Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to Everyone! What a busy weekend it was for us. We went to a couple of Halloween parties, Boo Bash at the YMCA, had lunch in Lawrence with my sister and brother-in-law, got haircuts, went trick-or-treating, and watched The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown movie. Hopefully this week we can relax a little.

We started discussing Halloween costumes at our house probably 6 months ago. I don't have any idea why but Madelyn had her heart set on being a pink squirrel. I wasn't so excited about the idea because squirrels aren't my thing and I didn't have any clue where I would find this costume. Luckily, within the past couple of weeks I was able to persuade her with pictures of other costumes. So she ended up being an adorable Minnie Mouse.

We got to play lots of little games at the Y to get candy. Madelyn's favorite this year and last year was fishing for spiders.

Say Cheese!


She won a sugary cupcake at the cake walk.


Today we carved our big pumpkin. We were careful to keep the pumpkin seeds to plant next fall. Hopefully that will work better for us next spring.

Just being silly!

Minnie Mouse getting ready to go trick-or-treating in our neighborhood.

I fixed us a Halloween themed meal. We had Goblin Stew (beef stew) and Witches brew.

Next up - the holiday season begins!

Fall Favorites

October weekends have been full and fun! We've done some of my favorite things: pumpkin patches, apple orchards, and homeade goodies.

First up, homeade granola. I love this yummy treat! It's delicious and gets my mornings started off on the right foot.

My Apple Master has made life easier the past few weekends. We've made lots of apple butter and cinnamon sugar applesauce.

Step Two: let the crockpot do all the work and make the house smell amazing!

One thing I really wanted to do this fall was visit an apple orchard to pick our own apples. My sister and I have fond memories of this as kids with our grandparents and I thought that Madelyn would really enjoy it also. Well, it didn't all go as planned but boy did we have fun! The first orchard we visited wasn't a pick-your-own orchard but we did manage to spend $50 in their wonderful country store. We walked out of there with a large apple cider slush, a bag of rich buttery popcorn, a strawberry rhubarb pie, and a couple of jars of pickeled veggies, but NO apples. On to the next orchard. I had emailed this orchard to ensure that they were a pick-your-own orchard but upon arrival found that there were, oh, maybe, five apple trees. That's right - only five. So we went to Plan B. Do a little shopping at the mall and then hit Walmart for our apples. Oh, well, next year we'll find an orchard.

Here's Bart, he's great in the kitchen.

Courtney, canning our applesauce.

And the applebutter, on it's way


Madelyn watched Shrek and played with babydolls.

This is definately my favorite time of year!!

Fall Artwork

This is our fall family of pumpkins and gourds. Last spring we planted pumpkins at our house. Unfortunately, none of the survived which was a major disappointment to my little girl. Thankfully, my mom planted pumpkins and gourds and they took off! She had her very own pumpkin patch. While we were in Larned a few weeks ago we picked out several to decorate with. My mom helped us paint some of them for fun!

This one is my mom's, she is supper skilled.

Here is one of Madelyn's masterpieces.

And mine, with a little help from Madelyn.

We've had fun treating them like babies and dressing them up!

Happy Friday!

Sock Headed Dodger

So, you may get sick of all of the pictures involving our pets but I never do. Here's what happened on this evening:

Picture this:
We're enjoying a nice evening meal at the kitchen table, good food, good conversation, and now it's time for the dishes. Madelyn, being the polite child she can sometimes be, askes to be excused. Over the water in the sink running we hear giggling, lots of giggling coming from her room. Then she darts back to the kitchen insisting that she put a sock on Dodgers head and we had to come look. Matt and I look at each other, both thinking the same thing, Dodger is stupid and lazy, but not lazy enough to actually let Madelyn put a sock on her head, right? RIGHT? So Matt goes in to check out the scene. And then I hear, "Tiff, you gotta see this, bring the camera." And this is what we found:



Just for the record, after the picture was taken we did have Madelyn remove the sock and we visited with her about how we should treat our animals so don't go calling the ASPCA on us.

Pretty Girl

My girl loves, LOVES make-up. And sometimes, I just need her to be doing something quietly so I can finish getting ready so I let her borrow my make-up. Don't worry she is only allowed the powder, blush, and lip gloss items. But she totally gets into it. Sometimes she even wakes up and tells me first thing that she needs to put "her" make-up on!

So proud of herself!

I Love Him Because...

he knows I like a clean house and will help vaccuum so that I don't spend all of the weekends doing house chores.

And because he paints our daughter's nails even though he has no idea what he's doing.


He even blows on her sweet toes.

And many, many more reasons!

Mommy's Helper

Yes, I love a clean house and yes, I do enjoy putting my husband to work but NO, I didn't even ask her to help me unload the silverware from the dishwasher. She really does love to help me vaccuum, dust, and do laundry. And hey, who am I to stop her!!


She pulls out each pieace and sweetly asks me if it is a big fork/spoon or a little one. I take a quick peek and tell her which it is and she places it in the correct spot. SWEET!!

The best part is that while she is doing this I can rush around and do the other dishes so we can do something fun together when we're done. It is an awesome system!