Ucreate Christmas Boutique!!

I am participating in Ucreate's Christmas Boutique this week and am VERY excited!!! To celebrate, everything in my Etsy shop has been marked down 25%. I have also been spending what feels like every waking moment working on making patterns for both of the styles of purses in my shop, and they will also be on sale. I am one of 30 stores participating, so go and check out Ucreate's blog for some fun Christmas shopping!!

Thanksgiving Weekend

We had a busy and fun Thanksgiving weekend, first with a nice quiet dinner at my mom's with my little sister and her husband. Then on Friday we went out for our annual post-Thanksgiving dinner with my dad and his wife to PF Changs, this time with both my little sister's and their husbands. We look forward to those lettuce wraps every year.

On Saturday we went and cut down our Christmas tree. Since Max has a broken leg and still isn't walking we decided to put him in the baby carrier on Jeff's back. (Apparently he was giving Jeff advise on how and where to walk the entire time.) I figured I could carry Emily or help her walk, but didn't realize she was going to be a little pill and cry unless I carried her, which proved to be more difficult than planned since the hill that didn't look so big when we chose it sure felt very steep when we were climbing it. For some reason we picked out our trees pretty quick this year!

After cutting down our trees we headed over to Meghan's baby shower at her in-law's house. It was fun to get to spend a little bit more time with Meghan before she heads back to LA. Isn't she the tiniest 32 week pregnant lady that you have ever seen in your life!! I don't look this good right now!

Tomorrow we get to head back to the Dr.'s office for Max to get his cast removed and it's back in the walking boot for a couple of weeks. I have a feeling life isn't going to slow down until after Christmas!

Our Little Booted Boy

So Max broke his leg last week and we win parent's of the year for not taking him to the doctor for FIVE days. But honestly, how do you break your leg tripping over the carpet, your own feet, or thin air, since there was NOTHING on the floor?! How do you break your leg just by tripping anyway!?! He has the boot on at least temporarily until we go to the Sports Medicine doctors on Friday to see if he needs a cast and to find out how long it should take for him to recover. In the meantime I'm sick to my stomach trying to figure out how much this is going to cost us and how we are going to pay for it right now. I now have the equivalent of an almost 40 lb. infant, who can no longer dress himself or go to the bathroom by himself. I'm mourning the loss of my big helping boy and missing the bundle of energy we usually have running around our house. I can't wait for my energetic little boy to feel better.

(To Max the most traumatic point was when I cut one of the legs off his beloved Thomas pajamas last night so we could get them over the stylish boot. He kept crying for me to put the fabric back on his pants. Honestly, they're two sizes too small for him anyway and look more like capris then pants.)

Pumpkin Pancakes

Pumpkin pancakes are the favorite breakfast at our house right now. Sooo yummy and easy to make. If you love anything pumpkin (like I do!) you should definitely give them a try.

Pumpkin Pancakes
2 eggs
1 cup wheat flour (or white if you prefer)
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. cinnamon
2 Tbs. sugar
1 cup milk
1 cup pumpkin

Beat the eggs together then add the rest of the ingredients. Bake on a hot griddle. Makes about fifteen 4-5 inch pancakes.

This is the same recipe we use to make regular pancakes with just the cinnamon, nutmeg and pumpkin added. It's a very simple recipe and make very good pancakes.


These pancakes go great with Buttermilk Syrup. If a syrup could be life changing, this would be it. I have a hard time fighting of the urge to drink it, it is SOOOO good! (Thanks for the recipe, Danielle!)

Buttermilk Syrup:
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cube butter
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 cup sugar
1 Tbsp. white corn syrup
1 tsp vanilla

Bring buttermilk, butter, baking soda, sugar and corn syrup to boil and boil for 3 minutes. Take off heat and add vanilla.

I mass produce this recipe in batches. The most I can cook at one time is 3 X the recipe because the baking soda makes is bubble up A LOT. I'll make batch after batch until I use up all my buttermilk and then I freeze it in glass jars to pull out as we need it.

Happy Halloween, 2009

Max and Emily were both so cute for Halloween this year. I didn't sew them costumes this year, but we made some unique costumes with some very cheap supplies. Max went as a robot and Emily went as a flower.

Emily was a little unsure about putting this big flower around her face, but she didn't mind once we got to the trick-or-treating and she realized that it would secure her a bucket full of candy. She got the trick-or-treating thing down right away, except that she didn't want to go the direction Mom wanted her to go.

I was really excited about Max's costume, but when it came time to actually trick-or-treating in it I realized how poorly I had thought it through. The poor kid could barely see for climbing up and down stairs. Since almost every single house in our neighborhood is split-entry, it only took us three houses to realize that we would need to relocate or it was going to be a long night. We decided that I should take the kids to the neighborhood next to ours were most of the houses don't have more than one or two steps and that worked a lot better. He was such a trooper, never complaining once, even when he couldn't get his candy from the bowl into his bucket. Oh well, he looked really cute and we got so many comments on his costume.