Monday night we started baking our treats for our Phantom goody plate. Every year we print out one of our Phantom poems on orange paper, and start the fun tradition of delivering treats to 3-4 families in the ring and run fashion. I always let the boys pick who our victims are going to be. 😉

This year I was a bit ambitious on our cupcakes. The directions sounded easy enough.

Oh well, ours look more like mohawked zombies but we had a fun time making them.

Davis always has a plan of attack, start on the side of the house!

It took us a couple houses, but by the last one Davis waited to ring the doorbell until Dylan was ready to run. Crazy kid! 😉

Meanwhile, Drake had a chocolate pretzel stick dipped in red sprinkles. This is what I saw when I looked back to check on him. My 13 year old turned into vampire!

Tip Junkie.com is proud to announce the winners of their latest giveaway!

Comment #17 was chosen and so the lucky winners are Laura from “The View From Our House”,

and Angie over at “Seven Clown Circus” for announcing it on her blog and referring Laura!

This is front and back with 10 layouts fully embellished with over 24 different papers, ribbon, brads, threading, and more! Keep this in mind for special events like baby showers, best friend birthdays, and Christmas.

My Latest Guilty Pleasure! The perfect blend of mint with a creamy filling. It comes with 2 bars so you can have one before lunch and one after. That is of course if you have the will power, which I don’t! 😉

I’ve got meals on the brain. It’s a touchy subject at my house these days. I hate to cook!! I can not stress this enough. Why you ask? Because I’m not good at it. When I cook for others, I break out in a panic sweat wondering if it’s going to be edible. It’s bad. I got a D is homemaking in Jr. High and am still scared to this day. (Literally, I have a scar on my arm.)

Did anyone see Oprah’s show with Jessica Seinfeld? She has this new cookbook out for kids where you puree veggies and cook them into their meals. I might try this out! Of course that means that my man will have to eat kid food since I refuse to cook 2 meals. One is hard enough. My kiddos are so skinny and they don’t eat very healthy. I like how organized the program is and it looks completely doable. We’ll see…

Another tip, www.Smilebox.com/familyfun has this fun program where you can easily upload your family photos and make a “Tried & True Cookbook”. I think it’s a great Christmas gift idea or a fun addition to a wedding gift. If I ever go OCD on cooking like I’ve done in the past, I’m going to make myself one.

By the way: If you do make one, please make one for me! I’m in major need of some recipes. Jen and Mandy have offered to help teach me how to do some basic cooking to gain my confidence. You rock Ladies! I just might have to take you up on it.

We had Dylan’s 7th birthday party on Friday. It was so much fun! He wanted a transformer party.

The Invitation

TOP SECRET! You are asked to help on a special rescue mission. Galvatron has stolen the matrix, without its wisdom and power the Autobots will be defenseless against the evil Decepticons. They plan to steal all the earth’s resources and destroy it. Please help the Autobots get the matrix back and save the earth. Join Dylan at our secret base, etc…

We went on a hunt for the stolen matrix.

Played memory Transformer style by matching up the guy to what it transforms into.

Played Transformer Bingo that I made. You can print it out for free on ExecutiveHomemaker.com.

Can you tell this is my kid!?!

After the hunt, snacks, presents, and cake, they watched the old Transformers movie upstairs.

I made each guest their own Transformer Bingo game as their party favor with a package of M&M’s inside. I play every bingo game with candy. 😉

Davis was home sick on Friday and made the “Happy Birthday” banner by drawing and cutting out each letter and then tying it together individually w/ string. I was really proud of him!

I uploaded everything including the agenda for the Transformer party onto ExecutiveHomemaker.com and you can print it out free, click here.

I was going to splurge and get my boys a monogrammed backpack this year. However, I was in The Children’s Place and found these backpacks for $12! They boys asked for them and I thought, “That’s a no-brainer“. So I bought them and was a little bummed but moved on.

Then last week I was completed inspired by Mique’s back to school post where she not only monogrammed her kids backpacks herself but also made them some really cool tags too. I was back to being excited and drove over to Micheal’s that day (yes with all 3 boys) and they picked these iron-on letters for their backpacks. Yeah!! (I feel a lot better considering how many of these backpacks I saw at school today.)

So I got an e-mail from Mer who was inspired by my placemats. Don’t you think hers turned out so great! I really like the fabric she chose. She wanted to know how I frayed the edges and I e-mailed her back with pics and told her I cut all along the edges and then washed them.

I’m constantly inspired by you amazing ladies. What have you guys been inspired to do?

I’m addicted to these Classic T’s and feel so strongly every woman should own one in all the basic colors, I’ve decided to host a Tip Junkie Giveaway! Post a comment and not only will you be entered but your friend will be too.

Add the blog button to your sidebar so you can get lots of entries and improve your chances to win!

Click here to check out Layer’s products on ExecutiveHomemaker.com.