What We've Been Reading

A couple of non-fiction reads on some people of interest recently.

Pumpkin love!  Pumpkin Trouble was a big favorite.

Two more BIG favorites.  No Sleep for the Sheep! went immediately on our purchase list.  (It's going to be an Advent countdown book.)  Lots of repetition that the kids LOVED participating in.  They practically had the book memorized and we got very into being enthusiastic with reading the sing-songy rhymes.  Back to Front and Upside Down! was a good one about learning new skills and not being afraid to ask for help... but it wasn't my favorite. 

Loved the illustrations in this one.  A cozy book of giving thanks.

I love that Will recognized that Dog Loves Drawing is a lot like Harold and the Purple Crayon and that Sophie pointed out that Silly Doggy! is a lot like Peanut.  So exciting that they're making correlations like that.

The kindergarten book was just weird.  Specifically the mom character in the book.  But Llama Llama was reliably good.

Mo Willems is outstanding.  Always.  We love the Goldilocks and the Three Dinosaurs book.  And Where's My T-R-U-C-K? was cute too.

The sneeze book wasn't all that memorable, but the honesty book was a good moral-of-the-story read.

 

The kids have a new-found love for Fly Guy.  :)

I heart Cynthia Rylant. 

I'm Not Sleepy - another on the purchase list and Advent countdown.  It's silly and adorable.  We also love Little Critter books, but moreso just to borrow.

Yay, Christmas!  We're kicking off the season with the coolest cat and cutest llama around.  Love them!

A Scholastic book list find.  Very cool.  Kids loved it... aaand so we added it to the Advent list.

Here are some sample pages:

Can you see the tree frog hiding on the bark?

How about the yellow spider hiding on the flower petals?

If I could go back in time, I would definitely want to live in the Little House on the Prairie days.  These books just warm my soul.  I LOVE them.  And so, now, does Sophie.  We've borrowed many of these in the past for Will, but Sophie is new to them and she's falling in love with Laura and her family, just like Will and me.

Spotlight On: Pumpkin

I've been more than a little addicted to pumpkin again this fall.  Pumpkin everything.  I can't get enough.

I just cut a pumpkin in half, scoop out the seeds and baked it in the oven at 400 for about an hour or so.  Then puree the pulp and decide which heavenly recipe I'm going to put it in today.

Pumpkin waffles - a popular breakfast recipe.

Baked pumpkin donuts 

Pumpkin walnut biscuits - a frequent flyer at our dinner table.

Pumpkin toffee cookies with salted caramel glaze - divine!!

Crock pot steel cut pumpkin oatmeal.  Another VERY frequent breakfast.  This was more of a combination of recipes from ones I pinned and the one on Weelicious.

Pumpkin bread with pumpkin buttercream frosting.  OMG - this frosting is the best I've ever had.  EVER.  I want to put it on everything. 

Pumpkin pecan scones 

I have a handful more I'd like to try, and several pumpkins on deck waiting to be baked and put into recipes.

Such as:

brown butter pumpkin cupcakes with salted caramel frosting

pumpkin and chocolate granola bars

pull-apart cinnamon sugar pumpkin bread with buttered rum glaze

pumpkin cinnamon rolls

So look for a sequel to this post in the near future.  ;)

Let's Pack Lunch!

Will has yet to eat a cafeteria lunch so far this schol year.  He's asked a couple of time about buying on chicken nugget day, and I told him he could some time.  But honestly, the hassle of putting money on his account in the first place (since it seems unheard of for kids to actually bring money to buy lunch anymore) has been my hold up.  I know we can just do it online on the school's website, but we just haven't done it yet.  It's simply laziness really.

So here are a couple more weeks of lunch snapshots.

Contents:  hard boiled egg, pecans, chocolate chip cookie (broken in half), cornbread (made with yellow squash), peppers and apples.

Will's lunch on the left:  cheese slices and salami rolls, pickles, nectarines, spinach cake muffin, pepper slices and chocolate raisins.

Sophie's lunch on the right:  apple slices, chocolate chip cookie, mini muffins, cheese slices, pepper strips and carrot coins, pecans.

Contents:  pepper chunks and carrots, mini muffins and raisins, pb apple sammie and peanuts, brownie bite and chocolate chips.

Contents:  zucchini cornbread, peanuts, apples, peppers and chocolate raisins.

Contents:  broccoli with dressing to dip, pickles, turkey sandwich (and more broccoli), berries and a small frosted brownie.

Sophie's lunch on left:  carrot sticks, honey wheat pretzels, pb&j, pineapple and raspberries, a small frosted brownie.

Will's lunch on right:  carrot sticks, honey wheat pretzels, turkey sandwich, berries and a small frosted brownie.

Contents:  mixed raw veggies, brownie bite and granola bar, turkey sandwich on sweet potato biscuit, berries.

Contents:  pumpkin toffee cookie, carrot sticks, Vito's pizza strips, berries.

Contents:  pumpkin toffee cookie, peppers, Vito's pizza strips, apples.

What's For Dinner? October Week 5

{Week of October 27 - November 2}

CSA share for this week:

Contents:  1 pie pumpkin, 1 head of cabbage, 1 bunch of radishes, several sweet potatoes, 1 zucchini, 1 bunch of cilantro, 3 peppers and 2 onions.

On the menu this week:

1) grandma's meatballs, Giada's marinara sauce, and some CSA focaccia bread with a tossed salad

2) red beet pancakes for a kids only dinner (can't remember what Craig and I did this night, but we fed the kids separately) - Will had been asking for these pancakes ever since he saw the beets in our CSA bag awhile back 

3) cabbage roll casserole

Those meals above provided plenty of leftovers!  We ordered pizza on Wednesday night for Halloween when our sisters came over with their families for costume pictures.  And then we ate leftovers the rest of the week.