Pumpkin Pancakes with hot cider syrup

I'm making these for our playgroup Halloween brunch tomorrow. Doesn't it sound just perfectly halloweeney? or should I says hallowonderful? hallowdelicous? hallowineedtogotobednow...

HOT CIDER SYRUP:
3/4 cup apple cider or apple juice
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/2 cup corn syrup
2 tablespoons butter or margarine
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg

PANCAKES:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 eggs, separated
1 cup milk
1/2 cup cooked or canned pumpkin
2 tablespoons vegetable oil

DIRECTIONS
In a saucepan, combine the syrup ingredients. Bring to a boil over medium heat, stirring occasionally. Reduce heat; simmer, uncovered, for 20-25 minutes or until slightly thickened. Let stand for 30 minutes before serving.

For pancakes, combine the dry ingredients in a bowl. In another bowl, whisk the egg yolks, milk, pumpkin and oil. Stir into dry ingredients just until moistened. In a mixing bowl, beat the egg whites until soft peaks form; fold into batter.

Pour batter by 1/4 cupfuls onto a hot greased griddle. Turn when bubbles form on top of pancakes. Cook until second side is golden brown. Serve with the syrup.

off the clock!

I'm off this weekend!
That means I won't be turning on my computer, which means I won't be posting anything unless something completely inspiring happens! (Or I decide to balance my check book.)

Have a good weekend!

Candids

On Sunday when we were up in Bountiful, Milt and Susan's neighbor, Jill, took a big group picture of all of us. She also took some really cute candids of everyone just hanging around in the front yard.

Love candids.. need to take more.

I love these of Greg and me. No one ever takes pictures of us, you know?
One of us is always the photographer.

Giddy up!

One of the best thing about little boys is cowboy boots.

The boys just got their first pairs. They wear them all of the time.

We bought some for Charlie for his Halloween costume, but Jack needed some too.

Jack wore them while trying to roll down hill at Grandma and Grandpa Barnes' house. He got a little confused about the physics - so cute.

Charlie puts them with every outfit.. even with shorts when it's snowing outside and he's just hanging around on a lazy Saturday afternoon.

Pilates are HARD!

6:30am arrived nice and early again this morning!- After 2 uncharacteristic sleep disruptions. Charlie woke up at 2am to tell me he had a booger stuck in his nose. That must have been a weird dream he was having. At his insistence, I helped him blow his nose and tucked him back into his bed. At 4:30am Jack woke up crying to go downstairs. We ignored him and he fell back asleep after just a couple of minutes then slept until 9:30 this morning. When he woke up he yelled, "Mommy! I slept all night and day!"

I'm into my second week of working out. I think this is the longest I've ever consistently worked out. We did pilates this morning. Dang... it was the hardest one I've done yet. My muscles are still jello-y. My hammies are too tight from my lack of flexibility.. but hopefully this will help. After one week, I'm really noticing a difference. Generally, I hit working out really hard, get an injury and then never start up again. So far so good.. but we'll see how well I feel about pilates tomorrow morning.

We don't have too much going on this week. And I like it! We'll find pleanty to do. We'll do the usual story time, play group, and play dates. But other than that, my house could use a little bit of attention. I know I have a project list around here somewhere too. Greg's sister, Julie, and her family surprised us with a visit from Vermont this weekend. We'll hopefully get so see them some more this week while they are in town.

I have some funny pictures of the boys to post later too!

"Should my elbows be burning?"

Did I forget to blog yesterday?

Huh. Well, on the fitness front.. Amber wanted to take a turn and watch all of the kids so we could all get a really good workout. The idea being that we would just rotate and take a turn babysitting once a week. Jack decided last minute that he wouldn't have it. So he ended up in the gym watching Super Why (PBS - it's our favorite kid show) while I did my little routine on the treadmill and the rest of the girls went for a run. Charlie LOVES Amber and was more than happy to stay with her.

SO--- today we decided to try eliminating the kid factor entirely and met at 6:30am. All my idea--- although, I don't remember the last time that I saw 6:30am on the clock. A couple of the girls couldn't make it but Heidi and I did a killer Tamilee Webb DVD. Do you remember BUNS OF STEEL? She still has them. This workout focused on abs, buns, and arms. A total workout - it felt really good. And even better to be done and in the shower by 7:20. I was totally ready for the day before the boys even woke up.

Today was my day off so I jam packed it with play group/ story time at the library, playing at the park with friends, errands, and a girls' night out-- California Pizza Factory - yum! And I can't wait to see what new torture my DVD personal trainers have in store for me tomorrow. Really, it's a good burn.

Billy Blanks kicked my butt

About a month ago I got really consistant with working out at the gym after the boys had gone to bed. Then my job switched up a bit and I find myself working after they've gone to bed.

Luckily, a couple of my friends have just started staying home with their new babies. They're totally trying to get back into shape and they're dragging me along with them.

We met at theater in the clubhouse this morning to do our first Tae Bo video. It was really fun.

Tomorrow - pilates.

Creative nap location #2

Hey. When the kid is tired, he's tired. At least he's getting a little closer to his room. Last time he fell asleep here.

Pumpkin Patch

Today was fun. We went with our little play group to Rowley's Big Red Barn in Santaquin (Greg didn't want to miss the fun and came too!). We took a nice slow tractor ride out to the patch and let the boys run and search for pumpkins. Then we treated ourselves to some pumpkin ice cream-- truly delicious.

Happy 50th Birthday, Mom!

Happy Birthday, Mom!

"The secret of staying young is to live honestly, eat slowly, and lie about your age."

Lucille Ball

Charlie's 4th Birthday Party

Charlie had a dinosaur themed birthday party complete with dinosaur cave drawings on the wall, dinosaur egg relays, pin the nose on the triceratops, a dino-dog lunch, and some pretty sweet cupcakes with bubble gum ice cream... yummmmmmmm...

I can't believe my little baby is FOUR!

Dinosaur Museum and the Shark Attack

To celebrate the boys' birthday we decided to take them to the Dinosaur Museum at Thanksgiving Point. They're just starting to get into dinosaurs - Charlie has lots of questions about them. And we've always wanted to go Greg took a Friday afternoon off and we headed for our "day of adventure" as Charlie likes to call them.


The Museum of Ancient Life gets 2 thumbs up. They have 60 complete dinosaur skeletons, more than any dinosaur museum in the world and tons of interactive hands on displays for the kids to touch and get involved with. Their favorites were the erosion table and the fissile dig (Greg's favorites too).








They had this great Shark display that we decided would be perfect for a family picture. Everything was great until we stood up to retrieve our camera. Jack decided to climb up on the little iron railing to sit on. As soon as I turned around I saw him falling back - bam. I ran over and picked him up and his head was bleeding tons.... we ran him out to the foure to get something to compress on it and by then he'd calmed down completely. When the manager came over to assist he kept telling her "The shark bit my head, the shark bit my head!"


My little photo journalist, Charlie, quietly pulled out the camera and started taking pictures of the scene while we were attending to Jack. It ended up being the tiniest little cut.. no stiches necessary, but it initially bled tons. He was totally fine, so we finished our time at the musuem..

Headwound Harry didn't seem to mind at all. He has however, kept referring to his shark bite since the traumatic incident.

Halloween costume assistance requested....

So, Charlie wants to be a PEACH for Halloween.

Who knows where he came up with the idea to be a giant piece of fruit. I told him a peach wasn't a very scary thing to be for halloween... I guess if you have an irrational fear of death by peach fuzz...

I could probably persuade him to be something else but does anyone have any suggestions about how to make a peach costume for an eccentric 4-year-old?

Jack ♥ Play Dough

Jack was sitting at his little table in the kitchen today playing with play dough. I asked him what he was making...

"I'm makin' a friend!"

Did I hear him correctly? "You're making a friend?"

"YEAH! I'm makin' a friend!"

I've gotta get him out more.

The infamous BLUE dresser...

I got the idea from the kids' Pottery Barn catalog-- MONTHS AGO-- to paint this dresser dark blue for Charlie's room.

The dresser had bar-pulls on the bottom three drawers.. I just wood puttied the extra holes so that I could just use knobs instead.

Finally, it's finished. I'm very please with how it turned out. (And especially pleased to have it out of my storage closet.)