A Saturday in October

We had a fun day today since it seems Autumn isn't quite over yet. The sun came back and the temps were in the low 50s, so pleasant enough to have family pictures taken outside. A guy who works in the photo studio opens his home for a Family Photo Day and books 30-minute photo sessions. One of his stylist buddies from set production comes over and prepares the scenes. It's really quite fun and a hell of a deal. You get your 30-minute session, about 75 shots are taken and saved on a disk which the family gets to take with them. While Kyle and I had good expressions today, we just couldn't get Max to crack a smile and Catherine either had her hair in her face or slouched down. Oh well. Below you'll see one of the keepers. The kids got to wear their Star Wars t-shirts, so we also brought the light sabers. Catherine had a blast during those pictures. And Max? Well, he just stood there with a blank look on his face.

While waiting for this disc to load, I chatted it up with Jerry the photographer and his wife. While discussing the fantastic weather of the day, I became inspired to hit the apple orchard. We had a good time, albeit somewhat on the spendy side. We brought home a nice variety of apples and a couple of pumpkins. When we were down one row of trees, Kyle bit into an apple. After seeing Kyle do that, Max wanted a bite. So Kyle gave him his own apple to eat. I am fairly certain it was the first one he had eaten off the core. He dripped of apple juice, but his "mmmmm"ing really made for an audible treat.

After a somewhat dramatic dinner where Max refused to eat anything, Max and I got dropped off at home while Kyle took Catherine for an ice cream treat. I started to peel apples for Apple Crunch and put the peelings on some old newspaper. Max snuck up and tried to take some of my sliced apples and I saidn "no, but if you want these peels, you can have those." I didn't honestly think he would take. But he did and he ate up each and every peeling I cut off three apples.

Kyle and I settled in to watch some post season baseball after the kids went to bed and we had our first bites of the fresh-out-of-the-oven apple crunch. It was so fantastically good. It's hard not to have more!

(It may not look like much, but really...it tastes fantastic!)

Here's the recipe:

3 medium or 2 large apples, peeled and sliced (I use Granny Smith or Haralson)
3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c flour
1/2 c quick cooking oatmeal
1/2 c butter

Arrange apples in 8" greased square baking pan. Combine oatmeal, sugar and flour. Cut in butter. Sprinkle over apples. Bake at 350* F for 35 to 40 minutes. Serve warm with milk cream or whipped cream. Serves 4-6.

Turtles, turtle and tortoise

We live near a small lake; I am guessing there is some geological reason for it being a lake, but I would consider it more of a pond. Living near this lake for five years, we get to enjoy seeing a lot of ducks and geese and figured a turtle or two might be around. We had our first turtle sighting a few weeks back on a sunny day. They were Painter turtles, I think. They crawl up the bank, away from the lake, creep across the road and sun themselves in the neighbors' yards. We saw about five of them coming and going on the first day.

Every day, the kids beg us to drive by the lake to see if there are any more turtles. If there are, we put the car in park, open the doors so the kids can see...admire the cute critters for a bit and move along.

Two weekends ago, we were slowly driving looking for crossing turtles and came across a big'un--a Snapping turtle. It didn't take us long to figure out mama turtle was up laying eggs. Later in the day, upon our return, we saw yet another female up from the shore laying eggs. She was there all day long. After doing a little research, we have learned that the eggs will hatch in 75 to 150 days from now. It seems like forever from now.

This past Saturday, we encountered yet another turtle. He seemed to be stuck and not able to get up the curb. So Kyle and the kids got out and had a "look-see." There was some seaweed and possibly a leech on its shell. Kyle picked the turtle up and just as he was about to set it down on the mud, the turtle peed--a lot--just missing Kyle's shoe! The kids sure got a giggle out of that.

We also got to the Minnesota Zoo and saw several varieties of turtles and tortoises. Below you see the kids on the bronze tortoise. I am beginning to think every zoo has one of these. Does yours?

No winner-winner chicken dinner

We eat out embarrassingly too often and it's ridiculous the time and money wasted on mediocre chain restaurant food. So I'm trying to us get back on the homemade dinner practice.

Clearly, as a working family with two young kids, there are two important things at stake:

1. It's got to be picky-eater proof
2. It has to be quick as we get home at 6pm

Tonight I turned to a recipe on the back of the Lipton Savory Garlic and Herb Soup Mix box:

Parmesan Crusted Chicken
1 packet Savory Herb and Garlic Soup mix packet
1/3 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 Tbsp bread crumbs
6 boneless, skinless chicken breasts

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees. Combine soup packet, mayo, cheese in a bowl.
Brush mixture on both sides of chicken, then coat with bread crumbs. Bake for 20 minutes or until the chicken is no longer pink.

It fit my criteria perfectly. Kids love chicken, the prep and cook time is around 30 minutes. So I prepped it up, got it in the baking dish and then noticed I forgot the soup packet. I figured, what harm could it be to just pour it over the top? Bad idea. It never reduced in intensity, nor did it mingle with the juicy chicken, so that is all one could taste. Fortunately, it was easy enough to scrape off and eat the chicken without some of the breading and it ended up tasting pretty good. I'm looking forward to preparing the recipe correctly sometime and see if it's the perfect mix of parmesan and savory herb and garlic bliss.

Oh, and we also had some noodles and peas to round out the meal. Not exciting, I know, but it got the job done.
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Now I know I can go online to plenty of culinary sites and source top-rated recipes. But I thought it would be better to put it out to you and see what kind of recipes you have to share. Drop a line and let me know what you've got. I'm sure everyone would appreciate a new recipe or two.

When your child is sick

We are blessed to have our kids taken care of by grandparents while at work. It presents so many perks versus the mainstream childcare experience:

• The kids can be dropped off early, picked up late.
• We don't have to pay for days we don't need childcare.
• They will take our children even when the children are sick.
• And they even take our children if they themselves are sick.

We're downright spoiled.

So, as a working mom who has family members watching the children, there comes an interesting dilemma: What is the right thing to do when one or both of our children are sick? Does one stay home or do we go to work?

I struggle with this every time my children are ill, especially if they have a fever. The grandparents insist they are fine to have the sick one over. But then I think about all the things that need to be done at work, the meetings I must attend, or in this present situation, I just came back from vacation and I can't be out of the office again so soon. The guilt starts to brew: I should be the one cuddling and whispering reassurances to my child.

Max has a fever right now. He's barfed at least once a day since Monday night. All he wants to do is cuddle. And here I am. In between meetings. Wondering. Worrying about my little guy.