Pumpkin pie...sorta

So I've been waiting for months (seriously) for canned pumpkin to be available. I've really been wanting it and you have no idea how difficult it is to find out of season. Even Whole Foods didn't have any! I stocked up on it the other day and was trying to decide what deliciousiness I could make with it.

Well, I found a recipe for No-Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake. I'm all for not baking so I gave it a spin. This is where I wish I had some of my mother's talent for all things baking. I swear, I followed the directions which is difficult for me since I hate to follow directions. Needless to say it didn't turn out quite right. It's more like a Pumpkin Cheesecake mousse/pudding. But it's still good, just sloppy.

Next I tried some Pumpkin Oatmeal cookies. Yeah, I really wish I had some talent for baking. They too taste good, just kinda muffin like and kinda crispy on some parts and squishy in others, but overall a pretty solid attempt.

Oh well, I got my pumpkin and that's all that really matters :)

Survival of the...

When Savannah lived at Valparaiso University with us, she was a not technically suppose to be there (even though Paul's boss did know and gave us his blessing!). Sooo long story short, Savannah pretty much got whatever she wanted since she was our hidden lil' secret. If Savannah wanted nothing but treats for food, that was ok by us. (bad parenting!) We have since weened Sue off of treats for every meal but she still likes them more than she should. So I decided she'd have to work a little harder for them.

Savannah loves Whopper boxes and to push them all around and are probably one of her favorite toys. So I exchanged the whoppers for cat treats and put some holes in the box.

I carefully explained how the concept worked to Savannah.

She seemed intrigued and on board with the idea.

Unfortunately, she decided it was too much work to get her own treats out when she could just look pretty and convince us to get the treats for her. Quincy on the other hand took about a minute to crack the box code and went to town on getting his own treats. Savannah has since decided she doesn't care for Whopper boxes anymore since Quincy took all the fun out of them.

Brotherly Love

Quincy will always be the baby of the family...

I don't know if he will ever understand that he's a good 5-8 lbs heavier than Savannah and he's not a baby anymore.

Poor Sue, she couldn't even hiss or growl (or breathe) with him on her. Since he regularly sleeps on me I fully understand how it feels to be crushed by the large, hot, immovable mass known as Quincy Lincoln Hubinsky.

Karma is a...

I heard a loud noise the other day and saw this lovely box by my front gate with one of the tools from upstairs standing by it.

It took me a minute to catch on...

Then I saw this... isn't it lovely? All those broken bottles of beer that won't be drank in the apartment above us on a weekday night. That means no loud drunken skanks will be dancing around in high heels on wooden floors at 2am.

Let's reflect for one more moment of silence...ahhh. So nice.

(If you are wondering they did clean up most of the mess, trust me, I wouldn't want to be messing with the owner of the black explorer and leave all that glass where it was.)

My Husband the Genius...

Paul likes to freak out about papers and exams. He also likes to make me nuts with his worrying that he will do poorly.

This is the result of him making me nuts!

Yup that's right...Paul did so poorly he got an A+....not an A but an A+!
Kinda like that other class which he wouldn't check is final grade in for months and ended up with an A.

Because I'm a great wife and his hard work, I decided we both needed a little Outback for a job well done. Oh and I have no idea why the professor wrote about "tea partiers" on his paper, it wasn't about politics at all.

Cider & Donuts & Dinosaurs!

On our way home from Darren & Katy's Wedding we stopped by Grandpa's Cider Mill in Coloma, MI for some real cider & donuts.

Not only do they have "classic" apple cider which they make right there but they have flavored cider. The caramel apple cider is amazing. I'm usually a cider purist but Paul & I both loved it. They also have freshly made cider donuts. Let's just say the dozen we got didn't last long at all.

They also have DINOSAURS!!!! RARRRRHHHHHH!

Of course Paul didn't read the signs and tried to feed the T-Rex! It's amazing that he didn't get his head bit off!

If you are ever driving on I-94 near Coloma I highly recommend a stop, it's just a mile from the highway and it's opened year round.

Lily

This is Lily. She looks so sweet and innocent snuggled in a cocoon of blankets.

But don't let that sweet face fool you!

Lily likes to hijack cars in her spare time. I was stupid enough to leave my window down (yes I did it again!). Lily didn't waste anytime and was in the driver's seat. Thankfully I didn't leave the keys in there or who knows where the jeep would have ended up!

She was not amused at all when I told her to get out of the jeep and started to say how "possession was 9/10ths of the law". Where do cats learn such things???

Everyone was Kung Fu fighting

While driving through the Bridgeport neighborhood one afternoon Paul & I came across these two guys...

I really have no idea.

The dog seemed to be learning a lot of good moves though.

Chew Toy by Quincy

Today I realized that Mom had gotten me a new toy a couple weeks ago and never told me...

Granted it's pink and that's Savannah's favorite color but Savannah said she didn't want either of the new toys so I helped myself.

It's light weight so I can carry it around in my mouth and it's super fun to chew on....well at least it was fun until Mom came home from work and found me chewing away. She wasn't too happy with me. Maybe it was suppose to be a surprise for Christmas?

Sorry!

To our faithful readers....hahaha ya that was pretty funny... ok to anyone who stumbles across this lovely blog...Sorry it's been on hiatus!

This is probably why I'm not meant to be a blogger. Unless Meesa is bugging me or Paul tells me to add "blog" to my to-do list it doesn't happen. Hopefully I'm back into the swing of things now and will get a couple more put up this week. Paul & I have been busy and have taken lots of pics to show our adventures!

So enjoy the final installment of Transformers and photos of our new floors!
I promise I'll be better....maybe. :)

Floors

The old....

yucky carpet before...

It didn't matter how many times I scrubbed with the Rug Doctor the floor was always dirty and gross looking. Our wonderful landlords decided to take out the yucky carpet and upgrade to wood laminate. We were pretty excited except that we had to move everything from the living room and the hallway for a week. (Who knew we had that much furniture!?!) We also had to take the cats to Grandma's & Grandpa's in Michigan for the week since Savannah doesn't like change and Quincy would want to "help".

It was a long week of no babies and a mess but so worth it. Savannah & Quincy had to check out the hallway as soon as we got home. They seemed pleased with the "sprawl test".

So clean and pretty!

Well, all of our lovely Ikea furniture is black. As awesome as these end tables are, they didn't match and really didn't match after we decluttered the living room.

Thankfully I've never been one to shy away from paint! As much as it terrified Paul at first (me painting inside on the new floors...hey it was raining outside! what was I suppose to do?) they turned out great and now match everything else.

If we ever get our living room back in perfect harmony and actually hang our photos maybe we'll take a complete pic!

Transformers...the end.

The last day of filming before life returned to normal.

They continued to shoot more action scenes.

BUMBLEBEE!!!!
Darren would let me play with Bumblebee when I was little...probably because it wasn't as badass as the other transformers.

Bumblebee would go zooming down Wabash and these guys would be running after him...Bumblebee was much to fast for my camera to catch.

The cleanup begins...

First rule of cleanup? move everything to one location.

all clean!

You would never know there was mass destruction here!

No more exploding bus...

I think I went into a mini depression once everything was all cleaned up and gone. Having two weeks of constant distraction and excitment made work seem really boring. That's probably why it took so long to post the final pics.

Til' the next movie...

Transformers 3, Part 3

So today they set a lot of things on fire...like this sign.

It took a week but finally today they got the cars ready for their big scene. Of course why would I have gotten a picture of the cars exploding and getting shoved off the platform? That's just asking for too much! But I did get to see it happen which was really cool, just not enough time to run and get my camera.

But I got the camera in time to show some smoke from the fireworks of the cars being dropped.

One lone cameraman stayed up there. The rest were remote.

Body builder....he was carrying the concrete chucks everywhere! :)

The reason it took a week to happen...you can't interrupt naptime! Seriously, the guys took a nap.

Getting ready for the next scene....swat guys shooting at...well nothing but I'm sure in the movie there will be a transformer getting shot.

Swat guys.

Swat guys firing and smoke starting to come up.

Lots of fireworks, explosions and smoke from the shootout.

Hopefully the good guys won this battle. Please note poor little red car and how it got so beat up from it's drop off the parking garage. It was so new and perfect only hours before....

Well I don't work tomorrow and I think (hope) that life should be returning to normal and they should be done filming so probably no more pics. Guess we'll just have to wait for the movie!