"Leftover Squash" Soup

I have never attempted squash soup before but decided to a couple of days ago! I had about 2c. of buttercup squash leftover from dinner the other night,
(that's the one that looks like this if you get confused
about squash names like I do)I wanted to try making soup from it but couldn't find a recipe for using leftover squash so... I decided to wing it!
It ended up being super easy to make! All I did was:

melt 3T. butter in the bottom of a pot
then add:
1/2 of a small onion chopped
1 stalk of celery chopped
saute' for a few minutes until they are nice and soft
then add:
2 c. of leftover squash
1/2 to 1 c. of chicken broth (my squash was VERY dry so I added about a cup)
1/4 to 1/2 c. milk or cream
Heat until desired temp. and season with salt and pepper!

That's it! It was super tasty and my husband (after giving me strange looks when I told him what we were having) even ate it for super!!
I am thinking of making more and freezing it for those cold winter days when all I feel like eating is SOUP!

Check out this link for more yummy recipes!

Photography Homework Week 2

This is most likely going to be very boring for most of my family and friends but here is my photography home work from week 2 of class.

We spent some time learning about depth of field (also know as aperture or f-stop), this assignment was to take some pics of a fixed object positioned with depth behind it then use different aperture settings to see how it effects the look of the photo.

The subject of my photo's is the chocolate chip pumpkin muffins we made for breakfast! The pumpkin was about a foot behind and the wall about 10 ft.
This pic was taken in portrait mode:

close-up mode:

landscape mode:

sport mode:

manner/museum mode:

text mode:

Then I switched the camera over to manual just for fun!
f-stop 2.8

f-stop 4.8

f-stop 8.0

We also learned how shutter speed effects the look of the photo. This next assignment is to take photo's of a moving object (what better subject than the kids!) using different shutter speeds.

This pic was taken in sport mode or a fast shutter speed:

They were caught in mid air in portrait mode:

night portrait mode:

panning mode:

landscape mode:

I also found these photography tutorials on a couple of my favorite blogs! Check them out below:

White on Rice Couple - Aperture in Digital Photography
and
Pioneer Woman Photography

Mollie's Coat

I hopped on to Muria's blog the other day looking for baby news and noticed her sister-in-law Sarah had some new pic's of their little girl (who happens to be a Molly only spelled with a "y" and only two months older than ours). I thought I was seeing a double of our little munchkin at first when I saw her Molly in the same exact coat as ours! Sarah later informed me that the coat is from NH and was given to her from Muria! Too funny!! So anyway here are the pics of our Mollie in her cute little fall coat, check out the link at the bottom for pics of their Molly! They look surprisingly similar!!

Check out this link to see the "other" Molly in her matching coat!

Pumpkin Pancakes (with faces)=:) and Homemade Syrup Too!

After visiting Sherman Farm yesterday for the Corn Maize and eating pumpkin whoopie pies on the way home I was having serious pumpkin cravings! So I decided to try pumpkin pancakes for breakfast. Below is the recipe, mine was a little different in that I got the batter pretty much made and realized I had no eggs!! I left the egg out and they came out great anyway! Click on the link below for the recipe. I also thought we needed some kind of yummy syrup to go on these! We have been making our own "maple" syrup since we realized it is WAY better than the imitation stuff and MUCH cheaper than the real stuff! But I was out of maple extract! So after looking around online I came up with an idea...Apple Cider Syrup! Yum!! Scroll down for our recipe and some other homemade syrup recipes.

Pumpkin Pancakes

Here is our yummy pumpkin batter:
We decided to give them a Jack-o-lantern look with chocolate chips! Here Ethan is decorating his pancake:
SMILE!
They were really good! All of the kids ate them which was amazing, we will definitely be making these again!

Our Apple Cider Syrup:

Apple Cider Syrup
1 1/2 c. Apple Cider
1c. Brown Sugar
1 T. cornstarch
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
(or substitute Cinnamon Plus for you Pampered Chef lovers)
2 T. butter

Combine all ingredients except the butter in a sauce pan and bring to a boil. Simmer about 5 minutes or so until thickened. Then add the butter and stir until combined. We let ours sit about 10 minutes or so before serving. It looks pretty stored in a mason jar (if you have any left!).

The syrup in the middle is the Apple Cider on the left is whats left of our last batch of maple and on the right blueberry! It's starting to feel like IHOP at our house!!!

Our "Maple" Syrup Recipe comes from the Ultimate Southern Living Cookbook and is so easy!
1 c. water
2 c. sugar
1-2 tsp. maple extract
Combine in a sauce pan and boil for 3 minutes.

While searching for recipes I came across these yummy sounding pancake syrups check them out by clicking on the links:

Cinnamon Cream Syrup
Dutch Honey Syrup
Apple Orange Syrup
Strawberry Syrup
Buttermilk Syrup
Chocolate Syrup

Also check out the grocery cart challenge recipe swap and Our Crazy Kitchen for more yummy recipes!

Fun in the Leaves at Nana's

I took some fun pics of the boys playing in the leaves on Sunday!
My Grandmother (Nana) has a big maple in the front yard that turns some beautiful shades of orange and then they start dropping (like leaves)! There is a nice little hill for jumping off into the huge pile! Here is Ethan in mid-jump! You can just see James' head peaking out of the pile!!!

Wow James you are very flexible to have your leg up near your shoulder like that!

A leg and an arm!!!???

Oh... it's Ethan!

Check out this fun video of Daddy hiding in the pile:

HUH???

I know this is strange!
But I was given the $$ to take a digital photography class for my B-day!
(Thanks Mom and Dad, Sarah and Zack!!!)
These are some pics from my class last Wednesday, I know these are not good pics but I was playing with my camera settings and lighting and having fun! Stay tuned for more pics from my class!

Columbus Day at Lost River

Here are some pics from our homeschool groups second trip this year to Lost River, actually the Cowlands and ourselves (along with Mimi and Papa, who decided to join us at the last minute) were the only ones who came so it ended up being more like a family trip to Lost River than a homeschool group trip! We had tons of fun and all the caves were open except for one! Our last trip all the caves but three were closed due to flooding!

This is the giant chair we could not find when we came earlier in the year with our group. It was actually at the beginning of the trail and not the end like I thought!

This cave is called the "Sun Altar" James is actually on the "altar" posing for this one!

Come on in Papa!

The kids posed for this pic at an overlook to the huge waterfall below them. You can just barley see Ethan because the water and the height of the bridge was too much for him!

Another pic with the big waterfall!

And yes... one more!

Okay maybe a few more! This staircase went up the side of the waterfall, and was a fun spot to pose for a pic.

A little closer!

Mimi and Emmy on the bridge at the top of the falls!

A fun ladder was the entrance to this cave! James and Ethan only paused for a second for me to snap a pic of them because they were too excited! I am guessing that's why Ethan is a little blurry...he really didn't stop!

Here the boys are heading out of this cave...sorry about the blur!

Smile James!

Here I am teasing Selena by taking her pic inside the cave, the flash of my camera really lit up the cave so you could see what it really looked like inside. It really is very dark when walking through with only a small lantern here and there.

My favorite cave, the "Lemon Squeezer"! You have to fit through this gauge in order to go through the cave, Selena is not really stuck in the gauge but we thought it was a funny pic!

Maverick, James, and David heading into the next bend of the caves!

A waterfall pic:

Papa and the kido's:

The beautiful view from Lost River Gorge:

Mollie walked the last little way with Mimi hand in hand!