Pumpkin Cake

Here is a good fall recipe:

Pumpkin Cake

3c flour

2tbsp baking powder

2tsp baking soda

1tsp salt

3tsp. cinnamon

2c sugar

2c pumpkin

1 1/4c cooking oil

4 eggs, beaten

Blend flour, baking powder, soda, salt & cinnamon. Blend beaten eggs & sugar. Add pumpkin & oil. Blend. Add flour mixture. Grease & flour a bundt pan (or 2 loaf pans). Bake in 350 oven 1hr for bundt 50 min for loaf cake.

This a very moist cake. It is good w/ either cream cheese or chocolate frosting. If you use chocolate you can add mini chocolate chips to the batter too, Mmmmmm.

I made this one for Bible Study last week & I think I will make it with chocolate frosting for Potluck on Sunday.

Blessings.

New Toy

I bought the totally coolest new toy I mean tool for my kitchen. It is an apple peeler/corer/slicer. I bought mine from Pampered Chef and first I have to say, they are on the ball. I ordered it online Tuesday afternoon. It was in my hot little hands Friday morning. Wow. That was fast.

Second, this thing is so cool. In seconds  you have a peeled, cored & sliced apple sitting there. We whipped out a dehydrator load in 5 minutes . And the kids LOVE it. They fight over who gets to use it.

I so wish I had bought one of these years ago. I guess the only thing left to do is send the kids out to pick more apples.

Blessings.

Goodbye Tom

Today was the day. Finally. I've been begging my husband to do it for months and now it's a done deed. Our tom turkey is no longer the terror of the barnyard. He is now cooling his jets in the outside fridge. I am soooo glad. I hated that bird .

He was a big feathery pain. But today he became a fabulous homesteading/homeschooling family opportunity.

The family that plucks together stays together

The final rinse

27 lbs of Thanksgiving goodness

 

Blessings.

Getting in shape

I was reading on a friends blog   http://www.accidentalfarmwife.blogspot.com/  about her attempts to lose weight and get into shape. She is a homeschooling mom with 4 little ones so it's not like she joined the gym . What she has been doing is running laps in the pasture. I smiled when I read that because that is basically what I have been doing as well.

I'm not trying lose weight but I am trying not to gain any (more). And I want to be in as good a shape as possible when I go into labor. I hate walking on the treadmill when it is nice outside but if I go for a 'real' walk, all the kids want come. And their bikes and the dogs etc. It becomes kind of hard to get enough, steady walking to actually DO anything. So I've started doing laps in the barnyard every morning. I turn on the water  and while the troughs are filling I get in about 10 -15 minutes of fast walking. I'm not going to win any marathons but it is helping my weight to stay down and keeping me fairly 'fit'.

Sometimes I feel like a dork "power walking" in circles, scattering turkeys and geese as I go, but oh well. It's all worth it in the end right?

Blessings.

 

The Wordless Book

My heart was black with sin

Until my savior came in, his precious blood I know

Has washed me white as snow

And in God's word I'm told

I'll walk the streets of gold

Oh, wonderful, wonderful day. He  washed my sins away.

Too Cute

I almost titled this "twins" but I was afraid it would give everyone the wrong idea .

My daughter has been wanting an outfit to match her doll 'Kirsten". This is what we came up with:

Aren't they cute?

Now for those of you who are cheapskates, oh, um...I mean frugally minded like me, here is the fun part.

I bought the fabric for the dress for--can you guess?-- $1 a yard . I bought 5 yards plus 4 packages of bias tape. The fabric for the bonnet and the apron I had in my stash. I already had the ribbon trim too. Sooooo, the entire outfit, including bloomers

 

cost less than $10. Can we all say "Amen"? It is good to be cheap I mean frugal.

Blessings.

Projects

We've had a very productive week. We concentrated on "life skills" (which means we hardly did any real school sshhhhh!). First we made these guys to usher in the fall season:

They need a few pumpkins to hold but since mine didn't grow (sigh) I will have to pick some up next time we go to town.

Yesterday we spent the better part of the day putting up 11 quarts of applesauce.

We've also been dehydrating apples & next up is freezing apple pie filling. We might get to borrow a cider mill & that would be awesome.

Today I actually pulled out my sewing machine. I have a friend who is expecting twins ( I am so jealous I could spit ). The church is having a shower for her next week so I stitched up a tote bag

and filled it with receiving blankets & onesies & a couple cute little outfits

I want to add some powders & lotions & wipes. And whatever else is cute & I can't resist .

I also made an outfit for my daughter but it is not quite finished yet, so that is another post

Blessings.