Happy Halloween!

From Jeremy, Wendy and baby!

Happy Halloween...

We spent the weekend getting geared up for Halloween.  We went to the pumpkin Patch on Friday and got three beautiful pumpkins to carve tomorrow!
Jason came up for a visit on Saturday night and we went to two haunted places. The first was a haunted funeral home in Waterloo. I was not disappointed!!! It was fun and scary but a little hard to climb through the tunnel like hallways.  The second place was called Heart of Darkness and it was a big castle in the middle of a farm field. I was impressed by how popular it was, it had venders, a DJ, games, and you opt for a FASTPASS for a few extra bucks- like the rides at Disneyland!!! We toughed out the wait and it was fun!  We all had to walk together on a rope as to not get lost in the darkenss!  Jason is not fond of clowns and this had many fun neon scary clown-like monsters so you know it was a hit! We ended the night with a scary movie and pumpkin coffee and hot apple pie a la mode!!!

Soup Exchange is successful!

We held our first soup exchange last night!  I read about this idea in my Readymade magazine a while back but it wasn't until I was craving soup constantly that I put my idea into action! We invited 3 couples over and each brought a different soup then containers to fill up with others soups and of course the recipe! 
Jeremy and I made pumpkin scones, garlic cheddar biscuits, fresh wheat bread, and for dessert Grandma Klaas'es Sshmandkuchen! ( a German custard pie/cake that is amazing!!!)  We made Wassail too to warm everybody up as we ate on the screened in porch!

Everyone brought really good soup and I now have tone left over for the upcoming month as it gets colder!  Everyone should hold a soup exchange- it is so much fun and filling too! 

 Spicy corn Chowder

 Pumpkin Scones

 Garlic Cheddar Biscuits

 SchmandKuchen

 Hot Wassail

The best part- leftovers!!!

More house updates!

With fall finally here, we are working hard to get a few more home improvement projects in before it is too cold and I am too pregnant! 
Here is a picture of the new trees we planted to replace the one that fell in our yard this summer. One is an Autumn Blaze Maple tree and the other is a Honey Crisp apple tree- yum yum!!!( it is the small tree in front of the blue truck!)

 Next we tackled the chimney ( or really we hired someone to tackle the loose bricks at the top of our chimney).  The storms this summer loosened a few more and we decided we better not wait to see what the winter would add to this! 

Last, it was time to start tearing down the garden.  We are still getting lots of peppers and broccoli and a few beans but will be too cold soon for any of those!  Here is my last harvest of the season!

Now I think it is time to carve pumpkins!!!!  I need to investigate where the best pumpkin patch is in Cedar Falls/ Waterloo!!!