Happy Halloween!

This post is mainly a photo dump for all things Halloween. These first two were taken by Kellie at our ward Halloween party. She does such a good job.

We could not get Tate to look at the camera, he just wanted to get that pumpkin.

Here are some of the pictures from Halloween night (trick-or-treating was scheduled for Thursday night here). The skunk costume got pulled out of the closet for Tate and Grant wanted to wear last year's fireman suit again. We did add a pair of fire boots (galoshes) this year so it was a little different. Probably the cutest skunk and fireman I've seen in a good while :)

We had our own little Halloween party on Wednesday night. Well, we just had dinner with a spooky twist. What do you think about the mummy dogs and spider web bean dip? Alright, I know the mummy dog looks more like a guy in a turban (thanks Christine). Just so you know I got these ideas off of my favorite food blog, ourbestbites.

Gotta have caramel apples, yummy!

Last but not least, the parent's costume. Ryan and I got invited to a fun costume party and went as a Harlem Globetrotter and his wife. So we went to the thrift store a while back to see what we could find for a costume. Ryan came across the dress I am wearing and we decided we had to have it (can you imagine someone owned that, for real?!) We found Ryan's jersey and shorts in the kids section there and added the accessories. I'd have to say it was one of our better costumes.

What entertains a 2 year old?

Grant goes through stages of different things that entertain him. Lately, if I need a good 15 Grant-free minutes I just give him some cups and water bottles to fill and pull his stepping stool right up to the kitchen sink. He loves to fill them up and empty into different containers. (Oh, and I usually don't let him do this with a steak knife in grabbing range).

Grant also enjoys dressing up, although he usually dons his fireman hat and coat or some of Ryan's shoes. I think this picture is probably one of those that Grant will want to burn when he's a teenager, but for now, it's funny and made it to the blog. This is the only time I've seen him do this though.

The other day he was playing in the garage and came in saying "Mommy, can you help me put these on". I don't even know where we keep these things but he found them, so he got to wear Ryan's old water shoes and work gloves for the afternoon.

Some of Grant's entertainment activities end up being better than others. Last week I was upstairs checking my emails. Tate was down for his morning nap and I knew Grant was just playing nicely by himself downstairs. Well actually I knew it was quiet down there so I should probably go see what he was doing, but I just had one more email to check... Ten minutes later I go down to find Grant had tossed the majority of the downstairs toys down to the basement and was starting to work on adding the couch cushions. At least the living room looked clean and orderly with no toys on the floor :)

Fall Fun

Ahh Fall, who doesn't love it? We have been taking advantage of the beautiful fall weather (well, I guess until this crazy, windy cold front came blowing in) and getting out to see what Ohio's harvest has to offer. The boys and I were able to go apple and raspberry picking one morning, both of which I have never done before. It was a lot of fun! Grant had a ball, especially with the raspberry picking once I showed him how he could taste the berries he picked. That was probably not the best idea since he proceeded to eat the berries straight from the bush until I dragged him to the car. That boy can eat.

A couple weekends ago Ryan and I took the kiddies to a local farm that puts on fun activites for the weekend. It was like a mini farm amuesment park. They had hay rides, a corn maze, zip-lines, farm animals, huge hay lofts to play in complete with slides and jumps, 4-wheeler type bike racing, and much, much more (maybe they should pay me for this).

By far Grant's favorite attraction was the humongous corn box. It's like a typical sand box but instead of sand, there's corn, and instead of a box, there's A BARN. So basically, it was a big barn filled 8 inches deep with corn kernels to play in! There were lots of large Tonka trucks and cars to play with as well, which only sweetened the deal. We spent almost an hour there and still Grant was not ready to move on. Plus, it was simple to clean the corn off when he was done, in contrast to sand, which would have chafed him for the rest of the day (and would have chafed me, figuratively speaking, when it showed up in the carpet at home). Yes, we are now considering having a corn box of our own some day.

Grant was very proud of the sticker he was issued on admission to the farm. He walked up to the goats and said "Hi goats, you wanna see my sticker?" I think they would have appreciated a little lick of it at least.

What's a fun-filled farm without plywood animal cutouts? Grant preferred to ride the stone pig and eat his apple. Tate sure makes a cute horse though!

I Can Can

Okay, I'm at least learning how to can. For awhile now I've been wanting to get all the supplies together and just try it out, learn something new. It's actually easier than I thought it would be, especially if you have someone to help you with the prep. I decided to start with peaches and picked these babies up from a local farmer's market. I only bought 10 pounds of peaches, anymore than that and I might have ended up just shoving whole peaches into the jars and calling it good. We ended up with 6 quarts of peaches. As you can see from the picture, we learned one of our first major lessons with canning--the fruit shrinks when processing so pack those suckers tight.

The most tedious part of canning is the fruit prep. We tried blanching the peaches first to help remove the skins which was only somewhat effective for us. I think we need more practice with that. It also made them pretty slick which made the slicing more intersting. I did mangage to keep all my fingers intact though, so I call it a success.

Ryan is still very busy and was supposed to be spending his time on his school work but ended up helping me with the entire process. It was awesome and cut the time in half. Thanks honey!

And now, the taste test. They turned out great! We all thought they tasted better than any store-bought canned peaches we've tried, altough we could be slightly biased We enjoyed them on waffles this past Sunday morning.

Canning the peaches went smoothly enough that I decided to try again, and this time with no help (a certain BYU game was on). The kids and I went apple picking (more about that in the next post) so I decided to go with apple pie filling. Who will eat that much apple pie filling you might ask? I have asked myself the same question, but I thought it was a waste to make applesauce since it takes a lot of work and I can buy it so cheaply at the store. So apple pie filling it is. Also, I still have several pounds of apples left so I may attempt apple butter next. Anyone have a good recipe?

A Hearty Har Har

This is among the heartiest we've seen Tate laugh. Who knew a pig in mom's mouth could be so funny?

Five firsts in one week

First #1: Tate has figured out how to crawl.
For about the past month, Tate has been in a pre-crawling state, up on his hands and knees--moving backward or just rocking back and forth. This past week he has discovered forward motion and every day he become a quicker and more efficient crawler. This is nice because he is much more content now that he can better satisfy his curiosity and this is not so nice now that I have to be extra vigilant about keeping the floor clean and baby-proofed. He can find any random piece of paper, small toy or otherwise chockable item quicker than I can pick them all up, he's a sly one.

First #2: Tate can sit unsupported.
Right about the same time he started crawling, he began putting himself in the sitting position and remaining stable. Before this time, I would always put a pillow around him while he was sitting up because he would inevitably fall backward and hit his head. He still has had a fall or two this past week but otherwise will remain sitting until he sees something else he wants to play with and crawls away.
First #3: Tate wants to pull himself up on everything.
Okay, I was pretty excited about the previous two firsts. He can crawl around, sit up and play which keeps him entertained for much longer than ever before. The pulling up on things would not be a problem except that he is still quite unstable on his feet (as you can see in the picture he looks like he's in the process of falling). I'm not ready for this stage where you have to follow them around the house, ready to catch them from a head-banging fall at any moment. Right now I try to keep an eye on him and redirect his attention to toys on the floor, etc, or just stick pillows in positions that will hopefully catch his head when he comes crashing to the floor.

First #4: Grant has a big-boy bed.
Sorry no picture yet. I'm planning on posting one after I get the cute bedding I've been looking at. We actually got bunk beds that convert to two twin beds. We set the top bunk with the side railing up for his bed so I think Grant thinks it's just a big crib. He hasn't even tried to crawl out (although he easily could) but I'm not complaining as he stays in his bed for naptime.

First #5: Tate is finally in the crib.
That's right. After 6 months of life Tate can say goodbye to the hard, uneven boards of the pack-n-play and say hello to the soft, comfortable mattress in the crib. He is even starting to sleep better. The past couple of nights he has not awaken to eat until 5 am (he usually wakes around 3 or 4am) and then went back to sleep until 8 am. I'm hoping the trend will continue until he's just sleeping right through the night. I guess we will see...

This picture is not a first but I figured I needed a picture of Grant on here as well as Tate. One night we were going to say our prayers and Grant insisted that George kneel down to pray as well. They both made it through the whole prayer :)

Happy Anniversary!

This is actually a few days late, but better late than never! We celebrated our 5th anniversary on the 19th and got a night out on the town the weekend before (thanks Scott and Carol for babysitting!). This year was my turn to pick what we were going to do so I decided we should hit up German Village in Columbus and try out Schmidt's Sausage Haus. I'm not one to gravitate toward German food (and especially not sausage) but I saw a clip about this place on the Food Network so I thought we'd give it a try.

Here's Ryan with our spread and a fork-full of knackwurst and sauerkraut. Ryan got the all-you-can eat sausage buffet which had all their famous sausages and brats along with German and American side dishes. I decided to get ethnic and got the Weiner-schnitzel with spatzel and german pancakes. And the verdict: mine was better. Americans don't eat many sour foods and that was the predominant flavor in the food we got. They even gave me a lemon to squeeze over my dish which I thought made it more delicious.
Here's a lovely shot of me stuffing my face with weiner-schnitzel. Yum! (Come to find out, weiner-schnitzel is not a sausage, like you might think. It's veal cutlets, battered and fried. Who knew?!)

Ryan was really into the first couple of sausages, but then the sauerkraut and fat started to get to him. This pic shows the sudden wave of nausea that hit him at about brat #4 (don't worry, the nausea didn't last too long:). He said most of his food ended up tasting like you would except buffet food to taste.
So that was a little dissapointing but it was a lot of fun to go and experience it all.
Afterward, we went to a bookstore in town that they had made out of one of the historic buildings. The whole store was several levels that had been made into 32 rooms of books. The rooms were pretty small and all connected by narrow hallways and staircases. You had to weave through the maze of rooms, hallways, and staircases to get through the place. There were people on their cell phones trying to find other people in the maze-store, with references to landmarks like "I just went up the double-staircase by the pirate books and am now in the room with horse books and car books. Where are you?" It was a pretty fun set up. And Ryan and I love meandering through book stores so we had a blast.
Thanks honey for being such a wonderful husband. You've made these past 5 years incredible. I love you!