The Flower & the Chicken...

... wish you a very spooky Halloween!

Pigtails

The little Miss has hair long enough now to put into semi-pigtails. I tried unsuccessfully to take pictures of her with them in her hair but the little bugger wouldn't sit still long enough for me to get any good pics. That's when I decided to video her running around with her new do. Video quality is not great but it will do for now. Pretty cute, I think!!

Pumpkin Guts!!!

Let's just say she enjoyed herself...a lot! She was all about taking the seeds out and then putting them back in. I was by myself with her while she was *cleaning* the pumpkins because we realized that we didn't have any pumpkin carving knives. Steve and Lexi ran to the store to buy some appropriate tools. I was trying to clean 3 pumpkins, watch Ava, and take pictures the entire time. Ava loved squishing the guts. She even smelled them and then looked at me and said, "Yuck!" However she kept right on smelling them. She's such a goofball. By the time Steve and Lexi got back with the tools, Ava was beat. I had to put her to bed and then the real carving began. Maybe next year Ava will make it through the entire pumpkin carving process. This year, though, she was pretty content just playing with all the pumpkin guts.

Gooey Ghosts

After a great morning at the fantabulous Pumpkinland on Saturday, we ate lunch at Subway and headed home with Lexi along for the ride. Ava needed a nap, so she was down for a few hours which bummed Lexi out. To make up for the Avaless afternoon, I decided to teach her how to make popcorn balls. Get the recipe here. Lexi loves to help and I thought this was the perfect activity for her to help with. I borrowed an old school air popper from my dad and we popped the corn and you could actually see it popping in the popper. We are so used to just throwing a bag in the microwave, I thought it was neat to pop it a different way. If you don't have an air popper just use 3 bags of microwave popcorn. Make sure to pick out all the unpopped kernels because those are killers on your teeth!! I dealt with the stove but Lex helped with the measuring and of course the best part of all...forming the gooey ghosts (her name). If you make these, don't dump the entire sugary mess on the popcorn. Dump a little and stir, then a little more and stir. If you don't have a humongous bowl, then make them in 2 batches which is much more manageable. I sprayed Lexi's hands with Pam and she was off and running with her ghosts. It would be fun to add M&Ms or other candys if you have them. The gooey ghosts occupied Lexi's time and we ended up with a tasty treat too!

Pumpkinland

I've been feeling under the weather since Friday but I'm determined not to get sick. My husband says I'm sick but I'm choosing not to agree. We had plans to visit Thies' Pumpkinland on Saturday with my niece and dad, and I did not want to miss that. I loaded up on DayQuil, dressed warmly and headed out for lots of pumpkin fun. Pumpkinland did not disappoint! Lexi who's 7, had a blast. There were so many things for her to do and climb and wonder through. There was a hay pirate ship with buried treasure, a tower of terror, slides, mazes, zip lines and a ton more. They never had stuff like this when I was her age. Ava had a great time too. There were mini tractors throughout the area and she got the biggest kick out of pushing them all around. There were pigs, goats, and lamas. Animals are always a crowd pleaser in our house. Lexi decorated a pumpkin, too. We will be making Theis' Pumpkinland a yearly event for sure. We bought 3 decent sized pumpkins for about 12 bucks which seemed good to me. The girls loved it and so did the 3 adults. Only down side was my dad and I wanted coffee and there was none to be found. I would have settled for hot cider but they didn't have that either...bummer. Overall, Saturday was a very successful day and that was just the first half. I'll tell you all about the gooey ghosts and pumpkin carving that happened later in the day in a later post. For now, I have to go wrangle my little pumpkin into taking a nap. Wish me luck!

Spooky Spiders

The great thing about reading blogs is finding new resources which I love! I say read but really I am a visual person so I look at the pictures. There are a few really well written blogs that I do read but most that a peruse daily are more for visual ideas. I can't remember whose blog I was browsing but they mentioned a website that they found, so naturally I clicked to check it out. I was so glad I did because it has so many ideas!! The website is called Bright Ideas and contains so many cute and creative ideas using candy. How fun, right? Most of the fun recipes call for the good stuff too. You know like Twix, Snickers, M&Ms, etc. All candy that is easy to find and not hard to eat the left overs. I made these adorable spider cupcakes for the soup party which seemed to be a big hit with the kiddos. This was my first little guy and I goofed on his eyes. The M is facing out when it shouldn't be...oops! I'm sure the kids didn't notice my one eyeball goof. I'm trying to come up with a reason to make the cute pumpkin cookies on the front of the website now. Just too cute!

Soup for the Soul

I mentioned the soup party in the previous post, so I thought I would share the recipe I made for the party. It's one of those super easy but makes you feel so warm inside kind of soups. The list of ingredients is short and chances are you have most of it in your fridge or pantry already. It's nothing fancy but a crowd pleaser none the less. My family has made this soup for as long as I can remember and I'm going to keep making it. Kind of a funny name but trust me it's yummy!

Chicken Soup with Rivels

3 ½ -4 lb. chicken
1 large onion, chopped
6 cups hot water (enough water to cover the chicken)
3 cups sliced carrots
Salt
Pepper
1 cup flour
1 egg
1-2 Tbsp. milk
1 cup celery, chopped




1. In large dutch oven, heat on high the chicken, onion, water, carrots, salt, and pepper until it boils. Reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 45 minutes or until chicken is fork tender.


2. Remove chicken and allow to cool.


3. To prepare rivels, in medium bowl stir flour, egg, pinch of salt, and milk to create a crumbly mixture.


4. With spoon (I use my hands), sprinkle rivels into simmering soup. Add celery; cook 20 minutes or until tender.


5. Cut chicken meat from the bone into bite sized pieces. Stir in meat and heat through.

It's a great soup and perfect for this dreary weather that has set upon us. Enjoy!!