Pumpkin goodness

When I was in my youth, we'd frequently have waffles on the weekends. Sometimes we'd get a special treat, particularly in fall, and have pumpkin waffles. As the days got shorter and colder and it was even more difficult to get out of a warm bed on Saturday morning, the smell of pumpkin, cinnamon, and nutmeg would eventually pull me out of bed. It was a method I much preferred to forcing me up for the day than the one favored in December: Blasting of a Bing Crosby or Ann Murray Christmas album over and over and over again.

*****

We had a full weekend that featured among other things, perfect fall weather. On Saturday, we went to the Augsburg homecoming football game and watched the Auggies (yes, they are really called that) handedly defeat the Oles (from St. Olaf, yes, they are really called that). Meredith and Elaine liked watching the action on the field. Elaine would clap along with the crowd to be part of the excitement. During the fourth quarter the girls got a little antsy and starting playing around with a little ball. Meredith took a swift kick at it and landed it in some poor woman's face 15 feet away. (Apologies were quickly offered.)

From the football game came the ArtiCulture opening. ArtiCulture is a local visual arts education nonprofit. Meredith has taken a couple classes there and celebrated her fourth birthday there. I've been volunteering with them a bit in recent weeks. They have an awesome new space on Franklin Ave which we got to tour.

On Saturday night, Jen went out to party and sing karaoke and eat some fabulous homemade Indian food. She didn't have a drip of alcohol to drink because she had to drive back in forth to Maplewood, but had so much fun she was a little loopy afterwards.

Sunday morning featured pumpkin waffles. Both Meredith and Elaine ate them up quickly; though Elaine seemed to prefer the whip cream topping to the waffle itself. Since I had leftover purred pumpkin I made some pumpkin cookies that I now need to get rid of lest I gain back some weight. After waffles, we packed up and went apple picking in near Jordan with friends. Meredith got a pony ride in too!

In the afternoon, Jen and I drove back to Minneapolis to see a play at the Jungle Theater. It was a Mamet piece, A Life In the Theater. I definitely recommend it for some excellent acting. Afterwards we drove back to the 'burbs to procure the kids. We returned to Minneapolis to have dinner with the neighbors. The only problem was that both Elaine and Meredith had fallen asleep before dinner. Despite multiple sincere efforts, neither one stirred. I eventually gave up and let them sleep. Apparently they both had an active weekend. The two girls proceeded to sleep a full 13 hours! They arose Monday morning no worse for the wear and ready to face the week.

Autumn blues

The days are getting shorter and cooler. The last full day of summer is reportedly this Sunday. It makes me get preemptorally depressed thinking about the cold winter getting closer and closer each day.

Warm, beautiful fall days are still ahead of us; plus, the changing colors of trees in the next month. I do love fall. But I'm still sad to see the garden start to wither up with each cold night.

This year's growing season was an improvement over the past two years. The biggest reason for improvement: having a dog. Sadie did an excellent job scaring the squirrels away from the garden. Two of the squirrels met unlucky fates. Still, she couldn't be outside all of the time and they did chew up countless tomatoes and just about every zucchini and squash. At least this year we got to eat some of the actual tomatoes ourselves!

I planted a full two dozen tomato plants last spring. We got a good crop, but I should have gotten more. Our garden plot is becoming more shaded each year by the giant ash tree in our backyard as well as neighbor's trees. Next year my plan is to move the garden plot to the side of the house, which gets more sun. I put four tomato plants, some beans, and broccoli there this year to test it out, and everything did pretty well except for the broccoli. I never seem to have success with broccoli, unlike the neighbors who get the most massive broccoli plants that produce enough shade to have a picnic under.

My favorite tomato varieties this year were the Cherokee Purple (heirloom), the Black Cherry, the Persimmon (heirloom), and the Celebrity. The Beeksteak did OK. The Pruden's Purple was good but didn't give much fruit and the Better Boy was the worse of the bunch. The Celebrity and Persimmon tomatoes have been simply delicious, the later being a beautiful golden fruit.

So next year, more of those, plus some more. I'll use manure and compost the plants more heavily. That, with the additional sun, will hopefully mean even more tomatoes in 2009.

Oh, and I'll probably plant some other veggies.

Another birthday!

Today is Meredith's birthday! She is a five year old. Five years ago, almost to the hour, she looked like this:

Of course, now she's in kindergarten! Meredith loves football. She makes all sorts of artistic creations with paper, crayons, glue, tape, and ribbons. She loves learning about weather and animals and dinosaurs. Meredith can skip and dance and do a mean air-guitar. (Sometimes she can do air-guitar at the same time as air-drums and air-trumpet!) Meredith loves playing with her friends and has become a kind and fun big sister to Elaine. She's so much bigger than the 7 pounds, 3 ounces she was five short years ago.

Last night we celebrated Meredith's birthday early with the family. I made her a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and raspberries on top. She unwrapped her presents, which included science books, a light-up globe, a pirate hat, Connect-4, a pretend cell phone, a piggy bank (since we're starting an allowance), and a Meredith-sized broom. Yes, she had asked for a broom.

Next weekend we'll have a party with Meredith's friends and classmates at the Como Zoo. It will be reptile themed per Meredith's request. We'll be sure to take pictures and post them here!

Jen is 30

Last Saturday we celebrated Jen's birthday party. Believe it or not, she is now a bona fide 30 year old!

We had a nice get together on the Minneapolis Queen paddle boat and a picnic at Boom Island Park afterwards. The weather cooperated perfectly. It wasn't a surprise party, as Jen knew the basic parameters, but I had kept her in the dark on most of the details. At one point during the festivities when we were trying to figure out some small detail Jen exclaimed to me, "You haven't told me enough for me to be helpful!"

The biggest surprise was the arrival of Jen's brother and sister-in-law, David and Olga, from Tulsa. (She was wondering why I had gotten so much steak and corn on the cob for Friday's dinner.) I suspected that it was going to be a worthwhile surprise when she lamented a week before how she had been hoping her brother would call her to tell her they could make it for her birthday.

We also had cake from Jen's favorite bakery, the Franklin Street Bakery. A couple of days after I had ordered the cake, Jen asked if she could count on some cake on her birthday. I said, "Oh, oh, sure. It'll be taken care of. You like chocolate?" The response reportedly did not put her at ease. Latter, she followed up and made helpful suggestions where some good cake could be procured. I simply told her "not to worry about it," which put her at even less ease. Note to readers: It's generally not a good idea to just tell Jen not to worry about anything. Actually, it's probably good not to say that to people in general--and definitely not to Jen.

It probably didn't help a couple days before that I said to her that I'd get around to figuring out some food for her birthday.

In the end, we all had a fun time. Meredith loved running around with her friends at Jen's birthday party. Elaine got lots of good grandparent attention over the weekend and is getting ever more comfortable with people who aren't her mom and dad.

On Sunday, we had a relaxing rainy day. The most exciting thing was Sadie catching a squirrel in the neighbor's front yard at the end of the walk. The dumb animal actually fell out of the tree after successfully getting away from Sadie the first time. Meredith saw the whole thing and wasn't too traumatized. I don't know if I could say the same thing for all of the adults present. Now there are two former squirrels buried in our garden. Here's hoping for a couple more before next spring's planting season!

PICTURES!

Elly's words - and steps!

Our little Elly turned 17 months on Saturday, and took her first, unsteady steps from Mommy to Daddy! We have waited a long time for that to happen, and I have no good explanation why it happened then. Her confidence increased somewhat - her record is 8 steps - though she is mostly still crawling everywhere. We are very excited.

Elly's speech is also taking off, and we thought it would be fun to record her first words here. (List not in exact order) :

1. Daddy (dada)
2. Mommy (mama)
3. bye-bye (buh buh) (also uses for night-night)
4. no
5. ball
6. fish (ish)
7. that (da)
8. down (dow)
9. water (wa wa) (for drinking water, baths or lakes, etc.)
10. go
11. kitty (kih-tay)
12. up (uh)
13. baby
14. book (ook)
15. Pooh (00h)
16. Meredith (muh-ith or mer-mer)
17. Ellen (eh-wen)
18. Junior (june)
19. Michelle (Junior's mom) (ju-mama)
20. cheese (eese)
21. duck (duh)
22. Grandma (gra-mama)
23. whee (for deciding to slide down)
24. all done (ah-da)
25. eat (ee)
26. Sadie (suh-duh)
27. teeth (eeth)
28. uh-oh
29. shoe (shoo)
30. sock (ock)

signs:

1. milk
2. all done
3. eat
4. more
5. bye-bye

-JRR