A beautiful Day in October

Today was a gorgeous day. It was a bit chilly in the morning but the sun felt warm and toasty coming in bright and cheerily through our east facing windows. I had to throw back the curtains and rejoice in the sunbeam that filled my kitchen with a warm glow. I felt so good that I actually SCRUBBED the kitchen floor. The kiddos got into the spirit too and helped me, taking turns with the broom and mop. We alternated hand mopping, then sweeping and then vacuuming and then hand mopping some more then a final sweep...there were a LOT of dustbunnies hiding in the cracks and crevices. I don't normally like to clean so it had been a long time coming. It felt nice to stand in the reflection of the wood floor and enjoy the sunbeams, not seeing the streaks and spots of spills that previously shared the spotlight.

After cleaning the kitchen, hubs and I loaded up the kiddos and headed off to Menards for some paint to finish the new windows hubs had to install on the north side of our house. The first stop was of course Arby's for lunch. 3 little piggies had roast beef and one little piggi had ham. Numms all around. Then we headed off to the hardware store and got sucked into the Christmas village right away...it helped that there was a little kiddy play area there so we crawled through the little houses for about half and hour. I love this model of Step 2 house that looks like a gingerbread house. It is so adorable! The fireplace kicks down and makes an "escape hatch" and it has all these neat little built in shelves and a tiny little sink...I can see hours of fun in one of those. Santa, I've been a very good girl this year...

We ran into some friends while walking through the Christmas ornaments so we headed back to the kids zone so we could talk without the kids causing too much chaos and destruction. We'd just seen this same friend last night when hubs and I went on a "date" to the Blue Moose for dinner and then walked over to Cabelas to get Cody some batteries for his Xbox controller. We hadn't seen them in months and then suddenly we see them twice in just hours? How weird is that? We don't socialize much so this was a nice surprise indeed.

We followed that up with haircuts for the guys while Jbabe and I just hung out in the sunshine, sitting in the car. Me reading a book, Jaiden playing with her blocks. It was very refreshing.

Tonight I am catching up a bit on my blog and email and the guys are watching Boston kick the Rockies out of the playoffs. Colorado is struggling yet not putting up much of a fight. The Red Sox are coming out with their game on and there is no stopping such a force once the momentum gets going.

Fun in October

Cody's first driving experience

Last night, I went to pick Cody up from day #2 of his first job. I found him strolling the toy aisles, straightening toys and putting labels on shelves. He seems to really be thriving in this newfound responsiblity. After ony one day he was already working independently. He seemed to have a great sense of ownership towards "his department" of the store. And he looks so adorable in his uniform, a Dickey's work shirt with the company logo on it.

So he gets off at 8pm and we head home. I cruise through the back portion of our neighborhood and pull over and say "wanna drive?" I think I put him in shock, he hasn't driven a car since he was 12 and plowed into our house when I let him pull the car up a few feet in the driveway. It was pitch dark out and there was not much traffic so I figured it would be as good a time as any to let him get a feel for the wheel.

Teaching a kid to drive involves some serious thought I realized after he sat in the drivers seat and didn't know how to move the stick to D...it was even darker in the car and the console is on the floor. I think we got it into second gear instead of drive but anyway the car was soon going in forward motion all the same. Slowly taking his foot off the brake he manuevered into the street and edged toward home. There was a curve up ahead so he had to slow down, er BRAKE hard, I tell him "no brakes required, just let off the gas" so we ease around the corner, now entering the middle of the street so I tell him "keep to the right please and there is a left turn coming up right ahead" so then he drives into the middle lane again. "Blinker please" take a left here, slowly ok there is a car coming up ahead, just hold steady to the right, ok that is good...now we're cruising. Down the hill and across a bridge (very nice) ok up a hill and there is a stop sign coming up, also two cars and what's that? Rollerbladers? in the middle of the street? They have NO reflective gear on AT ALL. So we come to the stop I say "ok are you stopping?" Yep, we're stopping "ok, now do you see those rollerbladers up ahead?" "You see them right?" "They are right in front of you" We proceed at a snails pace toward t hem and low and behold, they do not move out of the way! So we follow them for about a block before they finally decide to get over on the side so we can pass them. So then we turn at our street and Cody forgets where we live...honestly now I am starting to wonder if this was a good idea. "Um, our house is another 2 houses away son, keep going" So then he FINALLY pulls into the driveway and parks. I breathe a huge sigh of relief and say a prayer of thanks for making it home alive.

I think that really made his night, yes he needs a LOT more practice before he will ever get onto a main street. Wish me lots of luck!

Fried Green Tomatoes

I am not trying to make this a blog about cooking but I have to share this really yummy and very simple idea I found in one of my Southern Living magazines...

Fried Green Tomato (BLT) Poboys

Slice green tomatoes into 1 c. milk or buttermilk (as recipe called for)

Dip into batter of 1/2 c. flour and cajun seasoning, (I used Southwest Seasoning from Tupperware, it has jalapeno)

Fry tomatoes in butter (or oil if you prefer)

Fry bacon

Toast hoagie bread lightly in oven.

Spread Generous amount of Miracle Whip on the warm hoagie buns then layer them with tomatoes, bacon and shredded lettuce.

The jalapeno seasoning mingles very nicely with the crisp tang of the green tomatoes. The taste is light, yet with a little kick. You could add extra spice if you like but these were great just the way they were. I'd never had fried green tomatoes before so this was a first and I will definetely look forward to trying this again. I used the last of my home grown tomatoes for this so I will have to wait till next season for green ones.

Try it and let me know what you think!

The Pumpkin Patch

Yay! Grand Forks has a pumpkin patch! We took a drive out to the pumpkin patch on Saturday. It was just 5 mi north of the base. We drove up and saw a pumkin patch of oversized mostly rotten pumkins and almost drove away thinking that the patch had been picked clean already but a lady walked out of her house and we asked her about the pumkins and she said "oh no this is not it, there is another field beyond the trees and most of the pumpkins are in the barn"

So we headed into the barn and the kiddos picked out their pumpkins. Cody stayed home because he was still waking up when we left at 10 in the morning...so we picked a pumpkin for him. Jaiden wasn't too interested in the pumpkins or taking photos with them. She was a bit tired and cranky from a nasty cough and yucky nose. It had been a rough night for us all.

Jared enjoyed weighing the pumkins on the scale and made sure that they were in precise weight allowances for their size. What that means is, he didn't want Jaiden's pumkin to be too heavy for her to pick up...so we picked a five pounder, which she had no interest in holding. After dropping the pumkins off in the car we wandered over to the hay bale maze and the cutouts, where we snapped some cute photos. Jaiden started to get into the spirit of it a bit after that but she was mostly interested in napping so she was in a bit of a trance. The boys carved their pumpkins while she napped and I painted a face on hers. It was a gorgeous fall day, the sun was warm and bright and the air was only a bit chill. While the boys were carving pumkins, I made some pumkin and banana muffins (separately) They turned out yummy! Nothing beats a hot from the oven pumkin muffin and they are so simple to make. Here's the recipe:

Pumkin Muffins
1 box of spice cake
1 15oz can of pumpkin
Mix these two ingredients (I add a can of water to make them smoother) then fill muffin cups and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. I did them for 25 min and they came out yummy but a little bit gooey...I think 5 more minutes would have made them a little fluffier.

Banana Muffins
Mix 2 eggs, 1 c sugar, 1 stick of butter with overipe bananas, add in
1 c. whole grain flour, 1 c oatmeal, 1/2 c or so of all purpose flour
Mix well, add water if too thick and drop into muffin cups. Bake for 30 min at 350.
I added chocolate chips to the tops of mine when they came out of the oven as an afterthought...I will add them to the batter next time.

The highlight of the weekend though was of course the Boston/Cleveland game. Game 6 on Saturday night was very exciting. Boston actually played like they wanted to win and smoked the Indians out of the running in Sunday nights game. Cody was so excited after Saturdays game that he gave me a big bear hug that lifted me off my feet! For Cody this is monumental (he doesn't usually show much emotion or give hugs) I asked him which was more exciting, Boston in the playoffs or anticipation of starting his first job...of course Boston won by a landslide! He has been a fan since he was just a small boy and it's exciting to see your team come out of the playoffs a winner.

What a blustery day!

Winter is starting to set in for us here in the northern frontier. Today has been rainy and cold. The golden leaves are more plentiful surrounding the base of the trees than on the branches. Old man winter is right around the corner. His visit is not too welcome but it will be exciting to see that first snow and get out the sled for the first time...oh wait, do we have a sled? Hmmm...not sure if we packed it or not. Will have to check the storeroom.
My prediction is it will be an early, wet and cold winter. Of course I'm hoping that I'll be wrong.

Cody has joined the workforce!

My baby (Cody) has hooked his first job!!! I am so proud of him! He will be working at a local dept store stocking toys! :) How cool is THAT for a first job! I am jealous!!! LOL They called him up soon after his 16th birthday so they must have had him "tagged" for a while now. I know he will do great. He starts next Tuesday :)