busy week

My parents are visiting from California and keeping us very busy indeed. We've been to the state fair, the museum, fabric stores, a pumpkin patch, nature walks, visiting friends and I hosted a facial/foot spa brunch at my house. Grandma and Papa leave tomorrow morning and our world will slowly go back to normal.....after the sadness and missing them desperately wears off. My girls love them some Grandma and Papa! Eventually I will edit and post the 300+ pictures I took during our adventures this week, but for now I am just enjoying time spent with family and capturing as much of it as I can. Oh, and I'm enjoying the scenery as well! Ahhhh.....love the fall!

Fair teaser

What a great day we had today! We got up, ate bagels and headed off to the North Carolina state fair. It was crowded and expensive and I'm currently dealing with some wicked indegestion, and every year I ask myself why we put ourselves through the fair. The answer is simple. The fair is an annual right of passage. We can't just not go to the fair. It must be done. As the girls get older the whole experience has been getting better. Delaying nap time isn't such a big deal, they are really into seeing the animals and love love love the rides. Since I am seriously tired right now and in no shape to be photo editing, I'm just going to give you a little peek into our fair fun. There will be another blog with the rest of the pics once I have a moment to sit down and tweak them. Let me just say this......no matter how terrified Charlotte's face looks in the pictures below, she had a blast. She got off the roller coaster with a big ol' smile plastered across her face, and they both went on it a second time! This may have been Charlotte's first roller coaster, but it was Maddie's 15th or so.....I've already lost count. I think roller coaster love is genetic! :)

Holding hands before the roller coaster started.
I think this may be the CUTEST thing I have EVER seen!

Maddie laughing her head off. Charlotte still looking unsure.

lawn ornaments

I didn't think that August and September were particularly wet this year, but apparently they were because we have some wicked huge mushrooms growing in our yard. Mushroom growth always reminds me of fall, but I generally only see them when we go for walks in the forest.....not so much in my yard! But here we are at our new house, for our first fall and we have mushrooms. I wish I could find some info. on these particular mushrooms.....it would be nice to know if they are poisonous or even edible. Although I don't know if I would want to eat something that is this huge and weird looking and grows in my yard. Who knows how many times my dogs have peed on them. eewww. They are already starting to get brown and dried out....it's been a while since we've had any significant rain fall. They are so strange looking, I wish I could dry them out like flowers and use them to decorate with....although they are kinda stinky so they would probably not work so well. I wonder if we can expect crazy big mushrooms to grow in our yard every year? If you know what kind of mushroom this is, hit me up.....I'm very curious!

The joy of baking

My girls love cooking! A little part of me hopes that their interest and enthusiasm for creating in the kitchen comes from watching me cook meals every day. A large part of my day is spent in the kitchen, it seems to be the heart of our home. (and the bathroom these days!) Cooking meals, baking, washing dishes, packing lunches, filling juice cups and bottles, getting snacks.....all day long. But, I really enjoy my time in the kitchen, it's not always relaxing, it's not always easy, but every day I pour myself into meals that I make for my family and every day I am a fixture that my children are watching, cataloging. I hope that all of my children learn how to cook proficiently, I hope that they inherit my sharp palate and I hope that it's something they will find joy doing!

The girls and I baked pumpkin bread the other night. Both Maddie and Charlotte did really well although Charlotte was only given cooking utensils and a bowl of water! :) Maddie is my super helper and is actually really good except for wanting to rush from one step to the next and being WAY too aggressive whilst mixing. We had batter flying all over until I explained that she needed to stir gently.....little stirring. We ended up making 4 mini loaves that we gave to Maddie's teachers and 1 big one which we kept. It is truly delicious bread, and only has 1 cup of sugar compared to most of the recipes I found which called for 3 cups sugar!! Happy pumpkin breading!

*I used macadamia nuts instead of pecans because I didn't have any and splenda instead of sugar. I also used more than 1 cup of raisins....I eyeballed it, probably close to 2 cups. And, Maddie sprinkled sugar in the baking pans and then put raisins and macadamia nuts on the top of the bread before we put them in the oven.

OATMEAL PUMPKIN BREAD

1 c. quick cooking oatmeal 1 c. hot low-fat milk 3/4 c. canned pumpkin 2 eggs, beaten 1/4 c. butter, melted 2 c. all-purpose flour 1 c. sugar 1 tbsp. baking powder 1/4 tsp. salt 1 tsp. cinnamon 1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg 1 c. raisins 1/2 c. chopped pecans Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In large bowl combine oats and low-fat milk; allow to stand 5 minutes. Stir in pumpkin, eggs, and melted butter. In a separate bowl mix together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and spices. Gradually add dry ingredients to oatmeal mixture. Stir in raisins and nuts; mix well. Place in a greased 9 x 5 loaf pan. Bake 55-60 minutes or until tests done. Cool on wire rack. Makes 1 loaf.

stair climber

Charlotte has learned how to go down stairs. This is always a scary time for me because the possibility of injury is pretty much assured. So far she hasn't fallen down our stairs, but she did take a tumble this weekend at her cousins house. Good thing baby bones are meant to accomodate a little bit of battle. Charlotte is much more cautious than Maddie ever was and thus we've had fewer owies, but I fully expect to hear the dreadful thud of her tumbling down the stairs sometime before she completely masters the descent. I could follow her around and completely shadow her to make sure she never gets hurt (and sometimes I do) but I want my girls to feel independent in the small ways that a toddler can and I want them to learn by doing. If she is successful in going down the stairs by herself 99% of the time, the pride she will feel from accomplishment far outweighs me following her around to prevent that 1% failure. And so far, at our house, we're at 100% success!!

Yes, she is wearing Dora underwear over her diaper. She wants to be a big girl like Maddie!

gold star day

Have you ever had one of those days where you just feel like a truly fantastic parent? I don't get them very often.....I feel like I hover around good parent a majority of the time, and some days bad parent, but today, today was a fantastic parenting day! I'm not sure if it was me, or them, or a little of both, but we just connected all day today. There were no tantrums, no hitting one another (them, not me), no battles over meal time, no whining. There was cuddling and playing, lot's of peeing on the potty and great napping. We went for a nature walk in the morning after the temperature got up above 50 degrees. We brought buckets and picked up colored leaves, acorns and pine needles. We went all the way to the park and played for about an hour. On our way home we met a woman and her two kids who are 4 and 2 and we played in their sand box for a little while before heading home. We may have some new friends, and within walking distance which is a bonus! The girls took 2 hour naps and I did some photo editing and then fell asleep on the couch. This evening I put aprons on both girls and they helped me make pumpkin bread for Maddie's teachers at school. (those adorable pictures will be another blog) It was such a sweet time with my babies. Or as Maddie likes to say "Us three girls, we got three girls." which is usually followed with a three girl hug! I am generally not a patient person, but everyday my children are teaching me patience. I usually say no to them numerous times a day, but it's so much more fun to say yes and mean it. I think I'm gonna make a sign that says YES and put it up on the refrigerator to remind myself to have yes days.....or at least a good balance of no and yes. Here's hoping tomorrow is groundhog day!

Championship house cleaner

This weekend I got to spend 24 hours alone lounging on the couch and eating chocolates. NOT EVEN!! I did spend 24 hours by myself, but the whole purpose of that was to clean my house from top to bottom. Dan took the girls to his sister's house where Maddie and Charlotte got to play with their cousins Hailey and Norah and have a sleep over. I can not tell you how excited Maddie was to go to Hailey's house, and I can not tell you how devastated she was when she had to come home. She didn't even want to come in the door.....not even to see her most beloved Mama whom she hadn't seen for 24 hours. She has repeatedly asked me when she is going to go back to Hailey's house, and she was just a tad bit melancholy tonight. She'll get it over it....she's gonna see Hailey at our house this Saturday, but it was sad for me to see her so sad.

From Saturday morning until 4:00 Sunday I cleaned 3 bathrooms from top to bottom, swept/vacuumed/mopped/polished 2700 square feet of flooring. I cleaned windows and base boards and picked up all the toys from all over the house. I took everything off the kitchen counters and sanitized everything and cleaned my stove. I cleaned the porch, dusted the furniture and removed small stains from the carpet and couch. I also did a few loads of laundry, but the enormous pile of clean clothes blocking my entrance into the laundry room is a totally different blog topic.....I'm not even going to talk about how much laundry I need to fold. I seriously need to barter with someone.....come fold all my laundry once a week and I'll do whatever you want once a week.....except folding laundry!!!!

So, my house is sparkling clean (minus the laundry that we are not discussing) and beautiful. I love the way a really clean house smells. All clean and stuff. It makes me kinda sad that everything is in tip top shape and it will only last for oh, 2 days. Maybe. I need to have some company over like RIGHT NOW so they can see how beautiful my house can be if only I had more hours in the day and 2 less toddlers. I wish that I had the energy and the drive to keep my house always looking clean, organized and put together. I guess that's something to look forward to as the kids get older.....I will be able to get some free manual labor out of them. lol While I had some alone time and a clean house I got my fall on. I put up a wreath on the inside of our front door, I placed the pumpkins that Dan's mom painted for the girls outside, I made a leaf garland for our mantle (I finished it yesterday, but it took me about a week to make) I bought some pretty button mums and I put out even more pumpkins. I don't decorate for halloween.....we barely do halloween, so my big decorating is for fall and I love to see my house covered in reds, yellows, browns and oranges. I love the pumpkins and the leaves. I'm looking forward to going to the pumpkin patch while my parents are in town (they arrive Wednesday) and getting even more pumpkins....you get one free with the purchase of a hay ride, so we'll have like 5 more pumpkins!!! Hooray.

Clean house of the year award acceptance speech:

My clean house would not be possible if it weren't for my loving family and their support of a clean living environment. So, I'd like to thank Dan for his encouragement, patience and his fly by the seat of his pants mentality. I'd like to thank Maddie for her great attitude and enthusiasm for being shipped away for the weekend. Being told over and over again, "Bye mama, I gotta go to Hailey's now," clued me in that you were okay with the plans I made for you. I'd like to thank Charlotte for being the cutest almost 17 month old I know. Even though you were a total maniac tonight because you didn't get a nap today, I still adore you! And lastly I'd like to thank Angela and the rest of the Watkins clan for accepting my husband and children into the fold and taking care of them while I was slaving away with cleaning products. Without your support my toilets would be gross, my furniture would be dusty and my floors would still be splattered from the blueberries that Charlotte chewed up and then spit out a couple days ago. Thank you!

My mother in law painted those pumpkins!
Crazy good huh?

My leaf garland
Each leaf was hand sewn with a loop stitch and stuffed

Quilted felt pumpkins
I did not make them, but I'm thinking about trying to.

Pumpkin made out of wood

Can't forget Jimmy and Jerry

Not a great pic, but I wanted to show you my big ol' S