Fall Cooking

We made pumpkin rollout cookies yesterday. I love this recipe because it's easy to work with, is low in its sugar content, and uses real pumpkin. I can also sub some of the flour with whole wheat flour, and Sucanat in place of brown sugar works fine too. Rollout dough is fun to use with kids because, even if they don't help make the dough, they typically enjoy the cookie cutter and decorating parts! In these pictures, Caroline is doing her favorite part: peeling the scraps of dough from between the cookie shapes. She used to call this scrap dough the "wrapper," which I thought was cute.

She is covered in flour because a lot is needed to keep the dough from sticking. We used pumpkin and cat cookie cutters.

We decorated about half of the cookies using raisins, dried cranberries, and chocolate chips. Caroline liked giving the cats eyes, noses, and mouths. The raisins and cranberries didn't stick too well... but we made an attempt, anyway. Caroline also made a random gingerbread man and put raisins on it too. She's holding a baking sheet of unbaked cookies.

And here she gets ready to enjoy the finished product for dessert. This is a cat she decorated with chocolate chips. Perhaps mini chocolate chips would have worked better and made the cats look less possessed!
A few people asked me about the Cranberry-Apple Chicken recipe. So here is a photo of it. It was nothing spectacular, but it was easy, healthy, and Caroline requested seconds (which is a compliment since she isn't a huge fan of baked chicken dishes). I thought it tasted a little boring... salt and pepper helped. If I make it again, I may try soaking the apples and cranberries in a little orange juice, maybe with a pinch of brown sugar...


And finally, tonight I thought I'd add a simple, fun touch: melty cheese pumpkins in our bowls of chili. I had the chili cooking in the crock pot all day so it'd be easy to eat whenever and be able to work around trick or treating. Caroline was excited to come back in after trick or treating to find a cheesy surprise in her bowl! I stole this idea from a picture I saw on the cover of a magazine in the grocery store checkout line, by the way.

I love fall cooking! There are so many foods that evoke thoughts of this season. The chili may have to become a tradition for our All Hallow's Eve meal.

Bad Mommy, Part II

I set Cecilia down on the sidewalk while Caroline and I were eating lunch on a bench at the outlet mall. She was really squirmy and wanting to explore. Well, she fell on her nose as she was crawling. She howled, then nursed and was all better... just this red, skinned nose.

Today, she crawled headfirst off a mattress on the floor and hit her nose against the rug. What had been a minor abrasion yesterday became a bloody sight from a horror film. It didn't even bleed yesterday, but it had gotten a little scabbed, so she interrupted the healing process. You can see how it looks even worse once I post Halloween pictures. It's too late to change her costume to Rudolph or wrap her in gauze and have her be an accident victim... she'll just have to be a gruesome pumpkin.

Can you baby-proof a baby-proofing product?

teething + mobile = eaten fireplace guard

What is it? A guessing game for you

Does anyone remember the 1996 Atlanta Olympic mascot, "Whatizit," later shortened to "Izzy"? Nobody knew what it was... which I suppose was the point, but it went over like a ton of bricks. Well, there is a new "Whatizit" that I found the other day in my Trader Joe's animal crackers.

I love Trader Joe's. I have no complaints about their store of their products. But I cannot figure out what this is supposed to be! Their animal crackers are rather oddly shaped. There are other indistinguishable ones, but I think this one is the funniest-looking in the container. I mean, it appears to be a blob with three legs, does it not?

So, if YOU have a great guess as to what this is supposed to be, please leave your idea in the comments! After several evenings of raiding the animal crackers (they are really good!!), I finally had an epiphany and I think I know what it is... I'll share my idea after I hear some of yours!

Definitions by Caroline

Caroline (overheard while playing Chutes n Ladders with Daddy): "I'm on six two."

Chris: "When the six and two are together that way, it's called sixty-two."

Caroline: "This one is thirty five."

Chris: "That's right."

Caroline (running excitedly into the kitchen): "Mommy!! I'm learning to spell my numbers!"

I love this idea...

...so I'm going to copy it. Imitation is the best form of flattery, right? I have noticed on some other blogs that people have their weekly dinner menu listed. I love that idea, and since I already write down my weekly menu plan on paper, why not add it here? It will appear on the right side sometime soon. I can't guarantee it will be kept up to date...

Our friends are moving :(

We had a going away party yesterday evening for our friends who are moving to Iowa. Caroline and Matthew are only a month apart in age and have known each other since they were about five months old. They have been best buddies for three years now (well, as much as babies can actually be friends). We met at La Leche League and from there joined some playgroups. This party was thrown by our moms group.

Here's Ryan enjoying the view while we all eat dinner. We had a pot luck type meal, with chili and hot dogs as the main course... good fall food!

Caroline and Matthew had a blast playing with the balloons.

Amy, our moms group leader, gave a card to Kara that we all signed. We will miss them so much! But we're happy for them, as they will be living much closer to their extended families once they move. We wish them all the best as they embark on this transistion in their lives!

This cracks me up...

total relaxation

Flower Girl

Caroline was the flower girl for my brother's wedding this past weekend. Uncle Mike is her godfather as well as her uncle. She had never been a flower girl before and was excited to get to wear a pretty dress and drop flower petals down the aisle!

Here she is admiring her dress while she waits to be in some pre-wedding photos.

She was so mature about the whole thing... she went with the bridesmaids willingly when thy needed her for photos, she kept the petals in the basket until the time came to drop them, and she kept her hairbows on... a major accomplishment in and of itself!

And here she is walking down the aisle. I was in the front and on the side as she walked down, so I didn't get a good view of her, but I got a perfect view of my dad crying... so I got teary-eyed, too. She was so beautiful, and it felt so special to have her participate in such an important part of family life: a marriage, a sacrament.

And, of course, I am going on and on about my daughter... but here is the happy couple, my brother and his bride:The ceremony was beautiful, as was the bride! And what a beautiful setting for a wedding - so gorgeous, especially in the fall!

And here's Caroline dancing with the groom as a final shot:

On large family gatherings

I love getting together with extended family. My family is a pretty large and loud bunch, and I like it that way. People everywhere, talking. There's always somebody to talk to, always something going on. My dad's side of the family is bigger (and therefore louder!), but this weekend, we had both sides of the family together for my brother Mike's wedding.

Mike and Caroline play Chutes 'n' Ladders while Grandaddy looks on

We had the rehearsal dinner on Friday evening, where we took up a very large section of the restaurant - we had easily doubled the number of other people in the restaurant. Most of my cousins on my dad's side were there, most of them with their wives and children. Nearly all of my aunts and uncles were in the room... only one wasn't there. It was a busy evening, full of mingling about, chair-swapping, and catching up with each other. Caroline was well-occupied between some activities at the table, eating dinner, and sitting with Gramma and Grampa for dessert. With all those relatives, there was no shortage of people for conversing with Caroline or improvising a changing table in the bathroom so I could get Cecilia into a clean diaper!

The next morning brought more family gathering time, as everyone was invited to the rental house for brunch. My mom and several other female members of the family (plus my husband, who helped out too, as well as trying to figure out why the microwave stopped working and the stove was taking 45 minutes to preheat!) prepared the food... baking quiches and hash brown casserole, cooking grits, brewing coffee and hot cranberry cider, getting out breads, rolls, ham, fruit. Plenty of food for all! The groomsmen were also staying with us, so we had a full house! And where there's a gathering of a large family, there has to be a large quantity of good food! The kitchen is the heart of a home (and the same holds true in a rental home where the oven and microwave are both broken), and we all gathered around the table, counter, and found places to sit in the open living/dining/kitchen space.

my aunt and mother working in the kitchen

So, the gathering included the following: my parents, my family of husband and two daughters, my three brothers, my mom's brother and his girlfriend, my mom's dad and his wife, four groomsmen and the best man's wife... and those were just the people who were sleeping in this rental house! The rest of the family who was staying in other rental houses came to the brunch as well: my dad's two sisters, one of which came with her husband and their son and his wife, and my dad's older brother and his wife and youngest son (whose other two sons, their wives, and collective six children didn't come to the brunch because one of the kids was sick, but they were there for the rehearsal dinner and wedding). I hope I'm not leaving anyone out ;)

This is something else I love about family gatherings... the laid-back atmosphere that allows for the older children to interact with a wide range of people, and the babies can just take it all in. Caroline had great fun watching football with Uncle Mike and his friends, and she enjoyed playing with and talking to whoever would engage her. Cecilia watched the goings-on from her cozy spot in the sling as I moved about, preparing food and taking photos. Humans are social creatures, and being amidst all this social interaction is just a real-life lesson for a baby. She experienced the sights and smells of cooking, the sounds of happy conversation and football announcers, and, as is typically the case, she dozed off as I busied myself, which just comes so naturally when I am not worrying about a schedule or quiet or that she might not be getting enough sleep. All those worries are lost when I can let go of them amidst a bubbling, busy gathering such as this.

Cecilia, tired out from being carried around while watching people

There was such a wide range of topics we could discuss - I found somebody to talk to about natural childbirth and natural family planning, as well as somebody who could reminisce about the Florida Gators football team from the early-mid 90's (we talked about specific players and plays even, both of us having recorded many games and watched them repeatedly!). We found one family member who said she was voting for Obama (we only found one total, actually). We found people to discuss parenting, the playoffs, and politics.

my brothers, Mike and Tim, and my husband

And once she was awake, there was no shortage of people to hold the baby! She was quite willing to interact closely as long as she wasn't too tired, and as long as I wasn't too close by...

Cecilia with her great-Grandaddy

Cecilia with her daddy

Cecilia with her godfather and uncle, Tim

So, if everyone generally gets along (and maybe even if you don't), make some time for your family and close friends to get together with no real plans (well, we had to get to the wedding, but our morning and early afternoon were wide open to just be... and to eat, of course!). Big families all together can be overwhelming sometimes, but they are quite an enjoyable blessing more than anything.