Christmas and Chocolates -mmm-

This is something that I look forward to EVERY year!!! My whole family has been making hand dipped chocolates since as long as I can remember. The Friday and Saturday after Thanksgiving we get together and make the fondant, which is the center of the chocolates.

All the ingredients go on the stove and it cooks until the perfect temperature. Someone usually gets designated as the thermometer watcher. I remember one year I was the watcher and some splattered on my arm.... I started yelling and my sister Jamie ran over and licked it off my arm and burned her tounge! -SERIOUSLY this stuff IS that hard to resist!!! hahahahIt then gets poured onto a cool marble slab so it can set up. OH, if only you could smell just how good this smells! It takes all I have to not blister my tounge off and take a lick!Then the men come into the picture and they stir stir stir stir stir..... Look at how good Dad is, you'd think he was a professional hahaMy favorite is our very own sweet, loving, and beautiful recipe reader... Grandma Jake. She hates her picture taken so she would probably shoot me if she saw this! Love ya Grams!

And here is one of the many completed batches of fondant. This one is mint with pecans... We also have cherry, orange, coconut, vanilla, chocolate, and olympian cream. In a couple of weeks we will roll all of the fondant into little balls and hand dip them all in chocolate! Can't wait, I can't wait!!!

Playing in the... Rocks?

Fall is here, so it is supposed to be all about raking, jumping, diving, throwing, swimming in the leaves. Except when you don't own a tree, that makes it a little hard to do. OH, we have the cute little rock lined island which is full of pretty bark just minus the pretty things that should be growing in it :) So, my little stink gets to go outside in our yard and play in our... rock pile.

Don't touch it's hot

I had just put something in the oven and told Toby not to touch because it was hot. She went over and said "hot?" she sat down in front of the oven and started to blow on it. haha it was SO cute! TJ says this is a silly thing to blog about because "every kid does that" well... I posted it anyways! :)

Flintstones, meet the Flintstones

For halloween I like us to dress us up as a theme and this year the Flintsones just fit. I don't know how thrilled TJ was to be Fred and in a 'dress', but he was a trooper!

Every year at TJ's famillies halloween party they do spider races where you drape the 'spider legs' (panty hose stuffed with towels) across your body and you have to crab crawl to the other end of the living room and around a container of cheesepuffs and back. It is hilarious to watch! NICE LEGS FRED!!!!

Grandma Bybee also gives out prizes... Jumbo Mega containers of cheesepuffs!!! Everyone gets so excited to win a bucket of one of these bad boys. To bad we "accidentally" forgot to bring ours home! Darn! And yes Tahsha, this is for that caramel apple picture! hahha

This year TJ's dad and step-mom were Dog the bounty hunter and Beth (his wife) There costume turned out awesome! Her boobies are actually cut out of the pants from a bare butt costume-shhhhh- I thought that was so funny!!! Very creative!