NovemberFEST

'Twas a little belated for Oktoberfest but nonetheless, invited a couple of friends over last night for a sampling of fine fall flavors.  Wish I had gotten more photos, but the menu included...

Bier! Hot Pretzels and Beer Cheese! Apples and Caramel! Sausage and Peppers! 
Pumpkin Ice Cream! Cider! Beer Bread! 

Oktoberfest Beer Cheese Dip

(16 ounce) package shredded Cheddar cheese (4 cups)
(8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened
2 cups of a good, dark beer
2 teaspoons garlic powder

1. Melt the cream cheese in a large saucepan over medium heat. (If you take it straight out of refrigerator, you can soften a bit in microwave first).

2. Add the beer, stirring together and letting it blend.

3. Stir in the Cheddar cheese, and garlic powder; heat, stirring continually, until all the cheese is melted.

4. Serve as a dip with cubes of crusty bread (Tastefully Simple beer bread is particularly good), veggies (I like it with cauliflower and red bell peppers).  Or, you can buy those frozen soft pretzels you bake in the oven and serve with this.  Delicious!

5. You can transfer from saucepan into glass casserole dish for presentation, and microwave to re-heat as needed throughout your party.  You can also serve in a scooped out bread bowl.

Its so simple, and comes together really quickly.  You don't want to make it too far in advance before your guests arrive.  Use a good quality dark beer, too.  The flavor really comes thru in the dip.  I'd recommend something like Guinness, or some kind of a stout or porter.

Delicious!

flying feather

I think Chief Flying Feather is ready for Thankgiving, don't you?

Roasted Vegetable Pasta

I'm making this for the teacher luncheon today at D's school and dropping it off in a bit.  Veggies are in the oven roasting now, and it smells amazing!  8:30 is little early for garlic for me (as much as I do love it so), so I'll have to save a little bit on the side for my lunch later.  I love all the colors, and its pretty darn healthy too!

This can be served warm, cold or at room temperature so it makes it a perfect choice for a picnic or potluck.  Roasting the vegetables gives them a sweetness you can't get any other way.

veggies before roasting

Roasted Vegetable Pasta


1 (16 ounce) package farfalle (bowtie) pasta
Olive oil (for amount, see below)
4 or 5 cloves chopped garlic
1 large red onion
1 pound portobello mushrooms (I use Baby Bellas, already sliced)
2 red bell peppers
2 zucchini
1 pint grape tomatoes
2 or 3 yellow squash
1 pound asparagus
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
Fresh shredded Parmesan cheese
Salt and black pepper to taste

Wash and chop all vegetables so that they are all about the same size. I like the size to be about 3/4 of an inch. Having the vegetables the same size is VERY important because everything will roast together.

Preheat oven to 450* F. Cover two large baking sheets with foil (for easier clean up), and spray with nonstick spray.

Place all your vegetables together in a large bowl and coat with olive oil and chopped garlic. You want the pieces covered well with oil, but not dripping!

Spread the vegetable mixture out on baking sheets so that everything is in a single layer. The veggies can be touching, just not piled on top of each other. Two standard baking sheets are usually sufficient for mine. Isn’t it beautiful?

Roast in the oven for about 20 – 30 minutes. Check frequently. You're looking for your vegetables to be tender and a little browned/caramelized but not mushy.

While the vegetables are roasting, prepare the pasta according to package directions.

Toss the roasted vegetables with the pasta, including some of the olive oil from your baking sheets that is leftover from roasting... this makes up part of the dressing for the dish.

Add the balsamic vinegar, salt and pepper to taste and toss gently again.

Serve immediately with a generous sprinkle of Parmesan cheese.

Serves 10 (recipe can be easily doubled)

veggies after roasting

finished dish, scrumptious!

Native American Way

For weeks now, the second graders at Dylan's school have been studying Native American history. We've been hearing all about the Pueblo, Lakota and Powhatan tribes and what they ate, where they lived, what they planted, which animal they hunted, how they traveled, etc.  He's had quizzes and learned songs and dances.  And last week he turned in his first ever diorama. 

This week has been American Education Week, and today all the second grade families were invited to school so the kids could show off their stuff.  Walking through the second grade hallway was very impressive today, I wish I had gotten a picture of all the amazing projects the kids have done.  I can't remember ever having to turn in such a complex project at such a young age AND the kids all had to give individual oral presentations on their dioramas! Things have changed since I was in second grade.

This morning to kick things off, we got to watch the second grade program, the Native American Way.  Dylan's class dressed in all brown, and represented the Lakota tribe, singing songs and performing a rain dance.  And! There was no puking this time!

When I'm in the school there is such a sense of pride and accomplishment in the kids, and the teachers are always smiling.  I'm in the school quite a bit... I volunteer for a couple of hours every Thursday in Dylan's Language Arts class, and periodically for other events too.  The teachers truly love what they do, and they're very, very good at it.  The level of noise and chaos teachers put up with on a daily basis would probably make my hair stand on end.  

The lunch room today alone was completely insane.... I don't know if there's a decibel that probably would describe it. But somehow Dylan and I found a little corner area all to ourselves and settled in for some cheese and crackers and hummus, celebrating his performance and all his hard work.

hot bean dip

It must be the time of year, but I'm feeling the urge to share some of my favorite recipes.   I can't take a bit of credit for this one.  My good friend over at Jersey Baby shared this with me years ago and its a favorite appetizer around here.  Its even on the healthy side (as far as appetizers go!).  My kids love this, and its vegetarian as long as you use vegetarian refried beans.   A total crowd pleaser!

Hot Bean Dip

Its hot as in heated up, not as in spicy!

1 can refried beans

1 8 oz container sour cream
1 can black beans
1 can pinto beans
1 cup mild salsa (or spicy if you prefer)
1 cup shredded Mexican blend cheese

Preheat oven to 350. Mix everything but ½ of the cheese together in oven-safe bowl. Sprinkle remaining cheese over top and bake for 30-40 minutes until bubbly. Serve with Tostitos or Fritos corn chips.

two quick breads

Next week we'll be heading out for the Thanksgiving holiday.  I adore Thanksgiving, and I can't wait to see my Grandma Williams.  There will be 10 of us staying at my Dad and Stepmom's new house.  I thought it might be nice to bring some pre-baked quick breads for easy breakfasts for everyone.  I've been busy this week making double batches of some favorite quick breads and stocking up the freezer.

First, my tried and true (and the boys all time favorite), banana bread. And a new favorite, pistachio bread.  I just love anything pistachio.  Pistachio ice cream, and then there is always pistachio cranberry fudge!

I double the recipes everytime I make these.   If you do that, it will make four small loaf pans (the foil ones you buy at the market, a two pack is $1.99 and you can wash them and re-use).   You can eat one loaf (be nice and share!) and freeze the other.

Pistachio Bread

This is just delicious, there is no other word to describe it.   Basically, an excuse to eat cake for breakfast.  My kids trample over each other to lick the bowl first.

1 (18.25 ounce) package yellow cake mix
4 eggs (I use egg beaters, it comes out the same and you save some calories)
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 tablespoons water
1 (3 ounce) package instant pistachio pudding mix
1 cup sour cream
1/2 cup maraschino cherries, cut in half
1/2 teaspoon green food coloring
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 tablespoons white sugar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two 9 x 5 inch loaf pans.


Mix together cake mix, eggs, oil, water, pudding mix, sour cream, cherries, and food coloring. Pour into prepared pans. In a small bowl, stir together cinnamon and sugar. Sprinkle tops of loaves with mixture.

Bake for 45 minutes. Cool.

Banana Banana Bread

You can't beat this for a great breakfast.  Toast it, spread a little butter or cream cheese, and yum!

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter (1 stick)
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, beaten
2 1/3 cups mashed overripe bananas

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray one 9 x 5 loaf pan with nonstick spray, or use two smaller foil loaf pans (eat one now, freeze the other for later!).

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking soda and salt. In a separate bowl, cream together butter and brown sugar. Stir in eggs and mashed bananas until well blended. Stir banana mixture into flour mixture; stir just to moisten. Pour batter into prepared loaf pan(s).

Bake in preheated oven for 60 to 65 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of the loaf comes out clean.

shrimp chowder

I just love soup, and any variation of soup... chowder, stew, chili, etc.  I try to make something in this category once a week to take a break from the meat/vegetable entree routine.  Its particularly nice when it works out to be a cold rainy night, like tonight.

This recipe falls under the category of "semi-homemade" since your base is store bought cream of potato and mushroom soup.   Easy, hearty, quick and delicious on a chilly night. Serve with crusty bread.  You can change it up and use any combination of frozen seafood. We've used a seafood mix of mussels, shrimp and squid.   You could use this as a base for clam chowder by just adding clams too.


Ingredients

3 tbsp butter
1/2 bunch green onions, chopped
2 pounds frozen shrimp (cooked*, peeled and deveined), cut in half or three pieces depending on how large
2 cans condensed cream of potato soup
1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup
1 can whole kernel corn, drained
4 ounces cream cheese, softened
2 cups half-and-half cream
2 cups milk (1% or 2%, not skim)
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper (add more to taste)

*if you don't want to buy precooked shrimp for this, I highly recommend cooking the shrimp before putting it into the chowder... you want to make sure it gets cooked all the way through before it goes in the pot.

Directions
Melt 1/4 cup of butter in a large stockpot over medium heat. Combine potato soup, mushroom soup, corn, and cream cheese. Mix well, and bring to a slow boil. Stir in half-and-half, milk, green onions, and shrimp. Season with cayenne pepper. Bring to a low boil, and simmer 5 minutes to blend flavors.
 
For those who like a spicy zing, add hot sauce as desired at the table!

outing to Old Town

Today was such a beautiful, perfect fall day.  We found out Friday my Dad and Bobbie were going to be in town this weekend for a wine event with their company.   They were staying in Old Town Alexandria, and invited us to come meet them for lunch today.  

Old Town is a cool place to go, but its even more special for us because its where Andrew and I first met, and went on our first dates (back in 1998!).  We drove right by this place, and told the boys we were passing by the site of where it all began.... our first date ever (how very Singles of us!). We drove by Andrew's bachelor pad, on S. Columbus Street.

We met Grandpa Joe and Grandma Bobbie at South Austin Grill, home of the best steak tacos around...

We took a nice walk down to the waterfront so we could enjoy more time together and the perfect weather.  Again, more history of me and Andrew.  We walked right by here, which is where the artist who made Andrew's wedding ring has her studio.

The boys loved looking at all the boats and the Woodrow Wilson Bridge.  We saw lots of handsome dogs being walked, and watched lots of airplanes flying overhead in and out of the airport.  Just a great day to be outside.  We came upon this huge anchor, and the boys checked it out...

It was really, really heavy.

Then we finished the day buying some silly, warm winter hats for the boys at 

The Gap (hard to think of snow on a day like this, but it will be here all too soon....)

They either look like they're in Fargo, or like lambs, I can't decide which.  Maybe lambs from Fargo.

What's even better is we get to see Grandma and Grandpa again in just over a week when we go visit them at their new house in southern Virginia!  They're living there full time now, and we'll be spending that week with Uncle Chris, Aunt Jessica, cousins Josh and Maya, Dad and Bobbie and Great Grandma Williams who my Dad is picking up in Ohio and driving in.  Hopefully the weather will be as gorgeous as it was today!



yellow belt!

As of this morning, Logan is the proud wearer of the Yellow Tiger Belt! 

He loves Instructor John. We're thinking about adopting Instructor John so the good focus and self discipline that happen at taekwondo might better carry over to home. 

In all seriousness, Logan has not taken his new belt off all day, and this happened 7 hours ago.  He's just wearing it over his regular clothes.... my guess is he'll sleep with it on tonight!

Very, very proud of you.  You earned it!

the new pose

Since the DSi XL came to town, this is how you'll find the boys...

our Logan

Its been a long time since I've blogged about Logan's developmental progresses with speech and behavior.  So hold on tight, this will be a long post but there's no way around it.  In some areas, things have gotten easier and some areas remain quite challenging.  I try really hard to focus on the positive. 


Logan is incredibly smart on so many levels, its actually scary sometimes.  He recently sat down (for the first time) to play Dylan's (highly addictive) Rush Hour Jr. game and was able to quickly solve almost every card right away.  He is already sounding out words.  He's extremely athletic with terrific hand-eye coordination.    I just signed him up for T-Ball this spring for his first ever season and can't wait to watch him whack that ball.  He has no fears and goes off to preschool each and everyday with a smile on his face, ready to see his friends and do his work.  He's passionate, creative, sweet and strong-willed.  He not only knows how to have a great time, he could care less about any rules telling him to live otherwise.  He tells me he loves me a hundred times a day.  He can be such a sweet brother to Dylan, and always makes sure Dylan gets his share of any special treat we might buy during the day while Dylan is at school.


But, he also still has a hard time controlling himself.  He has anger that is always right under the surface and if its the wrong situation at the wrong time, we have a Mount Logan eruption.  Its never a peaceful lava flow, rather, its gushing, bubbling and burning everyone that gets in its way.   I've talked about his anger many, many times, including needing to take a step away that this summer and get some perspective.  And for every one time I have talked about it on this blog, there have been a whole other slew of episodes that left us spinning and exhausted.  Its been a challenging time for our family.  I have lost my sanity many times, and somedays I feel like I've been hit by a truck.  But when that happens, you get up the next day and try to make it a better day.  Its just the way it is.


We're doing everything we can to help him learn how to control his emotions and reactions.  And I have every confidence, like a fine wine, he'll mellow with a little more age and experience under his belt.  Some anger can be good.  I'll certainly never worry about him being taken advantage of by other kids, for one thing.   However, I also don't want to worry about him being the bully in his class, or ending up at "Opportunity Station" as the principal in our elementary school calls the time-out work station next to her office.  

While there are a million great adjectives that can describe Logan's character, I don't envision "laid back" ever being one of them.  I'm fine with that.  We have one laid back child.  Dylan is just built differently.  He has his own easy going approach to deal with life.   And Logan is built the way he's built.  His passion and determination will be a huge benefit in some areas of his life, no doubt. There are plenty, plenty of descriptives we can be proud of.


Last year, we were under the impression that his behavior at preschool was much more controlled than his home behavior.  It seems that probably wasn't exactly the whole truth.   I had his fall parent teacher conference a few weeks ago, and it turns out he's having some issues with self control and expressing his anger appropriately.   This really didn't surprise me, since its true at home.  In fact, the thought of him having SO much more control at school than at home was somewhat alarming.  To be honest, it made me partly feel something must be setting him off at home to make it so much worse at home.  The fact that his lack of control carries over from home to school and back again makes more sense.

It turns out, also, he seems to have a few more issues with speech delay that need some extra help and focus right now.  So its been a couple of weeks of going back to the drawing board, making some phone calls, having some meetings and getting some help in place for him.


1.  He started speech therapy again today, and will go to speech once a week for an hour with an elementary school speech therapist.  He is in there with his teacher, and one other little boy having similar articulation issues.  He is struggling with consonant blends, sounds (especially at the beginning of words) such as "st-", "sp-", "sk-", "dr-", "th-", etc.   We listen to Logan all the time and get used to the way he talks.  But when he's around other people who aren't used to him, and he says the word "skateboard" and it sounds like "sateboard", well, it makes it hard to understand him.  You ask him to repeat himself, and then the anger kicks in.  He's frustrated you can't understand him (who can blame him?  HE knows what he means!), and then he starts yelling.

We have also found an excellent private speech therapist who will be working with him for the next few months, really honing in and trying to nip some of these phonological issues in the bud.  We're having to work the speech therapy in around his already busy preschool and taekwondo schedules, but it will be worth it in the long run.


2. We continue to work on the behavioral stuff at home and with his behavioral therapist.   We continue to use the jewel bear reward system, and every day is an ongoing series of reminding him what is appropriate and how to show respect for other people.    We have good days and not so good days.  We will be deciding this coming spring if he'll be going to kindergarten next fall as a young 5, or if (since he has a summer birthday), we'll wait until he's a young 6 year old.  These  next few months will be critical with the whole behavioral thing to see if we think he can handle it.   I'm very thankful for his excellent and helpful preschool teacher this year.   I had full disclosure with her and gave her Logan's history.  She is completely supporting everything we're doing at home, and giving me daily reports so I can talk to Logan about his days at school and find 'teachable' moments in them.  He's getting rewards for good days when we get home.


3. He continues to excel at Taekwondo, and in fact, is testing for his next belt tomorrow morning.   We'll all go to cheer him on and celebrate his success.   Taekwondo has become an important part of his life, he goes twice a week.  He's built a relationship with the other boys and his instructor.  And it reinforces all the things we are trying to teach him - focus, self control, discipline and respect.   Its been worth every penny.  If anyone has a child struggling in any of these areas and only has money to spend on one extra activity, this is where I'd put your money!


4. Back in September, we talked with a doctor friend of ours who thought it might be useful to have Logan allergy tested for food intolerances.    Logan has a history of not wanting to eat, asking only for very specific foods, avoiding entire food groups, throwing up easily and having a low gag reflex. We've also read a lot about the relationship between certain foods, particularly milk, and behavior.   Its all very interesting.   We took him to a popular pediatric allergist who did a patch test on Logan's back.  As I type this, I can't believe I never blogged about it back when it was all happening.  Its all been such a whirlwind with so many things going on at once.  I think I've also just needed some time to get my mind around it all.


But anyway, here is what the patch test looked like when the patches were on his back:

And here is what the reactions looked like after 48 hours when the patch came off:

Its hard to tell what you're looking at, but the patch reveal seemed to show that he might indeed have some intolerance to milk (which is a huge part of his picky eating diet, he drinks milk by the gallon). 

That led us to Step 2 - taking him to a pediatric G.I. specialist in our area to pursue more answers on the food intolerance.  To make it as concise as possible, Logan is scheduled to have an endoscopy on Monday, November 22nd (just over a week from now).  He will be put under anesthesia and they'll scope down into his belly, doing biopsies down his entire G.I. tract. They're looking for the  presence of eosinophils and irritation in the G.I. Tract...a condition called Eosinophilic Esophagitis. Whether or not this is related to behavior remains to be seen.  It could be another piece to the puzzle, or we might be discovering a whole new can of worms.We won't have the results back until early December, but we're hoping we can either rule this out completely or, we can try some elimination diets so see if less milk in his diet has a positive impact on his behavior.





Whew.  Are you still with me? Its a lot to take it, believe me, I know. 


I've had my hands full with taking Logan to preschool four mornings a week, taekwondo twice a week, and now speech twice a week, and still having time to fit in playdates, giving Dylan everything he needs to be successful at school and have lots of fun in his life, maintaining the housework, managing the family calendar...  Its true what they say, a mother's work is never done.  Its been a very busy fall indeed.  But I'm just doing what any other mom would do... trying to do the best things for my boys all the while trying to  keep a sense of  humor and sanity.


I've said many times how thankful I am that I've had this time to be home with my kids and focus on what they needed.  I can't imagine trying to balance in a career while all of this has been going on.  I have an incredible husband who works very, very hard to make it possible for me to stay home and there isn't a day that goes by I don't appreciate that.  


Being home as enabled me to spends hundreds of hours on the phone with insurance companies and doctors, taken Logan to more hours with more therapists and doctors than any four year old should have to endure, and stay on top of everything it takes to manage a household.  Many, many parents do balance all of this and also manage a career.  I just don't think its something that would have worked for me, at this point in our world.


I'm sharing all of this because I know I'm not the only parent with a challenging young child.  I know it helps me everytime I talk to someone else who has struggled with their child.  Parenting isn't always a neat, pretty package full of cute moments and laughter.  Its sometimes messy, loud, and not what you expected. Its hard.  Really hard.  And if someone can read this and find comfort in that, I'd feel very glad. 


Logan, from the casual on-looker, just seems like any other four year old boy. And in many ways, he is.  He just has some extra little special nuances that make him, him.  There's never a dull moment with Logan in our family, and I wouldn't want it any other way.


I love you, little buddy.

perseverance

This has a big week for Dylan. First, he got his first report card of 2nd grade (and its great!).  He also submitted his first major school project successfully! 

He also, after almost two years of faithfully saving up his every dollar, saved enough enough money to buy his own Nintendo DSi XL. He set the goal a long time ago for buying his own DS and worked really hard earning money month after month, saving birthday and tooth fairy money, helping around the house, and earning jewels, to buy it all on his own. It took every single penny he had saved, and the cashier at Best Buy had to laugh at us Monday after school counting out $5's and $1's with a few $20's and $10's.  I asked him to bear with us while my son counted out his life savings.  He even remembered me the next day when I went back in to buy the hard storage case. 

I'm glad we waited until now to let him have this. I don’t think he would have been ready 6 or 10 months ago.  He's already demonstrated this week he can handle it by knowing he has to get his homework done first, turning the DS off when we tell him its time, and plugging it in when he’s done so it can re-charge. Its good to see him taking care of it responsibly.  Our hope is that because he used his own money to buy it, he'll always take good care of it and appreciate it even more.

We had a big talk about how important it is to set goals and stick with your plan. Sometimes you have to wait a long time to get the things you want in life, but if you work really hard and make good choices (i.e. not blowing your money on silly things), you will eventually achieve your dreams.   I'm really proud of him.  Its a really important life lesson to learn, and one that stays with you for a lifetime.  I couldn't let the moment pass without also reminding him how fortunate he is to be able to buy such nice things; not all kids are as fortunate.

Good job, big guy.  I'm really proud of you!

diorama!

Over the past couple of weeks, Andrew and Dylan have been hard at work creating Dylan's first major school project.... the 2nd grade Native America Diorama.  Dylan's class has been studying the Native American unit in social studies and he chose to showcase the Lakota tribe (formerly know as Sioux) in his diorama.  I'm taking it to school later today, and tomorrow he has to make a presentation.  Here are his talking points we came up with together:
• The Lakota Tribe lived in the plains of mid-west America.

• They lived in tee-pees. Tee-pees were made of buffalo skin (hide).

• They moved a lot to follow buffalo so they could hunt.

• They gathered berries and grew corn, squash and beans when they could.

• The wore buffalo hide clothing and animal skins.

• They colored their clothing and tee pee drawings using things from the earth like clay, berries and animal blood.

• These are drawings of Lakota we found on Smithsonian.com

If only we had the internet when I was in school!  We had World Book Encyclopedia and had to hand copy down all sorts of information and draw our own pictures.

Next Thursday is the Native American performance at school, followed by a lunch and a trip thru the Book Fair.  Good times in 2nd grade so far!    Good job Dylan!

39 is fine

I quietly turned 39 over the weekend.  I really don't dread birthdays like many people... I think if you're happy in your life, it doesn't really matter what age you are.  I truly believe that.   And I am one lucky, lucky girl.  I have so many things to be thankful for, I can't even count all of my blessings.

Andrew and the boys started my birthday off by giving me some very sweet and thoughtful gifts. Things I would never buy myself.  Later in the afternoon, we dropped the boys off at Grandma's for an overnight slumber party.

We got gussied up back at home and headed to downtown charming Frederick, MD (who knew it was so cute and artsy?!) for an evening out with some great friends.  We started here, with an amazing meal of Spanish tapas.  The food just kept coming, each thing better than the next.  We tried Asparagus Fries, Baby Octopus, Roasted Artichoke Bottoms Stuffed with Lump Crab Meat on Saffron Butter (that one just made my mouth water typing it), Chorizo and White Bean Ragu with Ripe Tomato, Sweet Red Bell Peppers and Grilled Bread ... the list goes on and on.    Then we moved onto a cozy little vintage-feeling bar called Cafe Nola for some after dinner cocktails and happened upon a great little bluegrass band playing there.

I wish I had taken some photos of the evening.  Downtown was so picturesque and it was so nice to have an adult night out... we don't get many!   Its so good for your soul to have a break from being a parent and all that it entails...the cooking, the cleaning, the negotiating, the Mom stuff.  And having 24 hours to ourselves, to hear ourselves think again.  Just to talk to each other and not be interrupted.  Wow, a treat.  I love my boys dearly and with my whole heart and would do anything for them. But a break.  A break is good.  Really, really good.

Sunday started off by sleeping in and getting a scrumptious breakfast burrito at Anita's.  Then it was onto the Old Lucketts Store to browse thru antiques and knick knacks.   This is best done kid-free, so we haven't been in there in years.   So many treasures to be found, and they were having a holiday open house which got us in the mood to start some holiday shopping for the boys.  Which is where we headed next..I'm happy to say we've made a dent in the list already.  We joined the  kids later in the afternoon at my Mom and Robby's, meeting up with my brother, SIL and cousins Josh and Maya, for a casual birthday dinner together.  A great ending to a wonderfully relaxing weekend. The boys had a fantastic time with Grandma and Grandpa, and we got to be adults with no little people for 24 hours.

39 is fine, fine, fine.

down at the farm

We hadn't made it to a single pumpkin patch or farm this year.  Logan's annual preschool pumpkin patch field trip was cancelled twice due to rain, and we've just been so busy this fall we never had the chance to go frolic at a farm.

Dylan had no school yesterday, so we picked Logan up from preschool and took advantage of the beautiful crisp fall day by meeting Grandma at one of our very favorite local farms!  Its a huge place with multiple giant slides, animals, corn maze and the best hayride in town.  The catch to going though, is NOT going on a weekend.  It gets so crowded you end up waiting in line for everything and its twice as expensive too.  Going on a Monday afternoon was perfect, we had the best time ever and spent five hours rolling in the hay, drinking apple cider and munching on kettle corn.  Which may have been counter-active to walking off some of this Halloween candy we've consumed but still, it was very fun!

Away he goes!

Grandma and the boys in the corn maze

Has anyone seen this man?  He is armed and dangerous.

I didn't do it!

Hangin' at the saloon

Aliens greet our hayride!

The boys did the rope swing for at least an hour, if not longer.  And the girl working there was so sweet to them! 

Logan didn't know what to do at first but got the 'hang' of it soon.

The hatchling

My very sweet boy.

It was a great, great day.

tricks and treats

Well, Halloween is over and Logan is already asking when he can go trick-or-treating again.  To a boy with a complete addiction to candy, its the holiday to end all holidays.  I truly think he loves Halloween more than Christmas.

Here are our two Harry Potters, ready for action.  I think they got more treats than they can ever eat, and they didn't even have to cast any spells.