Finally Home

 Todd spent the last two weeks in Germany and although we loved being able to Skype we were all counting down the minutes until it was time to pick him up  from the airport. James is such a daddy's boy that he was quite grumpy about being left behind. We got to Skype every day, which was very nice, but there is nothing like having daddy home. The day finally came and it was time to go to the airport. Todd's plane was a little delayed so we decided to park the car and go in to wait for him. I wasn't sure if James really understood what was going on until we got there. I showed him where daddy was going to be coming down the stairs. For a long while he just sat and waited for him at the bottom of the stairs. I finally convinced him that we couldn't sit in the middle of the floor and then he got a little busy.

 Playing on the moving belt. Luckily this one wasn't moving, but after we picked up Todd he found one that was going around. What a fun thing to ride. Needless to say I didn't get a picture that time. I was just trying to get him off.

 James was also excited to ride the escalators for the first time. He was pretty impressed with the moving stairs.

But we saved the best for last when he saw his daddy was finally home.

Oregon

While talking to my parents on the phone one evening they mentioned how I was turning into an Oregon girl. I got to thinking about my time here in Oregon, I still can't believe it's been two years already. Oregon has truly been one of my favorite places I've lived.  Although I've enjoyed all of the places I've lived, I have surprised even myself with how much I've loved living here. Here are some of my favorite things...

(Hailee and James riding their bikes on a rainy day. We love our big garage for rainy days. Hailee in her pink rain coat.)

1.  The Rain -- I remember when we chose to come to Oregon. so many people told me "Oh I hope you like the rain." My quick response was always "At least it's not snow." I very much disliked living in the snow. I figured it would be easier to live in the rain as opposed to the snow. Now I assumed that the rain would just be something that I would tolerate. But in reality I really enjoy the rain. I don't mind walking to the bus stop in the pouring rain.

(Hailee and James picking peaches. Canning pears. Hailee picking strawberries.)

2. Farms -- We live next to all kinds of farms. For the last two summers we have taken part in a farm co-op and have enjoyed getting farm fresh produce every week. We have also loved going to the farms for u-pick. You wouldn't believe how many u-pick options are available. We've only scratch the surface. Next year I want to try picking my own cherries, figs, and tomatoes.  There are so many different farms within a 30 minute drive from our house.

3. 3 R's -- Just like the Jack Johnson song, Oregon is all about Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle. It's a way of life here. I heard on Oprah that Portland is the greenest city in the US and I don't doubt it at all (Oprah said it afterall). I love feeling like I'm helping the planet out by doing little things that don't really take extra time. I remember when we moved into our house I was surprised to see our garbage can was half the size of our recycle garbage can. Once I got the list of what can be put in the recycling bin I was surprised how little I was throwing away. My garbage can is rarely full. The other thing I really like are my reusable grocery bags. Not only are they so much nicer to use than plastic bags they are really fun to collect. When I first started using bags I didn't want to just use boring "Winco" bags, so I started collecting bags from some of my favorite places. I love all my different grocery bags.

There are so many other things I love about living here. I love living close to Portland. I love that Todd's commute to work is less than 10 minutes. I that the first thing I see when I look out the window are huge pine trees. I love being an hour from the coast and an hour from the mountains. It really is hard to put them down on my blog. There are just too many thing to get them all down, every time I think about it I come up with more things that I love.

Things that are stereotypical Oregon things that I don't think I'll adopt in my life.

1. I will never have a baby at home with a midwife. It's just does not sound like my idea of a good time. I like being in a hospital hooked up to monitor making sure my baby is okay. I think James would have had some problems if I would have had him at home and I'm just not willing to take that risk.

2. I will never choose to cloth diaper my babies. There are people that just swear it's the best thing ever, but for me, it just seems like a lot of money up front and a lot of laundry in the end.

3. There are some parts of Oregon that are a little more hippy than others. When we interned in Corvallis is wasn't out of the ordinary to see men wearing sock with sandals and women not wearing bras, shaving their legs or wearing make-up. I'm pretty sure I'll continue to wear a bra, shave my legs and wear make-up, but it is nice that most people here are pretty relaxed. It is nice not to feel like I have to wear slacks and high heels when I volunteer at the school.

Pumpkin, Pumpkin and more pumpkin

We have gone a little pumpkin crazy at our house. A few weeks ago we picked up a few pumpkins (10) from one of our favorite farms. When I got our pumpkins from our farm share last year I would typically get about 3 cups of cooked pumpkin from each pumpkin. I didn't think 10 pumpkins, or about 30 cups of pumpkin was to unreasonable. A few days ago I decided to cook a few pumpkins. After I did the first one I had about 8 cups of pumpkin. Now I was a little concerned. What am I going to do with 80 cups of pumpkin? 

My family isn't concerned at all, they can't think of anything better than having too much pumpkin. If Hailee had her way she would eat pumpkin every day. 

One evening when Todd had to work late, I was browsing the web for fun new recipes. I was so excited to find a Pumpkin Alfredo sauce. I made it for dinner last night and it was heavenly. Everyone loved it, Hailee even asked for seconds. I am attaching the recipe. It looks like it will be hard to make, but it came together really quickly. 

Pasta with Pumpkin Alfredo Sauce

1 Package Fresh Pasta
1/2 batch guiltless alfredo sauce (recipe below) or 10oz prepared Alfredo
1/2 T real butter
1/4 C Finely minced onion
1/2 C canned pumpkin (try more if you love pumpkin, this is really mild) -- I added almost a cup and it could have easily used more. The flavor was pretty mild.
2 T Chicken broth (vegetarians substitute milk or veg. broth)
1T chopped fresh sage (1t dried leaves) -- I used dried and it tasted fine.
1/2 T fresh thyme (1/2 t dried leaves)

Follow instructions on pasta to cook. In a separate sauce pan melt butter on medium heat. When melted, add onion. Make sure your onion is really finely diced. Since you have a nice smooth sauce, you don't want big chunks of onion, you just want little bits.

Saute until soft. Since they're small it should only take a couple of minutes. Add chicken broth and herbs. (I used fresh herbs, but I'm sure dry is great too, just go for leaves as opposed to ground spices so not to muddy the color)

Use a spatula to deglaze the pan a bit and get any cooked bits of onion off the bottom. Add pumpkin and whisk to combine. Add alfredo sauce, stir to combine, and cook until heated through. Depending on the alfredo you use you may need to adjust salt and pepper. Mine didn't need anything added.

Serve on top of prepared pasta and top with freshly grated Parmesan cheese and a sprinkling of extra herbs. Pair it with a salad and breadsticks for a great vegetarian meal. YUM!

 Guiltless Alfredo Sauce

2 C low-fat milk
1/3 C (3 oz) low fat cream cheese
2 T flour
1 t salt
1 T butter
3 garlic cloves
1 C grated Parmesan cheese

Toss the milk, cream cheese, flour, and salt in a blender. Process until smooth and set aside.

In a non-stick sauce pan, melt butter on med-high heat and add garlic. Stand above the pan (but not close enough to scald your face) and inhale. Ahhh...butter and garlic. Okay, now get cooking again. Let the garlic saute for about 30 seconds, you don't want to burn it. It should be nice and bubbly.

Then add milk mixture to the pan. Stir constantly for about 3 or 4 minutes or until it just comes to a simmer. Keep stirring and let it cook for a few minutes more. It should be much thicker now.

When it's nice and thickened remove the pan from the heat. Add the cheese, stir it up and then cover immediately. Let stand for at least 10 minutes before using. It will continue to thicken upon standing. Also, if you have leftovers in the fridge, the sauce will thicken almost into a solid. Just re-heat and add a little milk and it will be back to normal again.

recipe from   www.ourbestbites.com

Now what is the best way to finish a perfect dinner, with pumpkin pie of course.

Here is our families favorite pumpkin pie recipe. It's been changed a little from Bakerella's pie bites.

Pumpkin Pie

8 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup fresh pumpkin
2 eggs
2 teaspoon vanilla

1-2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (I like a little extra spice)

1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon salt to taste (I found I had to add a little salt to my fresh pumpkin to bring out the flavor a little bit. You don't need a lot, just to taste

Mix cream cheese, sugar, canned pumpkin, eggs, vanilla, salt and pumpkin pie spice together until thoroughly combined.

Bake for 15 minutes on 400 then reduce heat to 325 for 30 minutes.

Keep refrigerated.

 

I also discovered a few tricks while cooking some pumpkin. First clean your pumpkin (mine were quite muddy from the farm). For me the easiest way to cut up a pumpkin is to remove the stem (like you do when you're carving pumpkins, except as close as you can get to the stem). With the stem removed it's easier to cut in half and quarter. Then while carving pumpkins they had their ice cream scoop out and it makes it super easy to clean out the seeds and guts. After that you can either bake or steam your pumpkin. I like to steam mine because it's faster and when I bake it, the pumpkin will dry out a bit.

Some of my favorites

 Even with the sadness of having to get pictures taken we did have a lovely afternoon in the park. After a week or so of rain we have been enjoying the nice weather.

Sometimes I wonder....

what James is thinking. Yesterday I didn't really need to wonder, I'm pretty sure he thought his mom was completely ridiculous. I took him to the park and had the nerve to want to take his picture. On the best day in weeks I wanted him to stop having fun and look at the camera. Oh the nerve.

I finally just let him run and I tried to get action shots.

 He really loved chasing after the ducks. This one would just waddle a little ahead of him. If he got too close the duck would fly just a bit. James loved it. Every time the duck flew a little bit James would just laugh and laugh. After a little while the duck got a little nervous about being to far from his home so he flew back to the pond.

 The biggest problem with trying to get pictures of James by myself was he has absolutely no fear of water. He would just walk right in. Thankfully Hailee was a good little helper and grabbed him a few times before he jumped right into the river or pond.

 This park is a five minute walk from our house. We absolutely love it, but it has a lot of streams and ponds. One of these days James is going to end up in the middle of one of these streams.

I finally got a smile, of course he's not looking at the camera, he was too busy trying to catch a duck.

I absolutely love the fall. It's one of my favorite things about Oregon. For whatever reason fall seems to last longer here than other places I've lived.

One of Hailee's friends from school invited us to a costume party on Saturday. They wanted the adults to dress up as well. Saturday morning we woke up and Todd thought it would be super fun to dress up as the parents in Charlie Brown (ie, where you only see the waist down). I was able to use an old Halloween costume for my skirt and apron, some funky tights and big red shoes and my costume was done. For Todd I used a pajama pants pattern and made him some pants that came up to his chest. For not having anything done Saturday morning I was pretty pleased with how it turned out. (I was also a little surprised that I had everything I needed for them in my house, I save way to much stuff.)

Ilhaam, Hailee, Isabel, and Cami after they got their faces painted.

The party was amazing Ilhaam's parents went all out. The girls were in heaven with the spooky punch and spooky food. Then there were crafts and face painting. I'm pretty sure the girls would have stayed up all night if we would have let them. We have been so happy with the friends Hailee has been making at school. They are all such nice girls. 

 The girls decorating their witches hats and bags.

 Hailee and Isabel enjoying their vampire punch.

 Surprisingly James did pretty good and didn't bother his sister too much. He might just turn out to be a good little brother.

Hailee and Isabel. I can't believe my baby is growing up. I am extremely proud of her choices in friends. She has made some great friends.

Pumpkin Carving

To start off the Halloween parties, we went to some friends house to carve our pumpkins. We had so much fun. Hailee was so excited to design and carve her pumpkin. She was even a pretty good helper cleaning it out. James wasn't too interested in carving a pumpkin, he was more interested in playing.

 Here is Hailee's masterpiece. She was so thrilled with how it turned out. She wanted square eyes, a triangle nose and a small mouth.

Todd was super thrilled to carve his crazy pumpkin. I love how it turned out.