Halloween night

I have the most beautiful Earth Fairy Princess of a daughter in the world.



Too bad she didn't like wearing her costume.

I would've loved to have taken her trick-or-treating this year, but she's just not ready. I look forward to the day she might be, though. I peered out our upstairs windows with interest as I watched little kids in costumes dash up and down the street, going from house to house, as the gusty wind blew red and yellow leaves all around. It was a perfect Halloween night for the trick-or-treaters. I thought, their parents are so lucky to watch them trick-or-treating with such a sense of purpose on this beautiful night!

We didn't give candy this year. Our neighborhood gets pretty hammered on Halloween by kids coming in from different neighborhoods. Last year, there were 250+ kids and by the end of the night, I was exhausted. Not to mention, some of them were teenagers (rolling eyes). Others that I found annoying were young mothers trick-or-treating on behalf of their infants ... I should've given them baby food. And then there was litter in the yard the next day.

Many of our neighbors keep the porch lights off, too, to try to ward off the assault. But I do like Halloween and I hope to start giving candy again next year.

And then I have this cute little bumblebee . . .



All he wanted to do was eat a maple leaf. But there's nothing cuter than babies in Halloween costumes.

GFCF
I went to our autism support group meeting last month, and I met a lady who was very disparaging about the gluten-free, casein-free diet. She asked me if Stella was on it, and when I said yes, she told me that she was sad for kids on the diet because they didn't get any of the "good stuff." She was very negative.

So I just had to show the world how Stella is not deprived of anything good. This is a double chocolate brownie with frosting and sprinkles. I make batches of GFCF goodies and freeze them so that Stella can take something yummy to school on special occasions like parties. Sometimes I send them when she is showing too much interest in the non-GFCF foods that her fellow students are eating. Either way, I don't think she's too deprived.



You'd never know this brownie was gluten- and dairy-free either.

If only life were like pie . . .

. . . and you could control all the variables with precision, get the best recipe for the best outcome and poof! You'd have the perfect life.

I've been making a lot of pies lately and I think it's coming from a place inside me that wants all my work to equal sweet success.

But instead it just means good pie.

So I was worried about my cherry pie being runny. Unlike apple and pecan, you have to cook the ingredients a bit ... and when I poured the filling into the crust, I had a liquidy cherry soup. I thought it would be one of those pies that's so runny that the empty spaces are quickly flooded with pie juice.

But no. I used the recipe below and it was just right. And now it's almost gone!

Thank you, Grandma!

On Mom's last night in town, we took a few more pictures of her with her adoring grandkiddos. She is already missed so much by them. They wonder where that constant love and affection went! Mom and Dad don't have time to dote on them all the time like Grandma Susan!

The fall colors were wonderful while Mom was here. She and Stella played a lot outside with a backdrop of beautiful leaves:



She and Albert climbed up into the playset and looked around:



Thank you so much Mom! Thank you for the kids' shoes and my salon visit and pedicure. Thanks for giving us a break and being so great with the kids. I'm glad you are home safe!

True Boy
AJ gave me the scare of my life yesterday.

I took him to daycare after I dropped Mom off at the train station.

When we got in the van, I was sure he had a pacifier in his mouth, but when we arrived at daycare, he didn't have it anymore.

So I unstrapped him and lifted him up to look underneath him. It wasn't there. I set him back down in his car seat (unbuckled) and peered around the floor to see if he'd dropped it. Big mistake.

I saw something in the corner of my eye, and it happened to be Albert trying to fly out of his car seat. He hit the pavement.

I should've known he could do that, but I'd never seen him try anything like that. I should know not to underestimate this mighty boy:



Would you believe there wasn't a scratch on him? Luckily his hood was on, like in the picture, and that protected his skin. And later that day, you couldn't even tell such a tragedy had happened. Of course, I don't think I stopped shaking for hours.

I have a feeling that there's no underestimating him. He'll probably get hurt more than this once because I could've never imagined he'd be capable of (or willing to do) such things.



Cherry Pie
Does anyone have an authentic Michigan Cherry Pie recipe? I saw a recipe once on the back of a Michigan postcard, which used cherry juice concentrate. John says a cherry pie is my next adventure in pie-making. I'm up for it. Do you have to put food coloring in a cherry pie? I'm not a fan of Red #40. I found this recipe; does it look like a good one? (Scroll down a little for Mom's Cherry Pie).

A Fun Week with Grandma

Saturday morning, Stella and AJ woke up to find their Grandma from Kansas in the house. They were so excited!



We've had a very busy week so far. Grandma has come with us to swimming lessons, to Ann Arbor for a doctor's appointment, and she has spent a lot of time babysitting as I've made my way to several overdue appointments, such as a hair appointment that was almost 6 months overdue. My hair now looks significantly better than the picture above!

Stella has really enjoyed having her here. They've played outside on the playset and chased each other around the backyard. The weather has beautiful for the first few days of her visit and the fall color has been so nice. I've gotten lots of help with laundry (my least favorite household chore) and dishes (my next least favorite). I made one of her favorites, pecan pie, before she arrived, and we also made an apple pie together. Both were pretty good!

Unfortunately, she heads back on the Amtrak tomorrow and I'm already despondent. But it's been so nice having her here. Her best girl Stella will miss her!

Thirty-five

It's no secret to anyone that I have not been particularly excited about turning 35. I've never had a problem with a birthday before, not even turning 30 which is a big deal to some people. For some crazy reason, 35 sounds so much more mature than 34. A few days ago I was reading the newspaper and it listed someone's age as 35, and I subconsciously thought "crusty!" until I raised my head and remembered that in a few days, 35 would be me.

Today it is.

And I suppose that there are other reasons that are making me feel a bit crusty. I'm caught up in the whirlwind of caring for Stella's needs and overseeing her therapy, which is a lot to handle. And having a baby this year, whom I now chase around the house endlessly, is enough to make me feel weary. Though I know once I get out of this 35-funk that my young children will breathe new life into me and keep me young.

I've been blessed to have an interesting life so far, and even though I've faced hard times, I've always had people in my corner. I know this will continue as I get older. In my twenties, I spent a lot of time feeling sorry for myself, but now that I have two cute kiddos, I have experienced a love that is greater than myself, and that has made me happy.

I scanned in some pictures as a tribute to 35 years of Karmel ...


Like Stella in pigtails, only not as cute



My friend Sheila and I at my Grandma's house. I think we are 14 here. Sheila, who lives in Texas now, recently called me after many years, and we've had fun emailing and chatting on the phone. She has three kids of her own, who are in middle school and grade school, she she is well past the diaper-changing stage of life that I find myself in.



My grandma gave me a car just before I turned 16. The car was named Herbie because it talked. Whenever my friends got in, the car would say "A door is ajar." And then I always had to hear ... "a door is a door, a jar is a jar..." (Hardy-har) . Here I am on the day I picked it up.


I never was any good at getting my hair to do "the claw" thing that everyone was doing. It always collapsed. I should've given this style up well before my high school graduation.



My best friend Shannon Heide in our deluxe apartment in the "student ghetto" during our KU years. Would you believe we survived summers in this place, on the second floor of this old house, with no air conditioning. And we didn't complain all that much!


Here I am on my 21st birthday party that Shannon threw for me. I had one too many jello shots. Yes, that's someone's foot on my back!



A few days before I gave birth to Stella.


And here's me with my precious girl at Glen Haven Beach!


And here I am with my adorable boy in our backyard!

I have a busy day today. Hopefully John and I will make it out to dinner tonight. The kids haven't been sleeping well, but I am holding my own because Friday my mom comes on the Amtrak! I'm so excited to put her in charge of those rugrats!

Have a great day everyone. It's a beautiful day here, and it's usually dreary on my birthday. I think it's a good omen!

Crazy weekend

So far this weekend, all we've done is keep our heads above water, both literally and figuratively.

For Stella, Saturday mornings is about learning to swim, at her special swimming class in Kalamazoo. I really love taking her to this class because she has such a good time. When she got up Saturday, I told her it was her day to go swimming, and she camped next to our side door, anxious to go.



She's only one of two children in the class ... it's specificially designed for kids with special needs. But it was not expensive (as you might think), and the teacher is awesome.



It's held at this gorgeous therapy pool, which is part of a nearby hospital. We're considering doing the class another six weeks after this one is done.

But considering that this is Stella's 3rd "appointment" of the week, along with speech therapy and occupational therapy, I feel pretty swamped. It's good to keep her busy, but I don't know if I want to be this busy! (I'm also committing 2 days a week to my job, as well).

Add to that the potty training ... I have to watch her constantly. I can't let her be alone and miss an opportunity to let her go potty.

And I have to watch this little guy all the time too.



He can get all over the house now. He can find anything anywhere. He's getting so much more mobile and so strong, but he still loses his balance a lot of falls over 10 times a day ... his poor noggin!

John calls him "our little buck." He's so physical.

The other day, he printed out 11 pages from the printer .. somehow.



Not to complain about these things, though. It's good that Stella is using the potty and that AJ is into exploring the world around him. It's joyful to watch them both learn and grow, but last night was one of the first night's [in my life] that I fell asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow.

I look forward to taking a vacation someday!

A Favorite Place

Today started off as a great day. AJ got a good night's sleep and woke up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. Stella excitedly ran to the schoolbus eager to climb aboard. I woke up a little happier knowing I lost 3 lbs on Weight Watchers last week. (Yay!) It's a beautiful day and unseasonably warm for Michigan.

After I dropped AJ off at daycare (today is a work-day for me), I stopped at one of my favorite places – the Farmer's Market. I had very little money in my pocket, so I only bought apples and tomatoes, and just took some pictures to savor the rest:



Beautiful display by an Amish farmer who frequents all the markets nearby!



I always like getting the fresh eggs even though they are expensive. I resisted today.



I really came to get my new favorite snack food; the honeycrisp apple. These guys are all the rage around here. Everyone loves them. They sell out of them faster than any other apple. In fact, the guy in line behind me asked for honeycrisp apples too!



Since I'm on Weight Watchers, I'm grabbing for the apples instead of the Fritos. This year's crop of honeycrisp really are wonderful. Maybe it was the weather this summer, but the flavor is so bright that it almost reminds me of apple cider.

I worked through the afternoon getting my work laptop set up, and then left in a hurry to pick up Stella so we could make it to speech therapy in Kalamazoo by 3:15.

Well, we were stopped in our tracks when we got a flat tire! A nail punctured the tire and belt and we had to wait for help to change it, and now we have to get a new tire because the gouge was over ¼ inch! What bad luck! That tire barely had 3,500 miles on it. And a new one isn't cheap.

So not the world's perfect day, but at least it's beautiful out.