Youtube

I will make a post soon with our first week of Advent projects but here are some videos of the boys to keep you laughing...
http://www.youtube.com/user/jodiemcgovern

Pizza

Well, more like cheesy bread to dip in sauce.  It's low carb because it's made with...cauliflower!
http://www.diaryofamodernmatriarch.com/2010/06/cauliflower-pizza-crust.html
It was yummy!

Pie Experiment

SUCCESS!

Low Carb Tofu Pumpkin pie

1 Crust:

Ingredients

1 large egg yolk
2 tablespoons cream or non-dairy substitute

4 oz sweet butter or solid shortening cut into small cubes

1.5-2 C almond meal/flour

Artificial sweetener equal to 3 tablespoons sugar

1 tsp. Salt

Directions:


In a small bowl, mix the egg yolk and cream; then set aside.  Using an electric mixer, cream the butter or shortening for about 1 minute.  Then mix in the flour, sweetener, salt until evenly distributed. Add the egg mixture and beat at low speed until the dough pulls away from the side of the bowl.  Add an extra tablespoon of cream if necessary. 

Press into pie pan same as graham cracker crust.  Can make peaks if desired, but they burn quickly.

Vegan Pumpkin Pie Filling :

(enough for 2 crusts) 

Ingredients

2 15oz. cans Farmers Market Organic Pumpkin

1 1/2 lbs. Organic Firm Tofu

1 cup Organic Brown sugar or Maple Syrup (I substituted stevia)

1 1/2 tsp. Organic ground Cinnamon

1/2 tsp. Organic ground Nutmeg

1/2 tsp. Organic ground Ginger

1/4 tsp. Organic ground Allspice

1/4 tsp. Organic ground Cloves

1/4 tsp. Salt

2-3 Tbsp. Water (Optional) (or milk substitute)

Directions

Crumble Tofu into food processor or blender and puree. Mix pumpkin, tofu, maple syrup, spices and salt into a bowl. Pour filling into pie crusts and smooth out. Bake in a pre-heated oven at 375°F for 30 minutes. Set on rack to cool and firm up for at least 2 hours before serving.

In the meantime...

I have another blog, where you can follow my journey with World Orphans/Journey 117.

www.jodiemcgovern.blogspot.com

Thanksgiving Experiment

Low Carb Tofu Pumpkin Pie

I'm retrying the Atkins diet (modified).  However, I don't want to give up my fave fall flavors.  So....I'm reinventing my vegan pumpkin pie from last year (I'm not vegan anymore) by switching to an almond meal crust and stevia for sweetener.  Here it goes...(yes, I know my countertop is UGLY)

Almond Crust

Pumpkin Mixture

Tofu about to be pureed

It's gonna take a while.  I'll let you know...

Cuties

Sometimes these boys are a little too crazy for this mama, but some days they are just too cute...

Me: "I love you"
Kade: "I love you 159, or maybe as big as that tree.  That tree is pretty big, and 100 is really big."

We usually don't have the music on in the car, but today we heard Adele several times and I heard a small voice (Kade) in the back trying to sing it!

We turned River's car seat to front facing yesterday and he LOVES it.  He keeps looking around at everything and saying "Hello Mama, Hello Dada, Hello Kade.  I love you."

And, the boys were holding hands.

I can't think of everything else right now, but I'll share more later.

Family Time

Play this song while you check out our pictures!!

Rivvie going to school

Bill and Kade bought Mama flowers from the Farmers' Market

New desk, took us 3 hours to assemble...<3 ikea

The boys teaching Mama the art of paper airplanes

Tea time with Mama and Kade

It's that time of year...

Date Night

Hubs and I have finally started having a date night this past year.  I owe my friend Melissa a BIG BIG thank you for starting this for us.  She said that I needed a night with my hubs and would babysit for FREE Sunday nights.  I would pretend like I didn't expect it, because it was too good to be true.  Then, every Sunday she would text me and say "what time should I come over?"!  She moved away to grad school, so now we have date day on Thursday while the boys are in preschool.  We try to keep the dates original and low cost.  So far we have used our passes to go to Sea World, had a YUMMMYY Ethiopian lunch, walks on the beach, used Groupons for lunches, Brunch date, cleaned (yes, but it was together)...and this week we are going to Ikea and Lowes.  That may not sound exciting, but we are getting stuff for our garden and a new desk, since both of us work from home.  It will be so great to do this WITHOUT the kids...they HATE shopping (even thougth we aren't allowed to say hate in our house, lol).  We also watch "our shows" once a week or a movie while folding laundry and sharing snacks...so cute.  

So, if you are married, I pray you get to have a date night/day!!!!

Pumpkin Patch 2011

FAIL...


Well, partial fail...We did get pumpkins.  We are not yet used to SoCal weather and were hoping for something a little more seasonal.  Well, it was HOT at Bates Nut Farm and the boys were GRUMPY!  We got a few pictures in the short two hours we spent there.  The one smart thing we did was to go EARLY in the morning before the crowd showed up.  

Art Project....nOOdLes!

We dyed pastas and let Kade get to work...

Chef Kade

Kade has been saying that he wants to be a chef since he learned the word at age two.  Well, here is his latest work...

http://smashedpeasandcarrots.blogspot.com/2011/08/no-bake-energy-bites-recipe.html

YuMmY!!

www.photoboother.com

LoVe iT!

i know, i know

Okay, so it's been a while...6 months or so.  Sorry!  I don't know if anyone reads anyway, but I like having a way of updating everyone on the kiddos.  Can I use the move as an excuse?  What about that we didn't have internet in our apartment until November?  And THEN my power cord died and I didn't buy one until two days ago because it cost $80 and I couldn't justify the purchase.  Anyway, I'm back...

The latest news is that our baby boy is ONE!  He had a very warm and sunny Winter ONEderland birthday party at the community room and playground.

We had a great visit with Pap Pap this past week.

(Love you and miss you lots!)  

and we hung out by the pier

and Kade got a haircut

and a pic of River just to be fair.

I'm at work right now, so I should probably work, but I'll post more updates and pictures from San Diego soon.

Miss you all!

Love,

Bill, Jodie, Kade & River