Everly is 2 months old! And it's Halloween!

Everly Rose is 2 months old!

Two months old already...where does the time go?!! I can't believe our sweet baby Everly Rose is two months old!! She loves to snuggle (especially with and on Mama!), eat, lay in the sun with Paisley, swing in her chair, and watch her light projector with the sound machine at night. She really doesn't like any clothes that have to go on over her head so she still spends a lot of time in comfy sleepers! No need to waste a cute outfit anyway if we're just lounging at home! She is getting stronger everyday and starting to really hold her head up a lot more on her own and she can rock herself from side to side...she has also flipped herself over twice now while doing tummy time when she gets mad and is over it, she gets her legs up and under her just enough to flip over! Her hair is getting lighter and her eyes are getting bluer by the day so I think she's going to end up looking more like me than people thought when she was first born! I love just watching her sleep and eat and nap and lay with Paisley...I find myself getting lost in her and my heart feels so full when I'm snuggling with her and especially while I'm feeding her. I totally get that unique bond that everyone talks about when it comes to breastfeeding and I'm so thankful that I am able to do it for Everly. She's somewhere between 8-9 pounds and is completely out of preemie clothes but still only wearing newborn stuff...she's still our sweet tiny Peanut who we love so much!

Happy Halloween from the bakers and our sweet treats!

We celebrated Everly's first Halloween by dressing her up as a cupcake! I actually made the costume by using a sleep sack we received in the hospital and then I added the frosting, sprinkles, and cupcake liner to it. My mom helped me with the hat by making the cherry on top! It turned out so cute! Paisley was a long john donut so I made that with some cardboard, batting, scraps of fabric, and the same felt that I used for the sprinkles on Everly's costume. I'm so happy that my parents live close by us because they got to come over to see her dressed up on her 1st Halloween and then we made a trip to Jordan's parents so they could see her too. We had to show off our sweet little cupcake afterall! I can't wait until next Halloween when she is walking and we can take her trick-or-treating! 

she is excited for another Halloween outfit!  

Happy Halloween!
I love those sweet little hands on the pumpkin

Daddy sure is under her spell...
and so is everyone else!

Happy Halloween!

Paisley The Dinosaur!

Trick or Treat....give me a good bone to eat!

Hear me rawwwrrrr!!!

All dino'd out from celebrating Halloween!

It's been a pretty quiet day and night around here for it being Halloween! I spent the day lounging with Paisley, watched old horror movies on TV and drank enough orange juice and emergen-c to last me a year! I'm really hoping whatever bug and illness is trying to bring me down moves on sooner than later! Since I was still at risk for infecting the kiddos at the hospital (have to be fever free for 24 hours), I had to stay at home again. And who wouldn't love a free day off from work?! Normally I would...but since it was Halloween, I am super bummed I missed it! All of the kiddos were going to get dressed up in their costumes then have a parade around the hospital while trick-or-treating....ahhh sooo cute!!! Since I missed out, I got Paisley dressed up for a little bit. She's such a good sport and always goes along with getting dressed up. I think it's because she knows she'll be spoiled with treats afterwards! The only other exciting thing today that happened was I got a new phone! My blackberry lately has been nothing but unreliable. To send or receive a message, I had to turn my phone on and off to first read it and then on and off again just to reply! It would rarely let me answer a call and usually wouldn't connect if I was trying to call someone...so after 3+ish years, it was definitely time for an upgrade and since Jordan gave me the go-ahead, I got the new iPhone 5! My life is already better knowing I have a reliable phone! And I was shocked to find out that it actually was cheaper than an Android phone...who knew?! So I spent the rest of the afternoon playing on that and getting it all set up! Since it was nice out today, Jordan grilled out hamburgers to get the most of the awesome fall weather we've been having because I have a feeling it won't be around for long. Now we're going to spend the rest of the night watching a horror movie and eating some Halloween candy since we didn't have any trick-or-treaters stop by our place! Happy Halloween everyone! 

Carved pumpkins & Roasted seeds!

Now that Halloween is getting closer, we thought it was finally time to carve our Great Pumpkins!!! After the search we had for these bad boys, we obviously couldn't let them go to waste! And with the perfect weather we had today and a lazy Sunday, there was no better time in our mind to carve them than today! 

And there's the finished products after lots of concentrating and carving, perfecting the cuts, and cleaning the seeds! I went with a monogram and Est. 2012, which is no surprise. I love monograms and since it's our first Halloween as a married couple, I couldn't pass it up! Jordan likes to carve out a challenging design so he went with Hades from Hercules! I think they look pretty awesome and now our porch is ready for Halloween! 

Now for the pumpkin seeds recipes! I made these in two separate batches today because I didn't know if cooking them in the oven at the same time would mix the flavors or have them end up tasting funky and since I was home all day anyway...I figured, why not! So the two different flavors I did were salty/spicy garlic and cinnamon-sugar apple cider! Yummmy they are tasty! I know it might seem like a lot of work to separate the seeds from all of the pulp and goop, but one taste of the seeds, and you'll know that it was worth the work! The first thing to do for whichever seasoning you decide to go with is to soak the seeds in a bowl of hot water then rinse them off and pay them dry. That really helps to get the pulp off easily!

Salty-Garlic Seeds:
2 cups pumpkin seeds, cleaned and rinsed
1 1/2 tablespoons melted butter OR olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt (I like using corse salt)
1/2 teaspoon garlic salt
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
2 teaspoons Worcestershire Sauce
1/8 teaspoon cracked black pepper

Directions: **Same directions for both flavors of seeds!**
1. Preheat oven to 275*F and line a baking sheet with parchment paper 
melt the butter in a mixing bowl then add salt, garlic powder and garlic salt, worcestershire sauce, and pepper. Mix this up well then add in the seeds.
2. Once the seeds are fully coated, spread evenly onto the parchment paper in a single layer.
3. Bake for 1 hour, checking occasionally and tossing them around. Bake until the butter mixture is dried and until they are  nice and golden brown.
4. Take out from the oven and take the parchment paper with seeds still on it off the baking sheet to cool. Store in an air tight container!

Cinnamon-Sugar Apple Cider Seeds:
2 cups pumpkin seeds, cleaned and rinsed
1 1/2 cups apple cider
1 1/2 tablespoons melted butter OR olive oil
1/8 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

mmm fresh roasted pumpkin seeds!
Salty and Sweet!

Aside from the Hawks losing terribly yesterday, we still had an enjoyable weekend! It was beautiful fall weather here, we spent time with friends and each other, and got to carve our pumpkins! Next weekend our good friends Jared & Heather are getting married we're really looking forward to celebrating with them!!! Eeek and that means that my girl friends Leah and Hilary will be coming to town on Friday for the weekend/wedding! Really looking forward to next weekend already so let's hope that doesn't make the week drag on, isn't that the worst?! Enjoy the last few hours of the weekend and here's to a not so manic Monday! :)