Happy Halloween!

Love, Ella-roo

Pumpkin patch, pumpkin PJs, and pumpkin carving...

...all in that order.

After trying to get there for about the entire month of October, we finally made it out to the pumpkin patch today!



Ella wasn't entirely sure about all these orange things that seemed to be surrounding her...



...but they turned out to be harmless.



We bought a nice carving pumpkin, and when we got it home, Lukin decided it looked like a nice snack. Yes, he ate the pumpkin. Part of it anyway. Yeaaaah...he's not too bright. This is how he left it:



I was able to carve on the other side, so at least it was salvageable. For the carving party, Ella wore her most appropriate PJs:



And here's the finished pumpkin!



Creepy, no? :)

Lake Brandt

Mom had mentioned to me earlier this week how pretty the leaves were out at Lake Brandt. We stopped by today on the way over to Mom and Dad's house, and even though it was overcast, I got a few good shots. I'm really surprised at how much color there is on the trees this year -- for some reason, I didn't think there would be much.

Ella's 15-month stats

-Weight: 22 lb 13.5 oz (50th percentile)
-Height: 30" (25th percentile)
-Head size: 19.5" (97th+ percentile...off the charts)

She held steady in all her percentiles over the past 3 months, so her growth is consistent.

Nothing really significant to report from the doctor's visit, which is a good thing!

Walking!

Don't mind the shaky camera work...this is the best video I've been able to get of her walking, so far.

Ella knows her animals

Well, a few of them anyway :)

Steppin' out!

Ella has (finally!) started to walk a little bit...woohoo! This has all come about within the last couple-three days. Nothing major, but she'll take five or six steps in a row before she plunks down on her butt. So that's definite progress.

No video yet, but I'll try to get one tomorrow.

Costume success!

We finally got Ella's Halloween costume today! I'd been looking for awhile, and maybe it's just the age/size she's at, but I was wholly uninspired by the bulk of what was out there. There were a couple that Jon and I both were "Eh, that's pretty cute" on, but not really crazy about. And you know my non-crafty self isn't going to make one. Please.

Anyway, we found one today that we both really liked, and (bonus!) I was able to get it for 65% off...woohoo!

I haven't tried it on her yet, but I feel like it's going to be really cute.

No telling what it is until the day, though...you'll have to wait!

15 months!

-She gives high-fives all the time now, which is awesome.
-We're getting a few words! Book ("booo"), milk ("ma"), okay ("uhka"), Cosmo (also "ma", but she does the sign for dog along with it instead of the sign for milk), as well as some animal sounds: cow ("ooooo"), sheep ("baa! baa!"), and dog ("wowowow").
-She knows the name of lots of her toys. If I ask her to find a certain one, she'll usually go right to it and bring it over to me.
-She'll give her toys a hug, if you ask her to...she squeezes the toy to her chest with both arms and rocks side to side. PRECIOUS.
-She wants to be into EVERYTHING now. If Jon or I are doing or reading or looking at something, she wants to be doing or reading or looking at it too. She gets her nosiness naturally, I guess :)
-Still not walking. *sigh* I guess her tiny feet and her big ol' noggin are making it harder for her to find her center of gravity. She'll stand by herself, and take a few steps every now and then (more lunging than balanced walking), but she still turns into spaghetti legs if Jon or I tries to help her walk.

Apple Dumplins, gang!

Using the apples I bought at the farmers market, I took my first stab at making apple dumplings earlier this week.


I started out with 4 Golden Delicious apples (mine were a little on the small site for what the recipe called for), dark brown sugar, heavy cream, cinnamon, 4 large biscuits brought to room temperature, and an egg (which I forget to stick in the picture).


I mixed 1/2 cup (packed) dark brown sugar and 1 1/4 teaspoons ground cinnamon together.


To that mixture, I added 1 cup (less 3 tablespoons) of the heavy cream....


...then, I whipped. And whipped. AND whipped. Until I had this lovely cinnamon-sugar whipped cream. That went into the fridge for safe-keeping.


I cored out the apples using a melon baller, and microwaved them for 10 minutes at 50% power. Into the fridge to cool for 5 minutes after the nuking.


I rolled out the biscuits to (approx) 8" rounds. I used the buttermilk variety of biscuit, which seems to work fine, but the recipe calls for flaky, just in case you're a stickler.


Each apple got placed in the middle of the rolled-out biscuit, and filled in the middle with the cinnamon-sugar mixture.


The biscuit was folded up around the apple and twisted at the top...it was supposed to resemble an apple stem, I think, but mine didn't. Oh yeah, I used the egg to do a simple egg wash both on the inside and outside of the biscuit.


Into the oven for 18 minutes at 400°F...and delicious!


Serve with the cinammon-sugar whipped cream. Yum :)

As a side note, the recipe also called for raisins, but I left those out because, well, I don't like them. Jon said he thought it would have been better with them. He gave it a 7 out of 10.

Farmer's Market

It was a gorgeous fall day today (if a little warm), so we headed out to the Piedmont Triad Farmers Market. We didn't really have anything that we were going after, aside from some apples for me so I can try a new apple dumpling recipe.

I'd never seen so many different varieties of eggplant!

It's scuppernong and muscadine season!

They had what I thought was an adorable pumpkin house...

...but it turned out to be a Ghoul School -- even cuter!