The perfect afternoon snack

whole wheat toast with pumpkin butter and apple cider...Perfection!

cutest autumn baby ever

Well if you can't tell already, Fall is my favorite time of year. I mean really whats not to love....knit hats and sweaters, Finn's red rubber rain boots, jumping in puddles, apple cider, squash and pumpkins, raking leaves, the smell of smoke from chimneys, homemade gingerbread and apple crisp. I really could go on and on but I'll spare you. Here are some photos of Otto I took yesterday. Check out the amazing sweater I found at the thrift store.

Finn's 3rd birthday!!

I can't believe my baby is three years old! Finn's birthday didn't really go as I had planned, but such is life. Somehow he ended up having two parties in 3 days. My dad was going to be out of town on Finn's birthday (and his) so we had a last minute party on Saturday as well as on his birthday. Our friends Shawna and Brian were also in town for the weekend and Saturday was Brian's birthday. Finn has been talking about a fire engine cake for weeks, so Ben and I made him one. It took a scary amount of red food coloring to make. The cake turned out way better than I thought it would. Not bad huh?

marbelized paper

Today we tried marbleizing paper using only shaving cream and food coloring. We followed the instructions here: http://kidscrafts.suite101.com/article.cfm/kids_craft_marbled_paper. I was a little skeptical but the results were amazing. It was so quick and easy! I can't wait to try it again.

Keeping Finn busy

The key to our happiness these days is keeping Finn busy :) Finn has a way of finding "trouble" if not kept busy. The past few days we made apple prints and he really liked making his name with beans. I just took some paper bags and spelled out his name with glue and he filled it in with the beans. He also had fun stringing pasta and making a bracelet and necklace. I dyed the pasta first by soaking it for a few hours in food coloring and rubbing alcohol and then let it dry. He was really sweet and kept saying "Thank you so much mom, I love this pasta so much", while clutching it to his chest. Too funny. Of course it made my day!

Salsa!

Here is the salsa Ben made with our tomatoes.

Other signs of Fall

These are pumpkins from our garden...think there are three more to go. Grown completely Au natural. They actually started growing out of our compost pile. We figured they were squash plants but all turned out to be pumpkins or gourds.


Here is a photo of our fall table. Apple prints we did yesterday and flowers and a gourd from the garden plus other finds from nature walks.

Fall is here

Fall has arrived in the NW. While dad was at work yesterday we took a spur of the moment trip to Hood River with Gram to do the Fruit Loop. It was a perfect drizzly day with downpours and rainbows mixed in. Our bellies were filled with popcorn, caramel apples and apple cider. We brought home tons of apples to make an apple pie or two and Finn had fun running through the flower fields and checking out all the pumpkins and gourds.

Tomato Tart

With soooo many tomatoes this year in our garden, I found another great recipe.

Savory Tomato tart

• 1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
• 1 large onion thinly sliced (about 2 cups)
• Pastry for 9 in. pie crust ( I cheated and bought the kind you roll out yourself)
• 4 oz. of crumbled goat cheese
• 2 tsp. coarsely chopped thyme
• 2 or 3 large tomatoes, cut into 1/4-inch-thick slices

Preheat oven to 450 F. Saute onion with olive oil in a skillet over medium high heat until onions are golden brown. Remove from heat. Lay pastry dough flat on an ungreased baking sheet. Spread onion evenly on top, leaving a 1 inch border. Dot with goat cheese, sprinkle with thyme and grate some fresh pepper over the top. Place tomato slices on top, overlapping slightly. Fold pastry over topping crimping the edges. Bake until crust is golden brown, 18-20 min.

The first post

I decided to try out this whole blog thing mainly for fun and thought maybe it would help me brush up on my computer skills. I've been inspired by all of the crafty moms out there and their blogs. Hoping that this site will inspire others as well as keep our friends and family updated on our life.