Get in the kitchen and make me some pie!

One of Justin's favorite foods is apple pie. I always make it for him for his birthday, and he loves the recipe that I use, even though it doesn't always turn out perfectly. He especially likes that I pour some of the sauce on top of the crust lattice so that it gets nice and crunchy.

Today he decided to make his OWN apple pie. Unfortunately, the apple corer and slicer fought back on the first apple. Poor Justin.

He claims that the problem was that neither the apple corer/slicer nor the apple were computerized. I felt bad for my bleeding sweetie, so I helped him slice the rest of the apples and mounded them in the crust for him. He did make the sauce himself and poured it in and on the pie. We haven't tasted it yet, but it looks like it will be tasty! A team effort! I also made Amish Friendship Bread today, so the house smells oh-so-sweet!

Staycation!

This past week, Justin took a "staycation." He took the week off work, but we stayed home doing fun things around town. We usually do this around the beginning of October to help celebrate Justin's birthday (28 this year) and our wedding anniversary (9 this year). To start things off last weekend, he went with the boys and me to my dad's house. It was Justin's first time seeing my dad's new house! We got to see my brother and his partner and all my aunts, uncles, cousins, and their kids because we were there for my grandmother's *surprise* 80th birthday party! Happy Birthday, Mema!

On Thursday, we followed our annual tradition of picking apples and pumpkins at Larriland Farm. We started the day by picking up some donuts at the brand new Dunkin Donuts a couple of miles from our house. I must tell you, the excitement going through the community about that Dunkin Donuts was a little silly... but I was totally in on it. I mean, it has a drive-through, for heaven's sake. You can't get much better than that.

In any case, from there we headed to the farm where we picked apples the size of Jack's head and a family pumpkin for carving. We got some mini-pumpkins, gourds, cider, and cherry butter from the farm store. I love fall! I always love the pictures that we take during this yearly family outing. I think it has something to do with the quality of light... and the degree of handsomeness of all my guys.

I really love our October staycations and I hate to see Justin go back to work on Monday. I may have forgotten how to wash dishes. He's so awesome. :D

A Month of Dinners (A List of Shame)

I expect this post to be extraordinarily boring to most folks, so feel free to run away now. But if you have nothing better to do, let me explain where I'm coming from with this. As a stay-at-home mom, I am in charge of making dinner the vast majority of the time. As I attempt to plan meals and provide my family with something decent each night, I wonder. What do other people eat for dinner every night? How often do they order out or eat out? Do they ever resort to having cereal for dinner? Do their kids eat what they serve? How often do they make meals truly from scratch and how often do they simply heat something up? So, in case there are folks like me out there, I am sharing this List of Shame (which is made even more shameful by the fact that I didn't even quite make it the whole month of recording dinners: only 28 days). I am hoping that you will grant me just a little bit of slack given that this list is from the month of September when I was between 7 and 11 weeks pregnant. I was exhausted and nauseous and found it difficult to find both the energy to make dinner and the desire to eat much of anything.

I have tried to note when my dinners came from frozen (which was quite often). If nothing is noted, it was homemade. The boys actually ate it unless otherwise noted. In the cases where they did not eat it, it was not because they didn't like that particular dinner but because they were full of snacks, which is our downfall far more than pickiness, which enters the picture only rarely. I am especially ashamed of numbers 17 and 21. But hey, that's real life around here!

In return for baring my soul here, I am challenging you to bare yours. I would LOVE to have some of my fellow bloggers post A Month of Dinners on their blogs, or have any of my readers E-mail one to me to post here. Perhaps, if this is amusing to people, I will post another Month of Dinners in a few months during the energetic second trimester!

1: green salad with cheese, grilled chicken, avocado, and eggs
2. Pork Jambalaya (made from a mix) and sweet corn(Jack had late snack and didn't eat.)
3. Chicken nuggets, French fries, and broccoli (all from frozen)
4. Digiorno pizza
5. pasta with broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, chicken, and Parmesan cheese
6. (Jack's birthday party) cold cut sandwiches, green salad, fruit salad and Doritos
7. grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup (from a can)
8. chicken and rice casserole with broccoli (kids had late snacks and did not eat)
9. Slow-Cooker Beef, tomatoes, and noodles (kids again had late snacks and did not eat)
10. Leftovers of above dinner
11. Cinnamon Apple Pork Chops and potatoes
12. chicken nuggets and french fries (from frozen)
13. Papa John's Pizza courtesy of Justin's parents
14. Creamy Slow-Cooker Chicken over noodles
15. Chicken Patty sandwiches with sweet corn (both from frozen)
16. Chicken Enchiladas
17. cereal
18. egg noodles with spaghetti sauce (jarred)
19. Stromboli (store-bought)
20. fried chicken (from frozen), mashed potatoes, sweet corn
21. pears, cheese sticks and breakfast bars
22. straw and hay (fettuccine with a butter/cream sauce, ham, and mushrooms)
23. hot dogs, boxed mac-n-cheese, peas
24. rottini with spaghetti sauce (jarred)
25. chicken nuggets, french fries, peas (all from frozen)
26. Moms' night out for me, Pizza Hut for the guys
27. Stauffer's chicken casserole for boys w/ babysitter Aunt Eileen, Ruby Tuesdays for J and me
28. leftover casserole

Good vs. Evil?

This is just my kids being goofballs again! The other day they were trying on various costumes (this is very common in our house, as is changing our clothes multiple times per day). Jack wasn't actually playing the video game, but he often enjoys holding a controller while he watches Alexander play for a few minutes.

Field Trip!

Today I had the pleasure of accompanying Alexander on his first school field trip to the farm. It was an absolutely gorgeous fall day; we could not have been luckier. I am also still thankful that I chose to put Alexander in this afternoon preschool class. It works out just okay schedule-wise, but it is awesome for things like this. With only 6 kids in the class, and no other classes going on at the same time, they really have an advantage. This afternoon 5 kids (one was sick) had the entire farm to themselves!

Welcome to Pumpkin Land! We rode the hay wagon straight to the pumpkin patch where Alexander, in typical Alexander style, followed his special drumbeat to one large green and one small white pumpkin, while his classmates all chose orange. He might not look too pleased with his selection in this particular picture, but I can assure you that he was extremely excited.

There were a ton of cool things to do at the farm. Alexander caught some air after going down a huge tube slide and then a combine slide. He really got into the hay jump and the giant sand pit.

They also rode the "moo-choo train," had a snack, rode cool trikes around a track, climbed on giant tires, and met a great variety of animals. As we have seen before, however, Alexander is not amused by farm animals, so he chose to play with some hay while the girls got llama kisses. I was secretly pleased with his choice to avoid the saliva.

It was an awesome day with Alexander's preschool class, and I am looking forward to their next field trip!

Preschool Pictures

Randomness

A "World According to Xander": Mommy, you are made out of hugs.

An update:
Alexander LOVES preschool and seems to be getting the hang of the whole structure and authority figure things! They got another kid in the class, another girl! So now he is outnumbered 5:1. 7:1 if you include the teachers! He was excited to bring the snack this week and he got to be a "Preschool Star" and put up a special poster about himself in the hallway. He very much enjoyed making it, especially the glitter glue. He got school photos taken, and I will post them as soon as I get them scanned this weekend. They're pretty darn cute!

Jack had his speech evaluation with the county yesterday and qualified for speech therapy. They said that on every aspect except expressive language, he is at or above age level. But for expressive language, he is at the level of about a 17-18 month old, giving him a 25% delay. The speech therapist will come to our house to work with him twice a month and will assess his progress in six months to see if he still qualifies. He's a very smart little boy, he just doesn't seem to want to talk. They said he had an awesome attention span and was especially dexterous for his age.

Jack also continues to want to potty train and I don't think I can resist much longer. Today he's been naked or in underwear for more than 4 hours and has not had an accident. I haven't even had to prompt him to go to the bathroom, he either indicates with gestures that he needs to go, or he just goes to the bathroom and goes! I know he's not completely trained yet, but as I said, I don't think I can resist much longer. He's READY.

Baby #3 continues to grow and make my belly grow! I actually feel pretty good, though! :)

Pictures next time! :)