What's been stewing in the Melton Pot

It's time for a little summary of what's been going on since my last post.

1. Russel Owen Goodson- I will start with the best thing. He's my cute new nephew that was born on the 9th. Welcome to the family Rowen! (that is what I think he should go by)
2. Catan take 3- Last Friday (12th) we had our third installment of monthly Catan. Good times. One of these days I hope I win. If there are people out there that want to be included on the invite list, let me know. It's an open invite to people I know.
3. The best Twilight party ever thrown- So since I knew my house was already going to be clean because of Catan, I offered my house to my fabulous friend Amy to host her Twilight party last Saturday. To be honest, I don't really read so I was going out of my comfort zone to pick up anything with that many pages, let a lone four of those things with that many pages. I enjoyed the books (although I wouldn't consider myself a REAL fan since I mostly just read them so that I could go to the party.) I'm glad I did read them though because it was good times. Amy can host a party at my house anytime. She made my house look so classy. Actually I still have a few of the decorations left up to keep up the festive feel--or maybe because I'm lazy. I also have to give Amy and Lori a shout out for their games. AWESOME. Amy put together a game where you had to match different candy bar names up to clues from the books and Lori put together the most fabulous trivia game ever. I was truly impressed. My only contribution to the party was just a little bit of food (there were so many good things to eat they didn't really need my contributions--by the way the spread shown above was not my handy work, I'm only responsible for the sad little white tray on the bottom right of the picture). I was silly and decided to make something new for the party (I know I swore not to do that after the baby shower experiments gone stressful). The colors for the party were black, white, and red so I thought a fitting treat would be red candied apples, and dark chocolate and white chocolate dipped caramel apples. Thing was I'd never made either before. Here are somethings I learned from that experience: Foil (even sprayed with pam) does not work as a non stick surface when it comes to caramel, Braeburn apples are a perfect apple for both candied and caramel apples --sad store red delicious apples are not, getting the wax off the apples was not as easy as I thought it would be, and make sure your apples are really really really dry before dipping them. All in all it was a fun filled night

4. Visitors- About the time that our Catan night was getting started our little evacuee family showed up at our door trying to escape Ike. My friend Courtney and her kids stayed with us for a little while until Houston started to get gas, power, water, and food available. It was fun having them visit. E LOVED it. We had fun going to a baseball game, hanging out at the park, watching movies, and playing Wii fit. Thanks for coming guys. You are welcome any time (As is anyone else that wants to come).
5. Another sugar shock- I spent most of yesterday making some example cookie bouquets. Now that I've put them together and taken pictures, who wants to eat them for me?