Birthday Grand Finale & Fall Stuff

Sunday Night Supper was a wienie roast for my birthday. We got rained out the weekend before, but last Sunday was perfect. There was just enough chill to want to sit close to the fire. In fact, it was downright cold. And windy.

We had it all. We had hot dogs. We had chili. We had chips. We had marshmallows. We had smores. We had cupcakes. We had homemade banana pudding. We had popcorn. But the star of the show was. . .

Nestle Rich Milk Chocolate hot chocolate. Oh, yeah! I made it with milk and everyone loved it. I didn't even have a cup, but we made four big pans of it. There must have been something about heating it up on the campfire that made it so good. That and a few mini Hershey chocolate bars thrown in for good measure.

Every year at the campfire, the kids end up jumping on the trampoline. I don't think they got on it once over the summer, but come campfire night they can't wait to get on.

Jeff's mom and dad came up and ate with us. She brought the banana pudding. It was super yummy.

This picture pretty much sums it up. See the smoke. Yeah, that's what I spent the entire night dodging! Unsuccessfully. I do believe that the wind was blowing a hundred miles an hour. Everywhere I went, the smoke went.

Y'all know I love a fire, but I HATE smoke. I mean, I really HATE it. I feel like my skin absorbs the smell. Of course, I know it doesn't, but it seems that way. I used about half a bottle of shampoo that night and the next morning I could still smell the smoke in my hair. We even had to wash all of our clothes that we had on THAT NIGHT. I could not wait until morning to get ALL of that smell gone. OCD, yeah, I know. Poor Suz had to ride 50 minutes with herself and the kids all reeking of smoke. Bless her heart.

I brought out a pair of safety glasses thinking maybe they would help keep the smoke out of my eyes. Uh, no. Eli liked them though.

Every family must have a Candy Kid. In ours, Reid is the man. He loves sweets. It doesn't matter what it is. If it's sweet, he'll eat it. Even dark chocolate. Even coconut. Here he is roasting his marshmallow. Do y'all like roasted marshmallows? I sure do. This year I found some coconut ones and OMGosh, when you roasted them, they were yuuuuuummmmmy!

It was a lot of fun. And a lot of work. We stayed outside the entire time, but yet, it took us 45 minutes to clean the kitchen up. Go figure.

Had a job today and I took Tracy's pumpkin cookies. to share with the attorneys. We got a late start, so only two were eaten. It's kinda hard to eat cookies and take a depo at the same time. I left them with the attorney. You know, you wanna leave a good impression. Take it from me and make these cookies. They are light and fluffy and just put you in a "fallish happy place." My family really likes them too. Oh, and BTW, have one with a cup of coffee. It's heavenly.

Can you tell I'm writing this post while I'm starving? Everything I bring up seems to lead to food.

After the depo, I had some errands to run. One was to stop at Party City and get the finishing touches for Jeff's and my costume. Our friends, Beverly and Cecil, are having a Halloween party Saturday night. You may remember the pictures I posted of their beautiful yard on the 4th of July. They are having the party. I can't tell ya what I'm being, but I'll give you a clue. The first one with the correct guess will win a prize. Okay. Here it is. We all love her. That's it. That's your clue. Jeff's working from home tomorrow, so we're gonna have a dress rehearsal.

There will have to be some BIG changes to make these costumes work. We'll see. Unfortunately, the costume bug skipped me and went straight to Crystal and Suz. I'm no good at dressing up. I have no creativity. They could work on movie sets. And they've both won "Best Costume" at parties. Have you ever had the "best costume"? I haven't.

Haven't bought any Halloween candy yet. I've been looking. I love Halloween candy. Heck, I love Halloween. We have zero trick-or-treaters. Basically, if I buy the candy I'm buying it for me. I'm gonna hold out a few more days. I really do think that the month of October pretty much gives you an excused month to eat junk. Oh, but then comes November. Everyone knows that's definitely an excused month . And then December. Most assuredly, that's an excused month.

So this post has been about smoke and sweets. One of those is another clue to my costume. I hope you'll win the costume guessing contest!

Till the next time.

Oh, and one last thing. If any of you are a candy corn connoisseur, the big bags with the individual bags of Brach's candy corn are the very, very best. There are about six candy corn in each bag. That's the perfect candy corn fix for anyone. And they are waaaaayy fresher than the big bags. And only buy Brach's. The other ones are impostors. They are bad. OCD again, yeah, I know. Trust me on this one though.

Now, until next time.