The Costume

Does it surprise anyone that this is his costume?

Those Leaves, those leaves...

There is a line in a movie that says "it pisses God off if you're walking in a field and you don't notice the color purple" , which is just a brash way of saying, be aware of the beauty around you. I have been noticing the am-az-ing colors the last few weeks. This week the wind blew like a tornado for 4 days. most of the leaves were blown away, but driving around, I found more. Lots more. So I took my son out for a snack and quit shot with these leaves. They were too beautiful not to capture in some way.

Finally here!!!

I've been waiting on the arrival of a couple babies the last few weeks and now, finally they are here. A lot of people ask about a little girl I've photographed often, Little Miss Sunshine...well this is her cousin!!!  This little man was not your typical newborn...at least this day he wasn't. Normally, kinda like puppies, newborns eat sleep, poop, sleep. This one missed the sleep part. He was wide eyed an bushy tailed and probably not very appreciative of me torturing him like I did with my camera. He probably went to sleep the second I left. Welcome to the world little wiggly man! I'm so happy to have you here finally!

Hallows Eve

Even though there were countless things going on in town last night for the little ones, we decided to stay in  and make our very own special Hallows Eve Dinner. I'm really enjoying the time with my family right now and I wanted to make something super special for last night. We went all out. It was completely AWESOME.  We set up tables in the front porch for both the adults (all 4 of us) and one special one for the kiddos. We strung lights across the top and had candles everywhere. There were spooky gourds and pumpkins glowing.

We had spider web cake.

We drank out of pumpkin glasses.I just cut pieces of black duct tape so at the end of the evening we just peeled it off and had my stemware in tact. We colored the milk orange for the little ones.

I made little treat sacks for the little ones. All two of them.

Pumpkin Cheese Ball:  Just made with my favorite cheese ball recipe. Added a little food coloring and cut out pieces of green pepper for the face.

Got little decals for all the bottles. This is really ugly BBQ sauce that went with the goblin and troll legs we had (they were suppose to be bat wings, but the coloring was more green so we changed the name)

Little Marshmallow Witches provided by my good friend.

Hot Dog Mummies.

And Finger Poppers. (these were my favorite of the entire meal!)

Song: Monster Mash

There is actually a whole playlist of Halloween songs in there.

Toys

There was a movie this summer that some of you moms probably went to see. One where a little boy is leaving to college and his toys are trying to figure what to do with their lives after he's gone. I was one of those moms completely sobbing through a good portion of that movie. I felt so bad for those old toys...because I could picture my son's dinosaurs talking to each other after he leaves for college, wondering why they don't get organized any more according to their size, or smashed together. Or raggedy Elmo, with his sad little broken eye sleeping all alone. But that time won't come for a long long long while. In the mean time....I'm going to catch the moments. The ones where he's not looking. The ones where he's caught up in make believe. Oh how I wish we could all visit that world more often... kids get to go to the greatest places sometimes.

The Pumpkins

Compared to other years we didn't work quite as hard on our pumpkins. But compared to other years we were all sitting on the couch watching the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown at 7:00 after already being done.  As a family. Bliss. We weren't scurrying around until 11:00 trying to finish them because we were all exhausted. This is new for all of us. And we all love it!

If you missed the others from years past: You can find them here, here and here. My pumpkin picture taking skills haven't really improved in 4 years (though we've been carving pumpkins since WAY WAY before my little man came around... but finding documentation digitally is hard!)

S

It was 80 degrees in the middle of October when we has the S meal. It was the most fantastic day there could have been. It was unbelievably beautiful. We spend the entire day outside, except to cook, which took very little time (thank goodness!)

For the S meal we had:

Shrimp Scampi

Salmon (baked)

Squash (Yellow, from the garden)

Snow Peas

and Snakes on a Stick (which I didn't get a picture of, but basically, bread twisted on a skewer and dipped in cinnamon and sugar)

The shrimp scampi I think was the best I've ever made. It turned out so unbelievably fantastic and I didn't even do that much for it.


For the sauce (I didn't measure, I just threw it in)


Butter
Lemon Juice
White Wine (I think I just used the Cabernet that I had here)
Garlic
Salt
Pepper
Dried herbs
and when it was done I added a little Parmesan cheese.


Viola... fantastic food.

 The Squash was just sauteed in olive oil and added a little salt.

The Salmon was baked in butter and spices and fresh basil. (baked is about the only way I can eat it anymore...it just tastes better to me with all the stuff on it as Salmon tends to be a little dry)

Oh and thank you big brother and Dad for bringing it to me!  I love that I always have fish in my freezer at my fingertips at any time!

R

Back to the Alphabet project that we seem to neglect for weeks at a time, but nearing the end.

R meal was spent on one of the last nights outside under the trees at the picnic table. I always feel a little couped up at the end of the summer because I have to eat inside, as I almost never eat inside if it's nice enough not to.

R night was a great meal. An actual meal that we all put together.

We had:

Ribs

Red Skins

Rice Crispy Treats (Shaped like pumpkins)

Rhubarb Pie

Rolls

And some sort of Raspberry Yogurt that was fantastic

I found the idea for the rice crispy treats a while back, and had intended to make them apples, but the apple phase passed and we were on to pumpkins. They were easy as can be. Just follow the normal recipe for rice crispy treats and add a box of orange jello. Shape into pumpkins. Let set and then add the stems. You can make the leaves our of candy as well, but we don't really eat the candy, so we used real ones that we just picked off.

Rhubarb pie has always been my absolute favorite. My Grandmother in North Dakota used to have one on the counter waiting for me when I would arrive after my long 14 hour drive. I would always have at least one slice before I went to bed. Sometimes two....because she made it just for me and I didn't want to share.  Then I would have one for breakfast too. And lunch.

 Now there is a secret to our ribs... actually there are a couple. I will only share one as the other, is well, secret.

In order for ribs to be fantastic, at least  for me, they need to be tender. A few years back, my husband discovered a way to make them that way and taste absolutely fantastic.
Coffee. Really really dark coffee.
If you bake them in the oven for a a few hours over coffee, the moisture soaks in and "smokes" them. Absolutely fantastic (And I'm not much of a meat eater, but I sure do love these)

The other secret is in the sauce. You'd have to ask my brother in law about that. He's been perfecting it. I have a general idea of what he does as I've made my own BBQ sauce as well, but he made some this summer that is finger licking good.

Somebody's Watching

Song: Somebody's Watching, Mysto and Pizzi

Goul Drool

When I was a kid I used to put a quarter into a little machine and out popped a little round container of this stuff. I remember thinking how strange it smelled. I remember thinking this it was so boyish and disgusting...I loved it., especially around Halloween.

Well I have a boyish little boy who is the ultimate disgustinator (yup..made that up and let's face it, little boys are kind of disgusting, it just comes with the territory)  So we decided to make some slime. Or Goul Drool as it was called yesterday. It kept him occupied for most of the afternoon, which was good, because this is pretty much the exact same thing that is running through my sinuses right now. (gross but true)

Goul Drool: Mix 1/2 cup glue and 1 cup of water. Add two or three drops of food coloring.

In a separate glass bowl mix 1/2 teaspoon of borax (found in the laundry detergent isle) with 1/2 cup of water.

Mix the two together and stir frequently. Really, one of the easiest projects out there.

Now.. go get your slime on!

Added Together

Take one beautiful autumn afternoon.

Add t-shirts and shorts

Little bicycles with little horns

Blue skies lacking clouds

Vibrant colors

Long conversations

Long comfortable silences

Tag and cuddling

All of this......equals a perfect day.

 reflections

Song: Autumn Leaves, Nat King Cole