Black Bean Soup

Yesterday I made the BEST black bean soup ever. Recipe:

2 cans black beans, rinsed and drained

1 can veg broth

1 carrot, shredded

1/2 red onion, diced

1 green pepper, diced

2 cloves garlic, minced

1 tsp cumin

dash of cayenne

Saute the veggies in oil and spices a few minutes, then add broth and beans. Cook on low 25 minutes, then let cool. Puree in blender. Serve with a squeeze of fresh lime juice and a dollop of sour cream. YUM.

Brendan wrinkled his nose and refused to eat it, but he missed out. Ingrid and I ate two bowls apiece! We made corn muffins to go along and it was a great meal that was really filling. Tonight is lentil stew with homemade bread, another thing Brendan will probably refuse to eat. Please do not pass that on to Ingrid, she is gung ho about eating ANYTHING!!

Here she is eating her soup last night. Bath time was directly after dinner time.

Wednesday Already??

Wow, this week has gone by so fast! Yesterday we got to visit our friend Heather and her new baby, Olivia. It was fun to hold a two month old. She just hung out and slept, and cried, and ate a bottle. They are so tiny and immobile, it's so strange to see that now that I'm used to the tornado that is Ingrid. I had a very strong urge to NOT have another baby when I was holding Olivia and Ingrid came up whining and pulling at my leg. No fun!

We got our pumpkin today at the grocery store. The ones at the farm were overpriced and none of them had stalks on top, so we got a nice big Kroger one. Ingrid had fun playing with it. We're going to carve it tomorrow--that should be messy and fun!

Ingrid likes to say "cheese" now whenever the camera comes out. She used to just stare blankly, but now she's getting the idea. About time, I've only had the camera shoved in her face since she was two hours old...

I made some Christmas bibs for the etsy shop. They are huge, which is great for a messy toddler like Ingrid. I had one on her today simply for catching drool. She has got a mouthful of teeth and yet she drools as much as a teething baby. What's the deal with that???

Not much else going on over here. We thankfully are not having winter weather like so many others are. It's been fallish and crisp, not too cold. Perfect scarf and sweater weather, and the trees are gorgeous and orange and gold and red. I have to get some pictures of a nearby tree that looks like it's on fire it's so bright red. Fall is my favorite time of year :)

We Must Be Starving Her

This is what I found when I walked into the kitchen yesterday.

Ingrid had gotten into the pantry and while I thought she couldn't get into the granola bars, I was wrong. She bit right through the wrapper! She is such a little goat!

And now, for today's Book Sharing Monday:

Counting Kisses by Karen Katz

We read this at story time and I thought it was pretty cute. A countdown from ten kisses on ten toes to one kiss on baby's sleepy head.

We like to read this before naptime, Ingrid enjoys all the kisses :)

Ingrid says her ABCs

Punkins

It's FALL!! Time for going to the pumpkin patch! Last year we took Ingrid and the boys I was babysitting for, Peter and Carl, to a local farm to see animals and have a fun fall day. We kept saying, ahh, just wait until next year! How fun will that be to take her on a hay ride and get pumpkins and watch her run around?

A LOT of fun, it turns out :)

We saw tons of pumpkins and apples.

Ingrid rode a pony. She had fun, but it was kind of depressing--our pony, Sugar, just seemed so depressed and disengaged. It probably isn't that great to just wander up and down one little patch of an apple orchard all day. *sigh* Way to take the fun out of it, Amber...Ingrid had fun being a cowgirl, anyway!

She LOVED all the pumpkins, and kept saying puckin, puckin! I didn't even know she knew how to say that word.

She also loved the donuts and cider. Naturally.

It was a great day. If you want to see all the pictures, go to my facebook photo album:

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=151930&id=531087032&l=5e61a82fa8

New Computer!

The other day I smelled something burning. It was the computer. Uh oh! It was time for a new one anyway, we'd had the old one for almost six years and the monitor had broken so we had an old timey huge boxy monitor from a friend. But now--we have a shiny new computer with a nice new FLAT monitor, hooray!

Anyway, I have pictures from the past few days we were without a way to post them. Ingrid in overalls:

Ingrid and Daddy reading before bedtime:

Ingrid going shopping with her cart. She kept going into the pantry and pulling all the cans out, putting them in her little cart. Then she'd walk around with it, come back in the kitchen and unload them back into the pantry.

Ben's Birthday!

Saturday afternoon we went over to Jami, James and Ben's new house for Ben's 2nd birthday extravaganza. It was a crisp, cool fall day, perfect for a drive and an afternoon with friends. The Lippens' new house is amazing, so cute and cozy! They live right by a cider mill, which we passed on our way there, saying to ourselves we needed to stop there on the way home. No need, as Jami had cider and donuts waiting for us! Yum! That's probably one of my favorite things about fall.

Ingrid played with all of Ben's toys, especially his play kitchen. Then she gave us all a scare when she disappeared for a few minutes. Everyone was looking for her and the house isn't that big, so where could she have gotten off to?? The bathroom. And she managed to lock the door. Jami unlocked it and found Ingrid rifling through the cabinet, pulling out everything she could. *sigh* That's my daughter.

It was a monster themed birthday party so I had made this crown for Ben. At first he wouldn't have anything to do with wearing it, but by cake time he would allow it for the few seconds it took to snap a couple pictures. He looked so cute in it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BENNY!!

Sorry, Gramma.

My mom emailed me wondering where the new pictures were. My computer isn't allowing me to upload any new pictures, though, so I can't post anything new. Stupid computer. I'll try really hard today to get it to work, but otherwise I have to use Brendan's laptop when he gets home from work. Sorry, Gramma, they're coming :)

Silly Hats and Feeding Bears

After seeing this post from Claire, I had to try to make this Pixie Hat. Ingrid and I took a trip to Salvation Army yesterday and got a pretty green sweater that was half off. I got it home and tried to sew it together, and found that the needle just pulled the sweater down and ripped it. Fun! After reading the manual to the sewing machine, I found a tip to use wax paper under the fabric, so I tried that--it worked so well! I added some ribbon for ties and viola, in ten minutes I had a cute little hat! The spots weren't on the sweater originally--I'm going to blame drool for those.

I used the same basic idea with flannel and a lining fabric and came up with this one:

Ingrid wasn't too pleased to have her picture taken, but she did keep the hat on the whole time we were outside! Personally, I think it's the cutest thing ever...

Unless this is the cutest thing ever:

I looked over at Ingrid today and found her feeding goldfish crackers to her teddy bear. Every day she does something more adorable than the last!!

Our Bruiser

Ingrid tripped a couple days ago and scraped her face up. She just completely face planted into the sidewalk, didn't even put out her arms to try to save herself...So, she has a black eye. It looks a lot better now, but she looked so pathetic when it happened!

We found a hat our friend Hannah made for Ingrid. I got this at a baby shower and it only just now fits. Doesn't it look cute on Ingrid?? And it's inspired me to try to make a bonnet for her, since I keep seeing them and wanting to try to make one.

I've also been wanting to try a felt crown, after seeing Heather make hers for birthday gifts. What a great idea! And our friend Ben is having a party on Saturday, a monster themed party, so I made this for him:


I hope he likes it!