Disney Delights

We spent last week in Disney World with Auntie Lisa and Uncle Chuck and Nonna and Nonno.

We got to trick or treat at Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party and get a quick visit with the Child family who were also on vacation down there too! A side trip to Universal Studios was even squeezed in so that we could check out the new Harry Potter attraction. We did a lot of stuff and even though the kids aren't big into rides we managed to get them on some. Soarin' and Toy Story Mania were two favorites that we did twice.

There was a tremendous amount of walking and waiting and late nights but the kids were real troopers and handled most of it well. There were a few grumbles now and then but no major meltdowns. Considering how far out of their element they were with the crowds, noise and constantly being on the go I am proud at how well they did.

We stayed at the Animal Kingdom Lodge in a room with a view of all kinds of animals. Here is a picture of the girls looking at a roan antelope from our balcony.

Here is the lobby of the hotel. I never took a picture of our room but it was a pretty basic hotel room with an african theme. I also didn't get a picture of the pool, but it was nice and we spent most afternoons in it for a couple of hours before dinner. Despite all the wonders of the parks the hotel pool was definitely one of the highlights of the trip.

Wordless Wednesday

Five on Friday

Today I am grateful for:

1. The miners in Chile who were all safely rescued.
2. Good friends who will take care of our pets while we are in Disney.
3. Cool, brisk fall air.
4. Living in New England so I can enjoy the fall colors in my own backyard.
5. The fall rain after such a dry summer.

Puppy Power

My brother and sister-in-law recently became the proud parents of this adorable chocolate lab.
Her name is Birdie. How adorable is she taking a nap on Kenzie's lap? She was so exhausted she was snoring!

Here she is before she fell asleep. This picture was taken with my ipod touch so please forgive the quality. I try really hard not to judge cell-phone pictures and go with the importance of capturing the moment but truth be known I am a photo snob and they really bug me. I had hoped by playing around with my ipod touch camera it would change my mind...it hasn't yet. But it is convenient because it fits right in my pocket so I will continue to work on my issues.

Now there have been discussions in our house for over a year about getting a new dog after Copper passed away. I have the been the holdout because I know the bulk of the care will be mine. I had agreed to get another puppy, in the spring when it would be warmer to housebreak.

And after all our travel plans were done.

Everyone agreed....until several weeks ago when my family ganged up on me. They started surfing the internet, looking at breeders, and showing me pictures of adorable puppy cuteness.
My husband was the ring leader because he thinks I'm a sucker for animals.

Which I am. But it is unfair to use against me.

The next thing I knew we came across a listing from the same breeder that we got Boomer from and she happened to have a recent litter. And the litter had some tri-color springers.

And well the rest is history. Last weekend we drove up and picked out a puppy.

Here he is in all his fluffy, puppy cuteness:

His name is Tuukka. He is named after one of the Boston Bruins Goaltenders. Plus the name is fun to say. For any of you non-hockey fans it is pronounced Too-ka.
And here he is with his brother and sisters. He's the one on top! He is only four weeks old and will be coming home with us mid-November.

I have recently heard from Dom's sister that they too are planning on getting a new dog soon,so there must be something in the air in this family!

Wordless Wednesday

Tomato Cage Ghost

I wouldn't let Halloween go by without a craft or two. This idea came from Family Fun magazine one of my favorite sources for kid friendly ideas. This a super easy and super quick to make.

All you need is a tomato cage, (I am sure my dad will be so proud to see that I turned the tomato cages he let me borrow into ghosts.) You 'll also need some white christmas lights- a strand of 50 is good, a white twin sheet, some twist ties and some felt or a black marker.

First you turn the tomato cage upside down. Next curve in the prongs and use the duct tape to hold them together. Once that is done, take the lights and drape them around the tomato cage.

You can use twist ties (I actually used pipe cleaners) to keep the lights in place. Now take the sheet and drape it over the frame and use the felt to cut out a face and glue it in place or you could just draw a face on with marker.

Now you will notice that my ghost has an arm. I just used a cardboard tube from wrapping paper and duct taped a ball of newspaper on the end. Then I duct taped it at an angle to the tomato cage..

And if you're really lucky you'll have a spider decide he likes to hang out on ghost for added spookiness!

Pumpkin Chip Muffins

Here's a nice pumpkin recipe I found for the fall. I don't usually play around with recipes but this is one I'd like to experiment with the next time as it has a lot of eggs and a lot of sugar. I did cut the sugar in half and add an extra teaspoon of cinnamon. I also substituted the eggs for egg beaters. They came out pretty good. My family ate them with no complaints, even my super pickey eater so that is a good sign. But I think I will tweak the recipe a little more the next time I make it. Any suggestions are welcome!

Here is the original recipe:

4 eggs

2 cups of sugar

1 15oz. can of pumpkin

1-1/2 cups canola oil

3 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. ground cinnamon

1 tsp. salt

2 cups of semisweet chocolate chips

In a large bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, pupkin and oil until smooth. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt; gradually add to pumpkin mixture and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups 3/4 full.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15-18 minutes for until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Five on Friday

I have posted before about how I like to make lists of things that I am grateful for and that I often find it a helpful way to lift my spirits. With that said I am going to try making it a weekly thing on Friday's to list five things that I am grateful for.

1. I am grateful to have such a wonderful husband, who supports and indulges my photography
hobby.
2. I am grateful to have two smart, healthy, happy, and incredible cute daughters.
3. I am grateful to my family for helping out with all our outdoor projects this summer.
4. I am grateful to my in-laws for a greatly anticipated trip to Disney.
5. I am grateful to have two awesome sisters-in-law. One who planned and took care of the
details of the Disney trip and the other who recently invited me out on a fun night in Boston to
see Wicked.

Enormous Apples

We took the kids apple picking and found that they had some enormous apples growing on some of the trees. I assume they are some kind of hybrid, I think they are called AC Macs??
Anyway, one single apple could easily make a pie, or feed a small family. Just check one out compared to a normal macintosh apple.


Enourmous, right??


And look at this one. It's as big as Kenzie's head! Okay, not really but it's still pretty big compared to her little hands.




We picked pumpkins too. Kenzie's got her pumpkin and is telling me to hurry up and take picture 'cause it's heavy!








Becca looks around to find the perfect pumpkin.



Kenzie isn't pretending to be a small child so she can fit in the wagon she is trying to keep the bags of apples from falling over!

Wordless Wednesday

Okay so this won't be a completely wordless post because I want to explain that I have seen several blogs that do a wordless Wednesday and I liked the idea so I am going to borrow it.

Wordless Wednesday will just be a picture, no words, no explanations (other than this one!)

I am attempting to do more blogging and the idea of having some theme days was inspiring. And I really like themes. Recipes and crafts are some other themes I am toying with so stick around to see what I come up with!

Cute Fall Cupcakes

While browsing through all the cute, crafty projects on the One Pretty Thing website, I saw these really cute cupcakes I had to try. Actually, after making a cake for my uncle's 75th birthday party Kenzie really wanted to make cupcakes. This was good because I had quite a bit of buttercream frosting leftover. I love the candy corn look of the frosting. Kenzie wanted to make chocolate cupcakes of course. It think these would look super cute by coloring and layering the cake batter in yellow, orange and white. I might try a batch and send them to work with Dom.

As you can see we made regular size cupcakes and mini cupcakes and had lots of fun decorating them for fall.

Two Little Pumpkins

See these two cute, perfectly round, perfectly orange little pumpkins? They came from our garden. Only we didn't plant them. At least not on purpose. Last fall the girls got two little pumpkins and painted them. When they got squishy Dom put them in the raised beds for compost not really thinking about the fact that unlike the Jack o'lanterns we carved the painted pumpkins were still full of seeds. Then in the spring the unmistakably large leaves sprouted and started to grow. I admit I had my doubts that they would actually produce fruit because of the abundance of hybrid seeds everywhere but I was pleasantly suprised.

Now I won't go into detail about the fact that I am a wee bit miffed that these two beautiful but unintentional pumpkins grew, while some other things I intentionally planted did not fare so well...

Poor Dog

Boomer loves to lay in the sun or in front of the fireplace or on anything that is soft and cozy. Actually it doesn't have to be soft and cozy, a magazine or a single piece of paper will do as long as it means he doesn't have to be fully touching the floor.

Because the floor is hard and cold and uncomfortable.

Poor Dog.

So despite the fact that Boomer is 85% black and absorbs the heat, he still enjoys finding a sunny spot to lay in. I also need to add that he will only lay in the sunny spot if there is a person, preferable me, is within 2 feet of him. I was sitting at the bar and normally he would be under my feet and/or resting his head on my feet. Cause he might get lonely.

Poor Dog.

And see how he rests his head on the door jam so it doesn't actually have to touch the floor. And if he turns his head just right he can catch the breeze coming in through the screen.

Ahh...nice..

But uh-oh, here comes trouble. Misty comes along to find the dog lying in the only sunny spot.

Now there is plenty of room for her to curl up next to the dog but there is no way she is about to share the sun with the dog. This is a cat that would rather drink out of the toilet than share a water bowl with the dog. She doesn't think very highly of the him.

Poor dog.

So Misty meowed at me to let her out cause there is plenty of sun to sleep in out on the deck.

But two minutes later I turn around to see this....

Misty is sitting at the screen and Boomer is trying to poke her. This is the 'I didn't really want to go outside I just wanted the dog to move out of the sunny spot in the kitchen, now please let me and move the dog so I can take a nap in the sun' look.

It's amazing how I get all that from just a simple look isn't it? Now Boomer's look says 'open the screen cause I had a little nap and now I wanna chase the cat'.

(I am just an amazing interpreter of canine and feline expression, aren't I?)

Unfortunately for Boomer, Misty rarely runs away from him anymore. She prefers to rub up against him and use him as a rubbing post.

Poor dog.

Fourteen Years

"Two souls with but a single thought, Two hearts that beat as one."

-John Keats

Pudgy Pies!

When we were out in Colorado, uncle Chuck introduced us to pudgy pies. Pudgy pies are a wonderful concoction enjoyed around an open campfire. There is one piece of equipment that you must have to make a pudgy pie, and that is a campfire cooker/sandwich maker. I imagine you can find them in any camping supply store but we were lucky enough to have two sent to us by Auntie Lisa after we had returned home from visiting them.

You also need a bunch of goodies to fill your pudgy pie. The possibilites are endless and this is what is the most fun about making pudgy pies. Some ingredients we have tried are: chocolate and peanut butter, chocolate and marshmallow, apple pie filling, and Nutella.

The basic procedure is this, Take two pieces of bread and cut off the crusts. Place one slice in on half of the cooker. Place whatever fillings you want on the bread and then cover with the second slice.

Place the top half of the cooker in place and then set the cooker into the campfire. You want the bread to get all nice and toasty and the fillings to get all warm and gooey. Don't forget to turn it over so both sides get nice and golden brown.

Mackenzie chose marshmallows and chocolate for hers and called it the candyland fantasy pudgy pie. See all the gooey goodness inside? MMMM...
It was a little over done but still good.


The next pudgy pie had apple pie filling inside.

MMMM...Good!!

Heat Waves and Hurricanes

I did such a good job on my raindance to help relieve my allergies that I conjured up a hurricane!! I am kidding of course. I didn't actually do a raindance but hurricane Earl was right on course for the northeast. But it fizzled, which I am actually grateful for. It is always amusing though to see the media go crazy with all the hype and then have the storm fizzle out.

It was a high pressure front that actually pushed Earl farther east and brought us some cooler, drier air in the process. The temps have been in the mid to upper 90's all week and the humidity moved in midweek. Though us New Englanders are used to the crazy extremes in weather I think we probably handle the cold better than the heat. I know I do.

I felt a little bad for all the kids that had to start school this week including my own. Most of the schools around here are not air-conditioned because the hottest months are usually in the summer when there is no school. Some schools in that state even went so far as to cancel school or have early releases at the end of the week. My kiddoes toughed it out and are no worse for the wear. They like their teachers and both have already made new friends. So here's to another succesful school year despite heat waves and hurricanes!

Ragweed is Not my Friend

Ragweed is NOT my friend. It makes my eyes itch and my nose run. It makes my throat scratchy and it makes me sneeze. It makes spending time outside in the yard almost unbearable. And not being able to go outside makes me cranky. I have lots of outdoor projects that need to be finished But after a short amount of time outside I feel like scratching my eyes out and ripping off my nose.

This year the pollen count is really high, which I imagine has something to do with the lack of rain we have been getting.



I am so desperate that I am going to research rain dances.

Or take a blowtorch to the bunches of ragweed growing around the perimeter of the yard.

But first I have to go blow my nose....Again.

Back to School

I can't believe the girls are back in school already. The summer was so fun and I am really not

ready to get back into the school routine. But I am a adult and a mom, so I had to do the responsible thing and send them back to school yesterday. They were both a little nervous about what the new school year would be like, but both came home happy and with lots of things to say about their new classrooms, teachers and friends.

Cape Cod with the Mckays

One of the best things about this summer has been getting to catch up with people we don't get to see all the time. We have continued that this weekend by heading down to the cape to visit the McKay family who we haven't seen in over a year.

Anytime Dom and Scott get together it inevitable rains and this time was no exception. Luckily the rain never stops anyone from having a good time and we had a full day at the beach before the rain rolled in.

I think the most popular activity of the day was catching little creatures in the tide pools, crabs shrimp and periwinkles all made their way into the bucket.

Future NFL quaterback Luke showed us his moves.

Amd Dom being silly by climbing between the rocks.

The tractor factor

My dad brought his tractor over to our house to help us fix the driveway and do some other landscape projects. I've had a little inkling that I wanted to try driving the tractor and finally got the chance. It was so fun now I want one of my own!