Make it Monday - Pumpkin and Apple

I recently went on a baking frenzy because, 1) It is finally cold enough outside to actually want to have my oven on for a few hours and 2) I love all of the fall recipes!

Two of the above recipes were a huge hit and one of them hit the garbage can after one bite.

So which one went in the garbage?  The Apple Cake .  It sounded so good and the photo on the blog looked great but when I made it, there was nothing great about it.  It was very dense, dry, and tasteless.  Plus the "frosting" never set up and was just a gooey mess.  Ironically, as I was making it, I remembered making a similar cake a year ago with the same outcome.  No more apple cakes for me ;-)

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, the Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins were fabulous.  I made them into 12 regular size muffins instead of mini-muffins and they were fabulous.  That is a recipe I'll make again without a doubt! 

Finally, coming in at a close second to the muffins was the Pumpkin Bread.  Darryl said it was the best he ever tasted.  I thought it was great bread but wasn't quite as "pumpkiny" as I was expecting. 

Things My Kids Say

* This past week we were out of town.  The boys loved staying at our "Otel"  Also known as our "home".

* We stopped at a park in the UP of Michigan and pretended we were going to build our home there.  It didn't long for the boys to grasp onto that idea and they had it all figured out from the fact that we did not need to bring Darryl's grill because there were grills there to the fact that Papa would need to help us tear our house apart, carry it across the bridge, and then rebuild it for us HA!

* Legos have taken over our home.  That's it.  Seriously.

Family Fun - Cars and Trees

These first photos just  made me laugh. We were getting ready to go to the hospital with Darryl for his Cat scan several weeks ago.  The boys wanted to take some cars so they were filling their pockets.

 Super cute Nate :-)

 Josh loves to dance and move and be silly!

 He found places to put cars in every single pocket in his pants.  I did convince them to use a bag though :-)

Josh has LOVED our new piano.  This was a gift and it is a gift that gets used every single day but at least one person in our house (Usually by all of us though!)

Finally, we had some HUGE excitement at our house one Friday.  Our neighbors across the street had a HUGE tree that needed to come down.  We had a front row seat out on our front porch.

 Gotta love that sweet face of Nate's.  He's losing that "baby face" but every once in awhile I still catch that sweet little face in a perfect shot!

 Yes, we even had snacks on the porch while we watched. 

 Going

 Going . . . .

 Going . . ..

Gone!! 

This tree literally came within inches of taking out the corner of their house.  The neighbors came over to stand by our porch to watch it - fully expecting to land on top of their house HA!  

Weekly Menu - The One with Halloween

What a great week we had last week for Josh's birthday.  My favorite part was the simple cooking and then well, not cooking! HA!  Josh loved getting his favorite foods too!  This week we get blessed with the kids going to their Grandma's and some Halloween fun!

Saturday - There are two options for this day - either, I'm going scrapbooking all day and Darryl is staying home for the day.  OR, Darryl will work which means I will get up early and drive him to work, come home and go back to bed (HA!) and then go scrapbooking all day.  When he is done working, I will pack up and go pick him up and we'll go to dinner somewhere.  Either way, I'm not cooking!

Sunday - No Kids=No cooking.  I'm thinking we'll just grab some KFC after church so we can go home and watch football. 

Monday - No Kids = No Cooking :-) I'm thinking we may go to Big Boy for their fabulous fish dinner or to Applebees.  Something close and fairly inexpensive.

Tuesday - My kids come home today so it is back to cooking :-)  I'm not sure what time they are coming home so I think I'm going to take the easy way out and just plan hot dogs and chips. 

Wednesday - Breakfast for dinner is an easy thing to do on AWANA nights.  Pancakes, Sausage and fruit is always a great plan!

Thursday - Beef Tips and Noodles,  Rolls, and Green Beans

Friday - My brother and sister-in-law are coming to our house for Halloween.  My brother loves my boys and loves being able to do stuff with them while he is home on furlough.  He has been waiting for two years to be able to go trick-or-treating with them so it should be fun!  I think I'll do Slow Cooker Honey Ginger Pork , with Baked brown Rice, Ken's Fruit Salad. and Marinated Veggie Salad  It is all stuff I can make earlier in the day and then serve just before we head out to get all the candy! 

It is really difficult to believe that it is the end of October and we are entering into the Holiday Season - Thanksgiving and Christmas.  It is really my favorite time of year and I try each year to make it fun, festive, and full of fun traditions for our family!

Making Your Home a Haven and a few other things

One of the first blogs I read that focused on being a Christ Centered Woman within your home was Women Living Well .  I've enjoyed Courtney's writing and that she often does monthly challenges that encourage growth spiritually as well as growth within the home  The past couple of years, I've participated in her Making your home a haven challenge but, some how, missed the beginning of it this year!  I love her focus each week on things like burning a candle as a reminder to pray for your family or to have soft, relaxing music playing all day every day (one I'm working on more!).  If you are looking for encouragement in how to make your home a haven, check out Courtney's posts!

Courtney has already announced the next challenge which will be a book challenge based on the book Messy Beautiful Love.  I know that I plan to participate in this book "club" and encourage you to do so as well! 

One last thing, Courtney is doing a daily Bible Reading program hosted on her site as well.  You can find the latest study on the side of her blog  or you can also click HERE and read about it as well.  I'm currently in the middle of a study on Esther but plan to jump into the Women Living Well Bible Reading program once the study is finished up.

What we are eating - Buttered Noodles

Buttered Noodles
adapted from Food.com

One of my favorite dishes at a classic Michigan restaurant is the Buttered Noodles from the Bavarian Inn in Frankenmuth.  I've attempted a few times to make my very sad version but they just tasted like, well, plain noodles.  I recently noticed that my grocery store was now selling the noodles from another Amish restaurant in Indiana so I picked up a bag to serve with the Amish Chicken I served recently.  I then went in search of a recipe and Pinterest did not disappoint. The dish was almost like the original dish so that made me very, very happy!  You could easily use regular egg noodles or the frozen noodles that have a little more "oomphf" to them :-) 

Ingredients:

• 1/2 gallon water
• 2 chicken bouillon cubes
• 8 ounces extra wide egg noodles
• 1/2 cup water
• 6 ounces butter
• 1 teaspoon parsley
• 6 Ritz crackers, crushed

Directions:

1. Add 1 ½ bullion cubes to ½ gallon water in a medium pot, bring to a boil. Add noodles and set timer for 1 min longer than the longest time listed on the package, stir a couple of times while cooking.
2. While noodles are boiling add 1/2 cup water, 1/2 chicken bullion cube and butter to glass measuring cup. Microwave for 45 seconds on high, Stir. If the butter is not melted all the way microwave again for 30 seconds and mix well until bullion is dissolved.
3. When noodles are done drain water from pot but do not rinse, add butter mixture and parsley. Mix well until most liquid is absorbed, about a minute.
4. Serve immediately with crushed Ritz crackers on top.

 

Teaching Tuesday - Week 8

It's official.  Nate is now a preschooler, not a kindergartner.  After watching him struggle, be frustrated, say he hates school, and then just sob in my arms about not be able to do his work I made the decision to stop pushing him.  He and I talked about it and you should have seen the smile on his face!  He will still do our "Life of Fred" books because he loves those and will also be able to be part of our Zootles and God's World magazine readings because he loves those.  I will then be transitioning him into the Letter of the Week  printables that I purchased last year and used with Josh.  We will then pick back up with K-5 work next year.

Josh was a thinker this past week.  On Monday, none of us were feeling "school" - the boys were super busy playing outside so Josh agreed that doing school on Friday was better.  Well, on Tuesday, he asked if he could do two days worth of work so that he wouldn't have to do school on Friday - since he was so eager, I agreed.  He completed everything and was very happy with himself.  He did ask if he could do the rest of the weeks work too so he could be done but I said no ;-)  There does need to be a balance of building concept upon concept!

We are loving using our AWANA books for Bible.  It is so fun to hear the boys say their verses and be so excited about learning the Bible.  Nate finally has his shirt and he is beyond cute! (He would NOT stand still for me!)

 Josh has stepped up recently and helped wash dishes.  I was surprised by how much he loved it and yes, it probably really is time to give these boys some chores but . . well, sometimes, it is just easier to do it myself HA!

We had a pretty quiet week last week but, I do want to wish a very special little boy a Happy SIXTH! birthday - tomorrow is his birthday and I find it hard to believe that he is growing up so fast!  I love his fun-loving, sarcastic, off the cuff sense of humor.  I love his sweet spirit and the fact that he wants to love and be loved.  I so enjoy his conversations, his quick wit, and his quirks that make him just perfect.