Rocket!!!!

Today was a lazy day, Rob had the day off :) We woke up and had went to Grandma and Grandpas for breakfast! He made his famous biscuits and gravy!!! Then the boys decided we needed a rocket...and of course it couldn't just be one of the little ones...

so we found a park and built our rocket!

Ready to launch!

3...2...1 Push the button Kyecen!

Where did it go?!! All the way over there...Kyecen found it!

We did it! We launched our first rocket!!

Mommy's turn!

And then we fed the duckies in the pond our leftover french fries! They were noisy, QUACK QUACK!

Hope you all had just as fun a lazy Sunday as we did!!!
Mal, Rob and Kyecen!

Our Cooking catch up...

So we're going to do a catch up on our cooking adventures...These are the things we started with and made us realize that we love cooking, and cooking together :) I'm not going to go into too much detail on each, just that they were all very yummy!!!

Chicken Marsala with Parmesan Risotto

Chicken Cordon Bleu with Homemade Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans

Meatballs on Spaghetti with Caesar Salad and Garlic Bread!!

Then we used our meatballs the next night for Meatball Subs!!!

Chicken and Dumplings...we had a little trouble with the dumplings, not too flavorful and a little salty, but it was yummy! We took everything to Grandma's house so that we could share some of our cooking with them!

I LOVE baking!! I spent the whole day baking once, making my favorites Sour Cream Sugar Cookies and Monster cookies, and I tried a new one, a Chewy Ginger Molasses Cookie!!! They were amazing!!!

My favorite Chicken Nachos! With my homemade guacamole :) I marinate and cook the chicken in Frank's Red Hot, then put it on the Chips with lots of Cheese! Serve with Guac and Sour Cream!

We've also tried our hand at making our own pizzas, I think this one needs some fine tuning, they don't look like much, they were good though!!!

All caught up!!

Happy Halloween!

So I know its way past halloween, but I think I've gotten caught up to our recent adventures and can start going backwards now : )

We didn't do any cooking or baking for Halloween, but we did get creative! We made costumes for a Caddyshack themed party, our costumes for trick or treating, and we went to the Pumpkin festival at Schnepf Farms!!!

So I'll just put pictures up :)

We went on a double date to the Caddyshack party with my parents, and we even got my dad to dress up!!! He was the groundskeeper, and Rob was the caddy...my mom and I were just cute golfers!

Mommy and Kyecen trick or treating!

Bumble Bee and Rex the dinosaur

Dylan (not sure what he is...) and Kyecen as Rex the dinosaur

Rob is a Superhereo!

How cute are we :)

Schneph Farms Pumpkin Festival!

Kyecen flew the airplane all by himself! He was the first kid to get his up in the air :) smart boy!

Rob, Mommy, Kyecen, David, Stacie, and baby Maddalyn! We all rode the train around the farm! Kyecen LOVED riding the train :)

Pumpkin Patch!

Found the perfect one!

We got our faces painted!

We watched the BMX show, Kyecen thought it was so cool to watch them flying in the air.

Kyecen rode the carosel

We went to the petting zoo, and gave a baby goat a hug :)

Mommy and Kyecen rode the Bumblebees!!!

We hope everyone had a safe and fun Halloween with lots of candy!
Mal, Rob, Kyecen

Dylans 12th Birthday!!! November 20th!

Happy Birthday Dylan!!! I can't believe you're 12 already!

So we made Dylan a special birthday dinner : ) He wanted Steak, Crab Legs, Mashed Potatoes, and Cheesy biscuits...just like Red Lobster, but better :) We also added in some grilled chicken and caesar salad so that everyone was happy! Its the traditional birthday dinner in the Hoopes household, so we didn't expect anything less.

YUMMY!

and an ice cream cake for dessert!

Hurry and blow out the candles or that cake is going to melt!! Thats a lot of fire :)

Then we celebrated again with some friends and a game truck, pizza, and another birthday cake!!

SO COOL!

They are all ZONED OUT!!!

Chad, Kyecen and Colby got in on the action too!

"Happy Birthday to you!"

Happy Birthday Dylan we love you!!!
Mal, Rob and Kyecen

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!!! We celebrated a day late, so that we could work on Thanksgiving day.

We worked all day on real Thanksgiving and then baked our little hearts out all night long...Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Cheesecake, Pumpkin Roll, Pumpkin M&M cookies, and Deviled Eggs!

Pumpkin Pies!

Pumpkin Cheesecakes! (We got the wrong cream cheese...fat free...it doesn't blend smooth like real cream cheese so I think they ended up with little pieces mixed in not smooth like it should be, so lesson learned never bake with fat free cream cheese! It just doesn't work as well, but we had to use what we had)

Pumpkin Roll! (I think this turned out the best, we had a little issue of getting it out of the pan...next time we will make sure to have the wax paper, and maybe that will help the cake not to crack when rolled?!)

Pumpkin Cookies with M&M's! My favorite cookie!!! My Grandma Hoopes used to make these all the time, they are a Hoopes favorite :)So I followed the recipe, and maybe the copy I have is different than the one my mom has cause I think my had too little pumpkin in them...you can barely taste it, they are yummy though!!!

Deviled Eggs!!! They cooked perfect! I always have trouble trying to determine when hard boiled eggs are done...I also don't think I got the mixture right for the inside, a little too much mustard maybe?? But we decided to pipe the filling in, cause it makes them look better :) Its all about the presentation!

So we started the day off with some yummy snacks to get through all the cooking!!

SHRIMP COCKTAIL

HOMEMADE SPINACH DIP AND PUMPERNICKEL BREAD! I've never made spinach dip, I usually just buy it...It was so easy and turned out so yummy! A seasoning packet, frozen spinach, water chesnuts, and sour cream! So easy!

Then we got to the good stuff : )

Grandma started on rolls (with a little bit of Kyecen's help) and cinnamon honey butter, we made green bean cassarole, candied yams, mashed potatoes, bread pudding with a praline sauce, and of course the TURKEY and STUFFING!!! We kept everything simple and stuck to classic recpies with simple ingredients.

Grandma making rolls from scratch!!!

Kyecen helping Grandma rolling the dough into balls.

Rob carved the Turkey!

We finally finished cooking everything and we could sit down and eat!!!

Turkey leg!

Bread pudding with Praline Sauce and whipped cream!!! Yummy!!!

We had fun and it all turned out great! Now to eat some leftovers : )
Mal and Rob