I ride it, schoolbus!

As this was never actually published I can publish it now.  

This is a post about a recent trip G and I took to OK. We left Thursday last week and arrived at the airport with plenty of time. After pulling the bag out of the car, G stated, "I do it" when I went to roll the bag so that we could get on the bus to take us to the airport.  I thought he meant that he would help me, but no he meant that he would get it. Thankfully an extremely nice bus driver saw me struggling with him pulling the bag, so she picked us up not at an actual bus stop. Then during the ride he constantly said, "I ride it. School bus."  Everyone commented on how big of a helper I had. After we checked the "purple one" G had to carry a bag, so he carried the lunch box. He never dropped it or left it somewhere and even through security refused to let me carry the lunch bag. I could carry him after, "up please mommy" directives, but not the lunch box. 

Final edit: I ended up running the Route 66 Half Marathon at a time of 2 hours 15 minutes and 4 seconds.  Considering I planned on 2 hours 15 minutes I'll say I did okay.  It wasn't a PR but it was a good race.  I also got to walk through the finisher chute and looked up when I heard everyone talking about Batman.  (G had found a Batman hat that he insisted on wearing) He crawled over the fence from mom's shoulders to get to me and gave me a huge sweaty (on my part) hug.  

We had this crazy idea to go in US Women's Soccer shirts after they won the World Cup in July.

Batman inspecting the bling.

Batman looking for mommy over the fence

Family dinner for G's Birthday!

Hanging out with Uncle

Trying to figure out what this thing does.

Look! Mommy got a hair cut!

Playing in toys at the mall.

Definitely carry on size.

I do it!

Pushing a grocery cart because of "I DO IT!!" and it not being worth the argument at 9pm.

Ringing in 2016

We rang in the new year while traveling back to NC from Oklahoma.  We had a lot of fun with family and friends all while dodging wonderful weather phenomenon.  The newest phenomenon that we had to deal with was the tornadoes on the way down.  While in Nashville we couldn't see and had our radio hoping for that annoying beep saying there was an alert of some kind.  We couldn't hear each other for all the rain coming down on the car so we found a long overpass to park under for a few minutes to get our bearings.  As we slowed down we realized part of what we were hearing was tornado sirens.  Yes!  Now we get to add driving through tornadoes to our list of Christmas weather adventures we've now had.  The first year Chris and I got married we drove through tornadoes getting home to Arkansas from Oklahoma at Thanksgiving -- but never Christmas before.  That was a scary experience and we didn't have two kids screaming for food in the backseat then.  :)

Anyway we made it safely to all of our destinations even if we didn't stay as long as we might have liked to stay.  We got to see most all of the family and friends we set out to see and now it is good to be home.

Google helped me by putting together a story about the trip.  There aren't many captions but it tells the story quite well and has several pictures that are fun!

Google Story Link

Divinity Recipe

2 ⅔ C sugar
⅔ C white
⅔ C water
¼ C egg white
2 C nuts
1 TSP vanilla

Combine sugar, karo, & water in pan. Cook to softball stage. Have egg whites beaten stiff, beat in half of mixture, pour in thin stream. Continue beating put other half of sugar mixture on stove and cook to hard crack, then add to egg mixture. Beat until dull add vanilla and nuts, pour in buttered pan.

Past Few Weeks as Pictures

Green Eyed Goddess

This has been a difficult week for A but a fun week for G.  A has acutely felt that she is not always the center of attention and has done a few things to bring all eyes back on her. Overall though she has borne it well and is getting better at it.  We read a color book on emotions (it seems there are several out these days) and discussed the green one a little bit and how we can be happy for other people. Realistically she has done remarkably well and will do better as more and more things like this happen. 

G has turned 2 and had a good week.  We had a few presents for him on his birthday and did a leaf jumping fun party yesterday.  We had half a dozen kids come and play over lunch.  We have leaves (in case you've missed the earlier posts) and yet again I was able to brush up quite the pile of leaves for kids to jump into.  We moved it slightly to be where the kids could roll/jump/slide from our neighbors into it. 

Here are some of the fun pictures:

As you can gather gifts with wheels and things that can be put together were the biggest hit. It was also Batman themed as G loves Batman.  It is super cute when he runs around in his batman robe saying "I Batman" after his bath.

It is time for me to go read some before I get some sleep and start another busy week.  Hopefully we get the snow that A keeps asking about. 

Pumpkin Cake Recipe

I haven't posted a recipe in a while. This is weird for me. Very weird indeed.  I've had an issue getting workable pumpkin this season though the one I processed this weekend was quite good.  I also got around 6 cups of puree so I'm happy with it.  I even had to lop off a fair bit of the top because it had some bad spots in it so I think I would have gotten around 8 cups of puree. It was a white pumpkin and those are new to me this season.  I'm finding them to be a bit sweeter than the orange ones and a bit milder on the taste. This is good as I haven't had my typical "pumpkin spice" season.

In true-to-form fashion I found a recipe online for a carrot cake.  Yes I know carrot cake is not pumpkin cake.  However as I was convincing myself to get out of bed when G woke up screaming this morning I was looking for a way to use pumpkin that would be easy to transport but wasn't a bread and wasn't a pie.  I still haven't made pumpkin pie but think one is coming as I can't freeze the remaining white pumpkin.  I made half a dozen substitutions or so but here is the link to the recipe I found and used as inspiration.  I find the cake to not need icing (rare for me since when I could eat wedding cake Chris got the cake and I got the icing) and it is delicious as it stands. It is also super moist and fluffy which is odd for gluten free stuff.  I'm going to make some cream cheese icing but not tonight as I need to go to bed. 

Cake recipe:

1/2 C agave nectar

1 C canola oil

4 large eggs

1 Tablespoon vanilla

1.5 C brown sugar

2.5 C Flour (3/4 C tapioca 1/2 C brown rice 3/4 C sorghum 1/2 C sweet white rice + 1 tsp xantham gum + 1.5 tsp gelatin)

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon each: ground ginger nutmeg allspice

2 cup pumpkin

 

Preheat oven to 350°F.

 

In a large bowl (I used a 4 cup mixing cup) whisk the liquid ingredients (sans pumpkin or the first four things) together. In a mixer (because I refuse to mix things without one anymore) mix all the dry stuff (everything from the brown sugar to the spices in order of ingredients). Mix it some more because you want to make sure everything is well distributed.  Add the wet to the dry. Scrape down the sides of the mixing bowl with a spatula and then add in the pumpkin. 

 

Distribute into appropriate baking pan -- either a couple of 9x9 squares or a couple of circles or a muffin/cupcake pan (which is what I used since I have several children coming over for a birthday party the end of the week). Bake in preheated oven until they smell like they are done and bounce back to the touch. Let cool (or don't like Chris and I did) and then frost/ice. 

 

I got 32 cupcakes out of the batter. Here is a picture of the yummy cupcakes.  

Chris asked if we had to share them with the kids and that most will want the cake not just the frosting.  Which since A wanted sugar coated sugar with icing on it for breakfast this morning is saying something.  

Yesterday was a pretty impressive day for G -- he went most of the day with the same diaper on as he went on a toilet while we were out all day.  Chris put him on the toilets we visited in Charlotte and he went on every single one! Then when we came home he simply refused to potty on the toilet.  Bah!

All Saints Day!

We embraced a bit of frivolity last night.  We took the kids trick-or-treating. This is the first Halloween in a while that I haven't had to make a costume but everyone was wearing something that I made. :) People we ran into really liked all the costumes so that make it a fun night for me.  Everyone especially loved G this year.  He went as Olaf again but since he could walk a bit easier this year it was a different effect.  A was a princess mash-up: Elsa-Belle-Sophia. She wanted to be "Darth Vader" again but Chris hadn't the time to fix the light saber so she didn't get to carry it. We went to my boss's house and then across the street to some of our friends from church.  At the friend's house the kids would mob the door every time it rang. We wondered what it was like from the other side and just laughed about it. 

We've had a fairly uneventful but busy month for October.  We did a lot and I think we finally managed to kill the rogue staph that was wondering around our house.  I may be the last hold out and I'm finishing up my round of antibiotics. 

Here are some pictures from last night. Hope you were all safe and had fun!