chili season

Woo hoo! It's officially chili season, y'all. Usually we make it for the first football game of the season,  but we've had such beautifully warm Fall weather that it didn't seem appropriate... But this weekend was cool at last! We turned on our heat for the first time, which seems an appropriate enough excuse for chili.

I'm sure everyone has their own go-to chili recipe, but here's the one Jon and I have made up and tweaked over the years:

Crockpot Chili

Olive oil (2-3 tablespoons)
1 large sweet onion, diced
1-2 pounds ground meat (chicken, turkey, beef, etc.)
28-oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 tablespoon Knorr concentrated beef stock
2 tablespoons flour
2-3 tablespoons chili powder
1-2 teaspoons green curry paste
1/3 cup honey
12 oz. beer
15 oz. can pink beans (or kidney, black, etc.), drained
4 oz. can diced green chilis
10-12 oz. frozen corn (about 3/4 of a bag)
* Hot sauce

Serve with crusty bread or cornbread, shredded cheese, & sour cream

1|  Heat oil in over medium heat a large frying pan. Add onion and cook until tender and translucent. Transfer to Crockpot.

2| Add ground {meat} (this go around we made Chickalo Chili: one pound of ground chicken and one pound of ground bison, but we have used everything from regular beef to venison. One time we even used bear meat when we were lucky enough to get some from a hunter friend of ours- it was delicious!) and cook thoroughly. Transfer to Crockpot.

3| Add remaining ingredients and give it a good stir. Cover and cook on High for 3-5 hours or Low for 8-10 hours. Add hot sauce to your own heat tolerance & enjoy!

***We have added all sorts of things to the chili over the years: diced apple, couscous (both Israeli and Moroccan), bell pepper, sliced mushrooms, cinnamon, diced smoked chicken. We've substituted maple syrup for the honey, smoked corn for the frozen... It has never come out yucky. I think that 's the beauty of chili! You can add everything but the kitchen sink and, yes, it'll always be a bit different but it's really kind of difficult to ruin it.***

Anyway, we've got some chili to eat and some football Walking Dead to watch. Hope you all had a great weekend!

a few things from last week...

This week Peyton's school had Parent-Teacher conferences resulting in a couple of half-days (Hers went great! She is progressing very well,  and despite the fact that she apparently has absolutely no need for the alphabet, she has great strengths in other areas and she keeps her teachers entertained every day, naturally) . Yesterday, we met Jon for lunch at Capitol Grille (the Seared Salmon Salad is my new best friend, btw) then picked up a pumpkin on the way home to carve (and we also roasted up the seeds which is my favorite and evidently, now Peyton's favorite too). P surprised me by carving almost the whole pattern (after I traced it out with a pencil) by herself!

Here are some other things we've been up to this past week:

1| When we moved into our house, the previous owners had painted the bedroom with these beige and cream vertical stripes which, while impressive from a painting standpoint, were charming for about 30 seconds before I was over them. And yet, it's taken us two years to choose a color to repaint... which is nothing considering it took us a year and a half to choose a bed frame to even get the mattress off the floor! And let's not even get started with the headboard. Fine, let's get started: we literally couldn't agree on one so we ended up buying some vintage barn wood so that Jon can build a custom one. Anyway, I finally picked up some paint (Benjamin Moore Natura brand in Pikes Peak Gray, which is zero VOC so that I can help out too) so that's on my list of things to work on next week. This is how beautiful it looks so far :

4 (partial stripes) down, 4 thousand to go...

2| I finally did try that Butternut Squash Bisque recipe that I posted the other day and I wholeheartedly endorse it- With every spoonful, Jon felt the need to comment, "This is bananas!"which in Jon-talk means awesome.
When I make soup, I save it in pint-size canning jars. It makes it easier to heat up one serving on the stove (and one jar fits perfectly-obviously- into Jon's 16oz. thermos for lunch). Also, if you buy the wide-mouth variety and don't fill it all the way to the top, you can freeze glass canning jars, which we do if I make more than one batch of soup in a week. We also always keep a bag or two of frozen dinner rolls (Pepperidge Farm has a whole wheat variety) on hand, so an easy dinner can literally be ready in under 10 minutes.

Cooking up the bisque...

Finished product!

Canned for future lunch/dinner.

 3| I haven't attempted the Monster-Eye Cookies yet, but I did make some Monster Cupcakes. Have you guys tried the pumpkin trick yet? You mix a box of chocolate cake mix (just the powder, ignore the back of the box) with a 15 oz. can of pumpkin and bake as directed (fine, so I guess you have to look at the back of the box for the cooking times). That's it. It makes the best tasting cupcakes! Richer and almost fudgy... and you're sneaking in some extra vitamins, too. They taste fine just on their own but I ruined the pseudo-healthiness with a traditional cream cheese frosting because Peyton had to put these gummy eyeballs on green frosting and that was that.

And if you're interested, Jon mentioned that these also were bananas.

4| After all of this beautiful food talk, I feel the need to mention that I went to one of my OB appointments yesterday and, let's just say I'm really good at making the scale go up every month. Yikes! I knew I shouldn't have bought the Halloween candy so early! Anyway, I finally got my butt to Prenatal yoga last night and I feel like a new woman, so I'm hoping to keep up with that... and quit the candy (why, oh why do I insist on buying 100 Grand mini's every year? Why not a candy that I loathe?)

On the schedule for this weekend is a school-friend's birthday party, a Halloween party (with friends the kids have known since birth), back to the Patch one more time because Ollie has not stopped asking to go back to the Corn Pit, and possibly a trip to Ikea to get a bureau because in a smidge over 3 months we're going to need a place to keep brother-sister's clothes (and a flat surface to put the changing pad on). And also, having the box sitting around will hopefully motivate me to paint the room in a timely manner because we can't set the bureau up until I do!

Cheers guys! It's the weekend!

the pumpkin patch

A couple of weekends ago we spent the most beautiful day at the Fairweather Acres pumpkin patch.

When we were on the way to the Patch, Peyton told me: "Mommy, I'm so 'cited to have corn in my undies and shoes tonight!" 

I laughed so hard, but later when I was thinking about it, I realized, this is the first time Peyton has remembered doing something from a year ago and understands what to expect. Not just the whole general experience of the pumpkin patch, but small details, like finding corn (from the amazing Olympic-pool-sized-corn-pit) in her shoes (and yeah, undies haha) when we are changing out of our clothes for the night. These little milestones creep up on you, I guess!

Anyway, speaking of the corn pit, that was where Ollie played for over three hours. No lie. Thankfully Jon was there to hang with him because after Peyton had her fill of the pit (and, of course, got the requisite butt full of corn) she wanted to check out the hay maze, push-pedal go carts, and animals. Ollie had no interest in anything else, and even after all the time he spent in there it was still a little ugly getting him to leave! He declared it the "most fun ever had" and he actually wouldn't let me cut off his wristband for two days because he wanted to show all of his friends at school! (Thankfully Fairweather is open until November 1st so hopefully we can get back there before next year!)

I was hoping to do a little carving and pumpkin seed baking afterward, but Ollie and Pey are so proud of their pumpkins that I think I'll have to go to the local farm stand to get pumpkins that they are not so emotionally attached to! But then again, Peyton gets pretty emotionally attached to everything these days: when I was mincing the dill for the hash the other morning, Peyton screamed, "Stop! You're hurting it! I'll save you little tree, com'ere, I'll save you..." She them proceeded to take the dill into the playroom and use them as trees for her dinosaurs.  And that is why my potatoes looked light on the dill, if you happened to notice in the picture from the weekend. And that is also why I'm finding wilted dill all. over. the. house. 

But hey, it's better than finding little dried up puddles of pee, which is something that's definitely happened too.

Enjoy the rest of the week, friends!

weekend

I love weekends that feel longer than two days! That was how this past weekend felt because we did so much!
On Saturday morning, I desperately wanted to switch out our regular banana pancakes for pumpkin pancakes (I've got serious Autumn-obsession)... but Peyton was having none of that nonsense. So, banana pancakes it was. We also made dilled hash browns (inspired by the amazing breakfast we had at Chef's Corner when we were up in Burlington last weekend) with the last of our CSA basket goodies:

On Saturday afternoon we went to the Halloween Festival at our local farm, Ray of Light. They have fun little games, hay rides, face painting, etc. and all the money goes back to the farm and it's rescued farm animals. It was actually pretty warm out so Peyton decided her dragon costume was too hot to wear, but Ollie shockingly! (he's never been much of a dress-up kind of kid...) wore his costume the whole time. Proudly, I might add.

Oh, and he also asked me if I was a scarecrow, which, now that I look at that hat and my ratty hair, makes a lot of sense.

At night we got all cozy and all piled on the couch to watch Hotel Transylvania. It was a really cute movie, and Ollie and Peyton loved the scene where the boy tries to take out his contact lens so that Dracula can hypnotize him. (Peyton has also asked for a bagel with scream cheese every morning since...)

Hopefully the last pictures of our "Big Top" striped bedroom- we finally decided on a color to re-paint it...

Reenacting the  contact lens scene :)

Overnight, Ollie received yet another visit from the Target Card- wielding- Tooth Fairy! He almost wasn't going to let me take a picture, but Mama knows the way to his smile. (Fart jokes, all the way.)

On Sunday we had a birthday party to go to and we went on a couple of hikes. While Jon was busy pimping out our chickens' coop for the winter, I took the kiddos on one of the trails in our backyard where a deer popped up and bounded away from us. I think Ollie was a little lot scared- I sure was!- but Peyton was absolutely thrilled to be surprised by "A REINDEER!!!" I adore how much she loves all animals.

Sunday evening was chilly! Even so, the only way I could get Peyton to come inside was to promise her a good old fashioned manicure party.

We're on a pretty tight schedule on Sundays, and it's all because of The Walking Dead : dinner, tubs, bedtime routine, and general clean-up all have to happen so that we can be in our sweats and on the couch for 9. It's no joke. (This week's episode had the grossest ending, which obviously makes me even more excited for next week...)

This week, I've got some big cooking/baking plans: I found this Butternut Squash Bisque recipe (we have three beauties from the CSA) and these Monster Eye Cookies on Pinterest (I found some candy eyes at Target in the baking aisle): 

Aaaand, I think that's all I have to report. 

How was your weekend?

family photos... & a little announcement.

We had family photos taken by my wonderful friend, the immensely talented Kayla of KM Photography. She is the sweetest person in the world with an incredible amount of patience: without thinking, I scheduled the shoot for a Friday after school and just around dinnertime... so the kids were, shall we say, less than cooperative. I'm talking, a little guy who decided he was a ninja turtle for the entire session and a little tornado of a girl who just wanted to roll around in the mud...

And yet... All these beautiful shots! 

Oh, and our little announcement! 

I'll let Ollie and Peyton share the exciting news:

Baby brother-sister is due in early February! We are all so excited!

Even though we don't know (and are not planning on finding out) what we are having, Peyton is rooting pretty hard for a baby of the sister variety. But brother or sister, she is pretty darn excited to "hold her and give her a piece of candy corn." Sooo, yeah, never leaving those two alone...

Family photos are always so special, but when I look at these I can't help but think about how we will look at them not so long from now and think, "How small the kids were!" In fact, I was looking back at the photos Kayla took for us last year and I was seriously in awe of how much the kids have grown! They look like babies in the last set of photos (and we were still in the diaper game, too!):

July 2103

July 2013

July 2103

Having this beautiful documentation of our family as we grow (both in age and in number!) is truly priceless. I realized that (unless we manage to snag Kayla for some impromptu Christmas photos!) the next time we have her come out we will be a family of five! How exciting (and- okay, I'll say it: terrifying) is that?

Wishing you all a fun weekend of Fall excitement!