Happy Thanksgiving Week

It's been a little while since I last posted, so I thought I'd better do it while Abby is asleep.
This week has started out wonderfully. Tonys dad flew in yesterday to come play golf this week. I don't think anything better could have happened to him for his birthday, which is tomorrow. Happy birthday Love! You'll never guess where they are now?!? I think they are even going to take Jordan to the course tomorrow. (They aren't taking me because Jordan hits the ball farther and more consistently than I do, but I'm getting better!). It'll be fun for Jay to go hang out with the guys.
I found out why you don't release your springform pans immediately after taking your cheese cake out of the oven. My cake was so beautiful when I removed it from the oven! When the instructions say to loosen the cake from the sides, it doesn't mean to loosen the spring! Look what happens!





Talk about ruining your cheesecake! At least there's chocolate in it, so it'll still taste good!
I've still been playing around with chocolate, but I've also tried some other things. I bought some new molds, and some are able to handle hard tack candy. Here's a picture of the Christmas trees I've made.





The one on the left is the hard tack, while the one on the right is white chocolate.
In celebration of the upcoming Christmas season, I've been practicing making chocolate sleighs. I've made several, but this is one that's lasted long enough to get a picture. (Emily doesn't like the bittersweet chocolate.)





I've always loved chocolate dipped pretzels, so when I found molds, I of course had to buy one. Doing the different colors takes a lot of time, but they sure look neat!





Abby has just come down stairs, so it's time to bid you farewell. Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!
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Happy Turkey Day!

So, I'm a little early, but we can celebrate Thanksgiving all month, right?
One night, while contemplating what I can make with chocolate, I thought about turkey-pops. With a little bit of candy coloring, I should be able to come up with something. Well, here's my first turkey-pop. Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.


My husband probably thinks I could use my time more wisely, but I actually had fun making these. I can't wait to do my next batch so I can try some different methods. Boy do I love chocolate!
The weather here has been beautiful all week. Just like it was one year ago when we first entered Texas. Can you believe it's been a year? I really do miss Washington state, but Texas is growing on me. It's too big not too, right!?!

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Halloween

I don't know about the rest of you, but my family had a blast this Halloween! It was lots of fun to be able to go all out instead of packing up the house!
It was weird to be trick-or-treating, though, without freezing to death. Weird, but very nice!


Emily, being Emily, wanted to be a "Star Wars Guy," so here she is in her Jenga Fett costume. Forgive me if I mispelled the name.
Abby will still let me choose things for her, so she was a little vampiress. She looked so cute and wore the headband most of the night.
Jordan wanted to be a Ninja. We just had to keep reminding him not to use his ninja moves on his sisters.
Tony wasn't too excited about dressing up, but I finally talked him into it. Here's his version of a Zombie.


I tried to get him to let me drizzle fake blood over his clothes, and smear him with dirt. For some reason he didn't want me to!
I probably had the most fun of everyone. My friends and neighbors only knew it was me when they saw me with Tony or the kids. What do you think? Is the vampire look great for me or what?!?


My favorite part was the fangs. If you look closely, you can see them. It's a good thing I go to the dentist next week!

So, on another note, I've been having lots of fun with chocolate. I've been learning how to properly temper and mold it. I thought it would be fun to serve my kids ice cream in chocolate bowls, so that's what I've been trying to make. Needless to say, I haven't had much success, but I've made a number of messes! The latest method has been to coat a balloon with the chocolate. It works great, unless the balloon pops! I'm going to be finding chocolate for weeks!


Here's a picture of the one bowl that didn't explode in the process, along with a very, very, small version of the mess chocolate makes when it explodes. It was fun, though!

Just a quick Happy Birthday to Mom and Megen yesterday! I hope you were both spoiled rotten! Love ya!

To Angel and family, you are in our thoughts and prayers!

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