Happy Halloween!

Due to the warm weather, we had to modify costumes for trick-or-treating. Luckily we have lots of play clothes around the house. The kids had a great time at the Halloween potluck with their friends and then everyone went trick-or-treating together. It was a fun evening for all!

Sheriff Brady keeping an eye out for candy thieves.

I've got my eye on you.

The line up. I think the witch did it with the candlestick.

Hey Mom! More candy!

Brady pushing the wagon home.

The Itsy-Bitsy Spider

Candy Inspector

Spidey-Sense

This was taken at Jackson's superhero birthday party in September. He was about to tackle me in this picture.

Splish Splash

Took the kids to the Rogers Splash Park this morning and they had a blast! No one else was there, so we had the entire thing to ourselves. Brady loved it! We'll definitely have to go back before it closes in a couple of weeks.

St. George Island, FL

When we were in St. George Island, FL a few weeks ago we had family pictures taken on the beach. We weren't sure how the pictures would turn out since the photographer and his wife were arguing in Spanish during the photoshoot. It was very awkward, but alas, they turned out great. Here are just a few out of the 500+ pictures he sent us.


Oh yeah... we even ran on the beach. My sister blames me for this. :)

Backyard Campout

Jackson and I had an impromptu slumber party in the new clubhouse last night. He slept really well, I did not. Here are my observations from our clubhouse campout: Jackson is a bed (cot) hog, the sounds of crickets are very relaxing at night, drunk neighbors can indeed be louder than fireworks, I love my son very much (and I'm glad he didn't have any accidents last night!)

Peanut Butter - Raisin Spread

I seem to be all about food lately. I'd gotten kind of lazy about cooking (think box meals, frozen stuff, etc.) in the past couple of weeks, so I'm on a mission to cook more and eat healthier. I wanted to make this spread last week, but Jackson left the brand new box of raisins on the couch and the dogs devoured it, so I had to wait until I bought some more. I got this recipe from my friend Robin and it is soooo good! I could just eat spoonfuls of it! It makes a great snack or breakfast spread. I like it on bananas (my favorite!), apples, graham crackers, or by itself. It's a big hit for the entire family, especially Jackson. Good thing about it is you most-likely already have all of the ingredients at home. Here's the recipe. I highly recommend making it right now... don't delay!

Peanut Butter - Raisin Spread

1/2 apple juice

3/4 cup raisins

1 1/2 cups peanut butter (creamy)

2 Tb. honey

2 tsp. cinnamon

Bring apple juice and raisins to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer about 10 minutes (or until raisins absorb juice). Then mix with peanut butter, honey and cinnamon.

I must go get a spoonful now. That's all.

Sweet Potato Pancakes

First of all, I need to learn to read the instructions before making anything in the kitchen. The first batch I mixed up was all wrong because I just started throwing ingredients in there that weren't even supposed to be in there. After I threw that out, I started over, carefully reading the cookbook. It took a lot longer for the pancakes to cook than normal pancakes, so we were really hungry by the time they were ready. Overall, I thought the taste was really good. Sweet and yummy. The texture, though, was not so great. They were a bit mushy in the middle from the sweet potato puree. I also added some cinnamon for added flavor... loved that! I might give these pancakes one more try to see if I can improve the texture somehow. Might try to use Bisquick instead of Hungry Jack pancake mix.

Here's the recipe if you guys want to try it:

Sweet Potato Pancakes (from Deceptively Delicious)

1 cup water
1/2 cup sweet potato puree
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup pancake mix

Mix water, puree and cinnamon. Then add pancake mix. Pour batter onto pre-heated skillet or griddle (med-high heat). Cook until bubbly and a bit brown, then flip.

Charles liked the pancakes, but thought the texture was a bit off as well. Jackson wouldn't touch them. He said he wasn't in a pancake mood.

I think I'm going to try the eggs with cauliflower tomorrow morning. He'd better be in an egg mood tomorrow because that's all he's getting. :)

Deceptively Delicious

OK.. I need to eat more vegetables. My children like veggies way more than me, but they could always eat more too. I borrowed Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook, "Deceptively Delicious" from my friend Karly. The idea is to puree veggies and then mix them into recipes so no one will know that what they are eating is filled with a vegetable. Here was my shopping list: 3 sweet potatoes, 3 squash, 1 butternut squash, 1 head of cauliflower, 1 head of broccoli, 3 guacamole's. I spent about 3, yes THREE, hours cooking, baking, steaming and pureeing all of these vegetables. It took so long and had better be worth it! Some proof my children love veggies more than me... Jackson was actually eating uncooked cauliflower while I was cutting it up to put in the steamer. It wasn't even covered in ranch! Anyways, I wanted to do some carrots and bananas too, but couldn't take it anymore after that long. I'll just stick to recipes that have what I've pureed so far. I figure if it's a success, we'll be healthier for it. If it's not, Brady will have lots of fresh, pureed food to eat. I put all of the purees into freezer Ziploc bags. I put a few into the fridge for recipes this week and the rest in the freezer for future use. I'll be blogging about what I cook and how it turns out... so stay tuned.

By the way, I'm going to be doing an entire re-branding of this blog. I'm expanding it to include stuff about my cooking experiments, training for the half-marathon and whatever else is going on. I know you're all really excited about that. :)