Fall Bucket List

Fall Bucket List

• Go for walks and gather pecans
• Go to a pumpkin patch
• Go on picnics
• Try a pumpkin spice latte
• Make Halloween costumes
• Take kiddos trick-or-treating (what sort of bag does Luke Skywalker carry?)
• Send a fun and delicious Halloween snack for Oscar's class (bonus points for healthy)
• Make caramel apple nachos
• Have a bonfire and make s'mores
• Carve pumpkins
• Drink apple cider (gallons of it)
• Go on a date
• Make leaf art
• Make handprint/footprint art
• Wear scarves
• Make pumpkin cookies with maple frosting
• Take family pictures
• Go to a football game with Oscar
• Go on a nature walk
• Scottish Games!
• Road trip to Ohio 
• Plant trees 
• Make Christmas presents
• Cook something in our dutch oven

We wanted to have things on our bucket list in an activity jar so that we could just pull something out and then do it, but since they can't all be done spur of the moment, I divided them up into three jars. For the things in the "EAT" jar, we can choose one before I go grocery shopping so I can pick up supplies.  The "ADVENTURE" jar has things that take a little bit of planning or good weather, like nature walks, picnics and pumpkin patch. Those will work best if we choose them at the start of the weekend.  "PLAY" has good spur of the moment activities for when we have a spare hour or two when we're home. Since this is my 400th post, I was hoping to have some sort of giveaway, but I couldn't think of what to give away. So instead, you can download and print these things here: eat, play, adventure, jar labels, round labels, background and make your own activity jars for the season! The to-do pages have blank strips so you can add some things from your bucket list as well.

Fall is HERE!

Butternut squash and spicy sausage soup. We can officially call it fall. We've even had some cool weather (with windows open and everything!!) This is still one of my favorite fall recipes, and definitely in my top 5 favorite soups of all time. Do yourself a favor - click on the link. Go make it. Yum.  I've posted about the rolls before, too. Winning combo!

Alice thought it was pretty good - she was using BOTH hands to scoop it in her mouth.

This post is the meal for my GABI Autumn (Photo) Bucket List, one of our October challenges.

GABI September

Phase 2 of GABI had two domestic challenges - Kitchen deep clean before and after, what is your cleaning routine and what sort of cleaning products do you use?

So above is about how our kitchen usually ends up. We do a nightly dishes/counters/sweep cleaning and Monday is my day for deeper kitchen cleaning - fridge, oven, microwave, mop. We use vinegar/water/tea tree oil and baking soda for most of our cleaning needs. I added some printables that I found on pinterest, but can no longer find the website they came from!

Challenge #2 was to pick a nook that needed some TLC, what sort of things did you buy to help organize? pinspiration?

This nook needed a LOT of work. It was mostly just straightening things up, taking some things off of the bookshelves so that they didn't feel as cluttered, and dealing with that stack of stuff by the wall.

The computer chair FINALLY got some new fabric on it (it only took 4 years after blogging about it...). The bumbo got a belt attached and was set aside for Lucy. Some work things got taken to work, a few books got put in a donate box.

I did buy the two drawers that are underneath the printer.  I had been searching and searching for one drawer that would fit there, but after months of carrying around the measurements and a tape measure, I gave up and bought these.  The books and dvds in the basket on the printer are all ones that I've listed on paperback swap and swap-a-dvd. 

The nook looks a lot better now and hopefully upkeep will be easier! 

Experimental pizza leftovers

Most of the time our homemade pizzas end up costing more than we would spend on a frozen pizza. Here are two things I thought of to help keep cost down. 

When we make the whole wheat pizza crust that I posted, We can make two large thin crust pizzas and two boy size personal pizzas. If we don't have company, I plan on trying to freeze those pizza duplicates for an easy weeknight meal the following week. Pizza freezing suggestions welcome!

I also planned an extra meal that would use up any extra ingredients. The pesto, sausage and tomato pizza left us with 1/2 lb. Italian turkey sausage and a bit of pesto, so I added onion, garlic and bell pepper, some whole wheat pasta, a can of fire roasted garlic tomatoes, and some spinach. It turned into the pasta version of the pizza we had and it was yummy! We also had some glazed carrots along with.

This pasta was also yummy cold, so we all had it for lunch the next day!

The experimental pizza adventure continues.

Saturday night was our next experimental pizza - Jeremy's turn to pick.  He opted for the pesto, sausage and tomato pizza (no surprise that he went for the one with sausage on it...)

It was another FANTASTIC combination. I don't know that I've had much pesto (despite being a basil fan), but it was fantastic on the pizza. We used the same whole wheat pizza crust as the previous pizza post (alliteration!) but this time there was basil and oregano added along with the garlic and onion powders. Jeremy and I aren't sure which pizza we liked better so far, but Oscar still thinks his pick was the best (and it did win price-wise).

We also had some company for pizza night - Nana, Danielle and Aaron stopped by and stayed for dinner - the more the merrier! PawPaw stayed for pizza last week, so who knows who will show up next pizza night. My pick is up next week (and it's Nana's pick too, so we might have to invite her over to taste test)!

Pesto, Sausage, and Tomato Pizzas

from Real Simple

Ingredients

• 2 teaspoons olive oil
• 1/2 pound Italian sausage, casings removed
• 1 pound pizza dough, at room temperature
• cornmeal, for the baking sheets
• 1/2 cup pesto
• 1 cup grape tomatoes, halved
• 8 ounces bocconcini, halved
• kosher salt and black pepper

Directions 

1. Heat oven to 475° F. Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add the sausage and cook, breaking it up with a spoon, until browned and cooked through, 6 to 8 minutes; transfer to a plate.
2. Shape the dough into 4 rounds and place on 2 cornmeal-dusted baking sheets. Dividing evenly, top with the pesto, tomatoes, bocconcini, and sausage; season with ¼ teaspoon each salt and pepper.
3. Bake until the crust is golden brown, 18 to 20 minutes.

GABI goodies

Back at the beginning of August a couple ladies from YouTube started the GABI  Boot Camp Challenge (Grin And Bear It). A whole month of Jillian Michaels, water drinking, no night-time snacking, and random weekly challenges. There was also some self-inflicted torture (no mocha frappes!) But somehow a few of us managed to finish without cheating. I thought I might fall over dead after the first time doing the 30 day shred, and somewhere around day 7 I could barely walk and needed to buy a knee brace, but by day 30 I was more than 10lbs lighter and had a lot more stamina. I don't think I will ever be one of those people that looks forward to exercising (ew - sweat..), but I made it through and I met a lot of awesome ladies in the process.

So from GABI I learned that:

1. I CAN resist the mocha frappe!
2. My body is (mostly) capable of vigorous daily workouts
3. Spinach DISAPPEARS in fruit smoothies (if you have blueberries in there to hide the color...)
4. Walking 2 miles with a baby on your back takes a whole different set of muscles than the 30 day shred.
5. I have a really hard time cooking without taste testing (Jeremy had to taste test if I was making something after dinnertime - he didn't complain)
6. Jeremy is the super-duper-awesomest guy in the UNIVERSE (ok, I knew this one already..). He did the 30 day shred right along with me (or by himself when he got home from work since I mostly did it in the afternoon) and is the best cheerleader EVER. (cheer captain?) 
7. While I normally lack follow-through, I can be pretty determined when someone challenges me.  

Marie fixed up a gigantic pamper pack to go to one of the people that made it to the end with no cheats, and even though I didn't win it, she still sent me a very very sweet package filled with sparkliness, goodies, and love. It's got all sorts of things to pamper myself with, but my favorites are the high five from her little genius-beeble, Scarlet and the "I AM LOVED" pin. Scarlet is the same age as Alice and SO. STINKIN'. SMART.  She's adorable! And the pin is a well-needed reminder that I am loved (and worth loving!). Marie also has a new blog (here) and I'm excited to see what it's going to grow into. I'm intrigued by the mention of books in the title and I'm crossing my fingers that there will be some Marie written and illustrated books because she's got a wonderful way with words, a love of little ones, and massive amounts of creativity and style. Thank you, Marie, for the challenge AND the goodies!

A few lunches this week -

Leftover pizza from pizza night, carrots, honeydew, almonds and grapes.

GREEN.  Unfortunately the color they are working on this week is orange...  Cucumber, apple, sour straw candy, honeydew, string cheese and PB&J. I put a green post it with purple marker "the HULK was here." He ate it up.

And my favorite this week was ham and cheese sushi sandwiches with his training chopsticks. Carrots and cucumbers, grapes, sunflower seeds, honeydew, and sushi sandwich (flattened whole wheat bread with mayo&mustard, ham, cheese, carrot, cucumber, and spinach.) Everyday I use the big dipper from Planetbox to pack his snack. It usually has some sort of dried fruit/nuts/trail mix. I always worry that he'll feel deprived because the other kids at school buy ice cream and candy, but yesterday he told me he likes what I pack him because it's healthy AND yummy and that the things the other kids eat are bad for you. I don't think I could've asked for a better kid in the eating/food department...

Most of the time I usually pack Alice some lunch in our pink LunchBots so that I don't have to worry about making it the next day when she starts demanding "Dunch! Dunch!". She usually gets the same thing as Oscar. If he gets a sandwich cut into a shape, she is the one stuck with the odd shapes that are leftover. She never complains... though she seems to be pickier than Oscar.  She'll eat cucumbers, spinach, lettuce, carrots, ANYTHING when I'm packing lunches, but when it's time to sit down and eat she isn't a fan of any of those things. I guess they only taste good when mom is trying to cook or pack lunches?