Pumpkin Pie Bites

Pumpkin Pie Bites

I made these today (I know, I know. I said I was going to do it days ago. Sue me.) - they're rather delicious. They're supposed to be for tomorrow. I may have eaten four. I'm not admitting to anything for certain though...

They look different than on the site I got them from for a couple reasons. I used circles not pumpkin cookie cutters and I used the fresh pumpkin so the color is considerably lighter. I also didn’t do it in two batches as she suggested. I guess if I was doing the pumpkin cutters that might have been necessary but these fit just right.

Actually a little more work than just making a pumpkin pie. Tomorrow I’m going to do some heavy whipping cream with sugar and cinnamon to eat on top. That will make it a perfect little pumpkin pie bite!

  

PS I keep saying tomorrow because we’re having a Thanksgiving dinner at mom’s tomorrow since she’s going to be out of town. Hooray for Thanksgiving dinner!

The Trampoline

Okay - this is ridiculously blurry but could she look any cuter??



PS There is an enclosure that goes to this. We just haven't put it up yet. It was cold and raining when we did the trampoline and we'd had enough. And now it's freezing and snow covered. lol

Good Eats

So yesterday I was watching a DVRed episode of Dinner Impossible (love that show!) and I had gone into the kitchen as it was ending. A few minutes later, my newly 4 year old comes into to the kitchen tugging on my hand saying - What is this called? I love this show. Come see! I want to watch this. It's my favorite cooking show! Hurry mom! Hurry!

Okay, Leah! Okay. I'm coming.

Sheesh.

It was Good Eats.

Seriously. I love my kid. It was just a few minutes of it because it was on the tail end of my show and she was so upset that it wasn't actually on. The sad, sad disappointment. So now the DVR is set to record all new episodes of Good Eats.

She asked me about it again today because I'd told her it came on Monday nights. Sadly it comes on after she's in bed so she has to wait until tomorrow.

Poor kid. lol

My 4 year old loves Alton Brown. Who knew?

Birthday Pictures

Her first day of being four! She got tons of presents and had a most fantastic time at her party. Here’s a couple of pictures on her actual birthday:

She seriously can’t stop talking about this mp3 player. It’s an iPod Shuffle. What cracks me up about it is that I won it in a drawing at the bank! I just stuck it in a drawer and saved it for her birthday since Drew & I each already have an mp3 player we like. I filled this with Kidz Bop pop music, some great kid pop type music Camela sent her and some classic kids songs. She has Bingo stuck in her head from it. Oh and some Kidz Superstarz Christmas music. She just loves it. She hasn’t figured out that the volume button is on the ear phones yet. So I know she’s not blasting her ears. I’ll have to cross that bridge when we get to it.

Never mind the TRAMPOLINE we (Drew & I and Nana & Papa) got her, of course. She was very very excited about that but it cracks me up how she can’t stop talking about the thing I got for free.

And this baby hasn’t left her side:

The baby makes the most adorable giggling noises.

At her party (but still 3 in this picture – as she kept reminding everyone – I’m not four YET!) right before blowing out her candles.

Shortly after taking this picture my camera battery died. How ridiculous is that? I got another battery the next day but luckily my parents had brought their camera. I need to get the pictures from them still though.

My Leah - Addendum

I forgot something else I want to remember about her.

She is incredibly sensitive and tender and even raw in some ways.

I cannot yell at her. Oh I can use the "mommy voice", I can even sound upset but if I actually raise my voice? Forget it. I do it very infrequently. And always end up immediately apologizing because essentially it dissolves her and she will be crying and saying, "You're not supposed to yell. Don't yell at me." or something similar. I love it about her and at the same time it requires a great deal of self-control on my part. And I love it because it makes me - a better me.

She's even more sensitive with her Daddy. He can't even do the stern "mommy voice" thing before she's distraught.

We still do time outs. She still gets in trouble. It's not like we don't ever discipline her. It just has to be done calmly.

She also needs preparation for things. If someone is coming over, a basic description of where we are going, what a new experience will be like, etc. If not she'll be generally more clingy until she adjusts to whatever the new situation is - for like maybe 30 minutes or so. Then she's off again - but if she's really prepared it takes much less time for her to adjust.

That's it.

I think.

PS We had a wonderful birthday party yesterday and then a fun family day together for her birthday today. She got to plan the menu for today: Grits/eggs/toast for breakfast, Thai food for lunch, and Alfredo for dinner. She's got good taste!

Two posts in one day! Take that NaNoBloMo!

My Leah

I've been planning on writing a post about Leah today. Something the encompasses and describes her. The problem is it makes me all emotional and then I can't write.

I'm gonna try. Maybe I'll just start with things she loves.

Leah's beloved foods (she's listing these to me while I type) - spinach, oranges, carrots, celery, broccoli, crab rangoons, sesame chicken from the thai place, grits/eggs, mac & cheese, peaches, bread

She also like hollandaise sauce - when she asks for that it's "eggs with sauce please".

And sometimes she asks for alfredo and sometimes when she can't remember the word she says "noodles with that one sauce - the white one".

She still won't eat sandwiches. If you give her a plate that has turkey, cheese, lettuce, and bread, she will eat it. But if you actually stack that into a sandwich? Forget it.

She doesn't like any red meat, no ground meat patties! She loves ham (with a passion) and chicken if it's cooked well. She does not like fish but really likes crab - but not lobster. (she told me to add that. I don't think I've ever shared lobster with her). I can get her to eat salisbury steak - which is of course a totally different texture of ground meat. She will eat the meat in a taco sometimes.

She likes candy as much as the next kid I think but she regulates herself very well. She had free access to her halloween candy and she was still only eating 2-3 pieces a day and sometimes none. When it had been 3 days since she got a piece out of there I threw it away. She hasn't noticed. Currently she wants any candy with peanut butter inside of it. She LOVES peanut butter. No peanut butter sandwich (I keep trying) but she'll eat a spoonful of crunchy peanut butter and be blissfully happy.

Leah still rarely stays in her bed through the night. She loves to come and snuggle. And even if she's been in my bed all night she'll wake me up and say "I want to snuggle with you" and fall back asleep for another hour. She's very physically affectionate. There is a lot of hugging and kissing and random "I love you"s. She likes to tell me "You're my favorite best mommy!"

She's also very compassionate. I've blogged about that a little before I think. She worries about other kids being sad or making sure Drew & I get some of whatever treat she's having - or have one of our own. Especially Daddy. She always makes sure he's getting some too. Her favorite cousin - she just adores - and they fight and both act obnoxious sometimes as kids do - but Leah says things about her like "She's mean sometimes mom but I love her. I love her the most of all my cousins!" The other day we took E to story hour with us and Leah asked her if she wanted to come play and E told her "no" and Leah said, "Do you want me to come play at your house?" "No. You can't come to my house and play!" And I swear if I was Leah I would have burst into tears and the look on Leah's face, she was clearly hurt but she said "Are you okay Elaina? Are you sick?" And E just wouldn't answer her. I was driving then so I just started driving straight to E's house. I was so mad. I hate being that mad at a 4 year old but it seemed like mother bear instinct, kwim? And I love E! I told her mom about it and she said she's been acting like that to her sisters too. Anyway - I know it's just a phase. My point was that Leah was so compassionate in response... then I started to ramble.

On Wednesday at church we did a Veteran's Day dinner and invited all the veteran's we knew. As I still helping get things out of the kitchen, etc but I stopped to make Leah a plate and asked her where she wanted to sit - She did not choose the teenagers that she knows (there were no other kids there), she asked to sit in the middle of six people - a very elderly man on her left, elderly woman on her right, across from her was her primary teacher and her mom, and then another older woman and her husband on the other side of her primary teacher. And my wonderful child just sat there and had conversation and ate her dinner like it was the most normal choice in the world for a four year old. Later several of those people commented to me about it. They totally enjoyed her company and her primary teacher said she used all her manners and was so polite. Love it!

She is learning how to read and progressing so fast it's rather scary. A couple more months of these lessons and she'll just be reading. Right now she walks around sounding out words to herself. If she hears a new word she says it very slowly and asks me how it's spelled, etc. I love her loving to learn. She's so interested in everything. She knows that I can show her just about anything on the computer. Yesterday she asked if I could show her "different colors of hermit crabs". I didn't even know she knew what a hermit crab was! We found a picture of a hermit crab in a soccer ball shell. Totally cool. lol

Leah is also incredibly mouthy sometimes. I often say - and have been told many times - that when she's a teenager... I'm screwed.

I love her spunk, her heart, her spirit, her adorable face, the shape of her little body, her hair, her chocolate-y eyes (which I sometimes ask her if I can lick), every single part of her!

Happy Birthday beautiful girl!

Birthday Cake

We are having Leah’s birthday party today (her birthday is actually tomorrow). And I’ve been working on her cakes this morning.

Here is the tablescape all put together:

A close up of the lady bugs – which I just think are adorable!

This is what the butterfly cake looks like – it’s just a round cake cut in half, cut outs, put back to back. I sliced a little slice off the back side of each too to make them fit together better.

The instructions for all these things can be found here: 31 Incredible Birthday Cakes.

There are a few things I did different out of necessity. Dark green muffin cups are not easy to come by. I went to 6 stores! So for the snakes I dyed the cake batter green and used mint green cups. It worked well. You can see them in the picture below. The lady bugs I used pink ones but I didn’t dye anything. They didn’t need it.

The instructions say to use mallomars for the ladybug body (and then cover in frosting) but I couldn’t find those anywhere either. I used mini cakesters. They worked perfectly – slightly bigger than mallomars I think.

If you look at the butterfly cake above you’ll see several candies are different. I couldn’t find sprees so I used these giant smarties a checker in walmart showed me. I didn’t know those things came so huge! They’re slightly alarming. I still haven’t eaten one. lol

The grass is dyed coconut. A little warm water, green dye, a little yellow – done in two batches to get multi tones.

I think everything else I did pretty much what they said. Leah loves it!

Now I’m off to finish cleaning, cook some rolls, and make a ham corn potato chowder. Yummy on this snowy day!

Applesauce

Here’s the recipe I used: Simply Recipes – Applesauce

I’m sure you’ll be shocked to hear I did exactly what this recipe said. Although it was a recipe with built in “the sugar is guidelines – depends on your apples”. That’s the best kind. ;)

I stirred that up so the picture wouldn’t just be apples but really I left the lemon peel and cinnamon on the bottom to make sure they soaked in the water a long time.

After about 30 minutes I pulled the peel and cinnamon stick and dumped it hot into the food processor. Put it on high for about 20-30 seconds. And ta-da! Applesauce:

Leah helped with the whole process. She was ever so pleased with all of it. She did discover she doesn’t like applesauce when it’s warm.

This is so good now I don’t want the stuff in the handy jars anymore… great. Just great.

What's next?

So what does Leah ask me tonight as we run in the store to grab two things after church?

Go on.

Guess.

No. That's not it. Try again.

Nope.

Okay I'll tell you...

"Mom? Can we make applesauce tomorrow?"

"What?"

"Can we buy some apples and make applesauce?"

"Sure baby" (I say this all nonchalantly. Like I ever MAKE applesauce. How 'bout this nice jar Leah? It's not like I don't think I can. It just comes cheap in these nice jars....)

"Hooray! Oh I can't wait!" - and she dances off to the produce section.

You know why this is happening to me? Stupid educational cartoons. Sid the Science Kid. An episode about food decaying. They watched a pumpkin decay and get disgusting. And then they learned - what can you make from old bananas? Banana Bread. What can you make from old apples? You guessed it. Applesauce.

So I'm thinking - UGH. Like I don't have enough to do getting ready for her party on Friday.

But then as she's going to bed and she says her prayers she actually says "Thank you we get to make applesauce tomorrow!" in her prayer.

There's no getting out of this now, is there?

I really do love my kid. She sure keeps me on my toes!

Pet Love

Do you think it’s weird that my dogs and cats like each other so much?

Benny (orange boy) & Joon (black girl) are the cats (yes, they’re siblings). Rosco & Tripper are the dogs.

Benny seemed annoyed at my intrusion.

Odd animals.