Ok, first of all. I am not happy about the picture I am posting with this blog. It’s October and we are going to have shovel our way to the great outdoors. My only solace in this snowy event is that it is supposed to be 60 degrees for Friday on a day that we take our children around dressed funny and ask perfectly good strangers for candy. It’s a swell tradition. I am hoping the snow all melts away.
As I am writing this, the power has turned off. No power means the coffee that was starting to brew….not brewing. The shower I have been looking forward to all day because my morning was so crazy… not happening.
So, since we have been snow-bound it’s caused two kids to be delirious about playing in the snow. In the light of their smiles, I can tolerate the white stuff. In light of getting them dressed every time they want to go outside, I’m ready to invent the all-in-one boots, mittens, snow pants, jacket, scarf ensemble that just needs to be zippered. :) Now THAT would be an invention.
On a side note, on my next trip to the store I am buying approximately 100 pairs of those little gloves in hopes to at least have five matching pairs by the time winter is over. Between socks and mitten, we are not doing well in matching-world.
So, I have spent today getting work into my boss ( who was extremely excited that I couldn't drive in today) organizing various facets of my house and thinking about working out. We have colored, painted, baked (when the power was actually on), built towers, played in the snow, made hot chocolate and now were are getting our boots, hats, mitten, snow pants, jackets and scarves back on to enjoy this wet, windy, snowy – it-not-even-Halloween-yet weather. :) Praise the Lord.
P.S – By the time I am actually posting this…we went 12 hours with no power. :)

Baby Amber, Baby Austin...too funny

I think we are pretty close to the same age here...

I wonder if I still have this bathing suit???

Rice and Randomness

I am really good at random. I swear, my mind misfires in a billion directions all at once. I can start in one place with one thought and end up planet away three thoughts later. Let’s see if I can explain. Ok for instance.
Read on if you wish:
So, this is how it works…
Wow, the leaves look awesome this time of year, especially on this road. Too bad fall leads to winter. I hate driving in winter. Ugh, I hope I don’t have another accident on the ice. I’ll just stay home every time it snows. I could get a lot more done if I stayed home more. I wonder if I should paint my kitchen while I’m home in the winter. Actually, I’d really like better lighting. Speaking of the kitchen, I need to be more creative with cooking. Oh shoot! Did I remember to pack a spoon for Andrew’s lunch, I think I did. I can’t believe he’s gonna be six soon. Hmmm, what to do for his birthday party…..
See how that goes. Brain circuit misfires in several directions. I start somewhere and who knows where I’ll end up.
Which kind of leads me into a couple of points. None of which have anything in common.
For one: Did you know that if you drop your cell phone in water, it could still be salvageable? It is! My cell phone got soaked, drenched, completely water logged and it was complete dead despite my best revival efforts. A guy I know told me to take the phone apart and put the battery in a bowl of rice overnight. I thought: yea right. But, what did I have to lose, my phone was completely dead. So, into the random bowl of rice it went and wouldn’t you know the next morning the rice must have sucked out the moisture and my phone actually worked. I couldn’t believe it!!!!! So, I thought I’d share my random nugget of knowledge.
In other randomness: I love apple crisp. I am not a big pie person. So for those who still have an issue with mums, take comfort in the fact that despite my love for the fall season, I HATE pumpkin pie, but I LOVE apple crisp. So here is the SIMPLE recipe –
4-5 apples (peeled of course)
slice em up and throw them in a pan
In a bowl:
Mix 1/4 cup of sugar
½ cup flour
¼ cup of butter (melted)
1 tsp cinnamon.
Make it. You’ll thank yourself.
Mix together and pour over the apples. Bake at 350 for a half an hour….and YUMMY!!!! I actual double the ingredients to mix together, I love the crisp…so I make lots!!!
Ok quick points, rapid fire randomness
*Hairspray gets out pen ink
*Vix vapor rub on feet calms a cough
*I am glad I don’t live near a Starbucks, I would go everyday, no doubt
*Coaching a girls’ soccer team is just crazy. Fun, but crazy.
*I love the scent "Fresh Linen" from Bath and Body- try it…yum.
*I stay up Monday nights just to watch Jay Leno’s headlines…maybe its because I work for a newspaper that I find this especially entertaining.
*I heard Christmas music in the store already
Ok, phew…it was good to get that out. I know, I’m random.

Everything Fall.....

So, today was a day of everything fall. We attended a fall festival, watched a parade, grabbed lots and lots of candy that was thrown generously from parade vehicles. Seriously, what a great tradition to witness when you are a five-year-old and a two-year-old. People drive by real slow, wave, smile and throw loads of candy at you. You get to run and play in the road that otherwise would be a big no-no. Does it get much better than that? Actually it does, if I had my way, I would have taken the mouthy boy next to us and thrown him on the "Schoharie County Cloggers" parade float to be taken away if he shouted, "Dude where'd all the candy go?" one more time.

After that it was lunch time and then to a local orchard to go apple picking. Now, I have lived in upstate NY for most of my life and I can't recall ever going apple picking before. It was gorgeous!!!! The trees are in the peak of their color changes and they are vibrant and spectacular. I will pretend that this does not signify that winter is looming around the next bend, it seems a shame that something so beautiful will give way to snow flurries soon:( Anyway, we picked a huuuuuuge bag of apples and even rode in a hay wagon to the complete and overwhelming glee of two little boys. The apple picking took us late into the afternoon and way beyond nap time...myself included.

So, after a short (mind you, waaay too short) snooze, we were up for round two of "everything fall". Andrew has been desperate to carve pumpkins. So, I finally relented and we carved two small pumpkins...the big ones we are saving for that day when we go around to strangers houses, knock on their doors and ask them to give us candy. Crazy, but for some reason we meet up with other random people dressed all weird doing the same thing.

So, we carved pumpkins, baked the seeds and ate a few of them.

Oh no, we are not done yet.

We moved on from our pumpkin carving to making applesauce from four or five of the one million apples we picked today. However, the boys got bored of that quick and applesauce making got left to me while they decided sumo wrestling was much intriguing.

But, the applesauce was sooooo good and now my house smells like cinnamon and apples, so no complaining here. On top of it all, I was chugging pepto bismal just to keep this awesome stomach bug under control!

I, of course took pictures (of "everything fall" not me chugging the pepto). I'll probably put more pics on facebook.

Just a little bit of fall

Fall is starting in NY.... this my backyard :)

Just because I liked it...

Out my back window....

On the way to mom's house...its starting to look like fall....