The oven

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Wouldn’t it be funny if this were some sort of cream puff explosion!? Funny for a minute anyway. Alas, it is just my attempt at cleaning the oven. Something bubbled over awhile ago and now I have to take down the smoke detector before turning on the oven and everything comes out with a slightly smoked flavor! True confession: I had to look up how to clean an oven on the Internet. I love Pinterest. Does that make me a lame housekeeper or modern woman? Both, I suspect.

One final thought – Is baking soda the only thing that comes with a drug facts panel AND a nutrition facts panel?!

Happy Fall

I took the kids to the apple orchard today. I’m a sucker for apple picking. I just wish those bags didn’t fill up so fast! This place has apple, blueberries, raspberries, a corn maze, and today they had fresh donuts, cider, and hay rides! It was busy, yet somehow peaceful as well. We had a really nice time. I packed a picnic lunch and we hung out for over two hours.

lunch p1

Lunch by the river. It was a very sunny day!

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That bagel is as big as his head! He only ate about half of it though.

raspberries p1

After lunch we headed for the raspberry patch. Eve remembered from her field trip that the Kiwi Gold raspberries were very tasty and were a peachy color when ripe. She did a great job explaining things to Lex.

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Eve pointing out hidden raspberries.

horses

We were all surprised to see, and hear, horse drawn wagon rides. I didn’t know this farm offered such a service. We missed the ride up to the apple trees (it’s a short walk anyway!) but caught a ride back down.

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Eve was counting her raspberries, in a random chaotic sort of way, and insisted on counting each berry in my hand before letting me put them in her container.

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Both containers were full and those berries were all gone by afternoon snack!

green lex

Where’s Lex? He blends right in on a sunny day.

lex

I had to tell him, many times, to pick the apples one at a time, not gather a huge armful that resulted in dropped apples everywhere. He has his father’s efficiency gene.

apples in a box

I tell ya, the pickin’ was good!! :)

eve

And an Eve in an apple tree.

apple tree

Apple trees make me smile.

us

A nice lady took a picture for me in the wagon heading back down the hill.

pumpkins

I caved and let them buy pumpkins. I’ll have to buy more for carving, I think, but I’m a sucker for fall activities and happy kids!

eve and her pumpkin

The rule, as always, was they had to be able to carry their own pumpkins. When we got back to the car Lex said, “Whew! I can walk pretty fast with eight pounds of pumpkin in my arms!”

corn maze entrance

Lastly we did the corn maze. This year’s “theme” is a mystery. Vincent Van Goat has lost his ear and as you progress through the corn maze you can read clues and try to solve the mystery. My two had no interest in reading clues and we just ran through it, quite literally!

eve in the maze

“That way!” she yells.

apple brownies

Of the huge grocery bag full of apples we brought home today, four of them went into making apple brownies. They look and smell delicious. I’m going to taste one this evening, and if they are good we’ll be sending them to school as little treats for their classmates.

I just went looking for a blog post about last year’s trip through the corn maze (we got lost!) and found this one instead, from 2008! I had completely forgotten about that first trip through the corn maze. They are so little! I love my blog.

Our new pet

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Alan found a woolly bear in the garage and the kids adopted it. They are excited for the crysalis stage, but it will be awhile. Did you know that woolly bears hibernate during the winter? It will hibernate and then wake in the spring, eat more, then begin transforming. The kids both have monarch caterpillars at school. Lex’s class got to watch the butterfly emerge and they set it free on Friday. They have one more cacoon, I think, and Eve’s class still has two caterpillars.

Around the house

mudroom

Our mudroom will have a heated floor! How cool is that?! I think we’ll spend the winter in the mudroom. :)

hugs

Somebody loves her daddy!

blue table

Our little blue table met it’s untimely demise this afternoon. After surviving two generations and six years of a third it fell to a 65lb force atop it. Sigh. Eve proposed we just build a new one, paint it blue, and write “all the stuff on the bottom.” She insists it would be just the same. Somehow I doubt it.

living room

Since the blue table is no more I decided to give our grown-up coffee table another shot. It takes up a lot of space in our narrow living room. We’ll see how long it lasts.

Pancakes, Pancakes!

Have you ever read the story Pancakes, Pancakes!, by Eric Carle? It’s one of our favorites in this house. I am forever grateful that we do not have to harvest our own wheat and grind our own flour in order to have pancakes. Jack is a very ambitious boy! Tonight we decided to make Jack’s pancakes for dinner. We talk about doing it when we read the story but this is the first time we’ve actually remembered at a meal time. Lex was thrilled and did much of the work himself. The recipe is as follows:

Put one cup of flour into a large bowl. Mix in one egg. Pour in one cup of milk and stir until smooth. Heat a pan over the fire (Lex conceded that our stovetop would suffice). Melt a pat of butter in the pan. Ladle a scoop of batter in and cook until golden. Flip. He said it would be ok if I used a spatula instead of flipping it into the air as Jack’s mother does. Serve with strawberry jam.

lex 1

He was feeling brave and decided to put the batter on the pan.

lex 2

Guess what’s baking at 425° in the oven?

pancakes

Eve says I’ll have the big one, please!

eve

Eve put apple butter on hers and rolled it up like a crepe. It was tasty.

happy lex

Lex gives Jack’s Pancakes two thumbs up. I think they are just so-so. Pretty dense. Not very sweet.

pie

Pie! Eve and I made apple pie this afternoon from the apples she picked at the orchard yesterday. Pancakes for dinner and pie for dessert! I’m the awesomest mom ever! :) (Really the pie was too hot for the kids to eat tonight. They will get some tomorrow.)