Halloween Cookies

We recently made some sugar cookies for Halloween.  Our orange and purple cookie cutters include shapes like a witch, pumpkin, ghost, cat, crescent moon, and bat.  This is the first year I've attempted sugar cookies with the girls because it is such a long process and messy!  Flour is loads of fun to play with and put everywhere, in case you didn't know.

 

 

I altered an old sugar cookie recipe to have pumpkin and pumpkin spices in them and it turned out better than I expected.

 

Pumpkin Sugar Cookies

 

1 cup powdered sugar

1 cup sugar

1 stick butter

2/3 cup oil

2 eggs

1/2 cup pumpkin

4 1/2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 teaspoon cream of tartar

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

(cloves would also be good but I didn't have any on hand)

1 teaspoon vanilla

 

Mix in order of appearance.  Knead for a little bit.  Add extra flour if too sticky and soft.  Roll out and use cookie cutters.  Bake at 350 degrees for 13 minutes or until golden brown around the edges.

Rolling pins are also lots of fun, especially when banging against the table.  The cookies are not too sweet and go really well with tea.  The pumpkin and spices give it a nice depth of flavor.

I'm glad we were able to do it (although I cut out most of the cookies once they were in bed).  I don't know if I'll want to do it again at Christmas this year.  Maybe try out some other cookie recipes instead.  Easy ones.

Happy First Day of Fall!

To welcome autumn, we decided to do a fall leaf craft project.  We collected fallen leaves and yellow petals in our back yard.  Our neighbors have a beautiful tree covered in yellow flowers that hangs over our yard.  There are always butterflies fluttering around it and the area below is carpeted with yellow petals.  Not quite fall leaves but they look right and it's not easy to get the fall leaf experience in California.

 

 

 

I printed off a variety of fall leaf outlines (I love how easy the internet makes things like this for me).  They colored them however they wanted.  D used only fall colors, while T really wanted blue leaves.

 

After tearing up the leaves and petals into little bits, it was time for the glue.  I outlined the leaves with the glue in sections.  The girls spread the leaf bits over the glue and patted them down in place. 

It took M a little bit to learn to wait before patting down the leaves until there were enough covering the glue that her hands wouldn't get all messy, but she had the hang of it by the end.

I shook off the extra leaf pieces back into the bucket for them to control the mess.  It was a messy project but not too bad and clean up was easy.

 

Voila!  A fun fall project that got them outside for a bit but wasn't too messy.  



Stomach Bugs and a Growing Garden

Over the weekend we caught whatever horrible stomach bug is going around.  It ruined both my birthday and Mother's Day (not really ruined but made parts of it less fun . . . much less fun).

 

 

This is a scene from Monday morning and really shows what we did all day.  Couch time with books, Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood and a barf bowl next to poor D, who was still at it until lunch time.  Horrible, horrible, horrible.  So sorry for little cousin H that picked it up from the girls.  I hope she doesn't spread it to anyone else. 

 

On a better note though, things outside are still growing and the little rain we received last week is helping.  More is forecasted for tomorrow so I hope we get something.



Baby M checking out the strawberries and green onions a few weeks ago.

One tomato plant is out front in a pot and has produced four tomatoes so far.  These two in the back yard were planted much later. They have a couple small ones growing and a few flowers showing promise.

 Sunflowers that the girls planted are all starting to bloom

So proud of how big the green onions have gotten.  Any time I've grown them before they never got as big as store bought.  These are huge and tasty.

The pot of herbs are flourishing-- sage, chives, thyme and parsley.  Next time I need some cilantro and basil.

Strawberries are bearing the occasional fruit and the radish plant from the OC Fair Centennial Farm trip has gotten so big.

Our limes are coming along.  There are already some little ones growing and still more blooms.  Yay!

My Lil Owl's Birthday

My sweet little baby turned one last week.  It is hard to believe it though because its gone by so fast.  I've learned a lot about taking photos since her big sisters' first birthday photo shoot.  I still have so much to learn about my camera and maybe some day I will.  For now though I have improved and am happy with that. 

Look how much she has grown.  I took the photos in the same laundry basket.  She is getting to be such a big girl!

Her sisters wanted to help with the photo shoot.  D dressed up her bouncy horse with a tutu and earrings.  They both helped to keep M distracted so she wouldn't pull so much on the paper chain decorations or the blanket (the backdrop is just a blanket over her pack and play).

We celebrated her party on the 4th since daddy had that day off.  She got to wear a fluffy party dress thanks to Leila.  They make such adorable clothes for girls.

It was an owl theme with pale pinks and greens.  I covered a post with brown packing paper and blew up balloons for a tree.  I imagined the top much fuller, but apparently 14 balloons don't go as far as in my imagination. 

I made a couple tissue paper poofs and added eyes, a beak, feet and wings out of scrapbook paper.  I hung the little one from the tree.  The big pink one hung from the living room fan.

 

I made a collage out of baby pictures in the shape of a one.  They move from when she was newborn at the top left to 2 weeks ago on the bottom right.  It is neat seeing how much she has grown.

 



I would have liked to bake the cake.  Baking birthday cakes is something I've always done since I learned to bake.   Since I didn't have much time and my newly married sister-in-law's mother-in-law has a cake business, it seemed like a better idea (and much nicer looking one) to order it instead.  The cake was vanilla with chocolate in it.  It was so rich and delicious.  The gum paste owls that were perched on top of both the big cake and the smash cake are too cute.  I have to find out if they keep.  Maybe I'll save them in M's memory box. 

M liked eating the frosting and the chocolate ribbon on her vanilla cake but didn't smash it too much or get really messy. 

My one year old girl already walks a little by herself although she still prefers crawling for speed. She's a climber.  She's up on stools, step ladders, chairs, the couch and the coffee table every chance she gets.  She says mama, dada, Yeiya (for Leila), more and dog.  She can sign more and all done, she claps and tries to blow kisses.  She is pointing at things now, so I tell her what they are called.  I don't know if she is actually ahead of what her sisters were doing at this age or if I'm just busy with all of them, so not paying as much attention and time is going by so quickly. 

Halloween is Coming up Fast!

I have made very little progress on the Halloween costumes because we have been busy painting, cleaning and moving.  I have managed to pull my sewing machine out of the box it has been in the last 6-8 months.  However, I don't have a table to set it up on unless I put it on the dining table.  I really want to avoid that, but it may come to it if I don't find a good table at a yard sale soon.

I had started resizing a boys long sleeve shirt I got at a thrift store for T's scarecrow costume but she didn't like the color and it took so much effort to get her to try it on to size it that I gave up and scraped it.  Instead I will do a dress in fall colors and forget trying to make it look like on the movie.  It just isn't worth the effort to make something she doesn't want to wear anyway.

I finished dying baby M's onesie and it didn't turn out as well as I had dreamed, though it was pretty close to what I expected.  I'm thinking of buying pants and a long sleeve shirt anyway since it might be chilly enough.  She also yanks her lions mane off at first chance so that will be fun to deal with too.

I have bought all of the material to make D and T's dresses and have started cutting out T's.  I'm hoping to start sewing them in the next couple nights.  I definitely need to start by the weekend.  I'll probably have to put in some late nights to get it done without interruptions.   

So I am a bit sad and stressed about these costumes.  At least I got a couple pumpkins and some pumpkin butter at Trader Joe's this morning, so thing aren't all that bad.

Gardening

 

We have a very sad, pathetic garden at my mother's house.  My brother, the girls and I take care of it.  My brother is busy with work and other engagements elsewhere most of the time.  Although he had an awesome, abundant garden two years ago, he just doesn't have time for it these days.  

The girls and I are always here, but we don't get a lot done.  Most of the time the girls aren't interested in checking on it every evening.  When we do go down to check on it, I am always holding Baby M, which limits what I can do.  I often spend some time admonishing the girls not to step on the plants, or directing them were to plant new seeds.  Sometimes the girls will dig up a weed or two.  Most of the time though, we wait for the automatic sprinklers to come on so the girls can get wet.  That is what gardening is with two 3 year olds and an 8 month old. 

The yellow squash is doing pretty well now that the critters have started to leave them alone.  No fruit is growing yet though, just flowers for now.

The tomato plants, which were looking beautiful for awhile there, were attacked by tomato bugs (tomato hornworms) while the girls and I were out of town.  The picture below is of the aftermath where I found 7 fatty ones chomping away.  For next year's garden, I need to plant marigolds or dill with the tomatoes and get some wasps according to the farmer's almanac. 

 

Currently, there are only two things growing that we can actually eat.  One pepper plant has a single pepper on it, although the plant itself has been devoured by something (a rabbit possibly or pack rat).  I also stuck a leek cutting from the kitchen into the ground a week or two ago and it is doing beautifully.  I did the same with a celery cutting and hope it will also be a success.

 

Although not much is happening in the garden, I am still glad that we have it.  It is a good activity for the girls to learn about where food comes from and for them to get dirty.  Hopefully as they all grow older, we will be able to have a large and productive garden together. 

Mulberries

We have been picking a few mulberries every morning from Oma's tree, mostly just to eat immediately, but some to save for later.  It is a tree, not a bush, although as you can see in the picture below, it does look very bushy.  It has a thick tree trunk but the branches come down so low and the leaves are so full and dense that it seems like an enormous bush, just like in the song.

The berries are very sweet and juicy when ripe.  The juice is a beautiful deep red color but luckily it does not stain, otherwise we would be in trouble. 

We made a very limited supply of jam with the berries and also have been eating them over vanilla ice cream.  So yummy!

Picking Apricots

My parents planted four apricot trees on their property some 30-40 years ago.  Over the years one has died and two are heading that way.  The last one though is going strong.  The girls and I have been out picking every other day or so for the past week. 

 

We have just gotten a couple handfuls off of the dying trees.  But yesterday we picked two buckets of apricots.  I plan to take them out this evening, once it has cooled a little to pick some more. 

 

D was a big help not only picking but also placing all her apricots out on a tray so they could finish ripening.

 

Then hopefully tomorrow or the next day we will be making some apricot jam.  My grandmother used to make apricot jam every year with apricots from our trees and it tasted so good.  I will have to figure out how to involve the girls in the jam making process.  Maybe they can try pitting the apricots with butter knives.

The apricots are so flavorful and delicious.

California Girls

Our family had a lovely vacation week here in California at the end of April.  My husband had the week off.  We spent it mostly with his family but were able to spend Easter with mine.  Now he is back in Little Rock unfortunately, until he is done with residency at the end of June.  The girls and I are busy trying to get settled in here in our temporary home in Morongo Valley. 

We flew in the day before Easter and the flights went very smoothly.  On both planes, we got compliments from other passengers for the twins' good behavior.  Proud momma here!  They even napped on the second flight which I was not expecting, since it was earlier than their usual nap time.  The only rough part was toward the end of the second flight, when baby M started fussing because the pressure in her ears bothered her.  Luckily it was around the time for her to eat anyway, and it didn't take to long for her to quiet down.

 

Catching bubbles on Easter with our new car in the background

 

We got our new car, a Toyota Sienna.  It is nice to all fit in one car when we go somewhere with the grandparents.  And there is enough space for my sister, mother, me and all five kiddos in car seats to take trips together.  I am looking forward to that!  It is red, which happens to be my favorite color.  It also has a few bells and whistles that, though I could have done without, make it so nice to drive.

  

Ready to Hunt!

Our family spent a lovely and warm Easter at my sister's house with all the grandparents and my sister-in-law and her fiancé too.  The kids had fun playing together, hunting for eggs and catching bubbles.  I look forward to girls getting the chance to spend more time with their cousins.

Also during that first week back, Leila and I took the girls to La Habra Children's Museum.  It is a nice little museum.  I could see it getting boring within a few visits but the girls had a lot of fun there on our trip.  They climbed around, rode a merry-go-round, looked at trains, played the piano and went on stage.  There were a few school groups there, unfortunately, but we just had to avoid the rooms they were in until their group moved onto the next so it did work out. 

 

Playing dress up in La Habra

Almost Ready

We are two days away from our big move to California.  I have said most of my goodbyes and have most everything packed.  I am painting trim little by little every night after the girls sleep, since we are still hoping to sell the house.  It looks better than it did when I started but there is still a lot I would have liked to get done if I had the time. 

Little Rock has been a wonderful place to live these past four years.  The girls and I have spent countless hours at the libraries here and I think I will be sorely disappointed in local libraries back home because CALS has raised my expectations so high.  Also, having everything centralized here in Little Rock is so convenient.  The zoo and children's museum are just a short drive away.  I know I will be racking up the miles in California and the higher gas prices make that even worse.

I have met some truly heartfelt people that I will miss.  Librarians, neighbors, the girls' teachers, and the wonderful ladies in knitting and quilting have made everything so enjoyable here for the girls and me.  I will miss the friendships I have made and am thankful for them.

However, I am looking forward to being close to family again.  The girls will get the chance to grow up with their cousins which is something I missed out on as a kid.  And you can't beat California weather and the beach being so close by. 

Here's to starting out on the next chapter of our lives!

Naan

I have been baking lately to get through my baking supplies so I don't have to throw them away.  Last week the girls and I made graham crackers to use up the graham flour.  They were good to munch on.  They were healthier than store bought but they did not taste anything like the store bought version; less sweet, which I like, but also had a much stronger wheat flavor and a chewier texture. 

 

On Sunday I decided to use up some of my bread flour and make naan.  My husband and I had tried to make naan once a couple years ago and did not fair so well.  I think the yeast was old and we burnt a couple of them.  This recipe though was easy to put together and didn't take to long to make if you don't consider the time it takes for the dough to rise.  

 

The girls helped me add ingredients and mix the dough together.  I like including them in the kitchen and they are much better at following directions than when we first started.  After the first rising, I separated the dough into small balls and let it rise again.

 

It did not take long to roll the dough out after the second rising.  I did a little over half at first and then finished rolling the rest while the first set cooked.  I like recipes where there are stretches of inactivity such as rising or resting because I can time it with Baby M's naps.  I worked on the dough while she was sleeping and let it rise whenever I was too busy to deal with it.  It worked out well.

 

I love my reversible cast-iron grill/griddle.  It was a wedding present and I use it often for pancakes and then I always have a grill handy when I need it. The naan fried up quickly and I didn't burn a single one!

Fresh baked naan is delicious.  It is cheaper than what you get at the grocery store and tastes so much better.  Next time I will knead in chopped garlic like the recipe called for instead of being lazy.  I'm sure that would taste even better.

And here is a picture from our last visit to Little Rock Zoo.  The original plan was to hold Baby M up instead of me looking through but she was comfortably asleep against her daddy's chest and I wasn't going to mess with that.  The girls and I have had such good times there.  I'm going to miss living so close to a zoo that is the perfect size for children.