pre-halloween wrap up!

I know I'll still have more to post as we continue festivities in the next week, but I haven't blogged in awhile so I thought I'd update you on what's been keeping us so busy! ;)
After church last Sunday we were supposed to head to the pumpkin patch but instead we got our first rain of the year.  We rescheduled for the next day but didn't want to just sit at home either so we went with some friends to buy "store bought" pumpkins at WinCo and have a carving party!

family pumpkins <3

Eric Northman from True Blood...way harder to carve than I thought!

a glowing Eric Pumpkin!

Unfortunately, a combo of bad pumpkins and weird weather patterns made the pumpkins go bad REALLY fast.  I thought the kids would cry, but they just thought it was funny!

Eric Northman meets the true death....

The next day we did, indeed, go to the pumpkin patch.  It was smaller than the one we have gone to in years past but it's free to get in, which is a huge plus (especially with my budget!), and the kids still had a lot of fun!

Calliope's first pumpkin <3

dads and kids riding the train!

my lil' punkin' baby

Libby & Callie

my 3 girls

picking out mini pumpkins

We had a pretty standard week, and a yard sale on Friday and Saturday, and while rain shut that down about an hour early it stopped just in time to go to the city of Brentwood's trick or treat event! 

The girls were so excited to wear their costumes for the first time!

even mommy got in on the action :)

They were even more excited to get treats!!

 

And Miss Callie-Bug got some treats too :)

Next weekend we are hosting a Halloween party on the 30th, our UU church is having a harvest festival during the morning Sunday service, and I'm sure we'll think of something good to do that evening!  Can you tell that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays??? :)

warm cooking for a cold day.

Ok, Ok.....it's not really a cold day.  But at least it's finally in the 70s!  And the weatherman (er, um, Weather.com) says it's going to rain tomorrow morning!  This is cause for celebration!  Or at least some yummy fall food...right?
This morning I made pumpkin-raisin muffins, by far one of my FAVORITE fall treats.  I used a recipe from Joy of Cooking, it seems almost anything I bake from that book turns out amazingly good.  I included the recipe at the end!
 

After that, we went to the Farmer's Market in Concord.  This is sort of a weekly ritual for us, we usually meet friends for a playdate there.  Today though, it was just my friend Shawna and I (plus the kiddos).  We got some veggies and fruits and then let the kids play for a bit.  I got some awesome organic multi-colored beets and some sweet potatoes, I think I'm going to have roasted root veggies and quinoa tomorrow for lunch (when my picky husband is at work so he can't turn his nose up at the beets!)  I also got leeks for potato leek soup and a few pounds of "damaged" (read: slightly bruised or deformed but still edible and VERY cheap!) pears.  The apples were screaming my name but I refrained because we're planning on going apple picking this weekend....look forward to lots of apple baking recipes next week  ;)

beets and a honey stick!

I finished the day off with some veggie stew, buttermilk bread from my bread machine, and watching GLEE in my warm jammies.  <3