October goodness

I love October.

It's the most perfect month of the year.

Today I made this spiral apple bread for Halloween breakfast but I am not sure it will make it that long. I can't even tell you how delicious my house smells right now! I made my favorite basic roll dough, rolled it out into a rectangle, and cut it into 1 inch strips. Then I "spiraled" the strips of dough and apple slices into a pan and let it rise until nice and fat and baked it for about 30 minutes. I brushed it all over with melted butter and sprinkled with cinnamon sugar and then stuck it under the broiler to caramelize the sugar. The last step is an apple cider glaze. How can this not be the most delicious thing ever made??

Last Saturday my siblings came over to help us finish painting our deck. I really could have done it myself (it was just touching up between cracks, in knotholes, etc) but it only took 15 minutes with seven of us working! After, we went out to an early dinner at Parkstone (thanks Mom and Dad!) and then went for a walk on the Lagoon Trail. It was such a spectacular day and we passed at least 10 families/groups doing photo shoots. We had to wait at the end of the bridge until people were done with their pictures and would wave us across.

Before the deck painting/Parkstone dinner/Lagoon walk, we went to my mother in law's annual family Halloween party. The girls had a great time, as always, and had fun trying out their Halloween costumes! Tempe and Helena are rock stars, if you can't tell.

We really like the Lagoon Trail--we went for a walk/scooter ride with our cousins during UEA a few weeks ago. 

We have the best little pumpkin patch near our house where we go every year to pick out our pumpkins!
Not to mention BYU football games, playing at the park on golden afternoons, neighborhood outdoor movie nights, decorating for Halloween, and spooky storytelling! October rocks!

small town

Tonight, I think we accidentally drove through a time warp and ended up in Stars Hollow.

Yes, Stars Hollow, the quaint little town fond of festivals and celebrations on Gilmore Girls.

We started out the evening by going to the local pioneer-house-turned-museum for the Spooky Storytelling, complete with hot cocoa, a firepit, costumes, lots of props, and sound effects. The girls loved cuddling on a bench out in the crisp fall air and listening to stories about giant grizzly bears and toe-nibbling scarecrows. 

After we listened to a few stories, we walked over to the nearby park, where the annual pumpkin walk was going on. We strolled along the tiki-torch lined sidewalk, admiring all that Jack-o-lanterns carved by local children, and then the girls played on the playground before we got our (free) doughnuts and headed home.

I almost expected the troubadour to wander through.

Sidenote: I love living in a small town. After five years of going to the library for storytime weekly, two years of teaching local kids cooking lessons, and now with two kids of my own in school, we know a lot of people. No less than 10 kids were excited to say hi to Tempe ("Tempe! There's Tempe! Hi, Tempe!!") and while she didn't totally recognize all of them, she was excited to see them, too :)

Jiggly, giggly after school fun!

Now that I have a sweet little baby in my belly, I have been really slacking on doing fun stuff with my kids! October is usually filled with fall baking projects, beautiful field trips, and lots of outdoor fun, but this month has been rough on us. But this week I was able to pull myself together and put together a fun little monster-themed snack and activity for my kids.
I try to have a special after school snack for my kids every day--it's not always something really fancy or special, but it gives us a chance to sit down together and talk about our day. It's a tradition I love dearly and hope the girls will appreciate as they grow older!

This little monster themed snack starts out with good ol' JELL-O. You can't really go wrong with flavors, but I decided to use Lime and Grape. I loved all of the Halloween recipes on Jello.com (like the creepy but oh-so-sweet Creepy Crawly JIGGLERS) but I have a huge pack of candy eyeballs that I really wanted to incorporate, so I decided to make spiky monster JIGGLERS instead. I did one layer of Lime JELL-O, let it set up, and then added a layer of Grape JELL-O. When it was set, I used a spiky cookie cutter to cut out JIGGLERS and added a bunch of little eyeballs. The monster plate was the perfect touch!

Yum, yum! They dug right in!

To go with our after school snack, I printed out some mix and match monsters to make flip books. So fun! Tempe, Helena, and Juno all loved creating different monsters on each page of their books.

Speaking of monsters, why is Juno suddenly waking up at 6 am and not taking a nap??

I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.

apples

Remember how crazy everyone went 10 years ago when Chris Martin and Gwyneth Paltrow named their daughter Apple?
I never thought it was that bad of a name... in fact, I kind of liked it then (and kind of love it now). 
I've always been an autumn girl. I loved going back to school as a kid, I love the crisp air and bright blue skies and changing leaves, I love all the flavors and scents in the air, I love Halloween, and I LOVE APPLES!!!! If Apple weren't a celebrity name, it could totally have been Tempe's name, because she was born in the fall and I think it totally captures that golden autumn afternoon feeling :)
Anyway, yesterday we went to my MIL's to pick apples and they are the best apples I have ever had in my life! They are huge and so sweet and crisp. And they also don't brown when cut, weird huh? 
We are enjoying eating them plain and trying some new recipes. Today for the girls' afternoon snack, I diced apples and cooked them in butter with cinnamon sugar until it was all ooey-gooey and served them with homemade cinnamon tortilla chips. It was soooooo good! Right now I have some overnight apple cinnamon oatmeal in the crockpot for breakfast tomorrow. Oh, and a big jug of apple cider (the good stuff) was calling my name at the grocery store today, so I think I will tackle these delectable waffles tomorrow as well.
Also, can you tell that I had a lot of energy today?

this is halloween, halloween, halloween

Wow, I can't believe that October is over already!! It's my favorite month and it feels like it just flies by every year.

Here in Utah, we've had a very, very warm Halloween--it was like 75 degrees today! Kind of weird during the day, but it was nice for trick-or-treating. Much better than the year that it poured all day long and was only in the 30s.

Tempe absolutely loved carving pumpkins. She couldn't get enough of the gushy stuff!

Juno was good at scooping guts out, too!

Tempe and Helena pumpkin bowling at Grandma Jan's annual Halloween party.

I also came up with a game for the party--I call it Skele-Tale. I took apart a plastic skeleton and traced it onto a piece of butcher paper, then numbered each bone. The numbers corresponded to stories in our collection of Halloween picture books. The girls took turns choosing a bone and putting the skeleton together and I read the corresponding story.

Halloween breakfast--pancake ghosts! I used chocolate chips for the eyes and marshmallows for the mouths. The marshmallows melt and make it look like the mouth is open and screaming.

Juno got into the makeup crayons while I was doing Helena's hair today (I did the brown freckles on her face, she did everything else).

 Trick-or-treat! Jason is Harry Potter, I'm a pirate, Tempe is a black cat, Helena is Wendy (as in, Wendy Thomas--from the fast food restaurant), and Juno is a cowgirl.

One of our neighbors dressed up as Lucious Malfoy so I had to take a picture of him and Harry.

Ok, two of our neighbors had the scariest costumes I have ever seen in my life. They were both on stilts and about 10 feet tall and they were prowling around another neighbor's completely decked out house. Several of the kids trick-or-treating left that house in tears, but my kids actually hugged them and posed for a picture. Um, I think I have desensitized them. Whoops.
Happy Halloween!!
PS Now that I am all caught up on The Walking Dead, I have to wait a whole week in between my zombie fix! What the heck.

my kids at the pumpkin patch

Does time continually speed up for anyone else?

It is nearly the end of October. How did that happen? I feel like I was just battling the summer heat, and now Thanksgiving is right around the corner!

I've been feeling bad because we haven't done anything festive this fall. I guess I'm still adjusting to having a kid in school and the extra time commitment that is.

To make up for our lack of festivity, we went to the pumpkin patch last weekend.

If you're looking for a great pumpkin patch in Davis County, Pack's Pumpkin Patch on Glover Lane in Farmington is the best! It's free admission, has great prices and selection, and has a free hay maze and photo backdrops.

Tempe ran into one of her friends from preschool last year in the hay maze. She was so excited!

Tempe originally picked this green pumpkin but then switched to a traditional orange one.

 Juno caught on fast!

Jason pulling, Tempe and Helena pushing, Juno hitching a ride.

I opted for a white pumpkin again this year. 

Jason chose a cinderella variety.

Juno and the pumpkins in the cart.

Tempe and Helena as witches.

Striking a pose!

a beautiful day in zombieland

Last Sunday, Jason and I took the girls on a drive to see the fall leaves. We drove up a twisty, turny road that looped up the mountains east of our house and it. was. gorgeous.

The view was spectacular. It was just past the peak of the leaves, but there was still a lot of beautiful scenery.

Unfortunately, I kept ruining it by thinking about our survival odds in a zombie apocalypse.
"How crowded would this road get? It seems like "into the mountains" would be a great place to flee, so does that mean it would be choked with traffic?"
"How long would it take us to walk up into the mountains if we had to? Helena is such a slowpoke and a complainer, we would be doomed if we had to flee on foot."
"Our survival skills are severely lacking. I don't think we could build a fire, much less adequate shelter. And as for food? No way."
"Wouldn't it be so depressing to have survived whatever it is and somehow made a life for ourselves, but still be able to look down into our old town and neighborhood.... to be living a life ruled by fear, cold, hunger, and sorrow, and be able to look down into the heart of our old, happy life..."
HOW'S THAT FOR DEPRESSING????

LOLcats

Tempe holding (or trying to hold) Smoky, Spook, Autumn, and Frankenstein.

Tempe and Spook, Juno with Autumn in her stroller, Sophie with Smoky, and Helena with Frankenstein.

Me and Smoky! He's probably my second favorite after Moose/ Pumpkin.

Figure One. "Hold up, I need a drink."

 Figure Two. "Hey where do you think you're going!"

Figure Three. "Get back in there."

Now if that wouldn't win Operation Kitten Calendar, I don't know what would.

Boo! It's Halloween!!

Happy Halloween!

We had a lovely evening trick-or-treating. The weather was perfect here--65 degrees and sunny all day, and still 60 degrees when we were out. It was a vast improvement over last year, where it was pouring buckets of rain and freezing. We hit most of the houses in our neighborhood, including the cotton candy house AND the Kool-Aid house AND the glow sticks house, and then drove over to Jason's parent's house to trick-or-treat to them (they give out full size candy bars!)

This year, Tempe and Helena wanted to be unicorns--I used Family Fun's idea to make yarn manes and tails and a fabric horn and safety pinned everything onto hooded sweatshirts. Jason was a grunge fan from the '90s (basically himself 15 years ago), and Juno had a pick your own adventure costume--she could have been Little Bo Peep, Pollyanna, Scarlett O'Hara, or a porcelain doll, whichever you think is cutest. For her costume, I found the flounciest, ruffliest dress ever at DI and a straw hat with a bunch of flowers and long ribbons trailing from it. Then I got a real porcelain doll (also from DI) and cut the ringlets off, sewed them to a strip of felt, and glued the felt to the underside of her hat. She was way cute!!

So for my costume, I decided to be a character from a scary story I read to the girls earlier this week. Who remembers the folk tale about the girl that wore a ribbon around her neck all the time, her entire life, and when she was old and dying, her husband untied it and her head fell off?
Yeah, that's who I was. I just tied a ribbon around my neck. It sounds dumb, but Tempe is completely and utterly intrigued with that story, so she thought it was awesome!
I thought it was funny how we all decided to do different things with our pumpkins this year. Juno did nothing, Tempe wanted to carve hers, Jason etched the words 'And so it goes' into his, I used an antiquing glaze on mine (pretty much the most boring thing you could ever do to a white pumpkin) and Helena painted hers green. She just used acrylic craft paint, but on the pumpkin surface it turned into almost chalkboard paint. We spent all week writing on her pumpkin with chalk and drawing different faces on it--fun!
And now Halloween is over, and November is nearly here. Next up--Juno's first birthday party!

Fall FUN + a yummy snack!

Ahhh, I love October. It is by far my favorite month of the year! I love the cool weather, playing in leaves with my kids, apple cider, pumpkins everywhere, spooky decorations, and watching the leaves change colors. Most years in Utah, almost all the leaves turn yellow, which is pretty but just not the same as fall back East where everything is red and orange and yellow. But for some reason, this year there is a lot more color on the trees! It makes me want to pick up and move to New England. Jason says maybe we can visit.

We've been having fun watching "Hocus Pocus" and "Nightmare Before Christmas" and enjoying the nice weather. I took the girls to a local garden center to see the giant pumpkins last week. They were excited to get to sit on such a big pumpkin!

Today we went to the zoo. It was the perfect day for a trip to the zoo! They all wore their spooky Hallowen outfits, so we were excited to take a spooky picture on this giant spider :)

Target has been teasing me with big containers of Pumpkin Spice almonds for the past few weeks. I finally caved and bought some and it was a good choice. They are SO GOOD. It's a pretty subtle pumpkin flavor. They're good by themselves or....

...you could make a delicious trail mix like I did. Pumpkin spice almonds, dry roasted peanuts, mini marshmallows, dark chocolate chips, and craisins. It is sooo good and fun to snack on! The pumpkin flavor from the almonds gets distributed to all the other ingredients and it tastes like Autumn. Yum, yum!

What are you doing to enjoy October?

Felt and burlap fall trees

We had our first few days of cold weather last week--cold and RAINY. I don't mind cold at all (I did live in Laramie, Wyoming for 3 years!) but I'm not a fan of rain. Kids can play outside when it's cold and dry, but it's not so fun when it's cold and wet.

At first the rain was nice. We had fun cuddling in front of the fire and reading "On the Banks of Plum Creek" (Tempe and Helena are so into the Little House books right now!), baking cookies, and drinking hot chocolate at every meal. But then my kids started. going. crazy.

So we went up to my room where we keep miscellaneous craft supplies and I pulled this idea out of thin air. Tempe and Helena "helped" me make it and then it kept them occupied for quite a while!

I covered a small painting canvas in burlap by wrapping the burlap tightly over the edges and gluing it on the back. It's a little lumpy, but whatever. Then I cut the shape of a "haunted" tree out of brown felt. It's basically a skinny hand with creepy, long, skinny, knobbly fingers and a tapered wrist. It's pretty gross, but don't worry, you'll cover it with some lovely fall foliage!

You could cut leaf shapes out of felt if you are so inclined, but since hearts are so easy to cut, I just cut a bunch of heart out of yellow and red and a few out of brown. I think this tree with it's heart shaped leaves is sooooo cute!

The felt sticks to the burlap, so kids can position the tree and leaves however they like without them getting scattered. My kids have had so much fun playing with this! I plan on cutting snowflakes out of white felt, flowers out of pink felt (for cherry blossoms), and more hearts out of green so we can play with this tree in every season!

Butterscotch Pumpkin Bundt Cake

I'm not a huge fan of butterscotch or pumpkin, but this cake sounded so good, I just had to try it! And believe me--it was a risk well worth taking!

1 cup butterscotch morsels

2 cups flour

1 3/4 cups granulated sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1 cup pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/2 cup vegetable oil

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1. Preheat oven to 350. Grease bundt pan

2. Melt morsels over medium low heat until smooth. You can add some shortening if you need to to thin it out. Cool to room temperature.

3. Combine flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, and nutmeg in medium bowl. Stir together melted morsels, pumpkin, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla in large bowl with wire whisk. Stir in flour mixture. Spoon batter into prepared pan.

4. Bake for 40-50 minutes; I actually baked mine for more like 70 minutes, but I think something is wrong with my oven.

5. To make butterscotch glaze, melt 1 cup butterscotch chips in evaporated milk over medium low heat until smooth; stir in enough powdered sugar to come to a glaze consistency. Drizzle liberally over Bundt cake.

Enjoy!

Caramel Apple Cheesecake Bars

Now that it's October (although it's still in the mid-80s here--way too hot!!) I've gone on a fall baking kick. I love apples, I love streusel, and I love caramel, so these caramel apple cheesecake bars hit the spot!

Ingredients

3 cups flour

3 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cup quick oats

1 1/2 cup melted butter

2 8-oz packages of cream cheese, softened

1/2 cup + 2 Tbs sugar, divided

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

3 apples, peeled and chopped

cinnamon

nutmeg

caramel topping

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Combine flour, brown sugar, quick oats, and melted butter; mix on low speed until crumbly and delicious. Press 2/3 of the mixture into a 9x13 pan, reserving the rest. Bake 15 minutes or until golden brown.

3. In large bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth; beat in 1/2 cup sugar, eggs and vanilla until smooth. Pour over warm crust.

4. In small bowl, stir together apples, cinnamon, and nutmeg; spoon over cream cheese layer. Sprinkle evenly with remaining streusel topping.

5. Bake 30-35 minutes or until set. Drizzle individual pieces with caramel topping.

Play School: Pumpkins

This week was another fun week in Play School. M taught and the topic was pumpkins.

Concepts: Where pumpkins come from; some of their uses

Activity: M helped Tempe and little B make two cute pumpkin crafts (I wish I had pictures!). One was a construction paper pumpkin with a sad face on one side and a happy face on the other. The kids glued on the elements to make the faces. The other craft was a small orange plastic bag stuffed with newspaper to make a pumpkin and with green leaves tied at the top to make the stem. It was so cute and a great way to teach children about recycling and using things they find in nature for their projects!

Books: Again, I slacked this week and didn't check out any pumpkin books. But here is a list, courtesy my library website: Seed, Sprout, Pumpkin, Pie by Jill Esbaum; How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin by Margaret McNamara; Pumpkin Hill by Elizabeth Spurr; Pumpkins by Ken Robbins; Sixteen Runaway Pumpkins by Diane Ochiltree; and Pumpkinhead by Eric Rohmann.

Songs: Ring around the pumpkin, pocket full of nuts. Leaves, leaves, they all fall down! March around the pumpkin... Stomp around the pumpkin... Tip-toe around the pumpkin... Jump around the pumpkin

Snack: I don't think M gave them a snack, but a few ideas include Jack-o'Lantern grilled cheese sandwiches, pumpkin cookies, or pumpkin pudding (mix a few tablespoons of solid pack pumpkin into vanilla pudding).

Field Trip: Today we took another fun family field trip to a pumpkin patch, where Tempe and Helena each picked out a pumpkin. It also had a free kids' hay maze that the girls loved running through! We had a fun time and it brought back memories of when my mom would take all 5 of us kids to Kerrigan Farm, where we would take a hay ride to the pumpkin patch and apple orchard, and finish with fresh apple cider. Mmmm!