A Pumpkin of a good time!

A little over a week ago, my friend Sue & I went with our kids to a fall festival at the park at the end of our road. We went on Joshua's first hayride, got Joshua's face painted (where he tore down their sign and was running with it - thus me standing with the sign), and colored some pumpkins from the pumpkin patch. It was lots of fun!! (My friend Sue took all the pictures)

The Hay ride

The face painting sign debacle. :)

The Pumpkin Patch and no, Joshua isn't asleep. And the last pic is Joshua's pumpkin that he decorated and is proudly displayed in our home.

A Thrifty Day

Today was a thrifty day. We started off by going to the used book store to exchange some books. I got Joshua 3 new books and 8 books for myself and still have over $10 in credit left for the books I brought in. Yay!
Then, I have decided that Joshua is bored with his toys as he has matured quite a bit since last Christmas & most, if not all, of his birthday toys were for outside. So his toys aren't really toys that he can 'do' anything with. They are toys that he can stare at as they play music or figures like dinosaurs that he can't really do anything with other than have them kiss all the other figures (which is what he does with them). AND as it rained all day yesterday his only entertainment was harassing the dogs. Anywho, since Christmas is around the corner I don't want to overdo the toys...so we went to one of our favorite places, Goodwill and I am just so tickled! We found a Little People Castle with all the little action figures for $3!! I thought that was great. One of his only toys that he really plays with right now is his Little People Farm...but he could use something a little different. I also found an entire box full of 2 separate wooden trains...one of them was obviously homemade for some special kid and is just sooo adorable. The other one has different stacking blocks that go on top. They don't have tracks or make any noises which makes them all the more charming. The box of trains was a little more expensive at $9 but I felt it was well worth it.

So Joshua has a few new toys & books to hold him over till Christmas and I only spent $12. Not too shabby!

Christmas Projects & Traditions

I've been busy working on Christmas projects and recently came across a felt applique Christmas banner that my mother had in her craft stuff. It was about 2/3 finished so I've been working to finish it. Which reminded me how much I love to do applique. So I also decided to get some applique stockings since I really haven't done stockings for us as a family...I just had generic stockings. So I found some cute ones that kind of go with our personalities. Anyways, I'm really enjoying finishing my mom's banner and knowing that I will get to hang it this year and that her hands were a part of it!

I'm also really tickled because my brother, his wife, and my three nieces are "most likely" going to be here for Christmas. I just love lots of kids around at Christmas and think it will be so much fun!! Of course, now I'm thinking of all the ways that I can make it really special - especially since this will be the kids first year without Grandma and ours without our mom. I really want to emphasize the true meaning of Christmas & have been trying to find ways to do that. Like giving only 3 gifts - one to represent gold, frankincense, & myrrh or having each family member writing a letter to everyone else and putting it in the stockings. Anyways, I'm trying to think of what would work for our family. We'll see where I go with this.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread

After all I have heard about Jessica Seinfeld's new book - Deceptively Delicious (which is about basically sneaking in vegetables, etc into every day food) that it inspired me to make some Zucchini Bread - SOOO yummy!! P.S. This isn't one of her recipes as I don't have her book - just heard about it...EVERYWHERE lately.

Chocolate Zucchini Bread
6 tbsp cocoa
3 eggs
2 c sugar
1/2 c vegetable oil
1/2 c applesauce
1/2 c sour cream
2 cups grated zucchini
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 c all-purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 c mini- semisweet chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350. Grease & flour two 8 inch loaf pans. Combine ingredients. Bake for 1 hour. Dust with powered sugar after cooled. (you can easily freeze one of the loafs to enjoy later too!)

My Little Pumpkin

Joshua has just become more and more fun each day. His continued growth in language skills is just fascinating. It is just truly amazing how much these little sponges pick up and SOO quickly. If I could just learn 1% of what he picks up in a day I would be even more of a genius than I already am. :) Here are just a few of the cute things I got to be a part of today...

• After letting the dogs out, I always call them..."Rilllleeey...Chessster!" and Joshua mimics me and says, "Riiiii-weeee....chaaa...cheee!" Oh to hear his little voice calling the dogs..I just can't express how absolutely darling it is.
• Today, he picked up a little stuffed ghost that he got last year that I just pulled out of the closet and said....'oooooo' (like the ghost sound) and I swear if I've ever made that noise it was only once...so it's always amazing when he does things that I don't intentionally teach him.
• I also recently made him a stool for the bathroom - to wash his hands & brush his teeth. So today while I was peeling vegetables I let him stand on his stool next to me - it was so precious - cause he was sooo intrigued with everything I was doing. I can't wait till he can really start helping me bake cookies & stuff. Of course, I've wanted to take a picture of him on his new stool... but...again...my camera is broken. ***Big SIGH***

Well, that is just a tiny glimpse of all the adorable things I get to be a part of every day - it just warms my heart!!

Sons are a heritage from the LORD, children a reward from him. - Psalm 127:3

Time Out!

We practice 'Time Out' at our house and while I'm still debating it's effectiveness, Joshua has gotten really good at sitting there when we tell him. Well, tonight I was so tired of bringing him to the time out corner that I said, 'Go put yourself in time out' not really thinking he would. Imagine my shock when my little 18 month old son went over to the corner and sat down.

Now, originally 'time out' was effective because it really seemed to be a punishment. Now, he just sits there and looks all cute and repeats, "Don't Touch" since that is the usual offense that gets him there in the first place. But the second he gets up he just goes back to doing what he wasn't supposed to. The scariest thing is how much my son reminds me of all the stories I've heard about my husband growing up. Like John being told he was going to get his mouth washed out with soap and he would say, 'Lava please'. Well, that is what my little precious son is doing, acting like 'time out' is just another place in the house to sit and not seeming to care at all that it's a punishment. ***Sigh*** And we aren't even to the terrible two's yet! ;)

P.S. If you have more creative & effective punishment techniques for an 18 month old...I GLADLY welcome them all!!

Good ol' Pumpkin Pie

I feel all naked again without my camera...so just imagine a pretty little piece of pumpkin pie with a dollop of cool whip on top right HERE! This is a pretty simple recipe but the reason I'm sharing is because most people use evaporated milk in their pumpkin pies and I find this recipe makes a much better pie and sets up much better without overcooking!

Pumpkin Pie
1 can pumpkin
1 can (14 oz) sweetened condensed milk
2 eggs
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
pinch salt
( you can also add cinnamon & nutmeg for more flavor)
pie crust

Preheat oven to 425. Combine ingredients, pour into pie crust. Cook for 15 minutes. Reduce temp to 350 cook additional 30-35 minutes.

Swaps & Christmas

I am so excited because I'm participating in the Sister's Shoebox Swap and it's really got me in the crafty mood again. I'm so excited about the little treats I'm putting together and it's also getting me in the Christmas spirit. I love making Christmas gifts because I know how much I love receiving homemade stuff. So along with my Swap stuff I'm also working on my Christmas stuff too! Unfortunately, because I don't want to ruin any surprises this is going to be a rather dull post because I can't share all my cute craft ideas. **Sigh**

Pushing Daisies

It seems every year there is a new T.V. show that I like that for some reason gets canceled or doesn't get renewed and it makes me so sad (like Justice from last year :( ). So even though my blog is not so influential that it will make a difference I am marketing the new show Pushing Daisies for my own personal gain (i.e. - so it doesn't get canceled). Anywho, the previews made it look so weird but after I saw a review that gave it 4 out of 4 stars I just had to watch it. It was really cute and totally different than the typical run of the mill shows. So PLEASE give it a try - it's on TONIGHT at 8pm and tell me what you think! It really surprised me how good I thought it was.

P.S. Why is it that you can spell canceled with one 'l' or two 'l's'? (This is a rhetorical question so don't feel like you have to answer.)

"Special" days

I recently lost my standard gold hoop earrings that I wear everyday. So I had to find something else that was simple but pretty and I remembered that I had a pair of my mom's earrings that would be perfect. My mom absolutely LOVED these earrings...but the more I think about it, I don't remember her wearing them ONE time! For my mom was saving them for a special occasion. Now, these might not be fancy to most people but they were special & fancy to my mom but yet, she never wore them because that special occasion never came. This has really been heavy on my heart lately as I've been wearing the earrings every day and I think why do we save so many things for a "special day". Why does my china only come out on holidays? Why don't we make more days "special days"? I really am taking this as a challenge for myself to make sure that I make more days "special". So John might just come home tonight to find us dining on our china! I hope maybe you will make more of the "everydays" special too!

Crescent Roll Apple Pies & Spiced Apple Waffles

Since it's apple season I've been really inspired lately to eat a lot of apples and cook with apples so I found these two great recipes one at Cherry Hill Cottage & the other at The Homespun Heart. Also, if you haven't tried a Honeycrisp Apple - you have to look for them at your grocery store - they are TO DIE FOR!!!


Crescent Roll Apples - I made this recipe as is - but would probably only use 1/2 cup mountain dew in the future. It tasted more like cobbler to me and my husband LOVED it!!!

Spiced Apple Waffles - I have to admit that I am weak to using Bisquick as the easy way out so I don't know if my waffles were even close to Monica's but they were definitely inspired by her recipe. I simply added pumpkin spice, vanilla, & shredded apples to the Bisquick waffle recipe. YUM!

HELPFUL TIP: I always have more batter than we need so I made the rest of the waffles and froze them and had one this morning by popping it in the toaster!

Ghosts!

We drink a lot of milk so I decided to make little ghosts out of some of our extra milk cartons.

To make - simply clean out the milk cartons, cut small holes in the back, decorate with a permanent marker and sting Christmas lights between them. They are now sitting on our front porch. And they glow better at night.

Joy in the midst of sorrow

Yesterday was the 5 month anniversary of my mother's death so as usual I wanted to take a minute to post about her and a funny story that happened a little more than a month after she died. My brother and I were on the phone together and as he lives in another state we hadn't seen each other very much after the funeral. And he said to me, "How have your tenths been?" - Well since it was a conversation over the phone I had no clue what he was talking about. I didn't know if he said, 'tents', 'vents', 'lents'...I just had no clue. And as I said, "huh?" - he would repeat "tenths", "What??, "TENTHS!". Finally, I was like what the heck are you talking about? And he said, "You know - your 'tenths' - you know - the day mom died." And I had to say, "uh...well, she died on the fourth." Which he replied, "Man, I was all sad on the wrong day." He will probably kill me for posting this but I couldn't help but think that it was a really funny moment in the midst of true sorrow. And I know, my mom, if she has any clue at all up there in heaven what's happening down here, had to be laughing too! By the way, I love this picture of my mom, you can really see her smile & sweet spirit!!

Works for me - Friday

Ok, so I know that Rocks in My Dryer hosts Works for Me Wednesday but I have to go for things when I think of them...So...here is my Works for me Friday idea. Where to put dryer lint after each load was always a problem for me...so I decided to make a dryer lint box out of an old detergent box. Now, I just empty it every few weeks. It works great, it's kinda cute, and I don't have stray dryer lint. :)

Haircut - Before & After

From a ragga-muffin to a stud-muffin. :)

Some cute Pumpkin Pics

Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars

I found this delicious recipe on Monica's blog HERE. It is really good - I did add 1/2 cup of oats to the crust and only made 1/2 the recipe and put it in an 8 x 8 pan. Yummy! Below is my modified recipe.



Chocolate Pecan Pie Bars
Makes 32
Prep Time: 25 minutes; Total Time: 2 hours

1/2 stick unsalted butter
1/4 c. packed light-brown sugar
2/3 c. all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 cup oats

1 egg
1/3 c. light corn syrup
1/4 c. granulated sugar
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
1 c. coarsely chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350. Grease bottom and sides of a 8 x 8 baking pan. Mix butter, brown sugar, flour, salt and oats until smooth. Pour mixture into prepared pan; press firmly into bottom. Bake until lightly browned, 25 to 30 minutes. Let cool, 10 minutes. Meanwhile, in the same large bowl, mix egg, corn syrup, and sugar until well combined. Add chocolate chips and pecans; spread over crust. Bake until set, 25 to 30 minutes. Cool completely in pan cutting.

Joshua's joining a rock band...

So sorry...

I am so sorry I haven't blogged lately... I haven't had a whole bunch of riveting information and I've been kind of busy. I've also been enjoying the BEAUTIFUL weather and a visit with John's mom & dad. Anywho, I did finally get the picture of us with Laurie Smith so I have attached that. The funny thing about the picture is that earlier in the day we had our picture taken with Boz and we were really excited about putting that in our MOPS newsletter...then were just THRILLED when Boz was not the biggest celebrity that we got to have our photo taken with. Ok...so I know this has to be a disappointing post to read...but the cat really seems to have my tongue lately - so I will hopefully have a better post tomorrow...but enjoy my celebrity photo.

Please lift these families in prayer...

I have two friend who are going through a lot right now and could use any and everyone's prayers.

My dear friends Cheryl & Al had a baby about 2 weeks ago 9 weeks early. The little precious boy, Noah is just over 2 lbs and desperately fighting to live. His brain is severely bleeding and he had a hole in his heart that did close up. Please pray for strength for this couple and for healing for little Noah. Here is a picture of him.

My other friends Tripp, Anna & Ella are struggling as Tripp just has his 4 brain tumor operation and found out that his cancer is now progressing at a faster pace. He is just now starting chemo & radiation. They are in their 30s and have a young daughter and one on the way.

Thank you so much for lifting them up in prayer!!

MOPS UPdate & Exciting Celebrity News!!!

I just got back from the MOPS convention in Orlando which was 5,000 mothers of preschoolers all joined together. That is ALOT of moms in one place!! It was an awesome time!! Sara Groves opened up our session with about 5 of her songs on Friday & ended our session on Saturday. We were also led in worship by Matt Redmon who wrote a ton of popular songs - like "Here I am to Worship" & "Blessed be the Name". We had amazing uplifting messages and fellowship. Some of the speakers at the conference included John Ortberg who had an absolutely amazing message about contentment & slowing down. I know I'm going to definitely get his book - When the game is over, it all goes back in the box! We also heard from Julie Barnhill who is HILARIOUS & full of incredible messages about parenting. We also heard from Laurie Smith, David James, Elisa Morgan, Lysa Terkheurst & many more wonderful speakers.

SOOO...the exciting celebrity news is that we had dinner with Laurie Smith from Trading Spaces on Friday night. We were eating dinner when she happened to walk into our restaurant. Well, one of the other ladies I went with and I decided to go over and invite her to eat with us as she was dining alone. She said she would be delighted and so the 7 of us dined, talked, and laughed together for about 3 hours. I couldn't help but be completely star struck. She was really nice and really talkative. I think God definitely brings people together for a reason because I happened to ask something about her 10 month old that caused her to share that her daughter has been struggling with the same weight issues as Joshua and recently had the same cystic fibrosis test. We did get a picture of her with us with one of the ladies camera's however, I'm waiting for her to email it to me - so stay tuned.

Printer

There are certain situations that happen that really, really tell me that I'm a mom now. One of those happened today when I was trying to print something with my printer and it kept jamming over and over again. I kept fiddling with it and couldn't for the life of me figure out why it was still jamming. So I decided to look inside of it to see if maybe a piece of paper was jammed up in it...when I saw the culprit. It was a toy. Joshua had shoved a toy inside of my printer. It took me a good 30 minutes, a knife, and a pen to get the silly thing out of there. But I couldn't help but laugh and feel joy thinking it was just another part of my mommy initiation.

You scream, I scream, we all scream for Ice Cream!

Sunday our town had their annual Ice Cream Festival. It was a GORGEOUS day, low 70s, just perfect for getting out and having fun. We enjoyed playing pots & pans, riding the rides, dancing to music, and, of course, eating Ice Cream!! Joshua even sat for a bit to get his face painted but was a little freaked out at the woman trying to put something on his face.

A New Skill

So far pretty much everything that Joshua knows is something John or I have taught him. So imagine my surprise when John says to me...did you know Joshua knows how to give a 'high five'. I was like, No he doesn't! But sure enough I guess someone else taught him at church or something cause he definitely knows how to give a 'high five'. Sigh...I guess I have to resolve to know that he will be gaining influence from people other than us.

Rain!!

This post is for you to imagine me doing a rain dance as it's finally starting to drizzle a little at my house and I'm hoping for a full downpour for several hours. I've been meaning to take a picture of the lake on our road that has almost completely dried up. It's just sooooooooo dry! So dance, dance, dance!!

My husband...the comedian!

So, I often will throw banana's in the fridge when they are pretty brown so that I can use them in a day or so for banana bread. Well, as I was putting something in the fridge this evening I happened to notice this sign that my dear husband left for me. It got quite a laugh out of me so I thought you might get a chuckle too!

Show & Tell of Kindness

As most of you know, my mom passed away very suddenly 4 months ago. As my mom was not married, I had to take care of packing all her stuff, sorting her clothes, etc. Well, Marlene, a dear sweet lady offered to make me a quilt out of my mom's clothes. This was such a gift in so many ways. It certainly made sorting my mom's clothes much easier and also gave me a great place to put all those clothes that I have seen my mom wear many, many, many times. It really was just so touching. Anyways, this weekend Marlene presented me with the beautiful quilt this weekend. Here is a picture. Also, below, I put a picture of my mom in one of the shirts and a close up to the location of the shirt in the quilt. I am lucky to be blessed by such grace!!

You can see more Show & Tell at There is no place like home's blog.

Weekend Update

John's brother got married this weekend in beautiful Amelia Island. We had the pleasure of going and getting a mini-vacation while we were there. It was so wonderful to get to spend some time with family & friends all while enjoying some sunshine at the beach! Here are a few pics and most importantly a little video of Joshua at the wedding. Joshua was quite the dance machine and danced almost NON-STOP and that is NOT an exaggeration. From the moment he found the dance floor he was out there dancing his little heart out. He also got to stay up late and so he danced, danced, and danced some more. SOOO sweet!

View Video Here!

Pictures of my handsome guy

These are from this weekend...

Wagon Transformation

John bought this wagon/trailer thing for our lawn mower for $10 a few years ago. It has sadly never been spruced up. But we thought it would be fun this fall for throwing some hay in and letting Joshua have rides around the yard...so I thought it would be good to elminate some of the rust and make it a little safer. I think it will look so cute for mini-hay rides!