Fall Fun

The last few years, I have been a major fall lover.  Growing up, I was never a huge fan of fall and always insisted that my birthday in early September still fell firmly in the category of summer.  Not fall.  Maybe it was always that fall was linked to the start of school and the end of summer freedom that made me loathe it, I don't know.  However, luckily I have been able to embrace the all the wonderful things that come with fall: FOOTBALL (duh!), all things pumpkin, cooler weather, and fun fall activities.

It's hard to believe that it's almost Thanksgiving and with it will likely go the mild fall temperatures and bring in the cold, icky winter.  Because we can't really be outside in the evenings like we were in the summer, Caleb's new favorite thing to do is to make pirate hats, boats, and airplanes out of newspaper.  He kept asking for more things so clearly Mommy needs to do some newspaper folding research!

While waiting for Daddy to get home one night, we decided to rake up some leaves.  Without any prompting or suggestions, Caleb immediately ran and jumped into my leaf pile.  I'm seriously thinking leaf pile jumping might just be innate to children because he sure knew what to do.

And the little guy was perfectly fine throwing leaves in the air, watching his big brother run around like a crazy dude, and (like everything these days) contemplating eating them.

 

We've spent our cool fall days painting our Halloween pumpkins, marking roads for our toy cars with tape on the living room floor, and making cookies. 

And of course this little guy turned 10 months old this fall! 

New house update: Exterior

As the name of this blog implies, I pretty much dabble in and have a reasonable amount of skill in a lot of areas.  I love to cook/bake, sew, craft, and will usually try anything DIY.  However, a green thumb I do not have.  I have fairly little interest in gardening and zero talent/patience for it.  I like how it looks when it is done but have pretty much no clue how to go about making it look that way. 

One of things we wanted to get done before it got too cold outside was to work on cleaning up the landscaping out front.  As I've mentioned before, we bought the house from a couple who weren't the greatest at home maintenance.  Everything outside was overgrown, half-dead, not cared for and made the whole front of the house look messy.  Every time I pulled up in front of the house, I cringed.  Luckily, my aunt and mom came up on a Saturday to help me, probably partially because they were tired of listening to me complain about it.  Thank goodness that they came and I didn't try to go it alone because it would have taken FOREVER.  We took out bags and bags and bags of dead plants and it took the 4 of us all Saturday to do.

The area around the mailbox at one time I would imagine, had 10-12 daylilies around it.  When we bought the house, the plants were overgrown and had been run over a million times by moving trucks. 

We decided to leave two plants on either side of the mailbox, dig up the rest, and fill the area with landscaping fabric and rock. 

 

 

It has a much nicer 'curb appeal' and will be so much easier to maintain. 

 

 

Up towards the house, we have some hostas and mums that were just so overgrown that none of the plants were getting enough nutrients to grow properly.  It drove me crazy that half of the plants had grown over the sidewalk and were being walked on daily. 

 

 

We dug out 2 whole bags of dead plants and I can already see that the ones remaining are starting to get some life back into them.  We also took down the old, falling apart flower boxes on the front porch which cleans it up a little bit.

 

 

 

Finally, we weren't big fans of the dark blue color of the front door and door trim so we painted it a cranberry color.  I'm not sold on it but it is growing on me.

 

 

We kind of ran out of nice weather this year to finish our work but we have plans to redo the landscaping on the side of the house and give the patio and deck out back a nice new coat of stain in the spring. 



Pie Countdown

For as long as I can remember, Thanksgiving has been my very favorite holiday.  I do love me some Christmas, don't get me wrong, but there is something about gathering as a family where the sole purpose is to hang out and eat a huge meal that gives me a warm fuzzy.  Plus, who doesn't love the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?  I'm getting excited just talking about it.

A few years ago, I stumbled upon something that makes the Thanksgiving season and the month of November just that much more awesome.  Allrecipes.com Pie Countdown.  Every day in November up to Thanksgiving Day, they send an email with a new pie recipe.  Every year a few days before Thanksgiving, I look through all the recipes and choose one to make for Thanksgiving.  It's a little embarrassing how much I look forward to the new recipe every morning and shout the name down the stairs to my husband.  For some reason he doesn't quite show the same amount of enthusiasm as I do but I give him credit for playing along.

Just for fun and because I know you are dying to know, these are the pies I have made the past three years.

In 2010, I made Mile-High Peanut Butter Brownie Pie.  As you can imagine from the name alone, it was delightful.  However, that Thanksgiving I was pregnant with Caleb and this pie was a big undertaking for a woman who was 8 months pregnant.  It was worth it in the end but it was not a quick and easy pie to make.

In 2011, I made Pecan Pie. I loved this pie and it was really simple to make.  I'm usually not the biggest fan of nuts in my desserts but for this pie, I was glad I made an exception.

Last year, I made a simple Apple Crumble Pie.  Last Thanksgiving I was also 9 months pregnant and actually made this pie at 3:30 in the morning due to some hardcore pregnancy insomnia.  Luckily, I learned from my previous mistake and made an easy pie.  Easy but still really delicious.  Sometimes you just can't beat a simple apple pie on Thanksgiving.

So what will the pie of choice be for 2013?  I guess we will just have to wait and see. 

Chicken Tomato Pesto Pasta

We are always looking for a good pasta dish in this house and this one is a keeper.  Josh and Caleb loved it and it was even better for lunch leftovers the next day.  I usually have a rule about having the same dish two weeks in a row but this one may be an exception.


Chicken Tomato Pesto Pasta

Adapted from HyVee.com

* 2 chicken breasts (cut in half lengthwise to create 4 thinner breasts)
* 1 tbs. extra virgin olive oil
* 1 lb penne pasta
* 3 cups of broccoli 
* 14.5 oz. can of petite diced tomatoes with garlic and sweet onion
* 8 oz. can of tomato sauce
* 4 oz. cream cheese (I used light, don't use fat free because it won't melt)
* 1/2 cup basil pesto

Warm oil in large skillet over medium-high heat.  Season chicken breasts with salt and pepper.   Saute chicken in skillet approximately 3 minutes per side or until browned.  Add in tomatoes and tomato sauce and turn heat to medium-low.  Simmer for 8 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink. 

Meanwhile, cook pasta in salted boiling water.  Add in chopped broccoli 5 minutes before pasta is done cooking.  Drain pasta and broccoli well. 

Stir cream cheese into tomato mixture and heat until melted.  Mix in pesto and serve on top of hot pasta/broccoli.

Happy Halloween!

Just popping in to show a couple pictures from Halloween night.  In the craziness of answering the door for trick-or-treaters and trying to get both boys dressed while waiting for Josh to get home, I didn't realize I had my camera on a weird setting resulting in some grainy pictures.  What can you do.

Our football player and sweet baby football had a great time trick-or-treating even though it was cold and rainy here.

 

 

Hope you and your family had a wonderful Halloween!