busy busy!

we've been busy busy around here getting ready for our trip to ohio! we leave tomorrow! YAY! the boys have been busy too:

finding creative uses for used up wrapping paper rolls

and christmas picnic lunches in the living room (may as well since we STILL dont have new carpet. plus the table was/is buried under wrapping supplies)

ok.. back to packing...

mail for oscar

look what came for oscar today!

and look how excited he was!

Retreat!

had a great time at the LLL retreat this weekend! met some nice ladies and had lots of fun!

view from the room


a boat parade!

hmm....

found these after leaving the camera on the chair to charge the battery... hm...

babywearing

tree fetching '09

here are some pictures from our annual christmas tree fetching!

oscar and a stick.. that boy sure loves a good stick.

trying to get a picture of us with our tree

there we go!


the traditional picture of jeremy climbing through the car window after strapping the tree on top

we did a run by tree-ing at nana's house. she called to see if we had left a tree at her house and i tried to lie, but she didn't believe me.

gobble gobble

the boys and their turkeys:

dont they look so proud?

camping!

we finally got to go camping! i was worried we would have to go a whole year without a camping trip, but we got to go on jeremy's birthday weekend. oscar and i went early and hung up a happy birthday banner and some star lights and got camp set up so everything would be ready when jeremy got there after work.


we had fun just hanging out by the fire and making rueben hobo pies and s'mores and hot chocolate! it's usually too hot when we go camping to sit by the fire and drink hot chocolate, so it was awesome. oscar got a new buzz lightyear flashlight and LOVED it. it was hard to get him to stop playing with it and go to sleep.

in the morning my camera had a bit of condensation on the lense, which was probably not good for the camera, but good for a dreamy picture of my sleepyheads.

we spent most of our time walking around the park, hiking, and playing on the playgrounds. it was gorgeous while we were there. the leaves were all crunchy on the ground... i love walking in crunchy leaves. the hiking trail had large portions that looked like they were under construction and were not so pretty, but the rest was great.

and of course we made banana smiles.. i dont know how we lived without banana smiles before robyn introduced us.

oh! i charred some cloth for jeremy in a hobo pie maker and he started a fire with this flint and steel kit he got for christmas last year! i think it was the highlight of the trip for jeremy.. he was so excited.

happy birthday, jeremy!

jeremy turned 26 last week....

and all he got was a punch in the face.. (well.. not really)

homemade shopping list

i'm working on getting my shopping down to a science.. complete with a shopping list layout for the store i always shop at. it's a really easy project and they actually seem to hold up better than most notepads i buy (and i buy a lot.. i think there are about 5 stuck to my fridge)

all you need is:

• your paper (which can be a shopping list or just a pretty paper you want to make a notepad out of) you could probably find lots of cute free templates online.
• scissors or paper cutter for getting them all the same size
• a piece of thick card stock (i dont remember where this one came from.. i've used it a couple times now)
• a flat magnet for the back. this is optional, but it's so nice to have your list on the fridge. i stole mine from a notepad i had used up.. it gets ripped off and reused a lot.
• some clippies for holding it together
• and some kind of glue. if you're a henderson, you'll probably use tacky glue (because we're cool like that). now, some people buy special stuff for this, but tacky glue works great.

get all your papers lined up and on the card stock and clip 'em down. you want to leave a bit of wiggle room at the top.

spread on some glue and try to get it all good and coated. it helps if you wiggle and bend them to one side and get glue all over. and then do the same thing in the other direction so they're all stuck in there good.

make sure you get some on the front and on your fingers. actually, i spread the glue with my fingers.. i've used a paintbrush to do it, but then i have to wash glue out of a paintbrush.

and some on the back. do a nice thick coat and dont worry about being messy (unless you're making them as gifts.. then you might want to be a bit neater... but in general no one will be looking at your list while you're shopping).

after getting lots of glue on there clip the top together. make sure you dont get too much glue on your clippies or they will get glued on.. really.. they do. let it dry and then do another layer or two if you're feeling saucy.

glue a magnet on the back and you're done!

fall cookies

robyn has been hinting that she would like the recipe for the cookies we made while she was visiting, so i thought that would be my next post. they're based on this iced pumpkin cookie recipe and this cream cheese frosting recipe. definitely a dangerous combination and should only be made if you have lots of people to share with!

pumpkin cookies with maple cinnamon cream cheese frosting

• 2 1/2 c. all purpose flour
• 1 t. baking powder
• 1 t. baking soda
• 2 t. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 t. ground nutmeg
• 1/2 t. ground cloves
• 1/2 t. salt
• 1/2 c. butter, softened
• 3/4 c. white sugar
• 3/4 c. brown sugar
• 1 c. pumpkin puree
• 1 egg
• 1 t. vanilla extract
• 1/2 c. pecans, chopped

• 1 package cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 c. butter, softened
• 2 c. sifted powdered sugar
• about 1 t. maple flavor
• cinnamon to taste
• milk to thin
• 1/2 c. pecans, chopped

1. preheat oven to 350 degrees f. combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves, and salt; set aside.
2. in a medium bowl, cream together the 1/2 cup of butter and the white and brown sugars. add pumpkin, egg, and 1 t. vanilla, beat until creamy. mix in dry ingredients. mix in pecans. drop on cookie sheet by tablespoonfuls; flatten slightly.
3. bake for 15 to 20 minutes in the preheated oven. cool cookies, then top with frosting and sprinkle with chopped pecans.
4. frosting: in a medium bowl, cream together cream cheese and butter until smooth and creamy. mix in the maple, then gradually stir in confectioner's sugar. add cinnamon to taste. a little milk can be used to thin the frosting for easier spreading.

this frosting is also yummy on pumpkin bread or sweet potato bread.
photos by robyn!

halloween - ok.. last one

ok.. we've made it to halloween day.. i started the day by going to a pampered chef party. then i rushed home and made us some pumpkin waffles with cinnamon apples and pecans. and then we hurried up and got ready for trick or treating!

we really only got to trick or treat at nana's, pawpaw's, the washateria (how perfect!) and the gas station. here are some pictures from nana's house. once he got inside the first thing he said was 'where's the washer and dryer?' and then he fixed nana's dryer.

then we went to the church for the fall festival. i figured i'd post these pictures of me, since pictures of me are rare. and i'm wearing fabulous halloween tights.

there were some silly games

and uncle nigel took oscar and aaron for a ride

and then we finally came home.. all that work to get candy and he wanted to eat the apple on a stick...

halloween: take two

on friday oscar and i put on our aprons and got to work in the kitchen. we baked gingersnaps and cooked salmon with brown rice and veggies for dinner.

oscar did a good job sugar coating the gingersnaps.

after dinner we carved our pumpkins. oscar scooped his own pumpkin goop this year! (as you may be able to tell by the seed that was stuck to his face for about an hour)

my pumpkin, oscar's pumpkin and jeremy's pumpkin.

we lit our pumpkins and admired them for awhile before having ice cream sandwiches with gingersnaps and pumpkin cheesecake ice cream.

halloween eve eve

i know i've got a ton of things i still haven't posted about, but right now i'm going to skip straight to halloween. or a couple days before halloween, really. on thursday the boys got to do some trick or treating at the wayne county high school's treat street.

oscar was the maytag repairman and handed out business cards to people. the costume was a huge hit! (thanks for the help with the hat, grandpa!)

aaron was popeye and lane was jason

here's oscar's tool box for collecting candy.. i finished it while he was sleeping and in the morning he woke up and told me what all of the tools were. i think the thing he got at treat street that he was most excited about was a pencil.

crafting with the boys

last week i had a special crafty day with the boys.

we practised using scissors. i found scissors with 'lift assist' at dollar tree so that they're easier to cut with. aaron had a hard time with regular scissors but these were a lot better.

here is oscar cutting some triangles for his pumpkin

and here is oscar with his finished pumpkin. he glued all the pieces on all by himself.

and aaron glued pieces on his pumpkin. they did great with the glue. i used pieces of egg carton to put the glue in and then bent up pipe cleaners into glue applicators.

we also did ghostie toes. these were really fun. while the boys were coloring a picture i painted a foot and made prints. then i showed them how to make the eyes and the mouth. can you tell which one oscar colored? can you tell which one is aaron's foot?

more paper decorations

this is one of my favorite halloween decorations because it's so cheap to make. plus it makes me not mind the ugly blinds quite as much.. just cut some ghosts out of tissue paper and tape to the window. oscar saw me uploading this picture and said 'there's goats! remember when we put goats on the window?'

craving some paper garlands

i've been getting the apartment nice and festive for halloween. i needed some garlands and found this on paper crave (heh.. they just reposted it again today!). i changed it up a bit by adding some color and circles and using black ribbon to attach them. i love garlands!