A few family photos

I always love getting family pictures taken in the fall with all of the beautiful colors. My wonderful sister-in-law offered (again) to snap some pictures of us with her fancy camera. And I am so thankful we didn't have to hand over a big fat check to a professional this year because it was pretty much chaos and pit stains from the word go. It is hard work to capture our 3 lovely children sitting poetically still with actual (not CHEESE) smiles, looking remotely in the same direction at the same time. But Rebecca was patient with us and managed to grab a few precious moments in time at this busy phase of our lives. Thank you, my friend, we don't deserve you.

Fun in the Kitchen

One of my New Year's Resolutions for 2012 (yes, I'm a nerd) was to work on being more relaxed and easy-going. Now you may be saying to yourself, "hey, wouldn't an easy-going person NOT make New Year's Resolutions based on the fact that resolving to do something is, in principle, kind of uptight?" And to you I say, "baby steps, my friend, baby steps"

Anyways, here we are in mid-October and I'm questioning the amount of progress I've made toward my goal. So today, with John working at the office all day and my only plans being to remain in my pajamas for as many hours as possible, I decided it was time to get cool, and be that mess-loving, easy-going mom my kids never knew they were missing out on.

I saw this idea on Pinterest a while back to create a fun, kid's cooking/baking experience for little ones who love to be involved in the kitchen. And mine do. Whenever I try to sneak away in the afternoon to start whipping up dinner, it's never more than 10 minutes before I have two little helpers sitting Indian-style on the counter arguing about whose turn it is to dump ingredients and whose turn it is to stir. And while its fun bonding for us all, my mild germaphobia along with a tendency to get overwhelmed by a huge mess, make it a continual growing and stretching experience for me personally.

So for this project, you basically take a muffin tin and fill each cup with all different textures and types of food/spices from your pantry. I used dried rice, marshmallows, spices, pasta, sprinkles, sugar, beans, cinnamon sticks, etc etc. You get the idea, just use whatever you want. Then give each kid a bowl with some flour in it. Spread out measuring cups, spoons, spatulas, whisks, a few spices for shaking and water for mixing, and let the chefs go to town creating whatever their little hearts desire. This blog-which I would link you to if I could only find it again!- suggested putting all supplies in one of those under-the-bed long storage bins to help contain the mess. And I would say this is a must! Thankfully I had one of these bins hanging around still from my college dorm days.

The kids LOVED this, and once they realized it wasn't actually an all-you-can-eat buffet of "these taste spicy mommy," they got pretty serious about their cooking. They played and played until they had used up all the ingredients and created big soupy, delicious looking concoctions of goop. I convinced them both to taste their yummy creations, to which they both ate heaping spoonfuls, and then quickly spit out in disgust. But I enjoyed a good laugh. It was only once they came up with the brilliant idea to move each other's "soups" back and forth into different containers by scooping it up with their hands that not-so-easy-going mommy came back and we had to call it a day. But it was a great, tactile learning activity for a rainy morning and one that I'm sure they will be begging to do again in the future. And I feel one step closer to being that easy-breezy girl who laughs in the face of that big, giant mess.

Trick-Or-Treat 2011

Another successful year of trick-or-treating is behind us and we should have collected enough candy to get us through until next October. This year we had two mobile children running down the sidewalks, one of them being an overly-excitable 3 year-old who definitely had the hang of this whole- getting candy from strangers holiday- down pat. And I'm pretty sure our son could have a bright future in sales should he decide to go that route. He was persistent, banging on doors while repeatedly ringing the doorbell, bringing even those folks trying to hide in their dark houses sheepishly to the door to offer him some morsel of goodwill. He scored an unopened roll of Ritz crackers from an Indian woman who offered them to him as "cookies" because she felt bad that he had caught her empty-handed. He fearlessly negotiated, boldly asking for 2 pieces of candy when 1 was offered and 3 when 2 were offered.  He asked to trade candy he didn't care for and requested detailed descriptions from strangers of candy he had never seen before. He let himself in to someones house to pet a dog and then charmed the owner into a bonus pack of bubbles in addition to his candy. He made it his mission to "care" for his sister by always stating that he needed some extra candy for "Norah over there" and people chuckled as they threw a few extra pieces in. He pointed out a fake spider stuck to our neighbor's front door, asked if he could have it, and then shrieked with delight when she told him to go ahead and take it. Yes, he will do well in sales someday, I have no doubt about it. John and I were just laughing watching him race from house to house like his pants were on fire. It was just too much. And yes, we did have many little chats with him along the way about being polite and grateful and not asking for more candy or to trade candy, but his head was spinning way too fast to hear any of that boring parental advice. And he did bring home quite a loot for us to pilfer through tonight while he's sleeping so I guess we'll work on those little behavior glitches tomorrow...

Apple Orchard....in the rain

Wow, it has been quite a rainy fall so far. I can count on one hand the number of beautiful, sunny days we've had that are conducive for outdoor fun. And I do love those rainy days when I can stay in my pajamas, avoid mirrors, and drink 13 cups of coffee; but I love them a lot less when the kids use their pent-up energy to tear apart the house and compete in 'who can cry the most times in 5 minutes' competitions. Can you say stir-crazy??

Our weekly playgroup has been trying to organize a field-trip to Lynd's Fruit Farm for several weeks to pick apples with the kids and if we waited for that perfect sunny day, then it probably wasn't going to happen. So we headed out this morning despite it being a cold and gloomy, rainy day. I had the kids dressed in cute coordinating, fall-ish outfits and had visions of photographing them skipping together through the orchards, laughing for the perfect candid shots. But instead they were bundled in warm coats with their noses running and soaked up to their knees from the constant tripping over fallen apples. Eli had a blast filling up his bag and running around with his friends while Norah just kind of stood there looking at me with a "what did I ever do to you to be standing here in the rain?" kind of face.  

We crammed our bag full with all the apples it would hold and then hurried back to our cars so we could blast the heat and get to the lunch part of our day. My sister Rebecca and I spent the rest of the afternoon channeling our inner Martha Stewarts and cranking out monstrous batches of delicious home-made applesauce.  It was a fun day and one of my favorite fall traditions to look forward to each year.

See that look I'm talking about?

 Eli was very into it. He was ducking under branches and always 10 steps ahead of me

Our Friends Izzy, Monica, and Caleb

A partial representation of the kids, none being in the mood to smile 

This is a really foul picture of me, but I love Eli's fake smile too much not to post it

All hands on deck to help out with the applesauce making. And one very patient daddy.

The fruits of our labor. These 11 jars will likely only last a few months in our house with the way our kids eat applesauce, but it feels nice to have a fully stocked supply to kick off the fall.

Trick-or-Treat

We enjoyed another fun year of trick-or-treating tonight with our wonderful friends and family. It seems crazy that one year ago we were moving into our house on beggar's night and I was trying to hand out candy while unloading boxes.

Eli was out of control hyped up to "go get some candy" and we have been talking about it for days in our house. And despite a windy cold evening, he was firing at all cylinders as he ran down the street, barreled up driveways, and boldly asked total strangers for "2 more treats please" after they had already deposited candy in his pumpkin. The boy has never met a stranger, which is slightly concerning for his parents, but he's sure to be the hit of all the parties in college (which is very concerning for his mother).

We trick-or-treated with a lion (cousin Claire), Mickey Mouse (cousin Max), a pea pod (Norah), a fellow Elmo (buddy Grason), and Joe Dirt (my husband). It was such a great night and so fun to watch all their little faces.

Stocking the Freezer

My mom came over a few nights ago to help me make a whole bunch of home-made applesauce to stock the freezer with. I was introduced to my new favorite kitchen gadget, the Victorio Strainer. Its fantastic. It strains and grinds to the perfect creamy smooth texture and automatically separates the waste. It would be perfect for making baby food and I absolutely want to get one. Early Christmas present maybe?
Eli quickly learned how to turn the apple crank and loved getting to help with all the preparation. It was a fun night with my mom and now I have plenty of applesauce to get us through the winter. Well, that is if I can hold Eli back from eating it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.