Weekly Menu Oct 21

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This week we have:

French Toast Muffins

Better-than-Olive Garden's Breadsticks

Pumpkin Spice Cake with Vanilla Spice Buttercream

For today, Oct 21 ...

Outside my window... Sunny and COLD. My car was iced over this morning! That's what happens when you get a late-night drizzle at exactly 32 degrees. Full-blown Fall over here, and it is gorgeous! I'm relishing every minute, we really didn't get a Fall last year. This year is doing her best to make up for it!!

I am thankful... I am so thankful for my boys right now. They've both slowly eased out of these awful phases they were in, and I just love being around them so much right now! We had so much fun together on our trip, and they are fantastic travelers. We had some adventures! Someone from the Denver airport gave them free coloring books and nifty star-shaped 6-sided crayons, and they got to hang out in the cockpit of the plane on the way back! I wish I had pictures from the beach, but I accidentally wiped them all from my phone *bawl* and have to wait for my Mom to give me access to hers. Better than nothing!

Source: pumpkinspice-andeverythingnice

Around the house... We're celebrating Halloween a little early this year. This whole week, in fact! Tomorrow is Joe's birthday, and he really couldn't have been born at a more perfect time. He shares his Mom's deep love of all things Fall, especially pumpkins! He adores pumpkins, so tomorrow night we will have pumpkin cake, go pick and carve pumpkins, and make caramel apples. Friday we're going to a fall festival and corn maze at the botanic gardens, and Saturday is our church Halloween party, complete with trunk-or-treating! The Geologist is going to be gone on Halloween and it's just no fun to trick-or-treat without him, so that will be our Halloween! The trick-or-treating isn't awesome around here anyway.

In the kitchen... Finally racked up some recipes again, and am back on track! The recipes I'm making this week (to post later) are very pumpkin oriented, but also a few classics like a perfect Banana Nut Bread and some form of scones... any ideas there? I'm all pumpkins-and-spices lately, should I try something fruity instead or just go for it?

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I am hoping... Sooo, the house thing is taking a while. Which is okay. We will still own it as of Oct 30. But we're still waiting for the current owners to find a new house to move into. They have to be out by December 28th. But at this point I'm just hoping that they manage to find a place in time for us to move before Christmas! It wouldn't be the end of the world if they didn't but still. To be in our new home for Christmas!! Ack!! This process has been really funny, we're all so concerned for each other. They are always making sure we're still okay with the whole arrangement, and we keep checking that we aren't kicking them out of their house. Hey, at least we all care!

I am going... All over the place this week. We have all of our Halloween activities, plus Girl's Night Wednesday, eye appt for Stephen, parent teacher conferences, yet another homestudy visit, and ultrasound appt. Busy busy!!

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One of my favorite things... When I go pumpkin-searching, there are two things I'm looking for. As perfectly smooth and golden as possible, and twisty stems. The twisty stems are a MUST. What can I say, I like my pumpkins pretty!

I'm thinking... Ah, it's good to be home. But it was good to be there. I love my family! I'm glad they lived in DC at least this long, because it is a really fun place to visit. Yes, even with everything shut down this past week. In fact, they opened it up the day I left! Sigh. We still had a blast, and I'll post lots of pictures on our family blog by the end of the week so you can go take a peek. But now, it's back to real life!

Guilty Pleasures... "Can't Hold Us" by Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. It counts as a guilty pleasure because I'm not usually a rap fan, but I'm completely hooked on this song. I seriously want to learn every word. And guess what... I probably can. *muahahaha*

Coolest medical bracelet ever!

Something new about me... Well, I mentioned (long ago) that I am a medical mess, but one of the pieces of that puzzle is a clotting disorder called Factor V (5) Leiden. It means the stuff in my blood that tells it to stop clotting doesn't work very well. I have a giant clot hanging out somewhere in my hip. No point taking it out, it's stuck for good, but we're finally checking the rest of me to make sure there aren't any more lurking around! That would be bad :)

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