A Year of Pies -- Month 4

Brad's September pie was a little late this month (read this blog entry if you have no idea what I'm talking about). We sort of had some stuff going on that kept us kind of busy. You know, a cross-country move and all. Anyway, I made a banana cream pie last night. The crust sort of fell apart when I took it out of the pie plate, but it was still yummy!

Doe, A Deer

I was finally able to catch our deer family on camera. This is looking into our next door neighbor's backyard (and you can see our pear tree on the right). You can sort of see the baby behind that branch. They must have heard me tip-toeing through the grass, because they perked up...and that's when I decided not to go any closer. I snapped fast and scurried back in the house thinking "please don't attack me!"

The Grass Is Greener

Natalie had a great time watching Brad mow the lawn this afternoon. She could barely peek over the windowsill in the sun room, but she managed to stand up on the ledge on her tippy toes to get a glimpse.

Pear Sauce

I spent part of my evening making pear sauce tonight. I won't lie...it took a long time. But after doing it this first time, I figured out how to make the process easier and more efficient. I'll try again soon and see how much faster I get!

It all started with a basket of freshly washed pears.

I quartered them and stewed them until they were fork tender.

I peeled them and sent them through the food processor with a little bit of sugar and a dash of cinnamon.

And voila! Fresh pear sauce.

All those pears yielded not even an entire jar of sauce. Next time, I'll peel them before cooking. The peels came off really easily after the pears were cooked, but I think I lost a good bit of the flesh along with the peels. I think it needs a little bit of tartness to counter the sweet, but I didn't have a lemon on hand tonight. I'll try squeezing some lemon juice in next time too. All in all, I consider it a success considering I had no idea what I was doing. Now the real test will be to see if Natalie will eat it for breakfast tomorrow!

E=mc²

Natalie has recently started showing interest in numbers and counting, so our days are filled with counting to ten and helping her learn the numbers in the right order. She is catching on really fast and knows which numbers come after which (although never recites them in order all at once).

I took Natalie to the library the other day and there was a mom and her older daughter (maybe 3 years old) in the childrens section too. The little girl was playing with an abacus and asked what it was for. The mom explained that it was for counting, then demonstrated by moving some beads around and asking "what is one plus eight?" My genius 19 month old was across the room and yelled "NINE!" Of course, she only said that because she heard someone say the word eight, but the look on the other mom's face was just priceless!

Watch out, Einstein!

...and a Partridge in a Pear Tree

OK, so there's no partridge in our pear tree. I'll see what I can do about that :) Just thought I'd post a couple pictures of the tree and a sampling of what we've picked so far. I'm planning to make pear sauce and pear butter sometime this week. Natalie loves applesauce, so I'm hoping pear sauce will be a hit too. I'll be sure to report back how they turn out!

Terhune Orchards -- Apple Day

Terhune Orchards is just a short drive from our house...probably less than 10 minutes away. Each year they kick off fall with a weekend they call "Apple Days" -- you can read more about it here. We went on Saturday and had so much fun! Here are some highlights from our day (you can click on the pics to make them larger):


The very first thing we did when we walked through the entry gate was buy a bag of apple cider donuts, coated in cinnamon-sugary goodness. YUM! We also sampled some fresh kettle corn, which was equally delicious.
Pumpkin patch in the foreground and corn field maze in the background.
Apparently these people forgot that they would be paying for that pumpkin by the pound. I don't know how much it was, but I'm pretty sure that one was a lot! Biggest one in the patch.
Gorgeous mums.
Natalie was very proud of her apple.
Apple trees as far as the eye can see. We also saw peach trees and blackberry and raspberry bushes. There are also some other fruits that are out of season right now, so we'll have to check those out next summer.
I couldn't believe how densely the apples grew on the trees. They were almost like bunches of grapes!
A flock of sheep resting under a tree.
Daddy and Natalie had fun blowing on dandelions. I'm sure the groundskeepers really appreciated us spreading weed seeds all over the place :)
Pig roast. Smelled SO good!
Fresh pork sandwich for lunch! Accompanied by fresh pressed apple cider. Can't be beat!
Mamaw impressively tackles a very sticky caramel apple.
Natalie thought the little kid-sized tractors were the greatest things ever. I'm sure she would have sat on it for the rest of the afternoon if we'd let her!

Rosedale Park

Brad and his dad stumbled across an amazing park just minutes from our house. Lots of green space, a lake, geese, and a playground for Natalie. What more could you ask for? We ventured there last Friday while Brad's parents were still in town. Here are a few shots from the fun afternoon:

Mamaw was at the top of the slide was being silly and Natalie thought it was just great to peek up to see her.
Natalie and Papa headed down to see the water.
There was a flock (gaggle?) of geese at the top of the hill, but they saw me coming with my camera and started marching away. Got a cute pic anyway of them lined up fleeing the scene.
The day ended with tears because we wouldn't let her go swimming in the lake. No Natalie, it's not a pool! Lest you think we are terribly mean parents, she quit crying about 10 seconds after I took this picture and the day was not ruined as a result of the outburst :)

First Day of Fall!

The tree in our front yard is showing signs that fall is on its way, although we are actually having unseasonably warm weather right now. The Weather Channel guy called them "summer-like temperatures"...high is 80 tomorrow. Guess they've never experienced a 100+ degree Houston summer! The weather is amazing. We've been trying to spend plenty of time outside when we can. More posts to come on some of our fun outings so far!

We Made It!

So here I sit at Panera Bread, taking advantage of their free wifi until we get internet hooked up at home (Tuesday). It's crazy how long it takes to get caught up with everything going on in the world (well, my little section of the world, at least) when you've been disconnected from it for a week! We are getting settled into our house and really love it. I'm not sure it totally feels like home yet, but we'll get there. We've had a great time having family in NJ with us (my mom was here Saturday-Monday and Brad's parents will be here for a couple more days). What a huge help to have grandparents to chase after Natalie while we unpack!

I don't have any pictures to post right now, but here is a quick run down of some hightlights of our days here so far:

*We have a family of 3 deer that frequent our backyard. Every time they come by we ooh and aah, although we are recently learned that most people here consider them a nuisance (they eat landscaping and bring deer ticks).
*We have a pear tree in our backyard! It has more pears than we'll ever be able to use, but I plan to use them as much as I can! Pear crisp, poached pears, pear sauce...help me think of what else to make!
*Brad went to his first day of class yesterday and enjoyed it. I'll let him fill you in about school later when he has more to say about it :)
*Driving in New Jersey is confusing. No feeder roads...jughandles...roundabouts...ugh. Thank goodness for the GPS!

I have a ton more to say, but will wait until I can post some pictures too. Stay tuned!

The Last Hoorah

Things have been busy for us! We finished boxing up our stuff, loaded the truck, celebrated my birthday, and closed the sale of our house. As you can see, we loaded up every last cubic inch of that truck! The truck is hitting the road tomorrow morning, Brad is leaving on Thursday, and Natalie and I are flying up on Saturday. I don't know when we will be up and running with internet at our new place. Hopefully soon so we can update you with lots of news and pictures!