Weekends

Being employed once again REALLY has me appreciating the weekend.  The were times not too long ago (such as last week) where part of me entered each weekend with anxiety because it seemed like the competing expectations of all that "time" turned into crankiness/stress, but this weekend it was so nice to relax.  I did "movie night sleepovers" with the kids in the master bed on Friday and Saturday (never did it back-to-back before) so we could all sleep in and Matt could hit the sack early to recover from the week.  We still crammed a lot of activity in: a birthday party, pumpkin carving, decorating, unpacking (yes, still from our August move-in), and baking for the kids' school holiday parties (the girls will be wearing costumes to school tomorrow and walking to a local nursing home to sing holiday songs and put on a parade, before returning to their classrooms for a Halloween pizza party); plus Matt got in an afternoon of football/studying at the O'Club (Officer's Club--and the Giants won [yay/phew]) and still spent plenty of time with us.  :o)

Feeling very well rested and ready for the week ahead!!  This will be my first week at work without my predecessor, and I am very excited to get more of a handle on things.  Hopefully my base access card will be activated soon so I can actually log into the insurance and billing systems (otherwise I will be spending a *lot* of time collecting forms at the pharmacy).  :o)

Semi-homemade (as in, I used munchkins) Halloween cake pops for my youngest's class party.  Unfortunately, by the time I signed up for my oldest's, all that was left was the far less climatic vegetable tray.  Oh well, at least we are using a Mickey Mouse sectional serving plate and it includes whipped cream cheese for a dip (Big Sis' FAVORITE).  :o)

This was my first time making cake pops...and I am VERY glad I used munchkins because I messed up SO many times just with the decorating.  I can't imagine if I actually tried to make the balls, which are apparently even harder to get right on your first go-through.  There was actually a point where I had to wash off the iced-on faces with a paint brush because they started running, and another point where I had to redo the entire batch because a domino-effect ended up happening causing all the still-runny candy coatings to splotch together.  This is definitely a dessert I would like to get good at, though.  It is one of the girls' favorite treats and there are so many options in terms of just about everything (flavors, themes, etc.).