Finished dresser and some food.

The dresser is FINALLY DONE!
Well, it's been done for a week now but I've been too crazy busy to get a decent picture to post!

Before:

This thing was really well built but sporting a finish straight out of the 70's. Now, I love vintage, I really do. But this thing was the oddest shade of...uh, I'm not sure what to call it? Green? Tan? Tanish-green?
Despite the scrapes and nicks here and there, whomever did the honor of refinishing forty some-odd years ago did one heck of a job! It took days of chemical stripping and sanding before I could even think about primer. Then after primer, several coats of paint, glazing and finally a clear coat!

After:

I wanted to do something different. I'm tired of being too matchy-matchy! So I decided on red to add a nice pop of color and tied in the rest of the colors by painting the knobs a blue that I already had in the room.



I also think the darker color will help in hiding all the dirty finger prints the kids will be putting on it! It is, after all, for their art supplies and homework!


Now for the food portion of the post-

We had quite a few red peppers in our co-op basket a couple weeks ago. If I didn't do something with them fast they were going to end up in the compost bin. So I went to PW and found this recipe for pasta.


It's a grown up flavor. The kids were ok with it but it wasn't their fave. The Mr. & I, on the other hand, really enjoyed it. It has a nice smokey flavor and the shaved Parmesan gives it a great kick.

On a kid-food friendly note, I made eyeball soup (tomato soup w/Parmesan balls & olives) to go with some grilled cheese cut in the shape of pumpkins.



I didn't tell them I was doing it, I just called them to dinner and heard them squeal with delight! The Halloween time of year is one of my favorites for sure!

Another kid favorite this week was this pizza casserole we threw together with the left-overs from my youngest daughters' birthday party.



We just tossed some baked ziti with a bottle of my homemade pasta sauce. Then topped it with the pizza toppings. The kids ate it up fast!

I have a confession to make. I, the person most in love with Halloween, has never attempted (until now) to make pumpkin cookies.
That's not the full confession...
I hate them. Well, I did, until now!



I have tried my fair share of pumpkin cookies in the past and have been sorely disappointed. Pumpkin w/cinnamon, pumpkin with chocolate chips, pumpkin with raisins, the list goes on.
Then I came across this recipe on one of my favorite sites Make it Do. They looked and sounded good. So I gave them a try.


Oh, my, goodness!
I made a double batch because we had family over on Saturday and I just packed the last four into the lunch boxes for tomorrow. Yes, they were that good!
You should try em!

That's all I have for now, but stick around for Halloween costumes. My living room has been temporarily transformed into a sewing sweat shop. Don't worry, only half crazy, incredibly chatty grown women will be working of their own free will. Well, sort of. There is the four year old that keeps telling us to get back to work until her costume is done! (Gotta love my bossy little niece! She's a hoot!)