We also made "thankful" leaves. Here is where I have to thank my dear friends for thinking of me and bringing the leftover craft pieces from an event to my house (so thank you, A!). These leaves are super cool. They have a wax like covering that, when scraped off, have rainbow colors under it. Originally, I was just going to have the kids do designs, but then I changed it up and decided to combine another activity I had planned with them. I was going to make a "thankful" tree with handprints. To save time, I just used the leaves. The kids were great. The things they came up with were, well, interesting. I didn't want repeats, so they couldn't use what the other had done. They decided they were thankful for their family, friends, dog, country, world, and the sun (because without the sun, there would be no life...guess someone is paying attention in science). One of the nicest parts of this was that Sunshine got to practice writing and sounding out words. Instead of a tree, we are hanging them from the dining room chandelier, sort of like a Thanksgiving centerpiece.
Even during all the craziness here, we've made time to do fun little crafts. I saw the cool idea of melted crayons on a pumpkin on Pinterest. So, I got my pumpkin all ready and then, I stood there, for over an hour, with a hair dryer, and still, some crayons never melted. Luckily, with Husband's job, he has a heat gun. After getting that out, the pumpkin was AWESOME in under 10 minutes. I do not suggest doing this if you don't have a heat gun, unless you have hours to kill. Will definitely do this again next year, minus the time with the hair dryer! Another thing I found on Pinterest was this door sign. I didn't want mine to be as long, so I changed it up a little. The kids got to pick the kind of faces they wanted on their hands. Yes, I know this is the second time I'm posting this, but this time I added a link with it. This time of year would not be complete without pumpkin carving and painting. This year there were pumpkins everywhere! We had more pumpkins this year than we have ever had in the past, and it was great! Both kids got to tell Daddy exactly how their wanted their jack-o-lantern faces to look. They turned out super cute! Sunshine's is smiling, of course. Monster's looks mean. I got to do the surprised one. While Husband was working with the carving, the kids painted pumpkins. I painted our annual taped off "R" pumpkin because, by the time we got to that one, the kids were pretty much done. Sunshine also made us some very nice paper jack-o-lanterns at a MOMS Club event we attended. Every year since Husband and I have been carving pumpkins, we have tried roasting pumpkin seeds. Last year was the closest we came to success. Still, even then, Sunshine was really the only one who would eat them (which is odd since she eats nothing!) This year, I found yet another recipe for pumpkin seeds. After all our failure, what's one more recipe to try? This recipe has you soak the seeds in salt water. This one was a success!!! I did change up the recipe though because we have had issues with our seeds burning. By changing it up, my way took a LOT longer than the recipe says. Completely worth the time though! I soaked the seeds in salt water like the recipe said. After that, I let the seeds air dry, well, almost completely dry at least. Then, I baked them at 200 degrees for several hours. My first batch was faster than my second because I tested it out with only about 1/4 of the seeds. I'm glad I did test though. I didn't add the salt to the top like in the recipe. I did this because one complaint last year was that they were too salty. So, I left off the additional salt. I'm so glad I did because they were plenty salty from just being soaked in salt water! I will definitely be doing this one again next year! Immediately after Halloween was over, I started working on Thanksgiving. I feel bad for Thanksgiving because I need to rush since it's so close to Halloween and Christmas. I want to cram as much Thanksgiving stuff in as I can! First things my kids did was make Thanksgiving cards (and Veteran's Day and winter holiday, but most were Thanksgiving) for veterans and active soldiers. I forgot to take pictures of them, but my kids did a great job! And now, Monster knows how to spell country due to writing, "Thank you for serving our country" over and over. We also made "thankful" leaves. Here is where I have to thank my dear friends for thinking of me and bringing the leftover craft pieces from an event to my house (so thank you, A!). These leaves are super cool. They have a wax like covering that, when scraped off, have rainbow colors under it. Originally, I was just going to have the kids do designs, but then I changed it up and decided to combine another activity I had planned with them. I was going to make a "thankful" tree with handprints. To save time, I just used the leaves. The kids were great. The things they came up with were, well, interesting. I didn't want repeats, so they couldn't use what the other had done. They decided they were thankful for their family, friends, dog, country, world, and the sun (because without the sun, there would be no life...guess someone is paying attention in science). One of the nicest parts of this was that Sunshine got to practice writing and sounding out words. Instead of a tree, we are hanging them from the dining room chandelier, sort of like a Thanksgiving centerpiece. No autumn is complete without collecting beautiful leaves and no Thanksgiving is complete without turkeys. We combined the two this year. The house at the corner of the street where we pick Monster up from school has the most vibrant red leaves. Sunshine gathered a whole bouquet of them. We then made turkeys and used those wonderful leaves as feathers. Unfortunately, the picture really doesn't do the leaves justice. Speaking of turkeys...Little Miss Sunshine had a project due for school. She had to "disguise" her turkey so he could make it through Thanksgiving. The kids could disguise the turkey anyway they wanted. Sunshine combined the interests of her family. First, the turkey had to be sparkly with a crown, of course. But her turkey also had to have hiking boots since Sunshine's family loves to hike in the fall. It also had to be playing UNO, which is one of Sunshine's favorite games. She did almost the whole thing on her own. I only cut out UNO cards and the turkey and drew the hiking boots. She colored and glued and drew everything. It turned out super cute! The UNO cards fold down and on the other side, she glued colored paper and wrote numbers. (This is a reminder for everyone else in her class....turkeys are due Friday!) And because nothing in this house is complete without a science lesson...... Sunshine's friend's birthday is coming up. He is very into the solar system right now. So, we did a mini lesson in which Sunshine made her friend a model of the solar system. She's very excited about it, so don't tell ;) There were probably more things in there that we did, but when I'm this far behind on posting, I can't be expected to remember it all!
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I know I've said it before, but autumn is my absolute favorite time of the year. I love everything about it. It's also our busiest time of the year. For some reason, I feel like this particular autumn has been our busiest, and maybe it has since our only "free" day happens to be Fridays. We are booked with activities until December. To add to it, I've been advocating for the school levy coming up. I feel like everything I've been posting revolves around this levy, so sorry everyone who doesn't live here (and if you do live here, make sure you vote YES for the school levy!).
Even with all the craziness, we've been having a great time! We've spent every weekend hiking. The past two weekends, we just beat the rain. Well, last weekend we actually ended up eating lunch in the rain, but it held off through the hike! All of our new hiking boots have been put to great use! Autumn wouldn't be autumn without many, many fall activities. We've hit several, but the best was this past weekend when we went on our annual trip to Pinecrest Farms. This was either our 5th or 6th year going with friends. In all those years, this was by far the nicest weather we've had! It was a sunny 75! We went on a hay ride, picked pumpkins, went through the hay maze and played in the soybean box! Aside from all the outdoor stuff we've been doing, I've been doing a few crafts. I think our Halloween door hanging turned out pretty cute. My list of things I want to get done this fall is growing and my time is getting shorter. I'm just hoping I can make it to the end of October without completely burning out! Through all the craziness, I have done a couple of crafts and found some cool new products to use. Wash and Brush Timer. I had seen this a while back and bought it to give to Sunshine for Christmas. Her hand washing has been so fast lately, that I couldn't wait until Christmas to give it to her. It is great. Only problem is that Sunshine is three feet tall. I have it affixed to the mirror and she has trouble reaching it. So, I still have to be in there to push the button for her to wash her hands. Good thing is that she's doing a much better job of hand washing. Teeth brushing is also a little easier with this, but my kids are good teeth brushers anyway. Thankful Wreath. I had found some cute wreaths for autumn on Pinterest, but none were exactly what I had been looking for. I had thought of using this one and adapting it to make it into a thankful wreath. Then, I found the "Wreath of Plenty". It was exactly what I had been looking for. I sat down with the kids and Husband and we all came up with things that we were thankful for. Best part of this one is that we can add to it year after year. Unfortunately, I didn't have straight pins and the thumb tacks just didn't cut it for securing the leaves. Each time the door closed, leaves would fall off. Next year, I'll have straight pin ready to go! Number Balloon Scavenger Hunt. I had originally pinned this to help Sunshine with number recognition. I never got around to it doing it for her. A couple of weeks ago, Monster had a friend over. I decided to do this for them as a scavenger hunt. They loved it! Sunshine and I hid all the balloons before the boys got home from school. The pack of balloons I got had 15 balloons, so our hunt went from 1-15. The boys had a blast finding them. I promised the boys that I would make it more challenging next time. Next time, I'm going to put math facts on the balloons and they need to solve them and find them in order. A week after Monster and his friend played, Sunshine had her friend over and the balloons were still sitting in the laundry basket. I decided to try it with Sunshine and her friend. Once again it was a hit. Since they are only 3 years old, I didn't hide the balloons, just spread them out every where and they had to find the numbers. They played it three times in a row! Beer Cap Ornament. A friend of mine and I are going to be making snowmen bottle cap ornaments. We have so many bottle caps, that we will never use them all for snowmen, so I found this idea and loved it! I made this wreath for another friend. I used all Great Lakes Brewing Company caps because she loves Christmas Ale. Husband thought it was super trashy, but I knew my friend would appreciate it. Solar System Model. A friend of mine took Sunshine to swim lessons on day, so Monster and I had time to ourselves. For Mommy/ Monster time, we built a model of the solar system. Monster got an awesome science kit that had the model in it. It was so much fun to work on this with him and have some one on one time. He even let me paint Neptune, which is my favorite planet. Snack Skewers. For Sunshine's snack day, she wanted to take grapes and blueberries. I figured I'd try to make it easier for her teachers and I skewered the fruit. Since the kids are only 3, I cut off the sharp ends. This is about as creative as I can get with snacks. We are also currently working on transforming the train table into a Lego table. All the train pieces are packed up to be put in storage. We've bought the base plates. We just need some time to get it all together. Monster is very excited about it. He's asked Santa for Legos for Christmas so hopefully we get it all done before the man in red arrives.
I've got a ton of projects to finish up before Christmas. Hoping I get the motivation to complete them. The good news is all the gift shopping is done, so that frees up time for other things. Sunshine moved up a level in swimming, so the time is different. I'm hoping that gives me some time to finish projects up as well. Stay tuned! I can not believe that November is more than half way over. Thanksgiving is 2 short days away. What happened to November? I honestly thought that once both children were in school, I'd have a few hours a week to work on things that I needed to get done, make fun crafts, and bake. Why didn't anyone tell me I was wrong? Why didn't anyone warn me I was living in a fantasy world? I'm busier now than I was before both kids were in school. There is not one day on my calendar is that blank. Literally, not one. Little Miss Sunshine has also been boycotting naps, so that's added to my not being able to get things accomplished. I have not tried one single new recipe this month. I have not finished one creative project (though I've started several).
In three days, my favorite season will be "over". Christmas decorations will go up. Cookie baking will begin. We will start our Advent Acts of Kindness. Autumn will be just a memory. A blurred, chaotic, memory. This time of year always seems to sneak up on me. I start reflecting on all of things I wanted to accomplish at the beginning of the year and think how will I ever get them done in one short month. This year, I realize I have actually accomplished so much. Maybe I didn't get all the baking, pinterest activities, and organizing done that I wanted to, but it's been a great year so far. Normally, I start stressing out about all the things left to accomplish and I don't get to enjoy December. So this year, I'm going to enjoy December...as soon as I make sure my pie is baked for Thursday! My migraine had me fall behind on the recipe thing. This week, my family didn't eat so well. It took me until yesterday to feel better and actually get out the grocery store for real food. The only thing new I tried this week was spaghetti squash in the crock pot. Super easy, which is why I was able to handle that with my head. All you do is pierce squash with fork all over to prevent it from blowing up, put it in crock pot, add one cup of water, and cook on low for 9 hours. It turned out pretty decent. I've never cooked a spaghetti squash before, so I don't know if this is common, but it turned out a little runny. By runny, I mean it seemed like it actually had some water in it. Maybe it was over cooked. Maybe I pierced it too much. Or, maybe that's just how it turns out. It was still good though. Monster and I liked it with butter and pepper. Sunshine wouldn't eat it and neither would Husband. For two weeks, I did pretty well with keeping up with more than one new meal for the week. Here were some that I tried. Chicken, potatoes, green beans. This was so easy and so good. It will most definitely be made again! It's just chicken breasts, cut up potatoes and green beans, frozen, canned or fresh, put all together in a casserole dish. Use a packet of dried Italian dressing and sprinkle over everything (I did't put it on the green beans because I didn't think my kids would like it). Then, pour a stick of melted butter over everything. Cover. Put in 400 degree oven for an hour. So yummy! African Pulled beef with yogurt mint sauce. This one wasn't so great. It was pretty bland. Plus, no one in my family liked the mint sauce. If I would have put dill rather than mint, they would have enjoyed it a lot more. This wasn't worth my time to make. The lack of flavor was really disappointing. Bacon wrapped chicken. This was OK for a change, but probably not something I'd make again. It was so simple and had good flavor, but the bacon didn't get crispy enough for me or my family. It could have been the kind of bacon I used, but, honestly, it's not worth me trying again. However, the chicken was great. Husband thought it was too sweet, but I really enjoyed it and the kids didn't hate it. I may flavor the chicken that way again when Husband is out of town. Taco Pie. My son literally ate half of it. Half of a pie. I used ground chicken instead of beef. It was very good. Sunshine didn't eat it, but that wasn't a surprise she doesn't like ground meat of any sort. This a definite make again meal! All I did was use a roll out pie crust, bake it for 10 minutes, added seasoned, cooked ground chicken, topped with cheese and baked another 15 minutes. After that, we put sour cream, olives and tomatoes on top. Chicken Ranch Tacos. The meat was very good, but I added season salt to it. Everyone, other than Sunshine (do you see a pattern here?), ate it and enjoyed it. The recipe that I found for this modified it for the crock pot, which is what I did. It was just one cup chicken broth, 1 lb chicken breast, 1 packet dry ranch dressing, 1 packet taco seasoning. Combine in crock pot, cook on low for 4 hours, shred chicken and cook extra half hour. I added just a touch of season salt and more taco seasoning. After shredding, it literally soaked up all the juices and it was incredibly tasty. None of us added ranch dressing to our tacos though. I tried, but liked sour cream better. These next couple of weeks will be bringing lots of pumpkin themed recipes. I can't wait! I love pumpkin!
As a side note, our pumpkin experiment did not go well. The pumpkin molded, started to rot, and was attracting all sorts of bugs. It was seriously gross. Monster thought it was really cool that it was so gross. I've been with Husband 16 years. That's almost half of my life. Little did I know he was so "crafty". On one of our autumn hikes, he made Monster and Sunshine nature shakers. He took dried milkweed pods, put some pebbles in them, and tied them with blades of grass. The kids loved them!!!
Autumn is my favorite time of year. The temperatures, the smells, the foods. Everything about autumn makes me happy (except knowing feet of snow are on their way). I love being outside in autumn. Luckily, I have a family that loves being outside all the time. Our local park district has a program where you hike the different parks in the county and get receive a backpack and a pin every year following. So, this family decided to take the trekking challenge. We completed it this weekend. Here are some pictures of our autumn walks. As a short side note...all of these are in order of the weeks we did them. If you notice the clothing, you'll notice that just week to week there were some crazy weather changes! Still love this time of year though!
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