Halloween Cupcakes

The kids are having a Halloween party at school today and I am in charge of bringing cupcakes.  Here they are.  I hope the kids don't get too much of a sugar rush.  :-)

Halloween Decorations

Here are some of our decorations

Halloween Cauldron Cake

I am so excited about Halloween.  I have decorated the house, made costumes and now I have made a cake to take to the school for the silent auction.  I saw an awesome cake on CakeCentral.com that was made by mari1995.  I used her cake as my inspiration,  this is my version.

I Love Cake

Cake, I absolutely love cake.  I watch cake shows on TV, I read cake books, I follow cake blogs, I look at cake pictures on the Internet.  I love all things cake. Here are a few of the cakes that I have made and decorated.

My husband loves to challenge me, he comes up with things for me to do and then waits to see what I come up with and if it meets his expectation.  This is fun for us, he loves to give the challenge and I love to beat his challenge into the ground.

My husband works for P.F. Changs and they have a management cookout each year.  My hubby decided I should make a P.F. Changs cake.  It could be whatever I decided but it had to do with Changs.

Here is what I made

Johnny Appleseed Day

The kids celebrated Johnny Appleseed Day at school on Monday with a party.  The grade parents for the class got together and decided on activities for the party.  We had an apple tasting, an apple craft, an apple story and homemade applesauce with ice cream.  I was in charge of the apple tasting.  My husband helped me with the tasting.  We brought in slices of Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Gala, Fuji and McIntosh along with a little information about each apple. 

I typed up the apple facts onto plain white sticker paper and printed them on my printer.  I found some cute apple print scrapbook paper at the craft store and used my paper punch to cut out a pretty shape which I then put the apple fact sticker onto.    I used a 3D-Dot to attach this onto to a piece of folded red card stock.  For those of you that do no know, which I did not know until the other day, a 3D-Dot it a piece of double sided adhesive tape cut into square.  It just raises whatever you are attaching to give it a 3D look.  You can also used a glue dot.  I found the 3D Dots at the craft store in the Scrapbooking section.     

The apple craft that the class made was a small paper plate that the kids used a glue stick to attach torn pieces of red construction paper to and then they glued on a green piece of construction paper to be the stem.  This craft was quick and easy.

The best part was the homemade crock pot applesauce.  Here is the recipe we used.

Ingredients:

• 3 lbs. apples
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1-1/2 Tbsp. lemon juice
• 1 tsp. cinnamon

Preparation:

Peel, core, and slice the apples. Combine in a 3-4 quart crock pot with the brown sugar and lemon juice. Cover and cook on high for 3-4 hours. Mash with a potato masher into the consistency you want. Stir in cinnamon and serve warm or cold.

 

We topped the applesauce with a little vanilla ice cream.  Yummy!!!

 

 

A little humor from one of my daughters....

 

When I picked the kids up from school that afternoon, I said to my daughter, "so what did Johnny Appleseed do?" to which she replied, "he didn't do anything, he's dead." 

 

Some tips for parents of newborn multiples

Having multiples takes some serious adjusting to in the beginning.  Here are a few tips that I figured out along the way.

1. Put the first initial of each baby on the side of their car seat.  This will keep you from having to adjust the straps to fit a different baby each time you put them in the car seat.

2. Don't buy too many preemie diapers. The babies are usually almost out of preemie size when they come home.  Also, do not open all of the preemie diapers that you have.  If they are not opened, you will be able to take them back and trade them in for a bigger size.  I found that most stores would let me take them back and get a bigger size, even without a receipt.

3. Clothes - Do not open and wash all of your clothes.  You may find that you do not like a particular type of clothing and if you open and wash them, you cannot return them.  This happened to me with Onesies, I really did not care for them and had opened all that I had gotten, which was many.  It would have been so nice to return them and get something different.
    Same goes for bottles and just about anything you buy in multiples.  I picked out Playtex Drop-Ins and bought about 8 for each baby, only to have none of them like the Playtex bottle and I had opened, washed and put away all of them.

4. Burp Cloths - Don't spend a lot of money on fancy burp cloths.  You can get a pack of white washcloths at Target for 3.99.  Burp cloths run about 8.99 for four.

What is Multiplicity?

Hi, I am a stay-at-home mom of five and a half year old quadruplets.  I decided to start a blog to share some of the things that I love.  I have learned a good bit about being a parent of multiples, I am pretty crafty, I dabble in sewing and I LOVE to make cakes.  I figured that was a pretty good combination of interests that I could write about and share some of my knowledge.  I hope you enjoy my blog.