Ummm, let's try this again!

Ok I know it's been forever but I thought I'd try my hand at blogging again. There's been a lot going on in the Wedlund household. Cadence has started school, Luke has turned 2 years old, and we just had Halloween! Cadence decided that she wanted to be Elsa for Halloween this year, so we decided to dress up as a family again.

Steve decided to be Kristof, I decided to be Anna, and we decided Luke should be Olaf. The kid's costumes we decided to buy, but due to lack of availability I had to make Steve's and my costume.

I tried making them by hand off a pattern, however, that did not go so well.

I ended up making Steve's out of a T-shirt and mine out of a tank top and other pieces I found on Amazon. Thank goodness for Amazon! I used a tutorial off of a website that I found on Pinterest for Steve's and my costume and I think they turned out pretty well.

We had a blast at trunk-or-treat. We even decorated the car like frozen. Everybody wanted to visit the frozen car. We even had a tent set up so the Toddlers could hide inside if they wanted. Although to be honest it was mostly to keep Luke busy.

We also took a trip to the pumpkin patch with our good friend Stephanie and her daughter Ila. The kids had fun playing in the hay, climbing up the hay pyramid, and going through the hay maze. We also let them pick out a few small pumpkins to take home, although it ended up being about 10 I think. Boy do my kids love pumpkins!

Cadence also had spirit week at school. Her favorite was crazy hair day.

All in all, we had a great but busy month. We have an upcoming trip with some good friends to Tahoe. I am so excited I've never been to Tahoe and I'm looking forward to it.

On the job front, Steve has been trying to transfer back to Florida. No luck yet but we will keep chugging along until we get something. Although I'll miss my friends here, it'll be nice to be able to be near family again. (Miss you guys!)

Luke Austin Wedlund

The Last 5 Months!

Sorry Everybody! I know it's been awhile but I am going to make up for it, I PROMISE! So I am going to post pictures from Christmas, Cadence's Birthday, and Easter.
For Christmas,I forgot to take picture while we were in Florida :o( So I am posting some from when got back. She loved opening her presents but her favorite was the bouncy ball we got her.
We had a few friends over for her birthday and she had one little friend, Kaitlyn that joined us that night. Their favorite thing was playing with all the dress up trunk that Grammy and Auntie Lianne got her! I also tried, tried being the key word here, to make cupcakes for her birthday.
For Easter, she LOVED finding the eggs, her daddy hid them so had to help her a little to find all of them.

Trunk or treat!

We attended our church's first trunk or treat. It was a lot of fun. Cadence was a blue butterfly and Steve and I were Entomologists. She loved running around in her outfit and absolutely couldn't get enough of the trunk or treat fun. I made homemade marshmallows dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with cookies and cream bits...yum!

Recipe:
Ingredients
3 packages unflavored gelatin
1 cup ice cold water, divided
12 ounces granulated sugar, approximately 1 1/2 cups
1 cup light corn syrup
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup cornstarch

Directions
Place the gelatin into the bowl of a stand mixer along with 1/2 cup of the water. Have the whisk attachment standing by.

In a small saucepan combine the remaining 1/2 cup water, granulated sugar, corn syrup and salt. Place over medium high heat, cover and allow to cook for 3 to 4 minutes. Uncover, clip a candy thermometer onto the side of the pan and continue to cook until the mixture reaches 240 degrees F, approximately 7 to 8 minutes. Once the mixture reaches this temperature, immediately remove from the heat.

Turn the mixer on low speed and, while running, slowly pour the sugar syrup down the side of the bowl into the gelatin mixture. Once you have added all of the syrup, increase the speed to high. Continue to whip until the mixture becomes very thick and is lukewarm, approximately 12 to 15 minutes. Add the vanilla during the last minute of whipping. While the mixture is whipping prepare the pans as follows.

For regular marshmallows:
Combine the confectioners' sugar and cornstarch in a small bowl. With a sieve, generously dust an 9 by 13-inch baking dish with the confectioners' sugar and cornstarch mixture. Return the remaining mixture to the bowl for later use.

When ready, pour the mixture into the prepared pan, lightly spray a spatula with non stick spray for spreading evenly into the pan. Dust the top with enough of the remaining sugar and cornstarch mixture to lightly cover. Reserve the rest for later. Allow the marshmallows to sit uncovered for at least 4 hours and up to overnight.

Turn the marshmallows out onto a cutting board and cut into 1-inch squares using a pizza wheel dusted with the confectioners' sugar mixture. Once cut, lightly dust all sides of each marshmallow with the remaining mixture, using additional if necessary.

Melt a good dark chocolate in a glass bowl by microwaving on high for 30 seconds, stirring, then repeating until chocolate is smooth and shiny. Put Marshmallows on lollipop sticks and dip in the chocolate. twirl upside down in the bowl for a few seconds to get rid of the extra chocolate, then sprinkle with cookies and cream bits or sprinkles and lay on a wax paper lined sheet tray. Put int he fridge for 10 minutes or until the chocolate is hardened.

Crafts

So lately I have been really into crafts. I got these great ideas from a site called pinterest.com. The first one I did was a magnetic makeup board. Bought a $5 frame from a thrift store, painted it, covered a metal sheet with fabric, added some jewels, glued magnets on the back my makeup, and bought plastic bins from the dollar store. The second one I did was a Jewelry frame using welded hardwired mesh and an old frame I wasn't using anymore.

Pumpkin Patch

It's that time of year again! We went back to the pumpkin patch this year and had tons of fun. We went with our good friend's Ken and Cindy. We went on the Haystack pyramid, through the hay maze, ran through the pumpkin patch, and Cadence absolutely loved getting her picture taken through the picture boards with holes in them.She didn't want a big pumpkin (she said they were yucky) but she absolutely loved the small ones. She also wanted the "scary pumpkins" or the gourds that had knobs on them too.

Florida.... Finally!

Sorry everyone! I know it has taken me months to post pictures of our trip to Florida in June. The past few months have just flown by. Cadence loved spending time with her family in Florida. We were super busy, we had a bridal shower, a wedding, went to Sea World, went to Pensacola,and spent lots of time with family. Although Cadence and Ian didn't see eye to eye on everything, she just can't stop talking about him. Everyday, still, it's "Ian and Clara's house mommy?" She also wants to talk to her grandparents...everyday and every time she sees some one with red hair she calls them Ana. We can't wait to go back in December to see everyone!