Halloween Party

Every year we have a Halloween Party / Fall Festival at church.  It's a fun evening where kids (and some adults) don their Halloween costumes, enjoy each other's company, play carnival games, and eat goodies.

Samantha wore her "Candy-land Princess" dress for Halloween this year.  Such a sweet little princess with her glowing star wand!  She played games like the Cupcake Walk, Ring Toss, Plink-o, Fishing, Bowling, and donut-eating-on-a-string!  Here are a few pictures:

Graveyard Bowling

Donut-on-a-string

 

So much for the "no hands" rule

 

Forget this - I'm taking the donut off!

Pumpkin Ring Toss

Pumpkin Patch II

Sarah and her family came into town to celebrate Emma's birthday so while they were here, we went to Craven Farms and went on the hunt for pumpkins!  I wish the weather had been a bit less...soggy...but it was fun anyway.  I think Samantha enjoyed getting dirty and splashing in the mud puddles!

Soaked to the bone but still smiling!

Samantha's pumpkin haul! :)

A cute bunch of kiddos!

We ended up coming home with 2 pumpkins, muddy shoes, wet hair, dirty pants, and happy faces!

Totally Apple-sauced

Samantha and I trekked over to Wenatchee for the day so Samantha could play with friends and so I could spend the day with a friend making applesauce...all day.  My friend, Sarah, got a really good price on some apples and it's so much more fun to make/can applesauce together, we just made a day of it.

It was a beautiful drive to Wenatchee!

We started with about 200 pounds of apples - yep, 200 pounds.  AND I still brought home another 20 pounds of apples that we didn't can. 

We had apples coming out our ears!

 

See what I mean?  Still ended up taking some apples home!

So, after lots of chopping and cooking and squishing and pouring - we came out with these beautiful jars of applesauce. 

Just a portion of our haul!

We then turned our attention to apple pie filling.  I had never canned apple pie filling before.  I've frozen apple pie filling, but canning is a little different.  It requires the use of this stuff called "Clear Gel" in order to get the right consistency and preserve it properly.  We set to work slicing the apples and immediately getting them in some treated water to keep them from browning.   At the same time, we were boiling water to cook the apple slices in preparation for the cinnamon-y goodness we would immerse them in to can them. 

Now to the Clear Gel - this stuff did not start out as our friend!!  We were advised to add it a little at a time and whisk the heck out of it to keep it smooth.  Well, my whisking needs some work but Sarah, a master, was whisking like crazy and...still lumpy!  Ugh!  So, we removed some of the bigger chunks and smoothed it out as much as we can (doesn't impact the taste - don't worry, we tested).  The next batch, hmm, let's try a gravy shaker and mix the water and Clear Gel together.  WRONG!  Clear Gel expands with liquid so two shakes in and we had a huge lump of gel in the shaker.  Ugh!!  Whisk, whisk, whisk - fix that batch.  Still tasted great.  On to the last batch - hmm, why don't we mix the clear gel with all of the other dry ingredients (sugar, cinnamon, etc.) in a big gallon-sized bag and then add that mixture slowly to the liquid (water, apple juice, etc.) while whisking.  VOILA!  We've attained perfection in our apple pie filling.  No lumps, great taste, and so pretty!

So pretty!  Yummy too, but so pretty!!

Our plan was to get this all done during the day and Samantha and I would leave around 7pm to get home by 9:30pm.  Yeah, Sarah and I didn't finish our canning adventures until 3am.  By that time, I was so tired and Samantha had been fast asleep for hours.  So I curled up for a bit as well.  Then it was up again at 6:30am to get home by 10am for a rehearsal at my house.  Well, I made it home in time, but was exhausted the entire next day.  In fact, I don't remember a lot of that day other that it was full of lots of Diet Dr. Pepper in an effort to keep me awake!

Thank you, Sarah!  Canning alone just isn't the same!  I'd trek over to Wenatchee to can with you any day! ;)

Pumpkin Patch I

I love this time of year!  My sister had the day off of work so we took advantage of the beautiful weather and she and Tommy joined me and Samantha at one of the local pumpkin patches.  We wandered around for a bit, gave the kids rides in the wagons and wheelbarrows, let them climb around on the hay, and more or less run around and wear out for naptime!  Love this time of year!

Just sittin' here on this pumpkin!

I can't believe Missi let Tommy sit in the dirt!!

Cute cousins!

Remote Control Race Car

This week at work, Ed won a little remote control Mini Cooper race car.  He brought it home and showed it to Samantha.  Well, the next day after he went to work, Samantha found the car and begged me to play with it.  I thought, "ok, here goes..."

She was so funny!  She kept exclaiming, "That was awesome!" and I just giggled because not only does she know the word "awesome," but she used it correctly!  I know she picked it up from the character of Rhino in the movie, Bolt.  So hilarious!  Then she would bend down to try to pick it up but not realize her finger was on the button so she ended up chasing down the car while calling, "Come here, car."  Anyway, it was so funny, I had to get some of it on video (pardon some of the hand shaking - at some points it was a struggle not to laugh at how cute she is!).  Enjoy!

Today, she wanted to play with the car again.  With a time out fresh on her mind from this morning, it was so funny to watch and listen to her interact with this race car.  She kept telling the race car, "I love you, race car."  Then she would hold onto the car and say, "Time out, race car," followed by a, "Look at me please, race car."  Then she would set the car down, tell it she loves it again, and resume racing it!  So funny because it's completely patterned after her own time outs - we make sure Samantha knows we love her, tell her she's in a time out, ask her to look at us so we can explain the reason for the time out, and always end a time out with another, "we love you, Samantha."  So completely amusing to watch her give the car a time out!  I wish I'd have caught that on video!

Cowboy

I'm not quite sure how or when this started, but somewhere along the way, milk turned into "cowboy."  One day Samantha just started asking for "cowboy" instead of milk.  I'm pretty sure it started because we called it "cow juice," but how it evolved from there, I have no clue!

Samantha and her "cowboy"