Chubby Diary: Past and Present

With having done 2 Halloween posts last week, I didn't feel up to doing a 3rd post reporting on the "normalcies" of our week...so this post will bring us all up to speed on the past, and the present week.

Sometime in the last 2 weeks, we...

Attended our church's Family Movie Night...

This guy set up a fort before the movie with his friends...

And this girl camped out with her mama for the show...

(Ugh!...I just LOVE her!...)

Sometime in the last 14 days, we took down the Halloween decorations, and we put up the Thanksgiving ones...

...we spent time with our family...

...we attended cousin Robert & Iris's baby shower...

...First, we voted...

...and then, we celebrated election night (not to be confused with "we celebrated the outcome of the election") with our Orange County family! My Aunt decorated her house so festive for us!...

We were all so happy...that is, before the election results started coming in, lol...

My Aunt made the most AMAZING feast..."Pepperoni Bread!!!" This meal/dish/treat deserves a significant place in my chubby diary, so here goes...

First, my Aunt rolled out some bread dough...

...and then, she covered the dough with the thinest slices of pepperoni...

...and then, covered that with the thinest slices of mozzarella, provolone, and colby-jack cheese...

...then, she rolled it all up...

...and baked SIX (!!!) of these bad boys until they were golden-brown-gooey-goodness! Here are 2 of them!...

They were IN-CRED-I-BLE! For dipping, she had alfredo sauce, marinara sauce, and a cheesey spinach tomato sauce...but I dipped mine in the homemade ranch dressing she made! :-0 I might just say that they were the best thing I had eaten in like 40 days??? ;0)...

But after the election results had started to pour in...and things went from "OKAY", to "BAD", to "WORSE!", it was time for dessert! STAT!...

(But more about that later.)

And finally, as a family, in the last 2 weeks, we went bowling...for the first time!!! Rick and I had tried to go bowling one time before we had kids but there was an insane wait-time to get a lane, and so we moved our date night on to a new location/idea. Last year I had won a bunch of gift certificates to Boardwalk/Parkway Bowl, and so finally we cashed some of them in! :0) We had SO.MUCH.FUN!!!

Rick helped Wyatt get the hang of things...

And I was in charge of "Operation: Teach Beatrice how to bowl like an 'Old Lady' "...

They picked up their techniques in no time!

Wyatt was especially fun (animated) to watch...

Based on his hand gestures alone, I could totally tell what face he was making on the other side of these images, lol...

And Beatrice "nailed the old lady" (hopefully my fellow fans of the TV show F.R.I.E.N.D.S. will remember that line...ALTHOUGH, it had nothing to with bowling, lol)...

Rick had been HIDING his bowling talent from me ALL OF THESE YEARS!!! He was SO good! He got multiple spares, and he even got a strike on one occasion! This wife was SUPER IMPRESSED!

Now, I on the other hand was HORRIBLE! I remember being so much better at this game, LOL! But a note to my siblings: I completely forgot about MY bowling technique until after the game was already over! :0( I used to have the amazing ability to "steer the ball" using my "body language"...hmmmm, maybe I will have to channel my inner-child and kick some serious booty on the bowling lane next time, lol! I was just happy to be with my family. :0)

The end result...

We are ALL looking forward to going again!!!...

Okay, here's a little individual break-down of our 2 weeks...

In the category of "Things that don't matter AT ALL, but are somewhat interesting"...my van did NOT have a glitch, but DID in fact turn to "88888" on the odometer...

And in other "van news" I accidentally drained my van battery this week. :0( But with the use of an old lady's (I'm talking about old ladies tonight way more than I ever expected too!) jumper cables, and the use of google on my iPhone, I was able to successfully jump-start my van for the first time, and 100% on my own. I don't have a corresponding picture to go with this note...I was too busy trying NOT to destroy 2 vehicles, and trying NOT to electrocute myself in front of my worried children.

In "Wyatt's World"...

He purchased a Thanksgiving book at church that he bought just so he could read it to our family at "Family Dinner Night"...

...He found Fall...

...And he earned his 10th 100% on his spelling tests this year! The 10th 100% results in a special adventure of some sort...and this time, I took us to see the movie "Wreck it Ralph!"...

In "All Things Beatrice"...

I had fun playing with her hair...

...she LOVED the "Frosty" from Uncle Michael...

...And Beatrice has been puke-free for 2 straight weeks! :0) It's far more fun to watch her sleeping like "normal", instead of sleeping because she is/has "sickies"...

And finally, as for me, it just feels like I have been in a baking whirl-wind! For our election party at my Aunt's house, I offered to bring some "Praline Brownies" I had been dreaming about ever since I watched them being made on the Food Network many months ago. The brownies themselves are packed full of plain pecans, chocolate chips, and then chopped pralines. But after calling numerous candy stores in our city, NO ONE sold pralines!?!? Apparently, it's a candy they only seem to sell in the South. Soooo, my praline brownies first required me to make a batch of pralines from scratch...

And then I chopped those up, and added them (along with the other items I mentioned) to the brownie batter. The extra step/work was so worth it...just look at the caramel-y goodness seeping out of the sides of these brownies!!!...

And then there was a final layer to these RICH brownies...a praline topping/frosting!...back to my "caramel-making-station"...

For the SWEETEST TOOTH like mine, these were PERFECTION!...

I have not blogged about my new up-coming business yet (I'm not sure why I haven't, and this isn't the time/post to do it now) but, I met with the owner of the rental kitchen I will be using for my business, and she asked me to bring in some samples of my work. And since they got such RAVE reviews about a month ago, I decided to make her some of my Pumpkin Cupcakes with a Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting...

I doubted that the owner of the commercial kitchen, an old lady, (I may need to re-think this post being entitled "old lady," instead of "Past and Present") was a sports fan, but I'm trying to boost my sample/picture inventory and so I decided to make a cookie design that I hadn't already done in the past. Sooooo, it was the NFL for Granny, lol! There are things I would TOTALLY do differently next time around, but for my first time, I thought these football helmets came out pretty good! :0)...