It's all Pumpkin

I've been a little pumpkin obsessed lately.

Last week I made Pumpkin Granola, I almost burned it... I still ate it anyway....
Over vanilla yogurt for breakfast.  Yummy....

So, today I made a new batch (and almost burned it) to take to my friend I'm going to visit today....
They eat very healthy at their house so it seemed the perfect thing.

This is what the pan looked like when I realized I wanted a picture...

Pumpkin Granola
3 cups rolled oats

3 cups rice crispy
1 tsp pumpkin pie spice
¾ tsp. salt
¾ cup brown sugar
½ cup pumpkin puree
¼ cup applesauce
¼ cup maple syrup or molasses
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup dried cranberries



Preheat oven to 325 degrees and line two cookie sheets with parchment

Combine the oats, nuts, salt and spices together and set aside.
In another bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, sugar, apple sauce, syrup and vanilla.
Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until everything is evenly coated.
Bake for 20 minutes, then remove from the oven and give the mixture a bit of a toss around the pan before returning to bake for an additional 20-30 minutes or until golden brown and crisp.
Toss the dried cranberries
Store in an airtight container


The left over pumpkin from the can couldn't go to waste so I made Pumpkin Flan to have after dinner tonight.

I had to come back and say, holy great pumpkin that flan was good!!!
You  might need to try this...

Pumpkin Flan

1 can pumpkin
4 eggs
1 3/4 cup sugar separated
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp nutmeg
2 cups milk (or cream if you want it really rich)

Place 3/4 cup sugar in heavy sauce pan over med. heat, stir constantly till sugar melted and caramel colored.
Pour melted sugar into 6 greased custard cups.
Mix pumpkin, eggs, 1 cup sugar, vanilla, nutmeg and milk till mixed well.  Pour into the 6 custard cups.  Place custard cups in a larger baking dish and add hot water 1/2 way up sides of cups.  Bake at 325 for 50 minutes. 
Place in refrigerator to cool.  Before serving, run knife around edge of custard cup and unmold upside down on plate.

I might have licked the custard cup...


Off to see my friend's sweet little pumpkin...
and look how cute that pumpkin was...

Even Elvis enjoyed the weekend

The girls went to a girls retreat at church this weekend...

Friday night we had no kids here.

Mike and I had a little dinner date...

 I was all exited about sleeping in Saturday morning, coffee, quiet...

till I remembered the dog had an 8:00 groomer appointment.

darn.

 I offered to help with the Sat. portion of the retreat....

I drove 6 girls from the fancy hotel they stayed at back to the church...

I had a 6th grade group and when I asked what they did the night before, "sleep" was all I got.  Not sure they got a lot out of it...

They had someone come in and give make up lessons...

This is the youth ministers wife, she was in charge of the girl weekend...

 she decided everyone wore the same shade of foundation...

she's easy going like that...

Katie was in high demand for curling other girl's hair. 

It might be one of her spiritual gifts...

The cleaned up and went out for a nice dinner...

It was really fun to hang out with the girls and the sweet leaders.  One of the leaders told me I was really a cool mom like her mom.  That made me feel good, old, but good...

I really am so glad I get to do these things with my girls and that they actually want me there...

We followed up church today with a little pumpkin carving...

Mike thinks he has had a bad day because his laptop crashed but really that freed up his afternoon from working, so he spent it with the Cowboys and now Rangers and a bulldog in his lap, what could be better?

 A good weekend was had by all...

It's just like in the great depression but the food is better

Tonight I came in, unloaded a few groceries and left the garage door up with the back of the suburban up also so Mike could go get the water bottles out...
I promptly forgot to even ask him to do it...

Fast forward about 30 minutes and I am making dinner and talking on the phone when Katie comes running into the kitchen telling me I have to come here right now and see something with great concern in her voice... as I pass the front door I realize that it is dark and slightly orange glowing outside...

It go so dark the street lights came on... but you couldn't see them...and during all this I realized the back of the car was open...
I am pretty sure I don't even want to check that situation tonight...

And the funniest thing is that I finished the orange burlap wreath and hung it up last night...
Katie said "mom, what about your wreath?" but the wind and dirt was too bad to open the door...just thougth it was funny that she makes so much fun of me and my burlap addiction but she wanted to get my wreath for me...

This is the "wall of dirt" that started the whole plunge into darkness...

The news reporter said there has not been a dust storm like this since the 1930's when they had the last bad drought.....

"It's just like in great depression when my grandparents told stories of having to put towels around the doors and windows to keep the dirt out" the weatherman added...

Yep, just like the depression here tonight but instead of the cheap beans they were probably enjoying for dinner I was busy making a yummy but cheap chicken quesadilla...

Great, what other things are we going to have out here in the land of dirt???

Tell me one more time why I'm in Lubbock???



A few fall things...

You know how much I love fall right?
I got out all the fall decorations yesterday. 
Katie asked why I decorate, "no one comes to our house"... there were two extra kids in the room when she said that to me...
I had my favorite Pumpkin dump cake at a friends while we were out of town and I can't quit thinking about it.  I'll be making it this weekend and eating it all.  Just fyi...

I bought goodies to "Boo" a couple of people at school and wanted to make some treats to go with them...

Luckily I decided to taste one because the white chocolate tasted weird... wonder how long that has been in my pantry... I want to make them again though... very quick and easy

I added some sprinkles to a cute jar... it is only a matter of time till Kellie shakes up the candy corn colors...It's killing her...

Katie hates my new twigs with old scary bird pictures... Personally I like the random branches...
I've started a cute wreath fall wreath... everything in the house is covered in orange burlap fibers but it will be cute...pictures to come...

This picture doesn't go with the others but Elvis loves his bed.  Last night he moved it right into my path and I almost fell over him in the dark this morning.... I think he might be trying to kill me...

It's becoming a super power...

A while back when Mike got a little bonus (that could have been better spent on a lot of things) he bought tickets for the girls to see Taylor Swift...
they were thrilled...
and the weekend finally arrived....

We let them take Friday off from school even...
We headed to the Big D...
Where I crammed in as much family and friend time as I possibly could.  I'm getting really good at it...
let me schedule your visit, I'll show you how it's done...

We visited the grandma...
We visited friends...
I did some engagement pics for my friend's son...(I'll post more of these later cause they are so cute!)

My friend and her husband were the best helpers ever... I wanted to take them and the couch home!  I've never had so much fun taking pictures!!!

We ate at my favorite place...
We saw another set of friends for a very quick visit...
We headed to my sisters to deliver the girls to Jennifer for the concert...

The girls were a little surprised that the Aunt had a new iPhone 4...
And when she mentioned that on the "bird game" all her birds had turned into "fish" we all laughed at her...
Katie helped her with her angry birds game and showed her the fish were just small birds and taught her all about all the birds powers....

 Guess if she is going to be all high tech she needs some angry bird skills...

And of course, since I was with my sister the shopping queen, we had to hit a couple of stores where I did score a couple of good bargains...
My brother in law made me his new drink of choice and that led to a very relaxing evening!  I'll be buying some spiced rum this week I do believe...

The girls left way early to get to the concert since there was also a ballgame next door which doubled the traffic to the area...

they made it after much waiting in traffic...

and Katie is a little type A about time, being late, worrying about where to park etc so by the time they got there I received a text from Jennifer saying that Katie was being a little neurotic...

I don't believe she meant for the picture to say it all about Katie an her "neurosis" but it sure was funny to get this!  She explained this morning that she was just freaked out about "the drunk lady in front of us"...
Abbi doesn't seem at all disturbed by her...

They settled in and had a great time and survived the drunk lady...
Had I known who the opening act was, Jennifer would not have been the adult to accompany them...

We hit a favorite restaurant (Babe's Chicken house) on the way out of town today...

The food and company was a great end to a wonderful weekend....
and I may have eaten more sorghum and biscuits than chicken...

I think I was probably just low on iron and feeding a medical need.   I'm pretty sure I'll need some of this on a regular basis to maintain my iron.

It was a fast, fun filled weekend but I'm always glad to get home to my boy....

Parenting, it's hard on the marriage

We have had two days in a row of parenting disagreements.
This is the first time this has happened.
We're usually on the same page.
But not this time...
The first problem was between Mike and Katie and he is convinced she is lying about why she said something. 
I think she's telling the truth.
Cause that kid can't lie!
She's tried.
It never works. 
(The other kid is a whole different story)
So I talked to him about his choice of punishment and tried to point out that I think she was not lying and he basically said "fine, my opinion doesn't count"...
What do you do?  I don't want to undermine his parenting but I really think he overreacted...Did I mention the kid can't lie? 

Now, the second incident is completely crazy in my head but not in his...

I came home yesterday and Katie asks me to come to her room to tell me that "dad has gone crazy".
When he picked her and a friend up yesterday and found out that they weren't going to the homecoming football game he was so mad he told her she was grounded.
When I tried to discuss this with him he decided he would just quit parenting.  I could do it all....
Really?  Over a football game?
Apparently, the once high school football player finds it a horrible thing for anyone to skip homecoming.
From me, the once high school student who did skip a couple of homecomings due to lack of a date, I completely understood. 
I explained the no date, no game theory to him but he wouldn't even budge on his opinion...

Mike took the middle school girl and friends to the game.  They had tickets he didn't.  It sold out to the guy in front of him buying tickets.  This didn't help the mood.
Kellie and friends came home early because it was "boring" and couldn't even tell him what the score had been.  That made him mad all over again.

He seems back to normal this morning.

Who knew our first big parenting divide would be over a football game.  I guess I should have known given the importance of any sporting game to him I guess...

Lets all pray she makes varsity Pom next year so she will have to go to every game!!!

I think he really needed a boy....