Chocolate Eclair cake & Mutated Tree

Busy weekend at the Lombardo's! Since the Browns lost, I mean played Thursday night we had the weekend to tackle that stupid tree. I don't know who in their right mind thought, "oh, great idea, a tree with thorns is perfect for this house". They were stupid! The stupid tree wasn't so stupid when we moved in 2 years ago. It was tiny and held up by the 3 sticks (a lot of good those did). Then during a blustery thunderstorm it broke in half. Yes, in half. It bent over like a dead sunflower. So we chopped it off, or so I thought. After a year and 3 months this is what we were dealing with:

It was a mutated, thorn sticking pain in the rear!

Have you ever seen such a beast?!? I know that it rained, really, really, rained for a day in two weeks but really? I know I wine a lot but the thorns were ridiculous! Who wants a tree with thorns except the grouchy old man who doesn't want his neighbors walking up his path unless they have the possibility of being thorned to death! I know that that was a question but I feel strong about not having a thorn tree.

I'm not even going to start in on the green tree! But between the two of them, you couldn't check out what car was parked in the street because you couldn't see it. You couldn't even see my fall flag that I have hanging between the two beasts!

It was out of control! So Michael did some chopping!

I walked around and pointed to the limbs that needed to be cut down, it was a hard work!



Before



After



Before



After
You can see the front door again!





    

After the tree expedition I made one of my favorite desserts! Chocolate eclair cake.

Ingredients:

1- 8oz cool whip (thawed)

1- 6oz vanilla pudding

3 c. milk

1 box graham crackers

*I made the chocolate frosting using the Nestle's recipe off the cocoa but I usually just buy a jar of chocolate frosting on the cake isle. **I was feeling adventurous.

9x13 pan

Directions:

Mix pudding with milk, whisk 2 minutes. Place in fridge and let set-up. Layer graham crackers on bottom of pan. When pudding is set, mix in cool whip until all mixed. Pour half of pudding/cool whip mixture over graham crackers. Lay another layer of graham crackers on top of pudding. Pour remainder of pudding on top of graham crackers. Layer with another layer of graham crackers. This is the part I usually place the jar of chocolate frosting in the microwave (with lid and foil removed) and cook for 30 sec. intervals until melted. Pour melted frosting on top of graham crackers until you can no longer see the crackers. Refrigerate for 6 hours before serving. Enjoy!

It tastes even better the second day, especially for breakfast.

 Last but not least, (I told you it was a busy weekend) I put up some decorations. I'm not a huge Halloween person but I like pumpkins, pumpkin bread and pumpkin candles. I bought the legs/hands from ABC distributing a few years ago. The print out on the mantle I found on pinterest and I had an old 8x10 frame laying around. The white & orange pumpkins on the mantle were at Alberton's (don't tell my parents) and I just replace the candles with them. I really want a banner that says Happy Halloween or something cute but I'm afraid Colt will attack it. It looks naked, I might need some new decor....