Only treats at our house

Our little monkey and "It's raining cats and dogs!" get-up

 Already wound up before they got the sugar load!

 Haven carved her pumpkin herself this year (left) and Mati told Cale what he wanted

A fun time had by all!

weekends are good for...

...cleaning and purging and making room
...finding ingenious inventions at every one's favorite Swedish store
...making a pot of soup that was my favorite as a child
...getting those little items checked off my list

...carving pumpkins
...making a list of Christmas presents
...pinning
...catching up on some reading
...pizza and The Cosby Show with my kids
...cheering my team to a win
...curling up with my love to watch a movie

Peanut Butter and Honey Popcorn

I first started making this popcorn recipe last year and my kids love it!  For some reason it is a fall-ish snack to me so I haven't made it in almost a year.  The kids were delighted when they saw it spread out on the table when they came in from playing outside.  It's really easy, different, but delicious!

Peanut Butter and Honey Popcorn

1/2 cup peanut butter
1/2 cup honey
1/2 sugar
1 tsp vanilla
2 bags microwave popcorn ( or 16 cups popped popcorn)
brown grocery bag

Make popcorn according to package directions.  Place popped kernels in bowl and then sift through popcorn to place it in grocery bag, careful to not get any seeds.  (Biting on one of those is a major bummer!) In medium saucepan, combine sugar and honey and bring to a rolling boil.  This will take a few minutes.  Remove from heat and add peanut butter and vanilla.  Stir to combine then pour mixture into bag on popcorn.  Shake vigorously to coat the popcorn.  Spread out on cookie sheets or waxed paper to cool.  Note- this popcorn doesn't harden like caramel corn.  It's stays soft and somewhat sticky, but not stuck-in-your-teeth sticky.

It makes a great treat for school parties or fall activities.  These are all packaged up and ready to go with Mati to his Harvest Party tomorrow at Tuesday School.  Free printable bag labels are from here.  I printed and cut them out and them folded in the edges of snack size ziploc bags and stapled on.  Easy and so cute!

Nine years...

Nine years of saying yes to you.

That yes has taken me places I never could have imagined as we followed Him together.

Where will the next nine years of yes, to each other and Him, take us?

I have no choice/I'd still choose you

Source: None via Kate on Pinterest

More gifts

Let's end the week where we began, with a thankful heart ready to receive His gifts.

The love and joy this boy fills my heart with daily.

Fifteen years of growing in understanding of God as my Father and trusting Him accordingly.

That He can and will redeem anything from the darkest of days.

The sun rises and His mercies are new today.

Memories that bring a smile to my face.

Brilliant orange leaves, slowly making their way to the ground.

Friends who see all the junk in my heart and love me still.

Kindness being exhibited in my kids, however fleeting.

Evidence of his love for Jesus and servant heart that I still see even today.

Hayrides, pumpkins and apple cider- good stuff fall days are made of.

Knowing deep in my heart that I was (and am) loved and cherished.

Hope of heaven.


All these things and a thousand more besides.  What are the gifts you're enjoying today?

Gifts

Hair blowing in my eyes as the wind whips through open windows and sunroof.

Blazing blue skies and a backdrop of beautiful changing leaves.

Apple picking and the sweet tart goodness of a freshly picked apple.

Her eyes lighting up in recognition at my arrival.

The papery thin skin as I bend to kiss her cheek and tell her I love her.

His hand that gently wipes away the tears of overwhelming that flow.

A sweet sleeping boy and a sweet reading girl in the backseat.

Plan B leading us a different way today.

Savoring every word of a favorite book being reread.

Taking the back roads toward home.

A picnic in the sunshine.

All of it a gift; grace undeserved.

Choosing today to be thankful for every moment. 

To let myself be caught up in the current of grace that is my life.

The not-quite-camping Camping Trip

Last weekend we were fortunate enough to get away with our home group from church to some beautiful property about an hour from our house.

Unfortunately, it was only this beautiful outside for about 2 hours of the whole trip, but we didn't let that deter us from having fun.

 These two earned some sort of merit badge from the weekend.  Despite the cold, rainy, windy weather we decided to still attempt sleeping out in the tent Friday night.  We put the kids to bed out in it (alone- no one else was stupid enough to attempt tent camping when there was a nice warm lodge to sleep in!) and they never once complained about being cold.  They slept through til 3am when we carried them inside because we couldn't hack it.  I'm not sure if it was the 38 degrees or the 20mph winds that really did me in!  Either way, having the lodge as our back-up plan was awesome!  As were our friends who didn't get mad when we woke them up banging our way inside and helped us get set up and warmed up.

The kids didn't let the cold wet weather deter them from their one true goal this weekend which was fishing.  I took no pictures of it because, hello, it was cold and wet out there!  But they went out 3 different times for at least an hour to fish and loved reporting back on who caught what and how many.

 Love this guy even though he made me sleep out on the cold ground!  He more then made up for it with the perfectly cooked pizza mountain pies he made me.  He knows the way to my heart!

 Late Saturday afternoon the clouds broke open and we got out there to enjoy as much sunshine as we could. The property we were on used to be gravel pits that are now a series of small lakes.  There were tons of trails, but it was too wet to try any of them out.

How much do I love these two?!  And this picture!  Mati's actually smiling appropriately which is a rare occurrence!  (See above picture for proof!)  Mati loved playing with his buddies and just general running around all weekend long.

Thanks to our friend, Sandy, Haven discovered her love for checkers this weekend.  She spent hours, usually in front of the huge fireplace, playing checkers with whomever would play.  Hello, great gift idea for my girl!

So we didn't really camp on our camping trip, but we still had a blast!  Good friends, cooking food over the fire, staying up late playing games, kids enjoying themselves and a huge fireplace to keep us warm. Who needs a tent to go camping?!

Owl Day

We have had fun with our owl theme today.  We read some good books...

We especially loved the illustrations in this one!

And we took advantage of a new-to-us feature available through our library called Scholastic BookFlix that pairs a fiction book with a non-fiction book about some of the same things.  So today we "watched" Owl Moon and then they listened to a Scholastic book about full of facts about owls.  It was fun!  You have to access the site through your local library and with your library card so check and see if your library is part of the system.  

Haven made a torn paper collage of an owl...

 Then she worked away on her first ever graphing project.  I remember loving these when I was a kid and am happy to see that she enjoys it as much as I did.  Can you guess what it's going to be?

This has nothing to do with owls, but we decided to make soft pretzels for lunch.  Wow- they were so good! And so easy!  Which could be a problem now that I know how good they are.  

Now I'm all carbed up and ready for a nap! Did you do anything fun today?  

notes from today...

I'm guessing the best way to get back into a blogging groove is to just start blogging, right?  So consider this my humble attempt.  I really do love to write and share around here, but this has fallen to the bottom of an every-growing list of things that demand my attention.  But maybe this week, I'll try a little harder.  A few thoughts from my day...

-Happy mail today- my new checkbook cover I ordered off etsy.  Seems like an unnecessary purchase, but for $4 it's going to bring me a lot of happy.  (Amy Butler Camel Geisha)

-I wore 2 patterns together.  I know this is all the rage, but not really my thang.  But I tried it- stripes with a pattern.  Dipping my toe in the waters.  And I liked it.

-We are big fans of Compassion International and have supported kids through them for years.  Sadly, we are not the best at writing to our kids even though we know it is so important. I got on there today and they have totally revamped their online letter writing process.  It is awesome and such a great use of technology!  You can pick cool papers, upload pictures directly to your letter and even duplicate it to send to more then one sponsor child.  In 15 minutes I was able to send two letters across the world.  How cool is that?  So if you sponsor children through Compassion- go write them a letter today!

-It's soup night around here.  I've been making this soup since we got married and it is still a favorite- Baked Potato Soup.  I've lightened it up a bit and it's one of those recipes that I have memorized because I've made it so much.  We love it!  Tonight it will be served with salad and biscuits- a yummy fall meal.

-Anyone else out there started Christmas shopping?  I've spent way too much time browsing today trying to make some decisions on a few gifts and also maybe get to a certain amount for free shipping.  The person who decided that offering free shipping with a certain amount spent was a genius!  I'm currently $2.27 short of the amount I need.  Annoying.  And I just keep buying more stuff!  Ya gotta spend money to save money, right?

-It's Fall Break around here!  We officially have 6 weeks under our belts and are on break with Classical Conversations so mama decided we're having a break here, too.  Well, as much of a break as Haven will let me do!  We still did some worksheets and reading and she really wanted spelling, but I cut her off.  We're going to do some fun crafty things and maybe even throw in a field trip or two.  And plan for the rest of the year!  There's no break for me!

Happy October Monday!