As you can tell from the title of this entry we got caught up in more housewifely things and our hike just never happened. Not too huge of a loss since the weather had gone from basically decent to the other side of chilly. After another late night – this time due more to friends and a lengthy game of Talisman than Trinity (though towards the early hours of the morning she and Ken left for the living-room to let me sleep) we got started on the last few pumpkin activities.

We used our fingers and orange ink to make pumpkins for a scarecrow to count – 1 through 10… Messy but actually quite a lot of fun! Then Ken and Emanuel did his 5 Little Pumpkins book – Ken drew the gate and used emanuel’s thumb for the pumpkins. I love the way they turned out – Emanuel directed everything!

The final activity for our pumpkin lapbook was to make a wheel of the 4 spices found in pumpkin pie – cinnamon, ginger, cloves and nutmeg. We took some white glue and pasted a sample of each spice on a quarter of the wheel… allowing the boys to smell each one. Which tied in nicely with the absolute from scratch pumpkin pie Ken made with them this evening.

He had to search pretty hard to find out you needed the smaller pie pumpkins and the process to prep it but he managed!

Pumpkin Pie From SCRATCH!

I had a special request for APPLE pie so we gave that a go as well – though we forgot about the TOP part of the pastry crust as we only bought two frozen pie crusts… so we did more of an apple.. dish! But the boys were VERY impressed. I used a nice recipe out of Company’s Coming:

Apple Pie

pie crust pastry,  your own or a mix

5 cups cooking apples peeled, cored and cut up

1 cup sugar

2 tbsp flour

cinnamon to taste (1/4 – 1/2 tsp)

sugar for topping (optional)

Roll bottom pastry and fit into a 9 inch pie pan. (we used a premade one) Cut off all excess pastry.

Prepare apples. Set aside.

Mix sugar and flour together. Put about 1/2 into pie pan. Fill with apples. Sprinkle rest of sugar mixture over top. Sprinkle with cinnamon. Roll pastry. Dampen edges, cover with pastry. Cut off excess pastry. Press and crimp edges. Cut several slits in top. Sprinkle with a bit of granulated sugar. Bake in 350 F oven until apples are tender, about 45 min. (we missed the top pastry but the boys didn’t complain!)

Add in the ghost cookies that the boys “helped” Ken with each step of the way and we were a busy baking family! Oh don’t forget the beans we put in, then had to take out and put back in (thank goodness it is a 7 hr recipe) as for some reason it didn’t clue in for either Ken or myself that we needed the OVEN at different temperatures for all 4 items!!! Opps!

Once all that baking and pumpkin fun was done I have to admit I felt very drained… but what a haul snack wise! Tomorrow early we will ice the ghosts and defrost the orange iced circle cookies… just in time for PUMPKIN CARVING!

Last night I managed some quality beading time – another wall for the gingerbread house, the lion for a little boy in Cali, and some leaves for the fall tree I plan on assembling on Sunday. I wish I had the large hexagon peg board as you need that one to make some of the larger leaf patterns. Maybe next year!

Stitching wise I am absolutely LOVING the perforated paper… enough that I may take a bit of my emergency money later and get ANOTHER ornament kit. This Polar Santa is going on our tree for sure! I can’t wait to get started on the mill hill beads! I was chatting with a couple other stitchers online and there does seem to be a consensus that the paper is rather fun to work with.

Oh and today’s story book: The Perfect Pumpkin Pie by Denys Cazet

Pumpkin Book!

I think I am in need of a full, UNINTERRUPTED night’s sleep… every night this week Trinity has woken up and made sure we were good and aware. It is amazing how much that takes out of a person once you are used to sleeping right on through the night again. We have tried a new set up in our room which has helped immensely. My mom gave me one of her old French screens… I put that up between our bed and her crib so she can’t see us directly – there have been a couple times when she has woken up and since she CAN’T directly see us, eventually gone back to bed. I am hoping the trend continues!

So today marks Ken’s 32nd year of life… which of course means a lan party, beer and friends… though this year pumpkin pie and apple pie (ish) instead of the traditional Birthday Boy favourite banana cream. This birthday marks a bit of a new beginning for Ken… I think the upcoming year will be his healthiest in ages… and with that comes a lot of wonderful things for the whole family – a happier Kenny is a happier and more content daddy and in turn the best of best friends I could ever have. So everyone, please wish him a happy birthday!!

Baby Kenny!

Today!