The View from my Bay Window, Part 2

Remember that beautiful fall picture I took a couple of weeks ago? Well, this is the view out of my bay window now. Snow. Under all that snow lies millions of leaves I never raked up. I kept waiting for more leaves to fall off the trees so I wouldn't have to rake more than once. The kids and I did rake a very small patch of lawn on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon - November 2 - and filled the snowmobile trailer with leaves. We had no way to haul the leaves to the dump and John was busy in the field so we just left the leaves in the trailer. Now the trailer is in the barn and the leaves will decompose over the winter. Unless the snow melts and the weather gets nice again. Dream on. This is Minnesota we live in. I have a horrible feeling that the snow is here to stay. Oh well, too late now.

Random pictures

School must be exhausting. Try an earlier bedtime, guys.
Zach

Baby P visited us on Saturday. Left-over spaghetti is wonderful!

Why the long faces??

Emily, happiest behind the wheel of her car....

Valley Scare Pictures

Just some fun pictures from Valley Scare. Most of the park was too dark to take pictures but we got a few while waiting in line for the Renegade Roller Coaster.
Yes, I was having fun!

Who wouldn't want a pretzel that is bigger than your head? Unfortuantely the cheese was cold and Zach said the ocean must have run out of salt because it seemed to all be on his pretzel!

My girls.

The group of kids we took along. They all had fun and were a good group to go with!

Macy is 16!

Saturday, November 1 marked Macy's 16th birthday! Her farmer's permit will soon change over to a real honest-to-goodness driver's license. Scary! Wendy made the cake for us and did a great job! It takes even better than it looks.
Macy and presents.

After opening presents some of her friends met at the house and we headed off to Valley Scare. She had been there the week before for another friends birthday and loved it so she proposed that she go on her birthday which happened to be the last day they were open. The theme park does an amazing job of decorating and hiring staff to scare the living daylights out of you! The first haunted house we went into was the asylum and it was so scary that Emily and I didn't go into any after that! They still had the good rides open (the water ones were closed, obviously) and it was a beautiful night. Not too windy and mild temps. They have fog that pretty much covers the theme park and there was a cemetery that had so much fog in it that you couldn't see your hand in front of your face. They know how to put on a scary theme park! Good job!

Halloween fun

This is the delivery boy at Jake's Pizza. I bet the long dress made it hard to get in and out of the delivery car! Nice pose, though!
Daniel dressed up as a vampire for the night of trick-or-treating. When we got home, he separated his haul of candy into two piles. "This is my pile, and this is your pile." Obviously he kept the candy he really liked!

Macy and Logan getting ready to play their drums.
Here are Logan, Macy and Cory hiding behind their drums.

The concert choir.

Harvest Holiday Concert

Monday, October 27 was the Harvest Holiday concert. Both band and choir perform and they do a wonderful job at this concert and they haven't been in school that long! Macy sang with the concert choir, limited edition and performed with the band.
Zach was in many small groups including the fall musical and accompanied the choir on his guitar.

Limited Edition. Make sure you click on the picture to make it bigger, then you can actually see something!

Macy, Zach, Logan and Paige in Limited Edition.

Fresh Apple Cake Recipe

Someone asked for the recipe so here it is. Enjoy!!

Fresh Apple Cake
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
4 tsps. cinnamon
1 tsp. vanilla
3 cups flour
3 cups fine sliced apples
1 cups raisins (optional)
1 cup walnuts (optional)

Cream together sugar, oil and eggs. Add soda, salt, cinnamon, flour and vanilla. Mix all together. Add apples. I add the walnuts but don't put raisins in it. I also sneak in extra apple pieces because we have lots of apples to use up. The batter is really stiff so I use the dough hooks that came with my mixer. Place in a 9 x 13 greased pan and bake for one hour at 350.

Carmel sauce
1/2 cup butter
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
3/4 cup cream

Mix in a sauce pan and heat to boiling. Boil for 3 - 4 minutes. Serve warm over cake. Or pie. Or ice cream. Or just eat with a spoon! (kidding) (ok, maybe I've done that - once)

Raw Apple Cake

Beautiful fall weather, a bare apple tree and what do you have? Plenty of apples to make cakes, pies and sauces with! I finally got around to making an apple cake the other day and shared it with my co-workers. Who can eat an entire apple cake, anyway? It was very good. Gave some to my mom and dad too. Love the carmel sauce that goes with it. Naturally there are only four ingredients to the carmel sauce and that's why it's so darn good! Butter, white sugar, brown sugar and cream. Yup, real cream! Boil for three minutes and you have the most yummy smelling kitchen and tastiest carmel sauce (after it cools off) that you can imagine. Great on the apple cake but don't limit yourself to just that. Try it on apple pie. (I did) Try it with sliced apples. (I tried that too) And I bet it'll be fabulous on ice cream. (I restrained myself this time) I love my mixer, by the way. It was Christmas present to myself last year. For you blog readers who know my husband you know that he never gives me presents. Ever - for any occasion - so every once in a while I get selfish and buy myself something. I did some research on the Kitchenaid mixer and bought the bigger one - Professional 600 Series. When I read the specs on them, I was sold by the cups of flour and pounds of potatoes it would handle. I've done a double (small) batch of monster cookies in it - 9 cups of oatmeal - and it handles it like a champ. I can't remember how many pounds of potatoes I did last holiday season but I'm sure it was a lot. Love it!