Mummy Cookies

So since I'm now addicted to Pinterest, I decided to try out some cookie decorating that I had pinned.

Mummy Cookies!

I know, super cute, right?  And it gave me an excuse to make gingerbread before Christmas!  I love gingerbread a little bit.  Mostly because my Aunt Connie has the best recipe ever!

Here's the post if you want to take a look, there are some super cute Halloween ideas, however most of them are far outside the realm of my decorating ability ... any of you who have been privileged to try my sugar cookies can attest to the fact that I will not be joining "Cake Boss" any time soon with my mad icing skillz.

So, I didn't actually read the post before embarking on this decorating journey.  I just went ahead and made gingerbread instead of Chocolate Mocha cookies like they used.  Then, because I didn't want to traipse around Lethbridge trying to find white vanilla baking chips for the icing, I just made my regular icing that I use for sugar cookies but added a bit more milk so it would be slightly runnier and easier to pipe out.  Also, I didn't want to buy "eyes" so my mummies are blind.

Anyway, so I made the icing and put it into a freezer bag as instructed in the post.  And this is where it all went horribly wrong.  I learned the hard way that when they say "cut a very small tip from one corner of bag" they actually mean "cut a very small tip from one corner of bag."  Not just a "small" tip.  So ... this is what my mummy cookies looked like:

NAILED IT!!!

Notice that I gave up after trying on the first few and just added a smear of icing down the middle to finish off the icing in the bag.  But, not one to give up (and also because Jay informed me he liked them better with the icing on them than just plain), I tried again.  This time I cut a minuscule tip from the corner of the bag and also looked at the picture on Pinterest a few times.  It took me a few tries to get the technique down, but the result was definitely better than the first try:

The last few I did were definitely closer to what I was going for, but they're not as good as the post picture.  Well, at least they taste good!

Pumpkin Festival

Saturday, September 29th was the annual Pumpkin Festival at Green Haven.  Jay had to work that day, so Paxton and I joined Jackie, Craig, Alexander, Cristy, Mark and Carter for a few hours of whirlwind fun.  It was my first pumpkin festival and I learned a lesson rather quickly ... be there right at 10 am if  you don't want to wait in line for hours for things.  We left to come home between 11:30 and 12 and there were a ridiculous amount of people there.  I can't imagine just arriving there at that time since I'm really one of the least patient people on the planet and would not have waited for an hour for Paxton to take 5 minutes in the petting zoo and announce that he was "Done."

Anyway, Paxton and I arrived shortly after 10 and joined the Days for some hot dogs and french fries while we waited for the Burris family.  We picked an excellent location to eat since the balloon animal guy showed up just as we were finishing so we only had to wait for about 5 minutes.  Paxton and Alexander both picked dogs for their animals (and by Paxton and Alexander I mean me and Jackie).  They were super cute and came complete with leashes since we couldn't have "wild animals like that running around" according to Balloon Animal Guy.

We decided that we would try yet again to get a picture of the 3 boys together.  We keep telling ourselves that eventually they will cooperate and we will have a great picture to cherish for years to come ... this was not that day.

 Well, at least none of them were crying, even if we couldn't get them all looking at the camera and smiling.

And this was the winner out of the ones that I got.

From the epic failure that was "Photo Booth September 2012" we headed over to the petting zoo.  Cristy had already been through so she and Jackie stood in line for the wagon ride while Craig, Mark and I took the boys through.  I even splurged and bought an ice cream come full of grain for Paxton to feed the animals for $1.  He was so grateful to me for allowing him to have this fantastic experience that he promptly dumped the contents on the ground before we even got in the animals' pen.  And then he proceeded to try to eat the ice cream come himself.  *Give me strength!!!*  Paxton did really well and wasn't scared of any of the animals; he petted all of them: sheep, goats, calf, donkey, pony, even the potbellied pig!  He was pretty interested in the bunnies, but there were a lot of little girls holding them and not interested in sharing.  And we were out of the pen in like 10 minutes flat.  *Cute side note: Paxton was telling Auntie Kiz about petting the animals a few days later and informed her that "the sleeps say 'Aaaaaaaa."  Translation: the sheeps say Baaaaaa."*

After the petting zoo we rejoined Cristy and Jackie to wait for the wagon ride.  However, between the animal pen and the lineup, Paxton's balloon dog had a tragic accident.  It threw itself in front of an oncoming stroller to save Paxton from being run down by the careless on comer (like seriously, the place was crawling with children.  Maybe you should watch where you're going since you almost ran over my not-so-small kid.)  Poor balloon dog, it wasn't pretty and took about 15 minutes for the air to slowly leak from its body.  Paxton kept asking me to fix it and I had to keep explaining that Mommy couldn't fix it.  I'm fairly certain he's going to be scarred for life now since, as I mentioned before, I was not going to stand in line for an hour to get another balloon animal.  Anyway, finally it was our turn to climb aboard the magnificent Clydesdale-drawn wagon for our fantastic 5-minute journey around the field.

The wagon coming back to pick us up. 

So excited!!! 

Horse butts.

After the wagon ride, it was getting close to everyone's nap times but we let the boys run around like crazies for a while first.

Jackie was trying to teach them how to play "Ring Around the Rosie" but it didn't work out so well.  Alexander was just a big fan of the "fall down" part, but we all had lots of fun laughing at them.