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.

Got perspective?

I just need to vent for a minute so I'm apologizing in advance, but I need to get this off my chest. I have been sick all week. Fever, congestion, cough, just feeling like garbage. All I want to do is get some sleep, but I have two kids to take care of so I can't get the sleep my body so desperately needs. All I want is for my husband to be home to watch the kids so I can get some rest. But, it seems like there is always something going on. Between work and church it seems like he's gone a lot. Finally I have survived the entire week and I'm so excited it is Saturday so he'll be home to help me find our house after it's been buried in a week of Gabe running wild since Mom hasn't felt good. Well, guess what it's Saturday and hubby is gone again. As I was in the shower feeling bad for myself that I was on my own again I started thinking about how pathetic I was being. At least I have a husband who is hard working and willing to serve. Did I mention that he left me (his slightly ill and ornery, but perfectly capable wife) at home to go and help his boss move? His boss's wife (not even 40 years old) died of a heart attack just over a month ago. So yeah, I wish he were here with me, but I really need to count my blessings. My kids still have me in their life, my dishes need to be done, but at least there was food on our table, I'm tired of being sick, but it makes me appreciate being healthy. See where I'm going with this? I really just needed to find some perspective to get through the day. Hope you all have a blessed day!

Porter is 6 months old!

Weight: 16 lbs. Height: 27 in.
Porter is such a HAPPY, easy going baby! We often say that he's "just happy to be here" since all you have to do is look at the kid and he'll smile at you. I can take him anywhere with me since he's just so laid back and chill, and never really fusses. Really he is like my dream baby come true! He is just so easy to have around and the fact that he's so freakin' cute doesn't hurt either! He's become quite mobile in the past couple of weeks. He now rolls and scoots all over the place! He adores Gabe, and he often will roll over to wherever Gabe is playing and soon I'll hear, "Mommy, Porter's hitting me!" or "Mom, Porter's eating my toys." It's very funny and I'm sure just a inkling of what's to come in the future. We sure love Porter and the sheer happiness we feel from just having him around!

Pumpkins & Chili

For Family Night this week we went to the pumpkin patch and picked the lucky pumpkins that will soon get full facial reconstructive surgery at our house. Afterwards we ate dinner at Skyline Chili. We've heard a lot of talk about Skyline since moving to Ohio and decided to finally try it for ourselves. I don't know how else to describe it other than different, but really good. So good in fact that I forgot to take a picture of my "3way" (spaghetti, chili and cheese) before I devoured it. Here's a picture of my plate when I finally did remember to take a picture. It was good! We will certainly be returning to Skyline.

Da Da Da . . . it's Super Mom!

I survived the DMV today with two kids. Gabe was asleep when we arrived at the DMV so instead of putting a leash on him I opted for the double jogging stroller thinking he would go back to sleep once he was in the stroller. I was wrong. I had two very awake kids as I went in to the Highway Patrol office to take my test. Thankfully they weren't busy and they immediately got my started on my test. 40 questions on the test, I have to get 30 correct to pass. The first question was about Ohio seat belt laws. I got it wrong. Crap! Maybe I should have studied for this test. I assumed it would be easy. Luckily, I was right in my assumption and got the next 39 questions correct. Yeah for me! All though, the question about what the legal blood alcohol level was for a driver under the age of 21 really confused me - isn't it illegal to drink if you're under 21 so shouldn't the answer be 0? Well, 0 wasn't an option. Anyway, I guessed the right percentage which was not .08% and passed my test.
Next we went to stand in line to get my license. This was humorous since the rope dividers weren't wide enough for my double jogging stroller. So we bumped and scooted and had NUMEROUS people help us through the line while I felt like a complete idiot for having such a big stroller. When I got to the front of the line I saw there was NO way I was going to be able to get the stroller up to the counter and over to where they would take my picture without having to move all of the rope dividers again. So I abandoned the stroller which meant I now had Porter in my arms and Gabe was a free man able to wander around the DMV. I think everyone in the office knew Gabe's name by the time we left. He just went about making friends with all the people standing in line waiting . . . . I swear the kid's never met a stranger. The paper work was filed, my picture was taken and I'm now a legal Ohio driver! I'm actually amazed at how well behaved my kids were (especially Gabe) since this could have been a real nightmare. Instead, I left feeling a lot like Super Mom. Feeling like I could take on anything after experiencing the DMV with two kids. So bring it on (just in case this Super mom feeling doesn't last forever could you do it today?).

The Apron Crusade!

So here are pictures of the aprons I just finished making. I started out making just one for myself, but since I always seem to have a little helper around I decided to make one for him too. And how can I make one for him when helper #2 will surely want one someday? Thus, 3 aprons. Why aprons? Read the article below and I'm sure you'll want to wear one too! (The fabric I used for the boy's aprons is so cute! Click on the picture to see a larger view.)

Apron Evangelism
from: Hillbillyhousewife
One day not too long ago I was struggling with the boys over some minor details which come up when a lot of people live in a small shack in the woods. Details like the value of picking one’s dirty clothes up off of the living room floor when company has been spotted driving up the mountain. The boys were unusually stubborn that particular day. Rather than fight with them over their household responsibilities I picked up the dirty clothes myself and crammed them into the washing machine. I ran some soapy water in the sink to get a start on the dishes before the company arrived.
Now usually I am not one to hold a grudge over small disagreements like laundry on the living room floor. This one settled in my brain though, and I felt compelled to mull over it for several days. It was the outright insubordination which offended me the most. After I figured that out I went in search of solutions.
About the same time I was in the process of Spring Cleaning. I was having a great deal of trouble motivating myself to wash the walls in the kitchen and mop the back porch where the cats live (blessedly with a doggie door so they don’t need litter boxes).
Well, the more I worried about these twin dilemmas the more I felt the need to discuss them with the queen of solutions, my momma Darthulia. As I suspected she had the perfect solution. Darthulia told me I needed a uniform or costume which would reassure myself and others of my intention and status in the home. She claimed it would remind me of my duties, inspire me to greater levels of cleanliness (which as a hillbilly I sorely need), and reaffirm my authority in the home.
Darthulia then went on to describe the homemaker’s uniform to me in detail. “Imagine the modern archetype of the housewife.” She began. “Think Donna Reed, or Beaver Cleaver’s mom. They wore full skirts, and stockings, and heels when they vacuumed. But you knew they were doing housework because they had their aprons on. A string of beads graced the necks of their classic shirtwaist dresses, and a lacy bibbed apron proclaimed their role as matriarch in charge of household management.”
I only have a fleeting memory of Donna Reed. I sort of wish she came on television regularly so I could take notes but she doesn’t in my area so I am stuck looking for other heroines-of-the-home to model myself after. Most of what momma said made sense to me though. That very day, I put on a full skirt, stockings, sensibly low high heeled shoes, and a string of pearly white beads. Then I sat down at my sewing machine and ran up a couple of bibbed aprons, decorated with lace and ribbons.
I made up the pattern as I went along using a small rectangle for the first bib and a heart shape for the second bib. Then I stitched lace around the edges of the bib and attatched it to a simple tie with a full apron skirt gathered to the waist. I made them short waisted so they would fit my maternal figure a bit better, and voila, I was set. I put the first apron on, a creamy white or ecru, and looked in the mirror to admire my handiwork. I expected to see myself staring back at me, probably looking a little silly in this frilly piece of confection designed to protect my clothing.
Boy howdy, was I in for a surprise. In the mirror I saw a vision of the homemaker I have always strived to become staring back at me. Her cheery face glistened in the sunshine. Her hair tied up neatly in bun looked authoritative, and compassionate all at the same time. The apron covered several figure flaws and accentuated the fertile curves of the woman I saw in the mirror. This woman had purpose. She had status. She had clout. I stood there, contemplating the wonder of the homemaker that shone through my image in the mirror. “This is who I want to be” I told myself. “This is the Keeper of the home, with a capital ‘K’. ”
I wear my aprons every day now. I have made more, in different colors and configurations so as to be pleasing to my senses. I have come to believe they are a like lacy bits of lingerie, only worn on the outside, and a quite a bit more respectable. When I put on my aprons the children mind me better, wandering visitors immediately know my role as a stay at home mom. Door to door religious missionaries assume I am a virtuous woman and cheerfully move on to the next house. Fred thinks I look cute as a button, and neighbor children hug me more often.
I like my aprons. They have changed my life, raising my standards, inspiring me to greater feats of home making skill, and making me more effective as a parent. Whoever thought that a dollars worth of fabric and lace could effect so many changes on one woman and one family? Since my success with aprons I have become a true believer. I am now called to spread the word among my fellow housewives. Join the crusade by sharing your love of aprons with friends, family and internet buddies around the world. Together we will change the face of the House Wife, the world over.
Blessings,
–Maggie (The original Hillbilly Housewife)

Meet The Sticker Truck

(Also commonly known as the ice cream truck.)
The Sticker Truck is what Gabe called the ice cream truck when he first saw it this summer. John and I called it the Sticker Truck too, so all summer Gabe was oblivious to all the sugary delights that were waiting for kids like him just inside the truck. He just thought it was cool to see all of the stickers and hear the (obnoxious) music the truck played when it drove around the neighborhood! We made it through the entire summer without him knowing the truth about the sticker truck. Well, the entire summer, until now. Just a couple weeks ago while playing outside one of our neighbors actually STOPPED the sticker truck and bought his daughter and my son ice cream! WHAT WAS HE THINKING? All the months of deceiving my child gone in an instant! He got a good laugh when we told him about the sticker truck concept. And Gabe sure enjoyed his Spiderman Ice cream! I wonder if he'll remember about the ice cream truck next summer or if we can play the sticker card again?

Gear Fest & Giggles

Couple of videos to share with you. First is just a cute video of Gabe making Porter laugh. The other is just some cool biking and kayaking we saw at Gear Fest on Saturday. Enjoy.

Tech Warrior

This post is all about Tech Warrior - which is what John did for two weeks this summer. It basically is a mock deployment exercise for techy guys who don't get a lot of field experience. Basically he was living in a tent, shooting guns, eating MREs, being exposed to tear gas, throwing grenades, driving Humvees, flying in helicopters, etc. It sounds pretty miserable to me, but he had a great time!

I thought of asking him to blog about this, but the chance of that happening are slim to none. So I'll try to describe what's happening in the pictures, but I'm sure I'm going to mess it up since I don't speak military very well and I wasn't there. Which I'm sure will result in lots of eye rolling, head scratching, and groaning from my hubby when he reads this post, but regardless here we go!

Tech Warrior

July 2009

Fort Drum, NY

Bunch of guys in front of a big truck.

Big helicopter (maybe a chinook?)

John standing next to the chopper

Walking towards the chopper

The back of Lt Heaton's head

"Look! We made Shake n' Bake and I helped!"

Exiting the chopper (John is 3rd on left)

Catching some shut eye

John looking like he's smoking...

Would test scores increase if more teachers strapped guns to their thighs...

John shooting a big gun. Very sexy.

Lt. Heaton

A bad day at the office.

Riding in a Humvee (John is on the left)

Adam, John, and Johnny

(I think driving the Humvee was John's favorite part of Tech Warrior.)

John and Johnny flying Space A

The airplane.

It's big, it's grey, and I'm sure it has a cool name.

John, Adam, and Johnny and a bunch of people I don't know.

Group photo...John's the one wearing camo.