Block house
Inside block house
Block trees and person
Fall trees
Tops of trees
Roof of block house
Block structure
Another picture of block house and flowers.
Whole block town
Entrance to block church
Block car in parking lot
Another car in parking lot
Block mini person
by lex
This time it’s Lex’s turn. They are most excited for the small chairs and free snacks.
We had a few decorative sugar pumpkins that were starting to look old so I decided to cut them up and see if I could use the pumpkin flesh. They are edible, after all. So while Eve ate her breakfast yesterday I grabbed a knife and cutting board and went at it. She was very concerned. “Ohh… the cute pumpkins. You’re hurting them!” She fussed for a few minutes while I continued to cut. Then she asked if we could make pumpkin pie. Sure, I said. Fussing over. She happily watched as I cut the three little pumpkins into chunks and stuck them in the oven.
pumpkin chunks
While the pumpkin cooked Eve and I made my all-time favorite cream cheese pie crust from the Joy of Cooking.
Eve helped
My oven isn’t great (as you’ve heard) so these cooked and cooked and cooked, but eventually I had to take them out so Eve and I could get on with our day. They were probably 80% done. I left them on the counter all day until we got home from school. When the kids were settled with their movie (sick afternoon, remember?) I went back to the pumpkins. I was able to get the flesh out, but it was still too hard to easily puree. So I stuck it in the microwave.
Semi-cooked pumpkins. Not a very pretty sight.
This is when I discovered that the microwave had finally bit the dust. It turns on, lights up, makes all the right noises, but doesn’t actually get hot. After 15 minutes of cooking this pumpkin puree and only having it get cooler and cooler I decided to give up on that effort. I dug out the blender. No good. I don’t know if blenders are not meant for pureeing pumpkin or if mine is just old and lame or what, but the blender did nothing. So I went back to the immersion blender (my original tool) and put some muscle into it.
Eventually I got the puree smooth enough for my standards and I was finally able to start making the pie! By this time the movie was almost over! I used a recipe from King Arthur Flour called Smooth and Spicy Pumpkin Pie. You really can’t go wrong with a recipe from KAF. The rest of the process went smoothly and I got a beautiful (by my standards!) pie.
Pumpkin pie, fresh from the oven.
By the time it came out of the oven it was nearly 9:00pm, so we decided to let it cool and have pumpkin pie for breakfast.
Pumpkin pie for breakfast.
The verdict? Pretty good pie. The whole time I was dealing with the pumpkin puree I kept saying that I would never again make pumpkin pie from scratch. It’s just not worth the effort. I had half a blog post written in my head about it. But…. the three pumpkins yielded me enough puree to make three pies… or something else. The pie came out pretty good except the crust bottom was a bit undercooked (should have prebaked the shell a bit) and the filling was a bit overcooked (I was mistakenly doing the “knife test” in the middle instead of the recommended 1″ from the edge) so now I’m thinking about making another one. I have the puree all ready in the freezer. I’ll have to do something with it! :) Anyone want some fresh pumpkin pie?
I was trying to take an artsy picture of the pie, but Eve wanted a picture of her vitamin instead.
Yum!
I’m employing Starfall as my babysitter for a few minutes so I can do some Good Beginnings work. That done, I’m going to take two more minutes for a blog update as I noticed I left you all hanging on the sick thing.
Lex is feeling much better now. He went to school Tuesday morning, despite red rosy checks and a warm forehead. He insisted he felt fine and wanted to go to school. He came home yesterday afternoon wanting to take a nap (no surprise!). Unfortunately his bed was stripped and instead of waiting for me to remake his bed he decided to watch Toy Story instead. They both settled into the dark living room (darn winter!) and watched Toy Story. He almost dozed off a few times, but didn’t. I took the opportunity to bake a pumpkin pie. More on that later!
He went to bed feeling fine and woke up this morning happy and ready to go back to school. Yay!
The other good news from today is that Eve’s eye sight progress is going well. We had a checkup this morning and her eye doctor was very happy with her progress. I guess when she first got her glasses she measured at 20/30-20/40 corrected, but now she was 20/20 corrected. Which means her left eye is working harder and her vision is improving. Yay! The doctor was very pleased and Eve, of course, was a Wonderful Patient (or so said her sticker reward at the end.)
Ok, time to shut down and go… make dinner I suppose. Or maybe I’ll cuddle and play Starfall with them for awhile. :)
I woke him at 2:30 to go pick up Eve. He was hot and feverish. I gave him more medicine, hoping he would feel better by the time we got to school. No such luck. Instead I was faced with the decision of leaving a sick boy alone in the car, clutching his vomit bowl just in case, or bringing him in to the school, bowl, sick germs, and all. I let him choose. He crawled up on to my back, I held the vomit bowl, and we made our way in. He PROMISED me he would not throw up on my neck. Ick! I sat him down in the hallway with his bowl and I got Eve all signed out, then back to the car we went. When we got back home he still wasn’t feeling well. I asked if he wanted a movie on the couch, but he asked for his bed again instead. I carried him upstairs, sat him in bed, and he threw up. A LOT! Luckily that vomit bowl was still in hand. After that he slept until we woke him up at 6pm for dinner. Actually he got up once in the middle to use the bathroom. I’m still impressed that I didn’t have to change wet sheets today with all that sick sleeping. (I did change the sheets tonight anyway, just to give him a fresh set for the night.) At dinner he said he felt much better. He ate some oatmeal, took a shower, then cuddled with Alan on the couch for awhile. Back in bed at 7:30, saying he feels fine. He still has a fever though, so we’ll see how tomorrow goes. Fingers crossed he’s 100% again! :)
Poor Lex woke up this morning feeling rotten. Achy body, achy head, rumbly tumbly, sad all over. I took his temp (under arm because he was scared of the oral method) and it was 101.5° After cuddling for awhile I dosed him up with acetaminophen and managed to get a little breakfast in him. He’s so sweet and polite and adorable when he’s sick. The medicine made him perk up a bit and we spent the morning playing blocks on the floor. I played off and on, while getting a few long overdue chores done in the kitchen as well. Yay! The medicine was wearing off when we brought Eve to school. On the way home I asked Lex if he wanted his normal quiet time (on my bed with a book) or something special, like TV on the couch. He chose my bed. Hmmm… halfway up the stairs (on my back) he decided he wanted his bed instead. He was asleep before I left the room. He’s still napping. Sadly I’m going to have to wake up in up a few minutes so we can go get Eve. I’ll probably dose him up again to get through the afternoon. I hope it’s a quick fever!
Blocks = hours of fun
They make pretty elaborate setups with the blocks. Lex likes to make airports. In the very front is a baggage train bringing baggage to the airplane. The yellow block with the red triangle on top is the driver. In the right, middle is a baggege screening area. Green and brown people with red heads are standing in line to put their luggage on the conveyor belt. Another green guy with a red head is standing between two red screens, viewing the luggage on the x-ray machine. In the back of that little group is another green guy and a purple guy waiting to pick up their luggage. For some reason he always starts his airports with the baggage screening area. In the back Eve has built a group of cats and dogs out of the big plastic blocks. The animals weren't feeling well so she loaded them on to trucks to drive them to the vet. I love the imagination.. and the amount of time they are able to focus on this game!
I’m going to start by saying I realize I am currently typing on a computer the size of a (rather large) notebook, connected to nothing, sitting on my lap, on the couch. I’m typing to my blog, to be posted to the Internet and read by people on the other side of the world (that’s right Joyce, I’m talking to you!). I realize that the following complaint post is a first world problem, as my dear husband likes to say. First world problems, I know, but annoying nonetheless.
That said, technology in my world sucks these days! As I’ve complained about before, the dishwasher has issues. It’s currently running with the help of a paper clip in place of a fuse. Oddly enough that seems to work, but no one is quite sure what to expect the next time a fuse-popping surge occurs. The stove has never worked well in the five years we’ve owned this place, but this year we were told it’s leaking… fumes, I guess, and ought to be replaced. Several qualified people have looked at it and given us the same diagnosis. Nobody seemed super urgent though, so we’ve been delaying. But now that cold weather is here and the house is nice and tight… and we’re dishwasher shopping anyway, we figured it was time to replace the stove. And the microwave, which is also dying a slow death. I put some frozen broccoli in there to heat up and after 15 minutes it still had ice on it. And the two bowls of oatmeal that I make each morning (Lex and I are oatmeal junkies!) take longer and longer to cook each day. So add that to the list. And the bluetooth device in the car, which is less than a year old, stopped functioning altogether two weeks ago. My phone gave itself an update a few weeks ago, resulting in quirky functionality and a loss of all my contacts. Sprint says “yeah, we know.” Apparently they were waiting on LG to release an update to the update. Still waiting. Tonight the ancient MP3 player in the kids room stopped working. It lights up and does some crazy stuff. I’m hoping Alan can work some magic and get that going again. I left a very distraught Lex up there, trying to fall asleep without music. You’d think it was the end of the world. Fortunately Eve was so tired she fell asleep on Alan’s lap during story time and doesn’t even know (yet) that the music is broken. What else? Hmmmm…. I have a headache right now too, but I suspect that’s due to the mass quantities of fresh bread and butter I ate today (followed by a few oatmeal cookies), not my technology issues. If only there was an app for that!
Grumble, grumble, grumble. I asked Alan for a Kindle for my birthday and he was happily shopping, but now it looks like I’ll get a new dishwasher, oven, and microwave instead. All of which are way more useful than a Kindle, but also way less sexy. Oh well. Such is life, such is homeownership, right?
Ok, I’m done complaining now. Off to fold some laundry and try not to eat any more cookies. Tomorrow will be more :) and less :/
Lex has taken an interest in football so he and Alan have been tossing the ball around lately. Or, as the kids say, “toss around the old pig skin!” Lex remembered that from one of the Calvin & Hobbes books I put away ages ago. Grampy Don came to visit this weekend and the kids have been super excited to go out and play ball with him. This afternoon was perfect ball playing weather and we all had a blast!
Isn't he cute?!
Tossing around the old pig skin.
Each time Lex catches the ball they do a hand-off.
After awhile Lex got tired and decided to try playing while sitting down.
Tossing around the old Eve ball.
Then we got a little silly.
Sweet Eve
White bunny was playing football with us.
'da boys!
The color on this is funny but I think it looks neat. I wish his bright blue eyes were open.
After running around for awhile we moved the party inside for some football on TV.
I added a tag called “silly sleepers” to mark all these crazy sleep positions :) Some day I’ll go back through the years of blog posts and tag them all. For now, here’s a starter photo.
Her legs were criss-crossed in front of her (criss-cross applesauce, hands in your lap) and she was flopped right over them. Sound asleep. So flexible!