Photography by Gabe

Today I downloaded photos off of a small digital camera I have, but don't use very often. Well, apparently Gabe does use it. I literally found hundreds of photos he had taken on the camera. Here is a glimpse of the world from Gabe's perspective. For the sake of space and the time it takes to upload photos I have only included his best work here. Just keep in mind there's plenty more where these came from!

Gabe's First Day of School

Gabe started preschool this week! I have been looking forward to this day for months, but it was actually really hard to let him go. He loved his first week of what he calls, "play school." I laughed when he came home and told me that a turkey says, "Goggle, goggle, goggle!" And later in the week he kept talking about putting Santa in a headlock. And so it begins . . .

Party at Fire Station #3

We celebrated Gabe's 3rd birthday today! We had a party at the Fire Station with all of his little friends. One of the firemen took us on a tour of the station, showed us the trucks and gear the firemen use, and then we were able to stay at the fire station to open presents and have cake. In the car on the way home Gabe said, "Mommy, that was a great birthday party!" That totally made all the work and stress so worth it! Happy Birthday Gabe!

The Birthday Boy!

Abigail, Jacob, Peyton, Gabe, Maecey, Kylie, and Sol

Fire Chief Porter

Zachary checking out the fire truck

Where's the fire? Gabe's ready to go!

Gabe and his birthday cake

Dear McKay,

I know you are a man - brave and strong, but this is how I choose to remember you. Happy times. When I was troubled your family was there for me. I wish I could have been there for you. I hope you have found freedom. I hope you have found peace.
Love you.

A Conversation about Butter

Last night at the grocery store I was looking at "I Can't Believe it's not Butter" and was about to put it into my cart when an older gentleman stopped me. He said that he'd read a study where they tested the molecular makeup of the stuff and basically found that it was ONE molecule away from being plastic. So he only eats real butter now. I told him that my mom and husband would agree with him that natural butter is healthier for us. I ended up not buying the "I Can't Believe it's not Butter" (mainly because he was still watching me.) I'm really trying to watch the calories I eat and butter was someplace I felt I could cut calories, but is it making me unhealthy? What's your feeling about butter vs butter substitutes? What do you eat?

TSO Concert

On Saturday John and I kicked off the holiday season by attending the Trans-Siberian Orchestra concert. I was having a hard time spending money on the concert since we just saw it last year, but John really wanted to go and a group of guys he works with were all going, so we ended up going too. And I am so happy we went - the concert was fantastic! I even came home from the and bought their newest album "Night Castle" (not a Christmas CD) and have been listening to it for the last two days! LOVE IT!

2009 Holiday Tour Promo



Listen to some of their awesome Christmas music here:






"Believe" possibly my favorite song from the Night Castle Album.



Last, but not least I took some video at the concert. My video is awful, but check out how close we were - it was SA_WEET!


TSO Website: http://www.trans-siberian.com/

Disappointed.

Yesterday, Gabe started using the word disappointed. I'm not sure where it came from, but he used it in several situations yesterday. For example, he was disappointed with his dinner. Then, when it was time to go to sleep he was "disappointed" with his sleep. Not sure I completely understood that one, but it was still funny.

Piggy Banks

I try to do some type of a "craft project" with Gabe everyday, especially now that it's getting cold. Tuesday we made piggy banks out of empty formula cans and I think they turned out really cute!

Halloween Fun? Run

The base sponsored a 5k and 10k Fun Run on Halloween morning, so we thought it would be a fun thing to get out and do. Well, Halloween morning was cold, wet, and windy. Ugh! We went despite the cold, but it made running pretty miserable - especially the head wind! John was pushing the kids in the stroller and was planning on running the 10k, but after pushing the stroller into the wind for a couple of miles he opted for the 5k. Shersti and I did manage to finish the 10k, but not withoutsome grumbling on our part! We must be fair weather runners. Thanks for sticking with me Shersti, it was a lot better being miserable together rather than running miserable and alone!

Porter and Gabe all bundled up and ready to go!

John and the kids.

Me and Shersti coming across the finish line.

Cul-de-sac picture!
Two other families from our cul-de-sac were also there running with their kids.
(Thanks Matt and Connor for taking pictures!)

Happy Halloween!

The Halloween Curse?

Monday had a serious discussion with Gabe about not choking our friends.

Tuesday had a serious discussion with Gabe about not hitting our friends.

Wednesday wished I could have had a serious discussion with Betty Crocker. It would have gone something like this... Betty, you don't know jack about sugar cookies! The end.

I consider myself to have some pretty wicked awesome culinary skills. However, three things have gone seriously awry in my kitchen this week. Did Betty ever actually try that recipe? And, just FYI, I seriously doubt Rosie O'Donnell ever made the paper mache ghost that came out of her craft book that I made last week. Anyway, that's beside the point. Point is, I should have gotten 72 sugar cookies from dear B's recipe. We ended up with 6 frostable sugar cookies. Argh. (So if you have a good sugar cookie recipe send it my way.) Seven years of cooking and I can count on one hand the number of inedible things that have come out of my kitchen. (And I don't even have to use all the fingers on that one hand.) Until this week that is. I think I might be under some sort of Halloween cooking curse.

Thursday, alas, pumpkin carving day! I love carving pumpkins! I gutted 4 pumpkins, carved 3, and spent a total of 7 hours working on pumpkins . . . not sure if I still love pumpkins. Gabe didn't want the guts on his hands, so he painted a couple of pumpkins (and my bathroom) while I scooped guts. Last year my cousin Ashley posted a recipe on her blog for toasted pumpkin seeds and I wanted to try it out. So I carefully separated all of the seeds from the guts, smothered them in all sorts of spicy goodness, popped them into the oven, and sat down to watch The Office. The timer went off and I thought to myself, "I'll get them out of the oven as soon as this goes to commercial." Why don't commercials come on TV when you NEED one? 15 minutes later and I pulled out burnt and I mean burnt pumpkin seeds! Boo, I was so sad. I don't think I have ever burned something this bad.

Let's just hope that Saturday's Halloween Chili Cook-off goes better. I'm apologizing in advanced to my friends if I'm still under this Halloween curse.

In other news, Gabe put himself to be at 5:45 last night (he totally missed the actual carving of the pumpkins) and woke up at 5:30 this morning. Lovely. This morning we went to Old Navy to try and snag some $2 costumes. We got there 10 minutes before the store opened and were probably about the 54th person in line. By the time we got in the door ALL of the costumes were gone. No, I shouldn't lie, there were still some dog costumes.

So we headed to the running store in search of some JellyBellys for the 10k in the morning. While at the store Gabe had to go poop. He has this fear of getting poop on his shirt when he sits on the potty. So whenever he has to go poop he takes off ALL of his clothes. So picture my child running across the store heading towards the bathroom yelling, "Poo-poo! Poo-poo!" all while taking off his clothes! Ah, precious moments.

We're really trying to break the naked pooping habit before he starts preschool. Which leads to the pictures I've attached: the first is Gabe's fall foliage collage and the second is a picture of him doing some pre-school worksheets. He does at least 6 of these a day and always begs me to let him do more! This kid is SO ready for school!!!

Hope you all have a Happy Halloween!!!

MY Halloween Craft

Meet our spooky front porch ghost! This was a craft project I thought Gabe and I would have fun doing together. It's paper mache covered with strips of fabric. While doing the paper mache Gabe didn't want to get any of the paste on his hands. So while up to my elbows in pasty flour Gabe says to me, "You're a big girl Mommy, you can do it by yourself." (I think he's heard that before.) So, I made this ghost all by myself! Yeah, me! So much for bonding time with my child, maybe next time.

Trunk or Treat

Recipes

As per your requests...

Apple Pie Filling
9 cups water + 1 cup cold water
4 cups sugar
1 cup cornstarch
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1/2 tsp. cloves
2 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 cup lemon juice

Bring 9 cups water and sugar to a boil.
In a separate bowl mix cornstarch, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, salt, lemon juice, and one cup cold water. Add to boiling water/sugar mixture.
Turn heat down to low and cook until the sugar and cornstarch is dissolved and mixture is thick and clear.
Fill hot mason jars with apple slices leaving 1 inch head space.
Pour mixture over apples until apples are covered, Leaving 1/2 inch head space.
Process in water bath for 30 minutes.
Makes 6-7 quart jars of apple pie filling which can be used in any recipe calling for apple dessert filling.

Yummy Apple Crisp Dessert

(my Aunt Melanie's recipe!)

1 quart apple dessert filling

3/4 cup brown sugar (I use Splenda brown sugar)

1 cup oatmeal

1 cup flour

1 cube butter, softened

1 tsp. salt

Pour apples in baking dish.

In a seprate bowl mix brown sugar, oatmeal, flour, butter and salt. Spread over the apples and sprinkle with cinnamon if desired.

Bake at 375 for 25 minutes.

And since we are talking baking, check out the cute pot holders my friend Shelby made me for my birthday! She is very talented and makes some super cute things. Check her website out by clicking on the button below or by going to: Poppysnaps.blogspot.com

Apples Galore!

Last Monday was my birthday. John and I thought it would be fun to take the kiddos to a local orchard to pick apples. It was the epitome of a perfect fall day! It was fun to walk through the orchard sampling all the different kinds of apples. I had no idea the different varieties of apples tasted so different! We'd walk up and down the rows of trees sampling the goods, find a type we liked, pick a bunch and then move on to the next variety. Grocery shopping for produce would be a lot easier if you could sample as you shopped . . . don't you think?

A bushel of apples is a lot of apples. Even though Gabe happily will munch on several a day we knew we had to do something with all the apples we picked. So we started canning apple pie filling. This was the first time John and I have ever canned, so it was a learning experience. We processed three batches of pie filling and by the last batch I think we finally figured out what we were doing. Next year it should be a breeze. If you could have seen us though, I'm sure it would have been quite comical. Up to our ears in apples, John telling me how his mom used to do it and telling me how crappy the design of our ApplePeelerCorerSlicer is. Me with a fever of 101 reading the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book while getting advice on the phone from my mom. Let me just quote Marie Ramone here, "To make the perfect meatball the secret ingredient is the love, without the love it's just a ball of meat." For Family Night on Monday we made apple crisp with our pie filling and it tasted so good, I think it must have been the love!

As a side note, THANKS to everyone for their birthday wishes and gifts. With the gift of green that I was given by many of you we purchased a carpet cleaner. John went to the store and chose it, brought it home for me, and he even cleaned the carpets for me! I had a lovely birthday thank you all.

Pinkie

We got this adorable Tickle Monster Laughter Kit in the mail today from Pinkie, my great grandmother. I've been thinking about her a lot lately and wishing I could see her before...no, I don't want to think about that.
She is one special lady. We call her Pinkie for a reason. Pink is her favorite color, but it goes beyond that. She drives a pink Cadillac, she has pink couches, her kitchen is pink, everything about her is pink! It really is something you have to experience to know just how much this woman loves the color pink.
Anyway, she also threw great parties, made awesome popcorn balls, and who could forget Pinkie's Halloween costumes? (Yes, that is Pinkie the punk rocker! I wish I could find the picture of her dressed as Michael Jackson! If anyone has a copy would you email it to me please.) Love you Pinkie.