Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Our two little ladybugs!

Piper at a costume birthday party this past weekend (October 2012).

Cadence preparing to go to trunk or treat at our church (October 2009).

Here's what I see: Piper has a lot less hair than Cadence did; more photographic evidence that it's easier to get Piper to smile for pictures; and now I have the sense not to take pictures in the middle of our messy bedroom.  Ahem.  Also, that little booboo on Cadence's forehead reminds me that she was walking at 12 months, and Piper, at 14 months, still doesn't seem too interested in going vertical when it's so much faster to crawl.

Happy Halloween 2012!

Today I realized that Halloween is not all that different from the other days around here.  Do you know how much we are in costume in this house?  A LOT.  It's just around Halloween there's some extra candy involved.  I tried to take some pictures of our "Halloween" costumes before we headed to a pumpkin themed storytime at the library today...

I think Piper is blurry in every single one of these pics.

Piper is a ladybug and Cadence is Ariel the mermaid.

Piper was going to be a pumpkin but the pumpkin costume I had was too big for her, so she's wearing the same costume Cadence wore when she was her age.  Side by side picture comparison post coming soon.

Cadence had been saying for awhile that she wanted to be a mermaid and I was planning to sew her a mermaid tail, but then we saw this costume at a consignment store and I thought it was worth it to just save myself the trouble.

Piper has mastered going up and coming down our stairs,so there was no way she was passing up an opportunity to climb while the baby gate was down!

She also wanted to show you that this is her nose.

When Aunt Pami was here, she very sweetly bought Cadence an Ariel crown and wand at the Walmart. Completes the look, no?  (Interestingly, Cadence still has not seen the movie The Little Mermaid.  I'm kinda hoping we can hold off on that for a few years.)

Cadence will be trick or treating tonight around our little school community with Daddy and Piper and I will be home handing out candy.  Happy Halloween!

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Aunt Pami came to visit

We had Aunt Pami visiting for 4 days!  And we did a bunch of fun stuff!  Here's some photos showing just some of the stuff...in no particular order.

stylin' in fancy new duds (the kiddos, at least)

Cadence's first mani/pedi

having swordfights with sticks from the yard

wearing costumes (more costume pictures to come)

sporting shirts that proclaim the wonder of aunts

schoolin' in princess-y stories

visiting a waterfall

Saturday, October 27, 2012

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.





Saturday, October 20, 2012

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.



Friday, October 19, 2012

Fall Garden Update

There's still some things going in my garden!  I'm pretty pleased with how things went with the garden this year.  Here's the update (and notes for things I need to remember next year):

I bought 3 strawberry plants this year and they took over an entire raised bed.  From what I understand we will have lots of strawberries next year; we only got a few this year.  


These are my banana peppers, still oddly going strong, though the nights are very cool.  I've been picking these to chop and freeze for cooking with this winter.








These are my nasturiums, which have gone crazy!  They are exploding out of the raised bed on the side of the stairs.  I grew these because the flowers are edible, but we really haven't eaten any.  We'll definitely grow these again next year.


And here's the lettuce, my second batch.  It's doing very well, like the lettuce did earlier this year too.  My spinach did not make it for this second planting, which is strange because it did so well this spring.






This picture was taken back at the end of August when I pulled out the last of the tomato bushes.  As I've said before, these really exploded, growing way out of the raised bed.  While the growth was exponential, the amount of tomatoes I got to harvest was less so.  We ate several, and I made a couple batches of tomato sauce, and pizza sauce, but for some reason a lot of the tomatoes didn't ripen well, or rotted quickly, even though I was checking them every day.

I was disappointed that I didn't get any pumpkins, but I'll try again next year.  I don't have a picture, but our zinnias have been pretty too, so we'll plant them next year as well.

Saturday, October 13, 2012

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.


Friday, October 12, 2012

Crunchy Peanut Butter Cups

I was thisclose to buying Reese's peanut butter cups in the Halloween section at Walmart today.  Then I remembered looking at this recipe for peanut butter cups from Blue-Eyed Bakers and decided we would make them instead.  Go check out the recipe - you'll be glad you did!


I'm so glad we did!  As Cadence said, "They are peanut butter-y, graham cracker-y, and chocolate-y."  Besides getting the oil changed in the car, they are also the only thing I accomplished today.  Scratch that  - I did some laundry too.


I did make two changes to healthy up their recipe a little.  I used 1/4 cup powder stevia instead of the sugar called for, and I made 12 instead of 8.  So a serving is a little smaller, but there are more of them.  Win-win.  The comments said that some people had trouble getting the chocolate the set up, so I used less milk too - maybe 1/6 cup?  I just filled my 1/4 measuring cup  about 3/4 cup full.  (Also?  We don't keep sea salt in the house.  So I sprinkled kosher salt on top.)  Next time, I will try switching at least half the butter for coconut oil.



The revolutionary thing about these is all the ingredients are stuff we keep in our house ALL THE TIME.  Butter, peanut butter, graham crackers, chocolate chips, milk, sweetener, salt?  Check, check, check, check, check, check, check.


Don't you love this look?  Hanging out in a princess tiara and cheetah print dress on our front porch - that's how we roll!

Linking up to Tatertots and Jello.


Sunday, October 07, 2012

{this moment}

Inspired by SouleMama, {this moment} is a single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.


Monday, October 01, 2012

First Day - October






roof leak! eek!







3/4 sleeve cardigans

I was hanging up a load of laundry the other day and noticed this:


In case it's not clear to you from the photo, that is nine 3/4 sleeve cardigans.  Two black, two grey, two yellow, one white, one purple, one blue.  I'm ashamed to say that there are at least five more in my closet - another grey, another white, a beige flowered, a beige argyle, and a blue beaded.  

I might have a problem.