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!