A Little More Fall...

These are from my parent's home-- they have some really gorgeous trees on thier beautiful property tucked away pretty much from it all!

New Cookbook and Recipe for You!

Now that it's Fall, I'm finding more excuses to be in the kitchen.... and to check out some new cookbooks out there. This is my latest addition:

Apples for Jam by Tessa Kiros

I love, love, love the format she chose, the photos, the memories she includes! She's divided the foods not by type (appetizers, soups, etc.) but by color. Many of the pages actually include drawings by her kids, if not beautiful photos. The food is simple and unintimidating, and I can't wait to try more recipes. I tried this one tonight and it was fabulous!

Pear and Berry Crisp

Ingredients: 3 large pears, 1 cup mixed berries (I used blueberries and raspberries), 1/3 cup superfine sugar, 1 2/3 cup all-purpose flour, 1/4 cup firmly packed light-brown sugar, 1/4 lb. plus 3 TBsp butter, softened, and 1 tsp vanilla.

How to: Preheat the oven to 375. Butter a 14x8 1/2x 2 1/2 inch ovenproof dish. Peel, core and slice the pears, laying them in the bottom of the dish. Add in the berries and scatter half the sugar over the fruit.

Mix together the dry ingredients: flour, brown sugar and remaining sugar. Now add the butter and vanilla and rub them in with your fingertips. This mixture will not be smooth- instead it will be much like sand.

Scatter the topping over the fruit to cover it completely. Bake for about 45 minutes, or until the top nicely golden and some berry juice has oozed up a bit over the crust and darkened it here and there.

Let it cool down and then serve with whipped cream or vanilla ice cream.

Enjoy!

Dare I Even Cut These?

Something a few weeks ago, perhaps the pending return of my in-laws from their mission in Japan, made me look into Japanese fabrics. Look at the beauties I found!
They're just too cute.
I'm actually afraid to cut them, but found some really cool tutorials from some really creative bloggers ....
Wallet
Change Purse
The Wasp Bag
Farm Chick Flower Pin
Square Wrist Pinholder
Gets me thinking, but I've really got to finish some of these projects I've already started!

And now for some new blogs I've found that give me lots of sewing/fashion ideas:
OUTSAPOP and her tutorials (Check out the sea creatures!)
What The Craft (blog) and tutorials
The Family Homestead

Soccer Season

It's been another exciting year for the Generals! They have had a surprising season-- with a record so far of 11 wins, 2 losses and 3 ties. They were the #1 seed in the conference for a good part of the season, but then they tied their last game and lost a coin toss-- forcing them to play as the #3 seed going into the tournament.
Here they are after winning the first round game of the tournament. Now we'll all head over the semi-finals and finals this weekend to watch them play some teams that will be good matches. I'm nervous all week! And Jeremy makes fun of me because I have some silly superstitions, but they've all been proven to work-- so.... I'll keep showing up purposely late to the games (approximately 5 minutes late, no more, no less), wearing "normal" clothes (can't wear anything that has WandL on it), not listening to the radio station 91.5 on the way(this is really bad luck), and possibly arriving with a Twix bar in hand for the head coach(from their winniest season ever). These "traditions" started long ago, and whenever I switch things up, good things DO NOT happen!


We've sat thru a lot of games!

We've seen lots of alums come back this year, which is always so much fun. Even some parents of former players are showing up- we all want to see them go all the way!

Wish them luck this weekend!

Crazy for Pumpkins

We are so stoked for Halloween. I think we're sick of candy corn since we've eaten it since August now! We are stocked up on goody bags for the kids at school and plenty of candy for the trick or treaters. Now, just kinda counting down until Wednesday!

I put up a few decorations around the house and out front... Here's some photos from the front...





We found 2 of these big beauties! They barely fit in the Mini!

And a photo of a really scary cat....


And a man with strange hair (I can't believe he was even willing to wear this)....

A Very Loooooong Day

About 2 weeks ago, I went with my parents and grandparents down to Chateau Morrisette in southwest VA for my Aunt Stefanie's birthday brunch. It should've been a short drive of less than 2 and half hours....but it turned into a all day event!

The car we were driving broke down (the radiator) in a really quiet part of the state... this was before all the rain... so it was hot, hot, hot standing on the side of the road! It took at least 45 minutes for a state trooper to pick us up, and a little more for a tow truck. The car wouldn't be ready for days, so were sorta stuck there-- halfway between home and our destination. We ended up being dropped off at McDonalds and called my hubby to come pick us up! He arrived later in the day, and we decided to continue since we'd made it that far.

We finally arrived, but we wanted nothing more than to chill out!




We finally had to head back to Lex. for the long, curvy drive home (we now had 6 crowded in the car and this was a drive in the mountains!)...
Without a great sense of humor, we would've have made it! Good times.

Fall

I really feel for the folks in California right now, I cannot imagine what it must be like lose your home to a fire. I'm keeping them in my thoughts and prayers.

We were beginning to worry here, since we had no recorded rain since June, but fortunately, it finally rained here a little last week. For the past 3 days, it's rained continuously. It hasn't been a very pretty fall here, mostly due to the drought I guess, but before the rain began days ago, the trees looked their best. I, of course, forgot to take photos, but wanted to share these snapshots from a drive we took 3 weeks ago. Sorry they're not in focus.


In just a few days, we'll have Halloween! I've gone a little overboard with decorating-- will have to share some photos.

They're Baaack! :)

My in-laws have been gone for a year and half (in Tokyo! Who'd want to come back to VA?), and we met them at the airport earlier this month and then spent some time with them the whole family a few days later.

Arriving at the airport:



3 Generations!



Photos from the Weekend visit:



Sparklers before bedtime--




It's so nice to have them home!