The Search for Miss Direction: Terrific Texas Thursday

The past two weeks I tell ya, geesh! I don't know if I've really had a spare minute to breathe let alone take in what's going on around me. I'm really looking forward to about 8pm Saturday night and a quiet house and a few days of getting things back in gear. My crew is actually heading off to Illinois on Saturday, but as I had long ago scheduled our awesome MOPS 2nd annual chili cook off to be here at the house, I won't be joining them. So between Halloween, parties for both kiddos, regular activities and playdates, work which I've been logging quite a few extra hours at this week, cleaning the house, packing and getting everything in order for Saturday, it's been crazy! Good crazy - happy to be busy crazy, but crazy none the less.

Today was another busy one! The Bean and I (after getting NJ off to school) ran to drop off Pizza Kit announcements at Beechview (anyone want to buy Little Caesar's pizza kits from a really cute 6 year old? You can even have them delivered directly to your house!) we headed over to one of my MOPS friends, Sara's house for a morning of play and making some fun treats for one of her daughters to take to school tomorrow. (Witches broom string cheese and pretzels and apple mouths - too cute!) We had a blast (Kayla can't stop talking about how much fun she had with the girls) and then we headed over to the Gymnastics academy for some 'spooky gym' time. A great morning all around! We then rushed back here for lunch, packing and a snooze (for the Bean) while I headed into work for awhile.

We got Noah home and the kiddos worked on their coloring pages for Texas. Like usual, I won't spill the beans, you'll have to see what they came up with in the pictures below.

Noah has a den meeting tonight for Cub Scouts, which meant an early dinner was necessary for him and Grant to get off in time. (Good thing I prepped ahead last night!) I made this yummy Texas Shepherd's Pie to go along with the fun treats Sara had sent us home with and made cornbread (very loosely) based on this Little Texas Cornbread recipe. It drives me nuts when someone comments on a recipe (how good/bad) it is and then lists all the things they did to change it and then rate it based on their changes. You're not rating that recipe, you're rating your fixes then silly people! So I can't tell you how this one would actually turn out, as I nixed the cheddar cheese, cream corn and chiles and instead swapped in pepper jack cheese and canned corn and chiles. Everyone here liked my version ;-) I had planned on making Texas Delight for dessert tonight but apparently pecans didn't make it on my shopping list for the week. Oops. So instead I went to a recipe I had pinned on pinterest a while back for these Frozen Peanut Butter Pudding Squares. Figured they were easy, portable and we'd have extras for whenever then. Grant ate the left over filling in a few of the left over crepes from the other day last night and loved it.

Alright, I'm off for the evening because the Bean and I are having some girl time (yep, nail painting we are!) and then I've got to get prepping tomorrow night's Halloween spooky dinner. And cleaning. And packing. And putting together the stuff for Noah's class party. And working. And... have I mentioned yet that it's crazy around here this week? More from a Halloween-tastic Gatchel house tomorrow. So until then...

Texas Fun Fact of the Day: Texas was an independent nation from 1836 to 1845. Texas is the only state to enter the United States by treaty instead of territorial annexation.