Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

What says Thanksgiving more than a four year old in a turkey hat?

Maybe a four year old in a turkey hat and her big sister?

Hope you have a good one. Don't eat too much turkey or potatoes, do save room for the pumpkin pie!

My Son and Hugh Hefner

Ian took a shower this morning and when the water turned off, I opened the bathroom door holding up a brand new bathrobe for him. He has never had a bathrobe and I was saving this one for Christmas until I realized I'd have to buy some clothing item for each of the girls, and they need more clothes like I need a hole in my head, so I just decided to give it to him.

He poked his head out from behind the shower curtain and squealed with delight, "A bathrobe!" He immediately got out of the shower, dried himself off, and put on his new bathrobe. He walked down the hall to his bedroom, admiring how warm and soft his new robe is.


A few minutes later he appeared downstairs in his new robe, and only his robe if you get my drift. He strutted around the first floor and occasionally his sisters and I were flashed with boy bits that none of us wanted to see! That is when I sent him upstairs to either get dressed, or at least put some underwear on. Two minutes later he was back downstairs wearing his robe still. He opted for the underwear option. He spent the next hour and a half in his robe until I finally told him he would have to get dressed before lunch.

I'm not sure I'll ever understand boys!

My Son, The Chef

Ian is in fourth grade this year. That means he has to write four book reports each quarter, basically one very two weeks. They are easier than traditional book reports in that they are all worksheets that he has to fill out (answer questions) for. And, he can choose his own book. But, there are twenty different genres to choose from, and he can only do each genre once. It is a lot of work, but definitely exposes him to a wide array of literature.

We chose to complete this week's book report on a cookbook. On our bi-weekly outing to the library, I suggested he look at the cookbooks in the juvenile non-fiction area. He chose two that interested him, as well a book about sweet foods. He pored over each cookbook and decided he wanted to use the Pampered Chef Kids in the Kitchen Cookbook for his book report. I also suggested that he choose one recipe and he and I could whip it up together.

After careful consideration, he chose the chocolate chip cookie pizza recipe to make. I made sure we had all the necessary ingredients and on Saturday the two of us went to work. I made him read the recipe, pre-heat the oven, showed him how to measure the flour and other ingredients, and let him do the work. He was really excited and did a great job trying to mix everything with just the wooden spoon.

The final results turned out like this:


And it tasted as delicious as it looked!

More Cake And Some Favors

Over the last three weeks I've made more cakes than I can count (okay, not really, but I've made lots of cakes lately.) The first one was for Elizabeth, my sister-in-law's, baby shower. This is her first baby and my first niece or nephew on my husband's side of the family, so I'm very excited to get to hold another baby again! (That's Elizabeth with Zoe and Emma - isn't she the cutest pregnant woman?)

Her only request for the cake was the flavor, my snickerdoodle cake. It is a cinnamon cake with cinnamon buttercream frosting. I've never met anyone who doesn't love this cake. So after lots of internet searches for ideas for a cake, I finally came up with this cake:


The clothes are just cut from scrapbooking paper and hung on with little clothespins I found at Michael's Crafts store. I found the idea for this cake here.

I wasn't sure the three layered cake would be enough for everyone, so I also made 12 chocolate chocolate chip cupcakes frosted with vanilla buttercream. I topped them with little plastic carriages I also found at Michael's. Here are what they looked like:


Along with the cake duties, I volunteered to make the favors for the shower. I made 25 little paper onesies with three Hershey's milk chocolate nuggets inside each one. They turned out so cute that I had to share them here:


My husband's Aunt Mary, also happened to be having a birthday on the day of the shower and her sisters wanted to surprise her with a cake. So with the other half of the batter from the cupcakes, I made a nine inch round cake for Mary. Here it is:


Finally, I made my husband's 36th birthday cake, too. Since I've been married to him I've made him a cake every year, but none have been particularly exciting form a decorating standpoint. But this year, I wanted to surprise him. He has been talking for a few years how when he was little he had a Batman cake all done in the frosting stars. Then in March at Zoe's 4th birthday, he made an offhand comment about how he would like the same birthday cake Zoe had. So being the good wife that I am, I made him this cake:


He loved it!

That is all of my cakes (except for the pumpkin spice cake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting I made for Bunco two days ago) from the last three weeks. I'm going to focus on pumpkin pie now!

Happy Birthday, Brendan!

Today is my husband's birthday. He is the love of my life, the father of my children, my best friend, my confidant, my rock.


He is an amazing dad, son, brother, husband and man. I am so proud and lucky to have been married to him for almost 13 1/2 years now. I also have now known him for half of my life. I feel so blessed to have him. Happy Birthday, Brendan! I love you!

Now, head over to his blog and wish him a happy birthday!

Halloween Round Up

I know, I know, this is late in coming. But I've been busy lately!

Halloween actually began on Wednesday when Zoe had her preschool party. I'm room mom and planned the party for the kids. Zoe went as a cowgirl and I think she is the cutest cowgirl in Illinois. We didn't know it, but her teachers dressed as cowgirls, too. Mrs. Voirin repeatedly introduced Zoe as "her sidekick." Zoe grinned ear to ear each time her teacher said it. We made a craft, ate some cupcakes and brownies, then ran a relay where the kids had to scoop up candy corn on a spoon, run across the room, dump the candy corn into a bowl, then run back and pass the spoon onto the next person. The kids loved it and the I had a lot of candy corn to pick up off the floor when the game was done!




Here are my three kids getting ready to go out trick or treating with their Dad. Ian was Ash, the trainer from Pokemon. I made and sewed the symbol on his hat out of felt and cut the fingers out of the gloves for this costume. You can see Pikachu peeking out from the back of his backpack. Zoe is, of course, Scooby Doo. Emma chose Shawn Johnson of Olympic gold medal fame as her costume this year. I cut the letters U S A out of white felt and sewed them to her gymnastics suit. Then I cut a circle out of some cardboard, painted it yellow and sprinkled gold glitter all over it. After punching a hole in it and stringing white ribbon through it, she had a gold medal. The final touches were a ponytail and make-up and cheek glitter.

Here is each one on there own.

Ian

Emma

Zoe

I think my favorite part of the costumes this year was that they cost me all of $1.50! The gloves for Ian's costume and the blue bandanna for Zoe's cowgirl costume were the only things I had to buy. Everything else I had in the house somewhere. (Zoe wore the Scooby costume last year, too!) I did however have to spend a few nights hand sewing the USA onto Emma's costume and the Pokemon symbol onto Ian's hat. But, I love that their costumes were unique and exactly what they wanted to be. No princesses or Darth Vader's for me this year!

I'm also realizing that I love the set-up we have for the annual trick or treat fest. Brendan has always taken the kids out, and I've always passed out the candy. I saw several sets of both parents going with their kids, which led me to question who is passing out candy at their house? I understand not wanting to miss any of the cool things your kids do, but I also think they need to do special things with each parent separately. And for us, this means getting candy door to door with dad. I hope my kids look back on this and remember it happily. (With Brendan working in the city, they get to do loads of things with me. Doing something with Dad is extra special.) Besides, I really like the hour or so to myself in the house while the four of them are all out gathering goodies. I've come to find it relaxing and equally exciting to hear their stories when they get back and dump all their candy on the floor. It's a good set-up.

Hope your Halloween was as much fun as ours was!

The Flip Side Of Pleasing Everyone

The elections this year seem to have sent an unprecedented number of political phone calls our way asking us to vote for candidate A or candidate B from everything from the presidential election down to the Will County Auditor's office. My husband and I were discussing how we can't recall an election with this many phone calls asking us to vote one way or another.

Maybe it's because my husband and I generally fall on opposite sides of the political spectrum, or because we actually voted in the primaries, but the number of calls was really out of hand. And since I am a stay at home mom, I am generally around to pick up the phone. One day it occurred to me that the fastest way out of these phone calls, besides not answering them, was to agree with whatever the caller was telling me.

"Can Candidate A count on your support on November 4th?" Absolutely!

"Will you be voting for Candidate B on election day?" Sure!

"Would you like a sign for your yard?" Not at this time.

This was how the typical conversation would go. First of all, I didn't have time for most of these phone calls. Second of all, I didn't always know what the candidates were running for at the time (I did educate myself before today, but sometimes they called before my research had been done.)

I know this isn't exactly productive, but I enjoyed it.

But this afternoon I got another phone call. "Hello! Did you get a chance to vote yet today?" Yes. "Did you vote for the _____________ party?" No. Awkward pause. "Ooooh. That's okay." Click.

Yeah, it was a little weird. I'm sure I told this perky lady I would vote for her candidate, but then didn't. (I know for a fact I told two opposing candidates I would vote for them.)

I actually felt a little bit bad. But only a little.

It's Election Day!

It's time to go vote! Get in line, stay there until it's your turn, and let your voice be heard. Whether you lean left or right, red or blue or maybe green, go vote. It is your right and responsibility as a citizen of this great country. Go now. Vote.

Fun Monday - Spooky Edition

Sayre, over at SayreSmiles is our hostess this week. Keeping with our Halloween time of the year she has given us the following assignment:

Tell us about your favorite Halloween as a kid (pictures, if you have them!), and show us your costume for this year. If you're not dressing up, show us a picture of a pumpkin carving that really tickled your fancy or how you decorated your house.

I grew up in England during my prime trick-or-treating years, and I don't know if it has changed much, but back in the early 1980's they didn't really trick or treat over there. I remember one Halloween my mom loading me and my two brothers and my sister into the car and driving us to all of our American friends houses to trick or treat. Needless to say, we didn't ever get a lot of candy while we lived there.

Another Halloween in England my mom threw a big Halloween party for all the different families we were friends with. She went all out and hung up creepy homemade decorations and had scary music playing. We had a long window over our stairs right at the front of the house that we could open. She strung a ghost made out of a white sheet to a tree outside and then strung the end of the rope into our house through that window. It was the kid's job to pull on (or let go of, I can't remember now!) the string and send the ghost flying right down to the entryway outside our front door. It was great fun scaring adults and kids alike, though my best friend at the time wouldn't come into my house after that! My mom also served foods with scary names like witch's brew for green kool-aid or Vampire's blood for red punch. I'm sure the adults had stronger concoctions, but I wasn't aware of it.

I don't have any Halloween pics of costumes for myself this year (though one of my favorite costumes was the first year after I was married and my new husband went as Fox Mulder and I went as Dana Scully!). So here are our pumpkins we carved for last year's Halloween. One is the traditional scary pumpkin, and the other is a little more artsy fartsy (we like to say "creative.")



Here's a close-up of the scary pumpkin.


And here's a close-up of our creative pumpkin.


Finally, here is a picture of my youngest daughter helping her Dad to make our creative pumpkin. She is 3 1/2 in this picture. (Yes, that's an electric drill if any of you were curious how we achieved such an effect.)

Another Cake

This is a cake I made for my sister-in-law's husband for his birthday. It is a dark chocolate cake with fluffy peanut butter frosting and chocolate frosting. On top are chopped up chocolate and peanut butter chips. This was very decadent and tasted wonderful. I did not get a picture of the cake sliced, but it looked so pretty. My only complaint was that the cake turned out a bit crumbly. It was made from scratch and was not quite as sturdy as a box mix cake. But, it did taste great.

The recipe I used was for Dark Chocolate Cake from Allrecipes.com, one of my favorite recipe websites. I followed the directions exactly, EXCEPT I baked it in two nine inch pans and made six cupcakes. Also, grease and flour the pans, otherwise you risk the cake not coming out after all your hard work! After baking and cooling, I split each cake in half. I then made the peanut butter frosting and it turned out great. It was difficult to spread at first, but after adding a little more milk it spread very easily. If you are a peanut butter lover, this frosting is amazing! It reminded me of the inside of a Buckeye candy. So delicious! I also made the fluffy chocolate frosting recipe from the Cake Mix Doctor book and then layered the cakes as follows: cake, peanut butter frosting, cake, chocolate frosting, cake, peanut butter frosting, cake, chocolate frosting. I topped the cake off with chopped up chocolate and peanut butter chips. This turned out to be a really decadent cake and a great way to celebrate Patrick's birthday.

Here are my daughter's posing with the cake.

Eight Percent

I have lived in or visited eight percent of the world countries. The really sad thing about that is all but two (the Bahamas and the USA) were as a child. As an adult I've pretty much gone nowhere.


visited 18 states (8%)
Create your own visited map of The World

Thanks to Irish CoffeeHouse for the links!

Funny Things My Kids Say

- Ian got in trouble yesterday for screaming at his sister. When I asked him why he did it, he said, "Do unto others as they do to you - the Golden Rule." Apparently his sister stuck her tongue out at him as she was walking up the stairs. I clarified the Golden Rule and our house rules.

- Zoe told me that if I ever had another baby and if it was a girl she would sleep in her sleeping bag on the floor so the baby could sleep in her bed.

- Zoe gave me a special hug and kiss last night because she thought that someday Brendan and I wouldn't live together anymore. (Brendan's parents are divorced.)

Birthday Cakes

Way back in August we had a double birthday party for Ian and Emma. Ian's birthday is in July and Emma's is about two weeks later in August, so it just makes sense to combine them when it is going to be a family affair. Since they were little I've been making their cakes myself. I love seeing their faces when they see the cakes they requested.

This year was no exception. Emma changed her mind repeatedly and finally decided on a cake with hearts all over it. Ian initially talked about a Pokeball, which I thought would be pretty easy. And in the end he did pick a pokeball, but not the regular recognizable one. No, instead he chose a Masterball, which are more successful when being used to catch Pokemon. After asking Ian to describe the Masterball to me, I decided to Google it for an image I could understand. After finding and printing out a picture of the pokeball, I went to work.

The resulting cakes looked like this:



Emma's cake is on the left. Her's was a yellow cake with chocolate buttercream frosting. The hearts and her name are made out of marshmallow fondant. I brushed some pink luster dust on her name, and she wanted me to add more to the hearts. Here's a close-up of her cake:



Ian's cake is the Masterball on the right. He requested chocolate cake with vanilla buttercream frosting. I used the top of two cupcakes to make the bumps on top of the cake. The cake is covered in marshmallow fondant. In the end Ian was thrilled with his cake. Here is a more detailed look at it:



Actually, they both were happy with their cakes, which made me happy. I can only imagine what they'll come up with for next year!

Fun Monday - Storytime

Our lovely hostess this week is Mommy Wizdom and she gives us the following:

So, this is the assignment:

Themes to choose from:

A visit by your mother in law

Bedtime Stories

Raising a Teenager


The words: Ostrich, goosebumps, magazines, soup, cats, lethargic, noodles, tequila, doorknob, biscuit

Wild card words: prehistoric, Jedi Knight, cactus, periscope, humor

Your job is to write a story (true or made-up), poem, song, letter... whatever strikes you ABOUT one of the three themes. You must INCLUDE all 10 words. Wild cards words may be used in addition to or in place of the main 10 words.

Sounds fun, huh?

Here's my entry:

Riiiiing. Riiing. "Hello?" I answer the phone.

"Hello, Heather. How are you doing?" It's my mother-in-law.

"Just fine, thanks. How are you today, Sally?"

"Great, just great. I was out running some errands, you know, picking up some noodles for the soup I was going to make for myself for dinner tonight. And since I had to stop at the Food Mart in Naperville, I was wondering if I could stop by for a visit. I've got biscuits!" (That last sentence was said in a sing song voice.)

"That sounds great! Come on over," I reply as I silently swear to myself. I hang up with Sally and start running around the house trying to clean up. I shake the lethargy out of my head as I wipe down every doorknob with an antibacterial wipe. I grab all the magazines strewn on the kitchen table and pile them neatly in the basket under our end table. I clean up the cat's litter box to ensure that there are no lingering smells in the house. Finally, I grab the tequila from the fridge, take a swig, and paste a great big smile on my face.

Ding Dong. The doorbell rings and I open the door with a smile that would fool even the most honorable Jedi Knight. He will not feel a disturbance in the Force from me today!

Sally walks in and immediately turns my thermostat up three degrees. Her goosebumps are visible through her two layers and she shivers just a little. I again silently swear to myself that I should have turned the heat up. Oh well.

We sit down to a cup of coffee and Sally gets the biscuits out of her bag. They are looking a little dry and old, but I don't want to insult her, so I smile sweetly and dip one of the prehistoric rocks into my coffee. It softens only slightly.

After a long discussion about her latest crocheting project, the fact that her Christmas cactus is blooming in July, and her possible investment in an ostrich farm, (I talked her out of it) she got up and decided it was time to go.

We hugged goodbye and I told her to come again anytime.


This account is purely fictional and any resemblance to my actual wonderful mother-in-law is purely coincidental!

Apple Picking Recipe

On Saturday we hopped in the van and headed to Woodstock, IL for some apple picking. Apple picking has become a family tradition for us now and each year we seem to bring home more and more apples. This year was no exception. After all the fun we have each year, and all the great things we can make with the apples we pick, we always can find new recipes and uses for the apples.

We have been having trouble finding orchards that don't make a carnival out of picking apples, while charging an arm and a leg for the carnival activities. The last few years we've gone to orchards that charged upwards of $4 or $5 for the kids to go and play at a special playground, ride in a tractor pulled "apple wagon" or get into a petting zoo. The worst part was that the orchard would charge for the adults to go into the playground area as well, but children could not go in unattended. Our kids had always had a great time picking apples, simply for the act of picking apples and spending time with their family. We usually bought some apple cider doughnuts and called it a great day. But since going to these orchards that tried to make apple picking an "event," we got tired of telling our kids "no" only to hear them whine about how all the other kids got to go to the playground.

So this year we searched for orchards that were actually about picking apples and found several great options within a two hour drive of home. We decided on Homestead Orchard and after lunch headed out there. We discovered a small family run orchard with many cars parking on the road outside the entrance to the orchard. This was surely a good sign and we pulled in and parked. There were no gimmicks or slides to be found anywhere! And lo and behold, not one whine from the kids.

We were given directions of which trees we could pick from and each of us was given a bag. The girls received 1/4 peck bags while Ian, Brendan and I all got peck bags. We spent about 45 minutes picking and eating apples, then went into the shop to buy them. We bought $40 worth of apples and headed back home. My only complaint would be that they didn't have any apple cider doughnuts, almost as much a part of the tradition as the actual apple picking. Zoe was the only one to mention it, so I promised her an ice cream sandwich when we got home and she brightened up considerably.

It was a great day, and now I'm gearing up for pie, cake, muffin and applesauce making.

I made my first batch of applesauce today and thought I'd share my recipe with you all. We all love it, and it is very easy!

Applesauce

Enough apples to fill up your crock pot (I used 20 small apples)
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Peel, core, and quarter apples. Place in crockpot. Pour in water. Add sugar and cinnamon. Stir apples to mix in sugar and cinnamon. Here is what my crockpot looked like after this step:


Turn crockpot to low. After two hours stir. Your apples should look something like this:


After two more hours (4 hours in crockpot) stir again. Here's what my apples looked like at this stage:


An hour and a half later (at the 5 1/2 hour mark), stir apples and begin breaking them up against the side of the crockpot. They should break apart very easily.

If you like chunky applesauce, stop here. If you like a slightly smoother texture like I do, you can take about 1 1/2 cups of the applesauce and put it in a blender. Blend until smooth like baby food. Pour back into the applesauce in the crock pot and stir together. When it is done it will look something like this:


This is absolutely delicious warm, and the way my nine year old son likes it best. you could easily make this without sugar if you want to make it healthier, and cooking it on high would be fine, but it should only take about three hours total. This applesauce freezes great! My batch made about 6 cups of applesauce. I plan on making at least one more batch in the next few weeks so that we will have plenty of applesauce for the upcoming holidays and whenever else we want to have some.

Enjoy!

Tagged

So Irish Coffeehouse has tagged me with the following rules:



So here are my seven random facts, in no particular order:

1. I graduated in the top ten in my high school class. (I know, boooorrrring!)

2. I had an appendectomy when I was 19 weeks pregnant with my first baby.

3. I love Barry Manilow, Kenny Rogers, Garth Brooks, and the Barenaked Ladies.

4. I made it to the Ohio State finals in high school track on the 3200m relay team.

5. I dropped out of accounting in college when I decided I no longer wanted to be a business major and was getting a C in the class. I was a religion major for one semester before I decided on elementary education.

6. My husband and I love going to Wisconsin for a weekend away from the kids. We've stayed in bed and breakfasts in Racine and Stoughton.

7. Every year right before Thanksgiving, our family orders four kringles from O&H Danish Bakery in Racine, Wisconsin. (We discovered them while at the B&B in #6). We eat one for Thanksgiving, one for Christmas, and the other two whenever we want. (They freeze great!) Our usual order is two almond, one cream cheese, and one cherry cheese.

I'm going to tag Alison.

Dinner

This is what we ate for dinner tonight. It probably doesn't look all that remarkable to all of you, but to me it was everything.

I've been married for 13 years now, and I do all the cooking. I make lots of different meals, and keep everyone fed pretty well. But the one thing I had never made was a chicken. Now, I've made countless boneless skinless chicken breasts over the years, even adapting multiple recipes calling for whole chickens or chicken thighs or drumsticks or whatever it may be to boneless skinless chicken breasts. But I've never made real, bone-in chicken.

Till now. Tonight I made this chicken and everyone loved it! I did cheat a bit and buy a chicken already cut up into it's pieces. But other than that, I did it all myself. And not only did hubby like it, but all three kids (!) enjoyed it as well. Now that's something!

Here's the recipe, if you're interested:

Garlic Roasted Chicken

3-4 lb chicken, cut up into pieces
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 tablespoon olive oil
garlic salt
Italian seasoning
pepper

In a large bowl, toss chicken with lemon juice and olive oil until well coated. Place in a 13 x 9 inch pan and sprinkle with garlic salt, Italian seasoning, and pepper. Roast at 400 degrees F for 45 minutes or until chicken is cooked through.

Simple, fast, and delicious. You can't beat that!

Fun Monday - What's In Your Closet?

Cassie over at RDH Mom would like to know the following:

I want to see the inside of your closet!! I want to see if your closet is as messy as mine!!! You can't organize it before you take the picture!!

So, I followed the rules closely this week and will take you on a tour of my (walk in) closet.


Here's the look from outside the door. I have to share with my husband. I get the left side, he gets the right side.



These are my clothes. I don't care which way they hang and sometimes my winter clothes mingle with my summer clothes, though I try to keep them separate, mainly so they'll be easier to find when I want them.


These are my shoes on the floor. I try to use the shoe organizer, but I have too many shoes. So they get paired up on the floor.


These are more shoes, only they are in their boxes. These are mainly my nicer shoes that don't get worn as often.


This is one of the messier parts of my closet. On the shelf at the far end of my closet. Clothes that I don't have any other space for get folded up and put up here. But I'm lazy, so after I wear them, sometimes they get loosely folded and flung back up on top of the pile.


These are my crafts and other assorted junk I have collected. I used to do a lot of cross stitching and that basket holds most of my cross stitching stuff. I keep thinking I'll do it again someday.


Shhhhhhh! Don't tell my kids, but this is where some of their gifts are hidden. Obviously they are not very good lookers and finders or I couldn't do this!


Finally, these are clothes for my daughters and a few baby gifts. Sometimes I buy a gift when I see it and love it, and save it for the right person. And when I buy something at the end of the season for one of my daughters, I have to put it in my closet, otherwise they will want to wear it immediately and bug me to no end until they do. In my closet it is basically out of sight out of mind.

Well, that's my closet. Now, go check out everyone else's closets!

Fun Monday Host

Cassie, over at RDH Mom will be hosting the next Fun Monday. Head on over to sign up!

Hosting Responsibilities

Anyone interested in hosting next week's Fun Monday? Please leave me a comment and I will get back to you as soon as possible!