Fall

I love Fall! The weather here has been just beautiful, even though I, of course, could use some more rain! Booboo and I have been spending a lot of time outdoors, trying to get as much vitamin D as possible before winter sets in, and just enjoying the glorious changing colors. Here are some pics of Walter frolicking (as much as a nearly 6 month old baby can!) in the autumn leaves. If you look closely, you may notice a newly acquired skill...(drumroll please)....sitting up! He hasn't totally mastered the skill; you have stay really close to prevent head-first wipeouts.

He's making this adorable face because he's watching the leaves fall from the trees!

Other things I adore about fall: sweaters, putting cute hats on Walter when we go for early morning walks, pumpkin, squash, soup, cinnamon, nutmeg, everything warm and comforting, apple cider, not having to shave my legs as often (i'm being honest!) and scarves. I've been trying to work on my cooking skills lately, especially trying to come up with healthy recipes that I can eat right now since I'm on restriction (I haven't had sugar, white flour, and dairy in over a month, among other things). I thought I'd share a really good recipe I tweaked/invented in honor of this post on Fall--Pumpkin Cookies! They are actually really healthy, so could even be called Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies. The truth is I started out trying to come up with a muffin recipe and then decided that they were the perfect texture for cookies instead. If you wanted to make them more dessert-ish you could throw in chocolate chips, and if you wanted to make them even MORE healthy (which I might attempt in the future) you could substitute apple sauce for some of the oil and honey and throw in even more goodies like cranberries and flax seed, etc. Here is my recipe (so far) for Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies (they are very moist and spicy and just sweet enough) and Happy Fall!!

Pumpkin Breakfast Cookies

1 1/2 cup whole wheat flour

3/4 cup honey

1/8 cup molasses (I just eyeballed this, half of 1/4 cup)

2 eggs

1/2 cup coconut oil (if you are anti-coconut oil you could use canola or somesuch)

3/4 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp nutmeg

1 cup pumkin puree

3/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 cup raisins

1/2 cup slivered almonds (or walnuts or whatever!)

18 minutes at 325 degrees. but keep your eye on it, cuz you might like them cooked to a different finish than I do!

Picture Tag

My SIL Julie tagged me, and my friend Jen requested that I post MORE!!! so here I go...

(In my defense, I often think of posts but then decide that everyone will think it is dumb. Does anyone else feel that trepidation sometimes?)

THE RULES: You have to post the 4th picture in the 4th folder in your pictures folder. Then give a brief description before you tag a few others. So here it goes!

You KNOW I am being honest here as this is a terrible picture of me (Jon and I were just goofing off and I was not thinking I would share it with the public someday!!). We took this picture in the beginning of my pregnancy, I believe on the day we first told his family that we were expecting!(I look pretty happy though, don't I?) I decided to stick a pillow under my shirt to see what I would look like when I was more pregnant. Now I can only wish that I still fit into that shirt!!

Sigh.

Ok, I would like to tag Jen, Janae, Rosalyn, Emily, Ashley and Miss Kim. Ooh! and Adrienne and Heidi, if you guys are reading this, you're tagged too!

The Most Wonderful Weekend

1. Beautiful gray, raining-all-day weather.
2. Finally getting to put cute chilly weather clothes on Booboo.
3. Making up a huge batch of this amazing stuff called Texas Caviar and eating it all weekend. Seriously, it's so good!!
4. Hanging out with mom-in-law and sisters-in-law while the men folk are away.
5. Watching a really fun movie called "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day".
6. Lounging around the house in comfy clothes all day Sunday. It's so wonderful to spend an entire lazy day at home now and then, isn't it?
7. General Conference. The most wonderful thing in my wonderful weekend.
8. Especially this great talk about living simply that was filled with Henry David Thoreau quotes and based on his time at Walden Pond. I love that book (I read it a couple of years ago for my Environmental Lit class) and I love the whole idea of Simple Living, and I just felt it was so relevant right now with such major looming economic crises. I'm inspired and determined to make better financial decisions and prepare for the future and pare down our life from the tedious, superficial, superflous, media-mandated desires of the world to the really important, joyful, spiritual, tangible, deeply meaningful desires of our hearts. (sorry, I'm rambling off-topic and should probably make this the subject of a future post instead!)
9. The best thing about any weekend: spending two whole days with my husband.