Grape picking, Grape pie....

Apple pie and Chicken Pot pie...all in one day, plus a walk in the woods and playing with friends. Days like today make me so thankful that I am able to stay home with my babies five days of the week.

The morning started out just plain and simple with nothing planned for the day. It wasn't until about 10:30 when we went for our morning walk/jog. We down the hill and saw the bulldozer and horses and on our way back up the hill I decided to go off-roading into the woods. I've always wanted to follow a trail that went into the woods but just never did. Well today we did and had a nice nature walk. I actually went in there with the purpose of finding two branches to use as curtain rods for Callen's room, picture to follow someday.

Chase got out of the stroller and helped me find a stick and he needed a stick too for his room even though he doesn't have any curtains. :) After our nature walk, we headed back home. As we walked up the driveway I remembered that we had some yummy Concord grapes that needed picking.

We've been here for four years and I never knew we had grapes. Brad found them while mowing and they're not even hidden, we just never noticed. I just love free, fresh organic fruits and vegetables.

The grapes were all over, as well as were the bees. They smelled so sweet and apparently the bees thought so too. I was just extra careful in picking the clusters as to not grab a bee too. We picked so many, enough for two pies, and there are still more to be picked. Callen chillin' while Chase and I picked grapes.

The loot.
So what do you do with all these grapes? We certainly wouldn't eat all of them so I decided to make a grape pie and that's what we did. It was going to be the first time and I had no idea how to go about it. I went to my all time fave recipe site, allrecipes.com, and searched grape pie and found this amazing, easy recipe. Chase helped me too. I told him we were going to make pies and of course all the questions pursued...what's in a pie? I told him we needed to make crust. What's in crust? Flour, shortening, egg..etc. He then says, I need to go get "flour" for the crust as he wanders over to the fence to pick a flower for our crust. LOL. He's so cute.

Squeezing the pulp from skins, a step I had no idea you had to do. Very interesting. After boiling the pulp and milling it back into the skins to keep the seeds out and then mixing in the flour and sugar. Voila! A grape pie. I cut my piece a little early and it ran but it was oh so yummy. The chicken pot pie.
Oh, and then I also made an apple pie. I am so excited that ALL three came out delicious, the crust and the fillings. I had planned on making 10 crusts so I could freeze them but I ran out of shortening and eggs.

Candy Corn Tree

Isn't this so adorable? And it's yummy to eat. I know candy corn is so awfully bad for you but you can't have Fall without candy corn. It's much cuter in person.

Pumpkin painting, goat petting, and so much more...

Today was probably the last real warm, beautiful day of Fall before the frigid winter starts to roll its ugly head in. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy winter but for just about a month or so is nice but instead we get five months of winter. Blah. But I digress, I am thinking in the present and the gorgeous day we enjoyed today.

I checked the weather and saw it was going to be beautiful so I planned a Mommy & Me playdate with some other mommy friends. We went to the Apple Shed to paint mini-pumpkins (gourds), feed the goats, play on the slide and of course, the corn pool. So there was a total of four mommies and nine kids all under four. And three of them are babies all born in May, one to two weeks apart.

It was a lovely 67 degrees out but it was quite breezy since a cold front is coming in tomorrow morning. We moved the picnic table to the sun and painted away. I am not posting all the pics of everyone since I don't have permission to blast her kids pictures all over the net. But here are just a few of our pumpkin painting pictures. And since my camera is maxed with pictures, these were on my phone, such a shame but at least the moment was caught on camera.
After the Apple Shed, we heading home for naps. Thankfully both of them went down easily and right around the same time too. Oh thank you. As I was putting Chase down for his nap, he asked me what we did today and then he asked "Where are we going when I wake up?" I answered with I don't know, I don't think we are going anywhere. "But I want to go sumpwhere." We'll see buddy, go night, night.

After he woke up, I really wanted to do something outside since it was so beautiful but didn't know what. Chase happily played with his Thomas the Trains, his new kick, and I started dinner, home-made pizza. While in process, Brad called to see if we had plans for the night, which I still couldn't think of anything but then it hit me, why don't we go to the Town Park. But we had to go before dinner since the sun will set oh so quickly. So I told Chase to go get his shoes. "Where we going?" It's a surprise. "What's a surprise." I can't tell it's a secret, just go get your shoes so we can be ready when daddy gets home.

We jumped right in the car and headed to the Town Park. "Where's the surprise?" And I told him. "That's far away." Not too far away, we're almost there.

When we pulled into the park, I said "Look Chase, look where we are, we are at the park!" "Uh, I don't want to go to the park, I want to go to surprise." LOL. "This is the surprise honey." "No it's not, it's the park, I don't wanna go to the park." Well, the park is the surprise so let's go have some fun. So the "surprise" was soon forgotten as soon as we started playing.



After about an hour of playing, we told Chase it was time to go since we hadn't eaten dinner yet. Of course the 'one more time' pleas pursued so we let him go down the slides a few more times and off we went, almost. As we put him in the car and buckled him in his seat he said, "I am ready to go to the surprise now." Apparently not so soon forgotten....

So where have I been?

My, oh my, time sure does go by quickly and so much more so when you start adding children to your family. I have been blogging in the back but behind on the pictures. My card is full and I need to make room on the computer or put them on the external drive, but I like them in three places before I delete from the camera card. So I have been missing the opportunity for good pictures since both camera cards are full. :( So I've resorted to my phone, yuck.

Anyway, I guess it just means I've been picture lazy. Sometimes it just feels like I am always behind, behind on laundry, dishes, cooking, baking, house projects, etc. Juggling being a mommy, a two year old, newborn, being a wife, selling lia sophia and on, has come to be a lot. I have to learn to manage my time better, I thought I did, but then as I look around sometimes and see some untidiness, I realize maybe I don't. I asked Brad how come when I worked full-time it seemed easier to keep the house clean, and his reply which made sense...um, you weren't here to make it dirty. :)

So I am going to start spreading my nights out to more than just lia sophia stuff and back to my blogging, well more often anyway. But here is one from August, yes all the way back in August, it was one of many of our fun summer activities.

A Few "Chase"isms

We were just sitting there and Chase says...

"Callen was in your belly." "Yes he was," I replied. "Then he came out." Yes, he did. "I was in daddy's belly." Oh you were? "Yes and then I came out." Oh you did, huh? "yeah"

....he is so, so a daddy's boy and apparently he thinks he came out of daddy's belly too.

My mom says to Chase when he is being a pistol, "I'm going to send you to the moon, pow to the moon with you." This is just something that she says and he laughs. Well the other day he goes to Brad, "I'm going to send you to the moon." Oh no. Brad looks at me, did you teach him that? No, Nonnie. Noooonnniiiieee! How could you not laugh.

To the parade we go...

Instead of going to the races tonight to watch daddy, I took the boys to the parade with Katie and the kids. I absolutely, positively love going to the races to watch daddy race but it's a lot for me with a two year old and 3 month old. Usually family is there to hold Chase while Callen is in the wrap but if Callen wakes up, then I have to tend to him and can't watch Chase as closely. Plus it is a long night, not getting home until 10 or later. So I made the decision to go to the parade but my heart wanted to go to the race as did Chase's, at first. I've never missed a race when I could go but made the decision not to, but I guess when you have kids, things change.

When I told Chase we were going to go to the parade instead of racing, he says to daddy, "I don't want to do that, I want to watch daddy race." He loves his daddy and racing. But he really didn't know what a parade consisted of and we told him firetrucks were going to be there and he got excited.

So to the parade we went...

He thoroughly enjoyed it, singing, waving, marching, dancing, you name it. He was so excited and loved the firetrucks and marching bands.

A day with my two boys...

Thursday the boys and I had a little day out together. There was a garage sale in town so I thought I'd park in town and walk to the garage sale and then walk around town. So that's what we did. We stopped at the garage sale where we found some match box cars, yeah I've been wanting to get Chase some to play with outside and then we also found some fun books. We stuffed our stroller with our finds and then headed to the town park.They were getting ready for the Tractor Show this weekend but we were the only ones at the park. It was so nice and peaceful. While I was feeding Callen, Chase explored the playground. After awhile he called to me to play, so I changed Callen, laid out a blanket on the grass for him to lay on. Then off we went to play on the teeter totter, swings, slides...you name it, we went on it. But after awhile we went and got Callen and we all got on the swings. Well, Chase played with them and Callen and I swung. The picture doesn't show it but he really enjoyed the swing.

See he was so relaxed and fell asleep.


After awhile I looked over to the baseball field and thought it would be fun to run the bases with Chase. So we did just that. I showed Chase how to run the bases. He loved it! He loved it so much that he wanted to do it again and again. Finally I told him it was time to go, well kind of. We were going to walk around the park and into the cemetary. I love to walk in cemetarys. It's kind of peaceful in a weird kind of way. I love reading the old, old gravestones and trying to think what happened and what it was like back in those days. Each gravestone has a story behind it, as sad as it might be.

Have you ever tried to explain to a two year old what a cemetary is? All through the cemetary."What's that?" Gravestone. "What's a gravestone?" "What's a cemetary?" "What do they do here?" Let's just say I really didn't answer but tried to change the subject. "Look at that beautiful flower."

But then we walked by a gravestone with lots of flowers, stuffed animals and such. "I want that. I want the doggie." No honey you can't have those. Interesting walk to say the least.

After our stroll through the park and cemetary, we headed back to town to get ice cream but when we got there, they didn't open until 3pm, phooey. And we couldn't go to Mark's because it's just too cumbersome to maneuver a stroller up a step and through a door, so we just went home.

But we had fun nonetheless and both the boys were pooped. Days like these are why I am so appreciative that I can stay home with my boys. These are my memories and now theirs. They won't remember this day but I will and now they will through my eyes.

A Famiy Evening Out

Last Friday Brad's race was rained out, well it ended up being beautiful of course but since it was rained out, we had a family night with the D's and Poppy Lee. We started the night with dinner at Orbaker's, oh so yummy. Then we headed down to Sodus Point for ice cream and a walk to the pier.
Gracie pushed the stroller the entire way, well not by herself of course.

Just to prove that I was there too, I am always behind the camera so I have to show myself too.

A morning at Canandaigua Lake

Last Friday night the boys and I were going to go with mom and dad to Canandaigua Lake for a nice evening stroll but long story short, they didn't have a car seat for Callen and I didn't want to unhook mine it was already getting late. So we went home.

But I now had the longing to go to the lake so I decided to take the boys myself on Saturday. We had breakfast and I packed some snacks, fruit and crackers and we headed out around 9:00. It was a perfect morning, just a little breeze and not to hot yet. Since daddy was in NC with my car, we drove the truck which was perfect since my double jogging stroller doesn't fit in my car.

We ran to the pier where we made a pit stop to have some snacks, all three of us. We just sat on the bench and watched the boats, kayaks and ducks. It was so beautiful, I felt like I was in a different state on vacation. I hadn't been to the dock/pier area on Canandaigua Lake in many years and it was so gorgeous.

After our snack we headed back to the car but not before we stopped to play on the playground, chase the seagulls, see a mommy duck and her ducklings and finally throw rocks into the lake.

"Come back birdie. Come here."


I stopped to take this picture as it looked like it belonged in a movie or from a book. So serene, a lady with a big sun hat reading her book on a bench, a guy running with his dog on a beautiful sunny day enjoying the soft lake breeze.
And since I promised ice cream, we stopped at McD's to get ice cream and then to Tim Horton's so I could spoil myself with an iced coffee. Yes, I know, a nice morning run and I put all the calories back on with an iced coffee. But hey what is a "vacation" if you can't spoil yourself.


At this point it was around 11:30 already and I knew Chase was sleeping. Well, I was right. I turned around and this was what I saw. I clearly pooped him out. I had to pull over so I could get his ice cream cone and yes I finished it. But I never got myself an ice cream just a coffee and parfait which the parfait I never did eat.

Well since we had the rest of the day to spend together, we headed on over to Nonnie and Papa's house. My sister was there with her kids and Chase just adores Makayla. They all got their swimmies on and jumped in the pool. We stayed just a few hours as we had a birthday party to go to. Gracie Ann was turning TWO!

After a quick shower we were off again and this was all on a 30 minute nap for Chase. We played on Gracie's new specially built playground. Her daddy built it just for her for her birthday. It is quite the playground.

But no pictures of the party from my end. I was pooped and didn't want to maneuver a camera anymore. Such a party pooper, I know.