Owen's First Homework

Owen had his first homework assignment on Monday to create a family penant (with your family). The directions were to trace everybody's hands, put your name somewhere on the penant and decorate any way you wanted. It was a lot of fun to have a project to do together although I'm very curious to see what other penants looked like. We weren't sure how much influence we were supposed to have so we decided to not have any:)

Cranberry Coriander Oatmeal (modeled after the flavor in these scones but minus the orange because I forgot to buy one)

Apple Cinnamon Steel Cut Oatmeal - if you check out the link for this recipe you'll see why I wanted to try it. Plus, I was looking for another recipe using steel cut oats. I need to remember to make time-intensive recipes the night before because I think I ate an entire meal's worth of food while I was waiting for this oatmeal to be done. Worth it though because it was super good and much better than the other apple oatmeal I made.

PB Banana Oatmeal

I've probably made something like this before but since I'm still recreating quickbread flavors I had to include this. You're probably getting sick of reading about my oatmeal. Well, I'm not done yet! I just committed myself to a very large canister of oats. I'll try to put up some pictures of my children though too.

Butternut Squash Soup

We tried this Butternut Squash Soup and it was fairly successful. Owen didn't want to eat it but I'm pretty sure he was just scared off by the looks of it so I sort of don't blame him because it doesn't look like any soup we've had before. I thought it was good and I think Pat thought it was good enough.

Mango Oatmeal

I tried to recreate the flavors of one of my favorite quickbreads into this oatmeal so I put in ginger, cinnamon, raisins, mango and a bit of lime juice. Pretty good!

This Blog is 3!

I have been blogging for 3 years. I tried to think of some grand way to celebrate but instead I just decided to do what I always do. I'm going to post some pictures of us and tell you about them. Maybe I'll get creative later and come up with something more exciting. Until then...here's us...

Paige and me looking very cozy and dressed for Fall!

I don't know how Pat feels about this picture but I love it. He was trying to get Owen to laugh and Owen was trying really hard to be serious.

Beer Pancakes

Turns out beer pancakes are a horrible idea. No way I could have seen that one coming...

This oatmeal was good though. No beer involved, just some maple syrup.

Paige

Here is a little bit of what Paige has been up to recently.

Long talks with monkey.


Bonding with Owen.

Talking to Pat

I've been horrible about posting this week and had planned to make up for it today but the pictures aren't uploading so instead I'll leave you with this...

Me: Pat, would you be disgusted with me if I told you that I ate almost a whole box of Teddy Grahams today?
Pat: No, I would be disgusted if you ate pig's feet.

True love right there.

Paige.

More confirmation of Paige's cuteness.

Deceptive Oatmeal

I'm continuing on with different oatmeals and making smaller portions of them! This way I don't have to eat the same kind for a week since no one else in the house is participating. This recipe was from Deceptively Delicious and it was sooooo good. Maybe my favorite so far. The secret healthy ingredient was sweet potato puree. I'm definitely going to make this again.
Recipe Here

Preschool!

Getting information from Owen about his days at preschool is pretty funny. The only information he'll give without specific questioning is that he "played." After another billion questions we got a couple of amusing tidbits out of him but here's my favorite.

Me: What did you play with?
Owen: Dinosaurs!
Me: Did you play with anyone?
Owen: No.
Me: You didn't play with anyone?
Owen: I played with the green guy.
Me: The green guy?
Owen: The green guy with glasses.
(We have to assume that there was a boy with glasses wearing a green shirt, right? Not some sort of alien being which is what I think of when he says green guy.)

Sunday!

Sunday was spent at a much more relaxing pace than Saturday...

Owen watched Toy Story with his bears (he told us which scary parts needed to be fast-forwarded).

We went to Artfest and did some chalk drawings. Owen also got a football painted on his cheek and we bought some kettle corn. Yum!!

Paige took a nap with hippo for the first time. She hasn't been the easiest to get to sleep lately so I let her hold hippo for a bit and then stole him away when she was asleep.

Saturday!

We had a pretty busy Saturday and I'm still shocked at how smoothly our day went. There was soccer practice in the morning then we changed and went to Pat's work picnic. We drove home and Paige and Owen were asleep in the car so I ran inside to grab a few things while Pat stayed in the car and napped with them for 10 or 15 minutes. Then we drove straight to a friend's party and got him later that night for bed! These pictures are all from the work picnic. There was so much to do that we didn't even get a chance to try everything!

Owen wanted to do the inflatable obstacle course first!

Paddleboats. Pat and I both took a turn with Owen while the other person fed Paige.

Action shot of us running back from the paddleboats! I didn't realize until I saw this picture that Owen and were dressed alike...

They had 3 or 4 different types of swingsets to play on among other playground equipment.

Paige stayed awake the whole time we were there and got to show off her party outfit.

Apple Oatmeal

I liked the apricot oatmeal so much that I decided to find another recipe for the slow cooker and came across this one. It was alright but I'm hoping the leftovers will be even better and the flavors will have time to meld. You couldn't really taste the apple. It came out a nice caramely color since I accidentally dumped a whole lot of cinnamon into it! Also, I changed the recipe a bit-no butter, steelcut oats instead of regular, and 3 1/2 cups of water + 1 cup of soymilk instead of 2 cups of milk.
Recipe Here

Paige

Paige has been 5 months for about a week now so I thought it was time for a post just for her:)


Staring down her doll or maybe challenging her to some tummy time?

Mastering the sippy cup! She can't really get anything out of it but she still gets upset if you take it away.

Apricot Oatmeal

This oatmeal was made in the slowcooker overnight and it was really yummy. It was actually really nice to wake up and have a warm breakfast ready to eat. Owen is a little wary of my oatmeal concoctions after trying the first two but I convinced him to take a bite and he admitted to liking it too.


Recipe Here

Strawberry Almond Oatmeal

I figured out how to make oatmeal look pretty! Hide it under lots of toppings! This oatmeal was not very exciting or enjoyable. Water+oats+cinnamon+strawberries+almonds=blah. I ended up throwing in some raisins to up the sweetness. I've only done two different kinds so far but I think using milk instead of water makes a huge difference.

Preschool!

Owen had his first day of preschool today! We walked him to his room, put his backpack and snack away and then hugged him goodbye and that was it! He handled it extremely well and I had to rush out before he saw me crying! When we picked him up he was excited to see us but didn't seem to miss us too much:)

Backpack on! Ready to go!

Maybe the backpack was a little too heavy...

Owen showing off his work on the walk home.

Labor Day!

There is a small lake/beach thingie near our house and we stopped there at Owen's request to do some digging. It was getting close to his bedtime and we thought if we didn't put him in his swimsuit we wouldn't have to worry about him getting wet. Turns out he didn't let that stop him from wading into the water...lesson learned. We'll just bring the swimsuit and lots of towels next time.

Paige put her feet in the sand for the first time and loved it!

I thought we were both posing for this picture. Turns out it was just me. Paige was more interested in what Pat and Owen were doing.

Oatmeal!

So I've done 30 days of different breakfasts (twice!) and it's a whole lot of work so I decided to do something that requires a little less planning. I'm going to have a different oatmeal every morning (except for the mornings where I have oatmeal leftover from the day before which happened to me the first day...) until I get sick of eating oatmeal. One thing I didn't consider was that oatmeal doesn't photograph particularly well, I'll have to work on that.

This was an overnight oatmeal made with steel-cut oats. I can't figure out where I got the recipe from but it was 1 cup of steel-cut oats, 2 cups milk, dollop of honey, cinnamon and raisins. Mix it all together and let it sit in the fridge overnight. Then you just pull it out of the fridge and eat it! It was very chewy but I still liked it.

Water, Water, Everywhere

This was probably not one of my smarter ideas but luckily it worked out...Owen was very excited about getting to hold Paige in the pool, even if it was only long enough for me to take a picture. I actually expected her to cry right when her toes hit the cold water but she would have sat in there longer if I had let her!