~~Friday Fill-Ins #6~~

1. One of the best concerts/plays/movies I ever saw that I really didn't think I'd like was Lucky Number Slevin.
2. "Clone of a Cinnabon" Cinnamon Buns is a recipe I recently made (or meal I recently ordered) that was delicious!
3. It's time for dinner.
4. The fall breeze is quite refreshing.
5. If I never hear the word Dada again, it'll be too soon. (Ilyana seems to think we are both Dadas these days.)
6. To one side of the curving road was a rock, and on the other was a tree.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching a movie, tomorrow my plans include nothing and Sunday, I want to cook something yummy!

Halloween Might Suck This Year...

Thanks to Issa for posting this up today and making me giggle. :)

Wordless Wednesdays #6- Outside, outside...

Mishmashed Monday

My vacation with Ilyana technically started on Friday- our babysitter takes two weeks off in October, and two in April. This week we couldn't find coverage, so I got to take a week off to lounge with the girl :D

We got a lot done this weekend- went down to Nashua so my brother could do my brakes, and managed to pick up a portable dishwasher we had found at a steal on Craigslist for $75. That's right, folks, no more nights spent in front of the sink with a soggy shirt for me! Woooo~ I am so completely psyched, you have no idea. The thing works like a charm and is in great condition. YAY for Dada for putting the idea in my head a couple of weeks ago by showing me some cheap ones on there, and YAY for me for finding this great one, which is exactly what we needed, at just the right time. I was starting to think I'd go insane from the neverending stack...

Because I didn't have to do dishes, I was able to get a lot more done today. Got the whole rest of the house (except for mopping the kitchen floor, but... ick) cleaned, took the girl and the doggie down to the park and the Post Office to get the mail and am planning dinner right now. I think it's nice to start the vaca with a clean house- now I don't have to worry about it right away. Oh and bonus- at the post office, I had a free product waiting for me to evaluate from one of the companies I fill out surveys for! It was actually something I'd hoped to try, so that was nice too.

Off to try and find a good dinner meal- here's a few shots from our day :)

ZoMbIe TeMpLaTe... Crisis averted?

I think it's fixed. I just went back to a similar template to the first one I had. Figured if I'm gonna have all these problems, better to stick with the tried and true. :P At first after I switched back, the old one was still loading when I went to my URL... Zombie template style, it just wouldn't die!

Maybe someday I'll get up the energy (nerve?) to fix up and use another... Who knows.

I also made a new header, which I don't like as much as my old one. I'll be making another today. Hopefully my creativity is more on its game- yesterday was just a crap day in that department.

Thanks for all your support everyone! Blogger blues semi-cured, I suppose.

On a different note, HOW do you use the strikethrough in words on Blogger?!?! I can't figure it out. Help!?! :) Thanks.

Under Construction. Stay Tuned.

ARGH! I am sooo mad at myself. I got the bright idea this morning to start looking for a new blogger template, since I hated that the other one was like a big column down the middle.

Well, I should have stuck with it anyway, because now I can't find one I like, I lost all my widgets, and everything I try screws up. To top it off, I can't locate where the computer saved my ^%$# old template when I backed it up. So now I am on the hunt to find something better that I can use. I wish I knew the ins and outs of blogger better, cuz I'd just design one myself that fits my needs... But I don't.

So now I'm just pissed. Stay tuned to see if I can cure my blogger blues. BAH. :(

(B)apple Streusel Cheesecake Bars

I'm telling you. These will KNOCK your SOCKS off. Sooo good.

I'm not one to post recipes to my blog often. However, I am one to delight in making people happy through food. And these bars will make you and your family very happy. Unless, of course, you're trying to diet- in which case, you will be very UNhappy to find that you cannot walk by the fridge without sneaking a bite. I know this from experience.

It's a Betty Crocker recipe, (a 2007 prize winning recipe, to boot!) and you can find it on their website, too. But just to make things easy, I'm posting it here and encouraging you to make it, ESPECIALLY if you have gone apple picking like us and need a good way to use some up.

Instead of using the canned apple pie filling like it calls for, I used real apples. I would highly recommend you do this, even though I haven't tried it with the canned filling... I think canned filling is both worse for you and lacks a lot of the taste that real apples have. It's worth the extra work to use real. Here's what I did:

I peeled, cored, and sliced thin (into about 1/16ths) about 12-14 small apples, then tossed them in 3/4 cup of sugar and 1 tsp ground cinnamon. I brought a splash of apple cider to a boil and then threw in the cinnamon sugar apples and stirred for about 20 mins, or just until the apples were starting to tenderize. I know this isn't very exact, but I did it on the fly, and it worked. You don't need to cook the apples all the way through on top of the stove, because you're going to bake them in the dessert- you just don't want them to be crunchy when you get them out. Don't worry- apples are hard to ruin.

I also used chopped hazelnuts instead of walnuts- just cuz I don't like walnuts, and I'm the Momma, and I'm the one who made them. :) Oh, and neufchatel cheese instead of cream cheese. Because it has 1/3 less fat. And I think this recipe had plenty of fat without the real cream cheese, thankyouverymuch. It didn't change the texture at all, so don't be hesitant to do this if you want! It will lower the guilt level of these treats :P

And here's the rest of the recipe:

1	pouch (1 lb 1.5 oz) Betty Crocker® oatmeal cookie mix
1/2	cup firm butter or margarine
2	packages (8 oz each) cream cheese, softened
1/2	cup sugar
2	tablespoons all-purpose flour
1	teaspoon vanilla
1	egg
1	can (21 oz) apple pie filling
1/2	teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4	cup chopped walnuts

1.	Heat oven to 350°F. Spray bottom and sides of 13x9-inch pan with cooking spray.
	Place cookie mix in large bowl. With pastry blender or fork, cut in butter until mixture is crumbly and coarse. Reserve 1 1/2 cups crumb mixture; press remaining crumbs in bottom of pan. Bake 10 minutes.
2.	Meanwhile, in large bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, flour, vanilla and egg with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth.
3.	Spread cream cheese mixture evenly over partially baked crust. In medium bowl, mix pie filling and cinnamon. Spoon evenly over cream cheese mixture. Sprinkle reserved crumbs over top. Sprinkle with walnuts.
4.	Bake 35 to 40 minutes longer or until light golden brown. Cool about 30 minutes. Refrigerate to chill, about 2 hours. For bars, cut into 6 rows by 4 rows. Store covered in refrigerator.
High Altitude (3500-6500 ft): Bake 40 to 45 minutes.

I'm not putting the nutrition information for obvious reasons. If you REALLY want to know, head on over to Betty Crocker and find out for yourself. But don't say I didn't warn you- things that taste so good are never quite as good for your butt. :P

Pickin' Bapples!

Yes, that's what she calls them. Bapples.

I finally got around to bringing my camera with me so I could get this post done! w00t :)

We went apple picking on Saturday, September 20th. I didn't think to take any good pictures of the Orchard itself, or its awesome store where they sell homemade cider doughnuts (yummmm) and have a haunted house... I didn't even get any pics of her climbing the mountain of pumpkins! I don't know what I was thinking that day... Oh, wait, yes I do! I had given hubby charge of the camera for the day, that's right. And I realized about halfway through our picking that he had not taken ONE photo the whole time. I, of course, went into pic-taking overdrive with the Bendy, while he finished pickin the bapples. Hopefully we'll be going back one more time before the season is over though, so if you're dying to see pictures of Wellwood Orchards, they may be coming.

At first, she didn't really get it. She was a little crabby- I think not too pleased to be wearing her new sneakers, which weigh a lot more than her little Crocs. She's not used to having to pick up weight with her feet, plus the grass in the orchard was really tall and kept tripping her up... so, as per usual when things don't go her way, she threw herself to the ground with high-pitched screeches. I finally decided that we should just take off her shoes, and after that, she was a doll the whole time and really got into the bapple-picking. After a few more minutes, I realized that my high-heeled boots (yeah, yeah I know....) weren't the best for trudging around the orchard, either, so we both ended up sans shoes. This is when the stroller comes in handy (as a pack mule)!

Once she figured out we were putting the apples into our bag, she got really psyched. She kept picking up the drops from the ground and trying to put them in the bag (yuck! lol...) saying "Bapple, bapple, bapple!" over and over :) Don't worry, none of the drops made it into my apple pie... Or the AWESOME apple streusel cheesecake bars I made after. She did manage to get one of them home in the bag, but I caught it before it was consumed.

"I don't know about all this grass... Why don't you just carry me, Dad?"

"Bapple, Mumma, Bapple!"

Wait, wait Dada! (Yes, her pants are undone. She kept stepping on them and they would come unsnapped, so I gave up on them for a little while. )

Oh, I get it now! We get to fill that bag with bapples and bring them home! Yay!

Aw, a present for me. Thank you, my girl :D

Hey, is that where you got my present?!? (I love this shot!)


This is kind of dark because of the sun in the background, but I liked it anyway. It's a good shot of the two of them together... He was showing her how to actually pick an apple instead of just grabbing the yucky ones.

See, you just twist and pull like this...

When we were almost done picking apples and she was getting a little tired of it, we found this bin. She wanted to play in the bin. So Dada went off to finish topping off the bapple bag, and I took some amazing *if I do say so myself, which I do* photos of Bendy playing in the apple bin. One of them was on my last post for Wordless Wednesdays, so I'm not re-posting it here... But here are the other ones that I found worthy of sharing:

This one had to be first. I caught her at JUST the right moment- she popped up to peek-a-boo me, and I snapped this shot.

Oh yeah, I'm cool, I'm playing in the bin... uh-huh... oh yeah...

This is what we call the "Bendy" apple drop. See the apple falling? Uh-oh...


I swear, she thought this bin was the greatest thing since sliced bread... or maybe, in her case, since munchkins.


There's bapples in HERE, too!


Notice the lack of shoes (still).


What do you mean I have to come out of here? I'm not sure how I feel about that...


Please? Just one more minute, Mom? I made friends with these bapples...


Then we were on to the petting zoo at the orchard. This place was pretty sweet for a petting zoo, I have to say. They had all sorts of animals- not just the average farm ones, but others too... They had sheep, cows, bunnies, peacocks, chickens (Illy LOVED the chickens), goats, pigs, deer, some other weird birds, etc... The pigs and deer were in separate areas so you couldn't actually pet them, but all of the others were just running around freely. It costs 50 cents to get in, and was well worth it- she had a blast! I really wish I had taken more pics. She didn't want to leave the chickens, and there was one particular snow-white bunny that she REALLY wanted to pet, but never got to because he kept hopping away whenever she got close! Little rascal must already know to stay away from the toddlers :P

Dada buying some food for Ills to feed the sheep and goats with. She wasn't too keen on it, though. As soon as she felt their tongue, she shook her little hand, like, "Yuck!" and gave Will this really funny look... As if to say "WHAT are you thinking, Dad?!? That thing could eat my fingers!"

Notice her hand is safely at her side here. No more sheep kisses for her.


You know what happens when you chase a white rabbit, don't you?

Happy fall to all! Hope you enjoyed the new pics :D

Wordless Wednesdays #5- The Apple of My Eye :)

If you're bored, go on over to the Wordless Wednesdays Website to check out other people's awesome Wordless' (that's proper grammer for Wordless-es, in case you didn't know :P)

Nedadive.

So.

We decided on Friday that we weren't going to cook dinner. Just too lazy, let's say.

It's about 6:45 p.m., and we're driving to the area of our town with all the restaurants. The girl is in the backseat (in her carseat, duh), starting to get the droopy eyes. She usually goes to bed about 8, and it's starting to get dark early around here now. So she was thinking it was about time to start snoozing. Being verrrryyy quiet back there.

We get to the bottom of the exit ramp, and I ask the hubby where he wants to go.

Then comes the hemming and hawwing and complaining. Whine, whine whine. First it's "I don't want to go there, we may as well have gone to the PIZZA place if we're going to go there." Then it's "Well, I WANTED to go to (x) place, but YOU don't want to so...." and on and on with the complaining, instead of being productive and helping me find a place that we actually CAN eat.

So I tell him if he doesn't have anything positive to say, then shush. I'll find a place on my own.

So when he opens his mouth with another rude, whiny comment after, I say "negative". I'm just kindly reminding him to look on the bright side, right? So here comes another complaint.

"Negative."

--complaint--

"Negative."

--complaint--

And here comes a tiny little tired voice from the backseat-

"Nedadive."

HAHA!
Needless to say, we cracked up. I gave her high-fives and "Allllll right! Stick with your Mumma, girl!" And she says,

"Allllll right!"

What a little copycat.

I <3 her. With my whole heart.