Sunday, October 14, 2012

Pumpkin Craving


Mark got in late Thursday night and we are all pretty excited.  Luckily, our friends took really good care of us ladies this week while he was gone.  Jackie watched the kiddos for me on Tuesday so I could go to guitar lesson and had dinner for me when I picked them up!  Brandon watched the girls so we could go to book club on Wednesday and Maria invited me to sleep over.  Then last night, she had us over for dinner.  We missed Mark like crazy, but it wasn't super overwhelming since we kept pretty busy while he was gone. 

On Friday evening, we were invited over to some new friends' house for dinner.  I'm usually a wreck hanging out with people I don't know very well (the joys of introversion), but the family was super sweet and it went very well.  My favorite part about the evening was that they served homemade waffles with every topping imaginable.  It's their Friday night family tradition.  I'm seriously thinking of adopting that one for our family.  They were delicious! 

Yesterday, we headed to Gatlinburg for the day with the Nudds.  It was so much fun.  I hadn't been there since I was little, so it was all pretty new to me.  It is peak season there right now, so it was nuts!  We waited in traffic for what seemed like hours, but the times we spent out of the car were great.  The views were incredible.  In the afternoon, we went to the aquarium and that evening we ran into a few stores at the outlet mall.  We were all EXHAUSTED by the time we got home, but it was so worth it.  I'm looking forward to our next Gatlinburg trip!  I took over 350 pictures while we were there, so I will try and post some of those later.    

I'm kind of freaking out because we are getting family pictures done today.  Putting our outfits together has been up there with inventing the wheel.  It's been tough to say the least.  I wanted us to coordinate but not be too matchy-matchy.  There's a good chance I've failed us.  I think I've put a lot of importance on this photo session, because we haven't had a family photo since McKinley was born.  Of course, I woke up yesterday with a huge zit on my forehead and Kiki fell in her crib on Friday and has a big gash above her eye.  Thank goodness for photoshop!  

Thought I would show you the lunch I made for the girls on Friday.  I went with a fall theme.  I saw my old pumpkin cookie cutters in the drawer and got inspired.  It's really fun to think outside the box and try and be creative with the food I have in the fridge/pantry.    

Cheddar cheese pumpkins, peanut butter and jelly roll-ups, carrot slices with ranch dressing, steamed green beans, veggie chicken nuggets, veggie straws, cheese flowers

While we are on the subject of pumpkin, I've decided that I only want to eat pumpkin foods for the next few days.  They all just seem so yummy right now.  Pumpkin bread, pumpkin soup, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin ice cream...bring on the pumpkin!  I think I'm going to make pumpkin crunch cake tonight.  Yum!   

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