What a weekend! Definitely kept me hopping. There were a few lovely surprises, lots of terrific friends and family stopping by and of course a nice and extended birthday party for Ken.

Friday night of course, marked the start of Ken’s weekend lan party. We had a nice group of guys over – Sean, Fydo, Ted and Nathan (though Nathan didn’t make it over until 11 or so after he was done work – he works afternoon/evenings). I guess they mainly played WoW but everyone seemed to have a great time, though they ate a batch of my frozen sugar cookies for a snack – with permission – so now Ted and Ken have to replace them for me! Yay!

Ken received some rather nice gifts – a couple movies, some alcohol and of course from Ted – Master and Commander the BOOK! Definitely an inside joke – Ken HATES the movie – so for Christmas Ted got it for him on Blueray and now the book! The look on his face was PRICELESS!

Saturday morning was a treat for the whole family – Grandma and Mike came up for a visit WITH Harley!!! Silly puppy stole a sugar cookie off the table when I walked away for a moment but otherwise was a lovely, well behaved puppy. The boys went out into the backyard and ran wild with the dog. Mom brought Ken a lovely gift – a US flag in a flag box… oh and an ornate over the top desk decoration!

Then to top it off they treated us to McDonald’s which was a first in a while for our family… Trinity had apple slices with the skin on and did so well! Since we did not have time for the play area as a treat we all went to PetSmart with Harley and grandma treated us to a brand new catfish! A big one (and once the tank is cleaned up better I will take a photo). Harley was on her best behavior there but the REAL star of the show was this guy:

That’s right an honest to goodness TURTLE!!! Young I guess, only 8 yrs old but AMAZING. The guy let the boys touch it and everything. Although Trinity’s favourites were not the fish or the turtle but KITTENS! She went almost crazy looking and talking to them! Makes me wish we COULD have one, but in this rental they do not want us to have any 4 legged pets. So once we are in a new long term rental or even bought our own place I am definitely going to see what I can do!

Sadly with the addition of Kitty the 2nd two of our neons disappeared! We figure they died and were sucked up into the filter. Since 2 neons is just not ok for this family – what sort of a school is that? – we plan on waiting until Thursday to let the tank settle and tidy it up a bit and then go back and get some more neons. A fun field trip for the boys as we can go through and talk about the different animals, see if they can count them, etc etc.

Last night Karyn and I sat down and scrapbooked – I had ordered some photos for a few Trinity related events ages ago and had the paper and no idea what to do with them. Karyn brought her Cricut and we worked out some really lovely pages. I explained to her my idea of how I want our Christmas cards to turn out and she seems to think she can help me out with a template. I find that is one of my main problems with making cards and pages – I often have an idea of what I want but can’t execute it! Although I would LOVE a Cricut!!!

Of course our biggest source of excitement and mess was the pumpkin carving party! Chris and Chris, Karyn, Ted, Sean and Fydo all were around for the momentous event. We had a total of 4 nice sized pumpkins to gut and carve. 3 were done on Saturday, one left for tonight for Ken to work on.

Chris did the carving while the kids “helped”. I am not sure who had more fun, though it was obvious out of all the boys that Zander was the most dedicated to getting every little bit of the ickies out of the pumpkins.

Zander and Daddy

Aunty Karyn

I am hoping to get some pictures off the kids in costume this week with the carved pumpkins, just have to find a spare moment and a nice spot in the house to do it. Oh, and convince Trinity that tutus are not torture! She is unsure of the poof.

Pumpkins and Kiddos (Zander left)

We had a nice assortment of snacks and a lot of visiting time.

And tonight a nice tray full of pumpkin seeds  to roast for latter. I  roasted those tonight and tomorrow plan to make more beans before starting my serious Christmas baking. And of course, here is our recipe:

Step 1: clean the seeds. When you are carving your pumpkin, separate the seeds from the pumpkin flesh and strings. Was them well (usually putting them in a big bowl of water and rubbing them between your hands is a fast way to clean them) and let them drain in a strainer for about 30 min, then spread them out on a baking pan. Now just use a hair dryer to dry them quickly!

Iti s time to start preheating the oven. Turn it on and set it to 275 F

2. Spread the seeds on a cookie sheet and season them.

Spread the seeds evenly over a cookie sheet and lightly baste the seeds with melted butter, margarine, or vegetable oil.  There are many variations.  Here are the most popular, in order or popularity (we chose Halloweeny since that is what we had all the seasonings for):

1. Savory: 4 tablespoons melted butter, 1/2 teaspoon garlic salt and 2 teaspoons Worchestershire sauce
2. Lemony: 4 tablespoons melted butter, 1 teaspoon ‘Mrs. Dash” or lemon pepper
3. Halloweeny: 4 tablespoons melted butter, 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/2 teaspoon salt,  and 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice.
4. Spicy: 4 tablespoons melted butter, 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper, 1/2 teaspoon thyme, 1/2 teaspoon salt and 1/2 teaspoon pepper
5. Natural: 1 teaspoon sea salt or other salt, 4 tablespoons melted butter

3. Roast the seeds.

Heat them in a 275-degree oven for 10 to 20 minutes until golden brown. DO KEEP AN EYE ON THEM, checking every few minutes and stir about every 5 minutes. Some ovens run hot and it can be as little as 10 minutes or as long as 30 minutes to roast them. Sprinkle with salt and serve hot or cold.

For milder flavor, simmer the cleaned seeds for about an hour in salted water and fry in deep oil. Or mix a tablespoon of oil or margarine to each cup of nuts and roast them at 250 degrees for 10 – 15 minutes until they’re golden. Sprinkle them with salt.

Mmm Seeds!

Tonight’s pumpkin story: From Seed to Pumpkin by Wendy Pfeffer. Terrific illustrations it explains everything from how the plants get water to what the different leaves do in nice, simple terms.

The boys and I spent some time today working on our pumpkin lapbooks… the outsides are not done but I am very happy with the interiors! This marks the end of our P is for Pumpkin study so now we are spending  the rest of the week doing HALLOWEEN!!! I am not sure how complex of a book we will make but I am sure it will be fun, maybe B is for Bat or something of the same idea???

I got the basic Pumpkin set up from a free lapbook. Some of the links were dead so we improvised: For the rhyme Peter Pumpkin Eater we found another link for puppets, and instead of the section making words out of the letters for pumpkin we found a prayer to include. We took full advantage of the boys’ interest in perler beads and made pumpkins (Emanuel made HIS into a jack-o-lantern). I also hunted down a picture of a hedgehog with pumpkins that I will get pictures of tomorrow for the back cover. They are VERY happy with the resulting books!

Sewing has not been a priority this weekend BUT I have made some progress on my Santa and Ken has PROMISED me a plethora of patterns this week to get me caught up with all my ideas. I am looking forward to having my site properly running… then I have to start with advertising and the like… but it will be a NEW challenge and I LOVE those!

Fuzzy but You Get the Point

Since tonight is my local stitching group chat night and I have perler beading to do I really must get a move on! But all in all a busy and HAPPY weekend!