Harvest Party

Phil and I hosted our first Harvest Party this afternoon and had a great time. We had about 5 or 6 families (all with kids) come over. We made caramel apples and funnel cakes while they were here. (Next time, I'll make sure to either make all the food ahead of time or choose something that doesn't need to be made while guests are here because I wasn't able to mingle as much as I wanted to.)

After we hung out for awhile and enjoyed some yummy food, we all piled into our cars and headed to the pumpkin patch. It looked beautiful out but it was FREEZING cold. I wish I had brought some mittens for Taeya because her little hands were cold. I think she enjoyed herself, runny nose and all.

Enjoy the pictures.

Those of you who were able to come...thank you! We had such a fun time with all of you.

My Little Monkey

My sweet little Taeya wasn't feeling very well the other day because her top

four teeth were (and still are) coming in. She was pretty miserable and wasn't enjoying her usual toys and activities. She loves music so I put on her Praise Baby DVD's. Usually, she just listens to them but this time I turned the TV on as well. She was fascinated as you can see.
My little monkey loves to use her feet for many things. Here, she's reading her "Eye Spy a Panda" book with her hands and feet. I just had to capture it in pictures. She does the same thing in her crib with her stuffed animals. I'll walk in after her nap and she'll be holding one of her stuffed animals over her head with her hands and feet and playing with it.

New Friends

Taeya and Eva-9 months old.
Look over there Taeya! What? Where?

Bethany and Larry have lots of dogs and a few cats and Taeya had fun watching them all.

At church, shortly after Taeya was born, we met Bethany whose grandbaby was born the day Taeya was due. Since her grandbaby lives in FL she doesn't get a chance to visit with her that frequently. So, every Sunday at church I try to let Bethany hold Taeya. We call her our adopted grandma.

Well, last Sunday, Bethany's daughter (Aimee), son-in-law (Justin) and grandbaby (Eva) were visiting from FL. Aimee and I have been reading each others blogs and it's amazing to see how similar the girls are. We had fun finally getting to meet. The girls both went in the nursery and Aimee said Eva crawled right over to Taeya and they played together the whole time. We went over to Bethany and Larry's house for lunch. We enjoyed a lovely lunch and got a few pictures of all the girls together. We had a lot of fun and look forward to seeing them again down the road.

It was fun trying to photograph the girls together. Eva's crawling so she'd move pretty fast out of the picture. (Aimee, can you email me a photo of you, Eva, me and Taeya all together? I didn't get any on my camera.)

Bethany and her sister, Carol. We celebrated Carol's birthday last Sunday.

Bethany and her daughter, Aimee.

A family photo.

Harvest Time Activities

Today was a beautiful and fun filled day in Colorado. It was a cool, Autumny feeling morning and just perfect for apple picking!! The other day I went and helped my friend, Kristi, cut up some apples she had picked. We used my Vita-Mix to turn them into applesauce. (It only took about 1 minute per batch. Can't beat that!) We had a fun time and so went picking again on Thursday afternoon.

Kristi is great about finding free fruit. She looks for trees around the area that are loaded with fruit that doesn't seem to be being used. She then asks the owners if they're going to use them and if not, would they mind if she picks some. As a result, her freezer is full of free peaches, plums, apples and cherries. I am very frugal but never thought of doing this before.

So, anyways, Thursday we went and picked but one of the two trees with apples on it had a large paper-wasp nest in it. Um, not messing with that tree! The other one, someone had already been picking at so we only picked about 1 basketfull of fruit.

Her friend said she had some more trees so we went picking this morning. The apples were very tasty and many were very large. We had such a fun time shaking, dodging and picking up apples. The kids had fun helping and the babies enjoyed tasting the apples.

Next week, we'll be cutting them up and making applesauce, jelly and apple butter. Today we also had some fresh cider made from apples from the same trees we were picking from. I just LOVE this time of year.

Tonight, I remembered that I had a Funnel Cake recipe from our MOPS group that I wanted to try. I made it and Phil loved it. He said, "This is as good as what you can get at Disneyland!" I'll share it at the bottom of this post. It's really fast to make and tastes delicious. Now, I'd love to have a harvest party at my home. How fun would that be? Anyone want to come?

Funnel Cakes

This is a true carnival funnel cake. Light and fluffy. After cooking, dust with powdered sugar and serve hot for a fun and tasty treat. Funnel cake doesn't have to be a once a year event...make it any ight right at home. Make them when you're camping or don't have time to bake. You can pre-mix the dry ingredients and then it is super fast to add the egg and milk for a yummy treat.

Ingredients:

1 egg

2/3 cup milk

2 tbsp. sugar

1 1/4 cup flour

1/4 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Directions:

1. Beat egg and milk. Mix all other ingredients and slowly add to the egg mixture, beating until smooth. (I used my blender and it worked great)

2. Using a funnel (a refillable mustard/ketchup bottle from Wal-Mart works great. Just snip the tip to widen it), squirt batter into hot oil working from center outwards. When the bottom looks golden, use a fork to turn it. Remove from the oil when golden brown and crispy. Drain on plates covered with paper towels.

3. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and eat up!