Helicopters and Pumpkin Bread

I think we may have a budding aerospace engineer on our hands. Won't Daddy be proud? Samantha is completely enamored with flying helicopters. She has learned to recognize the sound of them and stops everything she's doing to run to the window whenever she hears one. Today she even stopped nursing so that she could look out the window and see one fly by. It takes a lot to interrupt a nursing session!

Now that October is almost here, I'm really starting to get into the fall spirit. I've been loving all things pumpkin lately (I blame Starbucks for advertising the heck out of their Pumpkin Spice Latte). I decided to bake some pumpkin bread, and it turned out super delicious. It's pretty heavy on the spices, but I like it that way. In case the picture convinces you that you just have to have some yourself, I'm including the recipe. It's slightly modified from the Food Network. Or you can just come visit, and we'll gobble up the one that's safely tucked away in the freezer.

I may reduce the total sugar and substitute some brown sugar for some of the regular sugar next time and try applesauce instead of oil. That way I won't have to feel quite as guilty when I eat the whole loaf in 3 days.

Ingredients

3 cups sugar
1 cup vegetable oil
4 eggs , lightly bean
15 ounces canned unsweetened pumpkin
3 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon allspice
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon cloves
2/3 cup water

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour 2 9 by 5 loaf pans. Stir together sugar and oil. Stir in eggs and pumpkin. Combine dry ingredients in separate bowl. Blend dry ingredients and water into wet mixture, alternating. Divide batter between two loaf pans. Bake for about an hour or until cake tester comes out clean. Let stand 10 minutes. Remove from pans and cool.

An Awwwww Moment and a Funny

There are moments that make all the rough patches worth it with Samantha. Sammmy's 4th tooth is just about to break through, and it's made her a real grump these past couple of days. Yesterday evening we were hanging out on the couch nursing. Sammy popped off, sat up, and gave me a huge kiss. My heart just about melted.

Samantha has also become quite the little copy cat. This morning she let out a huge toot while playing and then made a big farty noise with her mouth. I'm not sure if that's more or less socially acceptable than when she laughs hysterically after farting.

Random Pics and Videos

No real theme today, just a bunch of cute pictures and videos that I keep meaning to post, but haven't had the time to do yet.

Eating breakfast this morning in her silly monkey pajamas.

We took a quick trip up to Bellingham while Jo was in town, and took this picture on a walk in the park by the Burgess' house.

Our little daredevil has decided that standing on her car is almost as fun as riding on it.

The first birthday card I made with my Silhouette!

Here's a video of Sammy being silly. She likes to put things over her head, especially her mesh laundry bag. I think she's also trying to eat the bag. Crazy child!

And finally, we were hanging out in the backyard yesterday, and Sammy was running around with her arms up Superman-style. It was too cute to not catch on video.

100th Post!

This is my 100th post on the blog! I should have baked a giant cake like they do when television shows reach their 100th episode.

Instead, I'll just write about Labor Day weekend. We've had a nice weekend just hanging out and doing whatever we feel like. We opted to stay close to home this weekend in case Pat got called in to deal with any problem soldiers.

Pat started off the weekend right by making meatballs from scratch for dinner on Friday night. After a slight catastophe involving marinara sauce all over the stove and floor, dinner ended up being deliscious! Samantha was equally thrilled with the meatballs. She shoveled it into her mouth as quickly as I would put more on her highchair tray.

It's been pretty chilly around here lately, so we didn't plan any outdoor activities for the weekend. A new restaurant opened at the marina just down the street from our house, so we headed there for lunch one day. The food was good, and they have 12 different kinds of gelato, so we'll be back frequently.

We also managed to take advantage of some of the Labor Day sales. We got a couple of cute fall outfits for Sammy since the weather is already pretty cool here. I also got her an adorable pair of owl pajamas (if you haven't guessed by the blog design, I've been on a bit of an owl kick lately).

Today we spent some time letting Samantha explore the backyard. We have quite a bit of moss in the yard, so it's a pretty soft surface when she falls down. Her favorite thing to do is pick up pinecones and hand them to us.