Halloween (and my sis's b-day)

Happy birthday to my beautiful little sister!!! This is us circa 1994.

On an unrelated note... I was working on Halloween fun... I got these great little bottles on B-Muse.com and was having fun with them. The labels came from various sources. The fillings are all random stuff I had on my workbench.

Oktoberfest

We went to Oktoberfest... We love Big bear. :)
 We stayed in the village this time, normally we stay in a little further south. The cabin was fab. In any case, fun, food and beer were had by all. :)

These kids were adorable!!! They called them the "Polka tots"

I get a flower head band every year. :)

New ATC

:)

I used chalk on the background, along with paper from a chldrens book. I added stamping with alcohol ink, some gel pen accent, and beaded some thin wire, along with a key hole charm. :)

My uncle Harry died last night

My great uncle Harry passed away last night after a brief but brutal battle with cancer. He was my grandma's youngest sibling and an amazing guy. I grew up running around his resturant, playing darts in the back, and getting extra whipped cream on my hot cocoa. He always set the juke box in the bar so I wouldn't need to put money in and never complained when I drove everyone nuts with repeated playings of the beach boys and madonna. (To my defense, I was under 10. My music taste is much improved.) In 1990 our house was lost in a flood. We lost everything we owned. My uncle Harry and aunt Janise let us stay with them, even though it had to be a bit much having a houseful of people and made my birthday special. I turned 10 only a few days after this happened and as you can imagine it was not an easy time.

Here is to sneaking up after everyone else is asleep to eat birthday cake and drink big red soda. You will be missed uncle Harry. I love you.

Day of the dead

I made a mini shrine for the day of the dead. It isn't finished yet. The 'sugar skulls" were harder than they looked. The whole thing is about 3 1/2 to 4 inches tall. :)

Caramels.... our first attempt.

These turned out AMAZING!!! They are of course Toad tested and approved. They kept their shape and didn't get sticky. Perfect flavor. Love love love.

Ingredients
2 cups white sugar
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 cup corn syrup
1 cup evaporated milk
1 pint heavy whipping cream
1 cup butter
1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Directions
1. Grease a 12x15 inch pan.
2. In a medium-size pot, combine sugar, brown sugar, corn syrup, evaporated milk, whipping cream, and butter. Monitor the heat of the mixture with a candy thermometer while stirring. When the thermometer reaches 250 degrees F (120 degrees C) remove the pot from the heat.
3. Stir in vanilla. Transfer mixture to the prepared pan and let the mixture cool completely. When cooled cut the Carmel into small squares and wrap them in wax paper for storage.

Baby rattle snake

We found this little guy on the driveway. McHottness was nice enough to move it off the road so it wouldn't get killed. I realize it is a rattlesnake, but it is also a baby and pretty cute for a harbringer of doom. :) I named him Mr. Cuddles.

My husband is such a softie.

Curio box project

I started working on this after being inspired by a new art book McHottness bought me on altered dollhouses. I didn't have a doll house but I did have a stash of these little shelves from the dollar store. (I didn't know what I would use them for, but I bought several at the time)
It isn't finished yet, but it is coming along... I made a ton of button clocks too. Not sure if I will use them here or not.

Painting the base

cutting out the backgrounds

adding some other stuff

This fairy was sort of random. I decided to cut out limbs from text. Her dress is silk flower petals. Wings from a butterfly empherma. All in all though, I like her.

Button clocks, I used clock facesand antique buttons.:)

Adventures of Squishy and Ted

Mchottness went backpacking with the great and powerful Eli on the pacifica crest trail (just part, the whole thing takes months) leaving the Toad and I to our own defenses. We decided that a roadtrip to Los Angeles was in order. We spent two days at Universal Studios and managed to squeeze in the Santa Monica Pier Saturday night... Good times. Somewhere along the way we adopted the names Squishy and Ted. The Toad is Squishy.

Santa Monica roller coaster

Simpson ride

I do in fact <3 zombies. I respect anything that can eat your face if you piss it off.

The Toad, in serious Toad mode.

Cake ball party

We didn't actually manage to make many cake balls. We did manage to make a huge dent in Puente's booze though. :)

Our very druk friends

Honeye's cake balls. She manged to actually get some made. Unlike the rest of us. :)

Lasagna (mine) and fried rice (McHottness)

It is hard to take them seriously when Ryan makes that face. :)

Leo, me and Angelea

Old Town and Haunted tour

Ghost Tour

We had a blast... Toad loved the haunted stuff. We want to go back and tour the Whaley house when it is open. Old town is really nice. We hadn't been there before.

Cupcakes!!!

We got a new cupcake cookbook.... So obviously we needed to make cupcakes.

Ingredients:
Cupcakes:
4.5 oz semi sweet chocolate
1/2 c. milk
1/4 c. unsweetened cocoa powder
1 stick butter
1/2 c. sugar
2 eggs
1 c. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 package fresh raspberries
whipped cream (optional)

Glaze:
14 oz semi sweet chocolate
1/2 c. heavy whipping cream
1 Tbsp hazelnut liquer (optional)

Melt chocolate, milk and cocoa powder together in a small pan until smotth. Beat butter and sugar together until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating until combined. Sift flour and baking powder together. Flod flour and chocolate mixtures into butter mixture to combine. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 325.

To make glaze:
Melt chocolate, cream and liqueur together, stir until chocolate has melted. Top cupcakes and decorate with raspberries.

Muffins!

The Toad and I made our first batch of muffins from scratch.

2 c. flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 c. sugar

1 c. blueberries

2/3 c. milk

1 stick butter

1 egg lightly beaten

We substituted 1 c. of flour for almond meal for a richer flavor. Sift dry ingredients together first, add liquid, fold in berries. Barely mix the ingredients, and pour into pan. Makes 1 dozen muffins. 350 degrees for 15-20 minutes. Batter will be lumpy.

Sea life aqarium time

Toad and friend.... fish... you get the idea. Legoland in Carlsad opened a new aqarium, the Toad loves animals, so we went. I will say it was a great set up though more geared for younger kids. He didn't let that detract him from having fun, but it definitely was younger kid friendly as well.

Artist trading cards.

I've been getting into some new mediums lately... these are fun.

Basic paper, chalk, ink and embellishment.

The Devils slide

Devils slide
We hiked/backpacked the devils slide. It was awesome but my legs hurt for like 3 days. I need to get new hiking boots.

Rim of the world

More hiking... I'm hoping the winter is mild so we can get more hiking and kayaking in.... We stayed at the cutest cabin in Big Bear.

The view is great from the rim.

News on my mom's house

Newest update on my mom's house

The ball 2011

My Toad, Handsome little man

My awesome dress, THANK YOU LISA!!!

It was amazing as usual. Can't wait for next year. The toad is already looking at costume ideas. The suite was fabulous and we spent the afternoon on Saturday wandering Hollywood. The Toad loved it. He is officially a big city kid courtesy of mommy. :)

First Mortgage Corporation contact information

Hi everyone,








With the recent developments in my mother’s case, I’ve gotten some emails asking if there is contact information for my mother’s mortgage company. The company is First Mortgage Corporation. The first three are the only emails I managed to make work. The bottom two are the people we’ve been dealing with that keep changing what is being said and have held up my mom’s paperwork. Feel free to contact them, and let them know I gave out the contact information.











PDong@firstmortgage.com



RVargas@firstmortgage.com



SLehrer@firstmortgage.com



jsanders@firstmortgage.com



smandrell@firstmortgage.com



.

Make a call for MOM- Stop First Mortgage Corporation from foreclosing on a disabled teacher

Story about my mom

Everyone, please help me with this! It will be a short call
or email and it could help my mother more than you can imagine.


Congressmen Darrell Issa's office is aware of this situation
but I need to push it into the forefront with them. My mother is going to lose
her home in ELEVEN DAYS because a mortgage company refused to process paperwork
for a program to keep her in it. She was a teacher up until this last school
year and now because of a spinal cord injury is totally bedridden. They want to
make a disabled teacher homeless. It costs them money if they let her into one
of the programs, if they foreclose then the federal government backs the loan
and they get all the money. It is nothing more than greed.


Please help me by calling the Constituent services and
asking them to help my mom stay in her home. The more calls they get, the more
chance we have of them intervening on her behalf. Thank you so much.

~Kris




Leslie Bouchard is my mother, her mortgage company is First
Mortgage Corporation of Ontario.

Congressman Issa's Constituent Services:

Amy D. Walker or Phil Paul

760-599-5000

Or you can email

amy.walker@mail.house.gov

phil.paul@mail.house.gov