but not until 7:00 AM CST....which would be 8:00 EST.....which is 2 hours after this post was put up. :) I do like to be ahead on top of things. :)

Have a great day guys! Tomorrow is the oh-so-yummy Friday Food Frenzy, which I can't wait to see!  Oh and I may have an announcement on Monday, gotta wait on the emails to come round!

Well, the modge podge has attacked again. :) A few weeks ago I saw this post over at Crazy Domestic.

Cute, right? Oh yea, I'm not going to show you. You'll have to visit. :) I'm such a pill, aren't I?

I love those little guys, but I have no jars. Sadness. I do, however; have lots and lots of vases.

Useless vases. Vases that sit in my cabinet above the refrigerator. You know the cabinets that things are sent to be forgotten about. Now my cabinet above the fridge is a little more empty. Ready for something to be stored for later use, but truly to just be forgotten about.

Did you know that Halloween is the 2nd most decorated holiday? Well it's really no surprise, at least not to me. Halloween is my sister's, Nicole, favorite holiday. When we all still lived at home we used to string up spider webs and gravestones. We had a lot of fun, but now that we all live on our own, well it's different.

My favorite part of Halloween has always been pumpkins, so its no wonder that when the artificial pumpkins came out I was all about that, because while I love jack-o-lanterns I do not really like the scooping out of the innards. For the last several years, I've been adding to our pumpkin collection. I usually buy them when they're on sale at Michael's or Jo-Ann's, and as of the beginning of this year I had 4 pumpkins, but one did not make it through the move. I thought I could fix it. It was a spiderweb pumpkin that had 'Happy Halloween' woven into the web. I loved it. Not scary, but definitely in the spirit of the season. Unfortunately Harrison found my pumpkin and accidentally fell into it. The web did not survive. :-(

{Mr. Movie Voice Guy} In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue....and discovered the Caribbean! Two weeks ago, I went to an auction and found Dev a new bed. {/end Mr. Movie Voice Guy}

Ok so that didn't rhyme or really roll off the tongue, but it's Columbus Day, so I had to add the bit about Mr. Columbus. :)

Well, this project was both a joy to do and a PITA. Joy because the bed was fun to work on, and I was so excited to give Dev the bed that he has wanted for a while. PITA because the older two males in the house were chomping at the bit to have it done, and one of them was even aghast at the recoat time of oil paint (24 hours). Sigh.

**Updated to include some previous pictures!**

At least it is for me. There's not actually a recipe this week, but I want to talk about something that is very important to me and to countless others. As you probably know, October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month, and I am just thrilled that we are fund raising at work for the Susan G. Komen foundation. As Heather has mentioned before, I am a cancer survivor. Granted, it was not breast cancer, but instead Acute Lymphocytic Leukemia when I was seven. Praise Jesus; I survived! Nowadays, I really like being involved in events to raise money for cancer research and awareness. A girl at work has done a fan-freaking-tastic job of organizing all kinds of events for the SGK Foundation, and our company has actually surpassed the fund raising goal by very nearly a thousand dollars! We did a thing where you could pay $5 and wear jeans all week (the response, as you might expect, for this was outstanding). We also did a "pink Thursday" where you paid $10 to try and win a prize for the most "pink spirit". Here's my getup!

There is  no post today, and well this post is kind of late in the day for me. Why?

Because I turned 29 today, and yes.....it's the first time I've turned 29. :)

My super awesome hubby got me a silhouette for my birthday, which arrived early and I have already broken in. :) Love ya babe!

My poor littlest guy had his 1 year well baby today, and he's got all new stats. 30-1/2" long and 20.1 lbs. He's getting so big. He got three shots today so he's sleeping them off. I feel so bad because he hasn't even had lunch yet, but he did snack on a couple of graham crackers while at the doc's.

Dev and I also got our 'working' glasses today.

The only thing that could complete my day is a steaming hot cup of Venti Pumpkin Spice, which I will be getting when Dev and I go to Target later today to get his new sheets and a gift for his friend James. :)

Here's a shot of Dev and I in our new glasses. :)

Oh yea, I also got all my hairs done last night. I keep having my hair cut shorter and shorter. :)

Have a great day guys. Monday I'll be back with a post about someone's bed. :)

About a week ago, I guest posted over at Ashley's blog, 6 inches of ribbon, and this is what I offered up for her faithful readers. :)

Who doesn't like free money? I wish I had a money tree for all the free money I'd love to have, but this is why this post is for you guys!

CSN contacted me about doing another giveaway for all you wonderful readers, and I, of course, said yes!

So here's the skinny. We all have tables. Coffee tables, end tables, console tables, buffets, random tables. CSN has a wonderful array of console tables. Here are a few of their vast inventory!

Saturday was Harrison's very first birthday! Yay!

For his birthday we had a Dr. Seuss themed party for him. We didn't snag the photos that Steve's father took. Doh! I'll have to bug him for them :) Here's what we got though.

This is the view from our front  door. We have some trees from the Lorax. I made the pom-poms from Martha's site, but I alternated colors of  tissue paper since I did not have enough of any one color.

But apparently I make a pretty decent quick bread. Little known fact: I do. Not. Bake. Period. Why? Because baking is a lot like chemistry. There are a lot of ingredients that have to go into a baked good and, if they don't go in in the right amounts or in the right order, you'll have a disaster on your hands. Another little know fact: I barely passed high school chemistry. It just doesn't make sense to me with all of those ide's, ade's, ite's, and ate's. Not to mention that unreliable unit of measure known as a mole. Nope, I will stick with my literature and art and other variably interpretable subjects, thank you very much.

Well, I really like quick breads and pound cakes and whatnot, so I decided it was high time for me to give them a go. I got a lemon bread recipe from Taste of Home and a pumpkin bread recipe from Heather.

Sidenote: Heather may have already posted her pumpkin bread recipe, so I apologize if this is a repeat.