Getting Ready for the Par-tay!

While the kids were at school, Matt and I were busy turning the house into an autumnal cookie paradise.  (Really that’s just fancy for saying “clean and picked up.”)

All the decorations were inspired by the invitation, which the wonderful Amy Beasley created:

Here’s my cookie table:

I found some ribbon in the perfect colors (and splurged on it) to wrap around the cookie containers.  I mostly used what I had for the containers (jars, vases, cake stand), but I also bought three jars that I knew I’d be able to use to store other ingredients and baked goods once the party was over.  I’m going to link to all the cookie recipes online.  You can just click the name of the cookie and it will take you there!

Pictured above are the white chocolate pumpkin spice cookies, peanut butter cookies (from the BHG cookbook), and Oreos (from Nabisco).

There were oatmeal chocolate chip cookies, peanut butter cookies with Hershey kisses, and no bake cookies.

And there were Sugar cookies, Snickerdoodles, and Chocolate Chip cookies.  Yummy!

Just for kicks, I included an ingredients list on the cookie labels.  I pretty much made the recipes as they are on the links, except I always subbed freshly ground whole wheat flour for all-purpose flour, and I used sucanat or turbinado for the white sugar.  And I hope it goes without saying that I would never ever ever ever use margarine.  Ever.

My mom picked up some colorful flowers to use in the décor.  I also used some pumpkins (which I plan to bake soon!) and gourds.

Amy also designed some labels for our “milk bottles” (Starbucks Frappuccino bottles).

I ordered some paper straws from Etsy in the same orange and green.

I put some ingredients in jars just for fun (sucanat, chocolate chips, wheat berries).

I printed some of our pumpkin patch pictures to hang up.

I covered the door out to the laundry room with pretty paper and put 13 pictures of James up – one for each month plus the day he was born.  I stole this idea from Amy; she always does that for her girls’ birthdays on their office door.  I love it!

More labels for the milk…

And the homemade chocolate syrup.  This stuff is good.  :)

Some yummy snacks…

A basket of napkins, which almost no one used.  My mom says people were scared of them?

I made some pom poms, which are still up.  I think they’re pretty.  :)

Dinner:  sandwiches, veggies, and fruit.  Light and yummy!

Peanut butter and homemade peach jam – yum!

I was very excited that it was, for the most part, a pretty “green” party.  There really was nothing to generate trash.  That made me happy.  :)

Happy Birthday James!

James’ birthday was on Tuesday, a school day, and Matt took the day off work.  I made pancakes for breakfast before sending the kiddos off to school.

We sang “Happy Birthday” to James, and the girls blew out his candle for him.

He’s a pancake fan.

He wore his BIRTHDAY BOY shirt so no one would be confused.  :)

Doesn’t he look so big and handsome?!!

Matt took the kids to school, and thankfully Joanna knew where everybody’s class was.  Ha!

More birthday fun coming soon!

Birthday Eve

Monday we had lots of running around to do to get ready for the big day.  I got all the kids all dressed up, picked up Anna, and took them to school.  It’s school pictures this week, so I brought my three early to get their pics made together.  (I’d have done it on Tuesday, but I didn’t want to mess with it on party day.)  I think they did a great job – I’m excited to see the pics!  Anyway, after we dropped of Anna and Joanna, we came home and met Pop so he could fix the door on our TV cabinet.  Yay Pop!  Then we headed to the grocery store.  I think this may be the first time I’ve gone with just Natalie and James to the store.  (pssst… I don’t like it.)  They did really good.  James was melting, but Natalie was a very sweet helper and big sister.  As soon as we passed the balloons, James got so excited, so I got one for him.

He is desperately in love with his red balloon.

Violently, gloriously, in love.

It’s an obsession actually, and I had to remove it to the pantry before his birthday.  And I decided to not make balloons a part of the décor.  :)  He just would not have been able to help himself.

He found it’s sad little droopy self today, crawled over a wadded up comforter to get to it, and loved on it for a bit.  It might have been the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

So up next (or tomorrow or whenever I get to it) are pictures from the birthday!

Pumpkin Patch 2011

I was thinking I’d separate these nearly 30 pumpkin patch pictures into a few posts… make it interesting, but James’ birthday is tomorrow so I know there’s no way!  So here you go!

I dressed everybody in jeans and fallish colored tops.  The girls had brown bows.  James had no bows.  :)

I’m battling the two year old squinchy face smile.  It is my enemy.  She’s still so stinkin’ cute though!

There were so many pumpkins!

I LOVE this one of James – love it!

I’m guessing Joanna is illustrating what pumpkin stems must taste like?  James really loved chewing on this (and yes, we brought it home with us).  :)

I call this James’ Spock face.

Almost a smile from Natalie…

Then not so much.

James didn’t want to do much smiling for me.  His sister could get him to grin though!

Natalie spent a while doing these faces… I guess the squinchy face is better than that.  :)

Pumpkin boy!  I wish I’d made myself go and at least take James to the Patch last year when he was newborn.  I would love to have taken some newborn punkin’ pictures.  :)

Love my Natalie!

Love my Joanna!

That is one big ‘ol pumpkin!

I think this one’s my favorite of her.  She could be in a brochure or something!

Getting a little tired of smiling…

Joanna was tickling James from behind:

Where’d she go?

Cute boy!

Joanna wanted her picture made by the big scarecrow.

Studying the pumpkin…

And some pumpkin warts…

Some more of the three of them:

This is definitely one of my favorites of the day!

More silly faces from Natalie.  :)

My mom was with us and thought to take a picture of the whole area.  I love that this local church does this every year.  So pretty!

I love fall!

What a Difference a Year Makes

We had our Ministry Celebration Sunday at the church today, and it really reminded me of where I was last year.

It’s pretty amazing to me what can happen in one little year.

Here’s the first post from last year.  And another one.

Dumbo!

I don’t think I’ve ever let my kids ride one of these things, but James got to ride on Dumbo at Walmart yesterday.  :)  My mom and I and the kids were running errands, and we stopped at Walmart for costumes for the girls.  On our way out, Gran took the girls to the restroom, and this was right there.

He was happy just standing there, but he really broke out the grins when I turned it on!

Then the girls got in on it.

It was fun.  :)

Earlier yesterday we went to the pumpkin patch here in town.  I have TONS of pictures from that adventure, which I guess I’ll trickle out in the next days.  I need to get them up before the big OH-ONE on Tuesday!!  I can’t believe James will be ONE in just a few days.  Ahhhh!!!!

Azure Order

I had a big order that came in Tuesday from my co-op.  The exciting part was that I got to pick it up all by myself while the kids were at school!

I ordered 25lbs of sucanat.

Isn’t it beautiful?

I used it, and some of my 20lbs of peaches, to make some jam!

It would have been a very fun process to blog, but I didn’t take a single picture of the process.  I had too much going on!  I canned seven half-pints, and then put up eight more in the freezer.  I still have some peaches in the fridge, we’ve also eaten a bunch, and I sliced up a few for the freezer.

I cooked up a big pot of my apples (skins on – so easy!) and made three quarts of applesauce.

I may do some more applesauce with the rest of my apples or I might so something a little more wild like apple butter.  Or some pie filling.  Mmmmm…  I’m going to have to finish up the peaches pretty quick – in the next couple of days, but the apples will last a bit more time in the fridge.  I need to get through James’ birthday!