This is NOT a Pumpkin!

It is a Jack O'Lantern!

Or maybe it's a Ragu jar painted orange (red+yellow) and decoupaged with black construction paper! Thank you Crafty Crow for posting a link to Crafts by Amanda. And thank you Bob Staake for the cute board book, This is NOT a Pumpkin. We just returned it to the library but my son recites it every time he sees a carved pumpkin, which, as everyone knows is NOT a pumpkin, but a Jack O'Lantern!

Pumpkins On Doorsteps & Other Fall Things...

Loving Fall!

Would You Be Happy?

Would you be happy if the neighbor that just moved in brought a handmade gift to your 1-year-old's birthday party and it looked like this?

See here's my dilemma, the invite said "no gifts". Of course, I still wanted to bring something and I've really been wanting to try some applique. Thus, I thought, aha! the perfect excuse to get some me time and try out this idea with the 'found' rose velvet left over from my Go-Yen handbag making days. The trouble is... um, it's a wee bit big for a 1-year-old and I could not for the life of me find a snap. A SNAP! One stinkin' snap! I mean I have thousands of snaps! And apparently every single one of them is in storage, err.

So, what to do? Give a random velvet bag with the kids' name appliqued (Niki Stella is her name, thus the star over the "i") or not? I mean, it's the thought that counts, right?

*Updating* So there was a ginormous table filled with gifts ;) Phew! Glad I brought it but only wish I had tucked a little something inside the bag too. Ah well! Who would have guessed there were so many mommy pitfalls in this world? -- Oh, I should add, the party was very nice and the family is lovely. We are really enjoying our new neighborhood.

To Soccer and Back...

On Fridays we walk from our house on S Street over to Montrose Park on R Street for some soccer time with Coach John. I love the walk. We pass beautiful, beautiful homes the kind of which I will never live in but admire nonetheless. Chris says they all have gardeners when I exclaim over the size of their impatients, the color or their roses, or their perfectly placed mums. This time of year the walk is especially nice thanks to the fantastic fall colors. I seriously do not remember the trees turning this vibrant, almost neon. I'm in pure heaven! I'm not sure I adequately captured their colors as the sky was dark during our late afternoon walk. We barely made it home before the rain. But look at the color just out our front door! Fantastic!!

Pumpkin Apple Printing...

What you may not know is that Mahlon is not enrolled in any formal preschool program. Nope, he's home with Mama, 24-7! Initially this was a hard pill for me to swallow. The last 2 years he has attended a great little Italian school just out our front gate. This year, in DC, it's all a little bit different. We were far too late to get enrolled in a preschool program when we arrived in August. We are on some waiting lists but it's pointless as they are over a year (with tution fees on the other side of 20k)! Instead I have embraced a home-schooling mindset for my pre-ker until next year when he can go off to public school. Some days it works, some days it doesn't. Most days we end up having a lot of fun (interspersed with your typical meltdowns, mine and his.).

Today was one of the good days. We learned the letter "P". It was a full class complete with sister (who rejected the am nap), Stella (the puppy named for the star on her head), her mama, and the rest of the stuffed gang. You see, Mahlon is my assistant teacher. It works well to have him repeat the lessons to his 'students'. The letter P is the first letter in the word Pumpkin. How seasonally convenient, we just happen to have 2 pumpkins on hand! And, the fall craft, apple stamping, lent itself quite well to our craft project. Instead of red paint we mixed in some yellow and got ourselves a nice (odd) shade of orange which we then painted onto a cut apple and printed on heavy card stock.

I was surprised how well Lizzie did with the painting. She got really into it screaming "MOH! MOH! MOH!" when she wanted a refill. Apparently Liz missed the portion of the class where we learned other P words including, Polite and Please.

"Moh!"

Flashback Friday: And a Half

If you asked Mahlon how old he was he would tell you, I'm four and a HALF. Remember when it was important to clearly state exactly how old you were and then quickly follow-up with how old you were going to be? Because he's going to be five and he'd tell you if you'd asked. This picture is from way back, when he was only 6 months old. I came across it when I found this picture of Chris.

Ahead of Myself...

Believe it or not the life of a SAHM is not all bonbons and romance novels, we too need some tricks for carving out time and getting ahead. This is especially true when it comes to food. They may be little people but honestly they can burrow through our pantry faster than the hungry caterpillar. And honestly, just thinking about dinner can make my skin crawl. Every afternoon I think, didn't I just make dinner? Oh yeah, that was yesterday.



Ok, so freezer Blueberry Muffins may not be dinner, but it is an attempt at starting the day on the right foot and at least it's one meal down. I followed the recipe found here. Only I didn't really follow it. Why? Because I was trying to make dinner while simultaneously monitoring 2 kiddos (Step away from the oven. Hot. Hot. Hot.). Thus, all the ingredients eventually made it into the batter but not in the correct sequence. Oh well. This mornings pre-made batch turned out surprisingly well all things considered. I will admit to just dumping an entire bag of frozen blueberries in the batter which didn't really work well. I didn't feel like measuring and figured the more the better, right? Er, no. Perhaps true for chocolate chip cookies but not so for blueberries. It was more like blueberry pie covered with only a bit of batter. I liked it, the kids excavated around the berries devouring only the muffin top.

Anyone have a great make ahead dinner entree?