This shot cost me 3 jelly candies – he was NOT happy about sitting in a pumpkin and it took everything I’ve got to get smile out of him. Before I carved it the pumpkin weighed 89 lbs.

(I told him to flap his wings)

(screech owl!)

Whenever I have an idea for a costume there is never a pattern for what I envision. So I just end up making up the costume. This results in me making a lot of mistakes and having to buy a lot of extra fabric to compensate. I wanted Simon to be an owl last year but gave up and went with turtle when I couldn’t  think of a way to make an owl costume nor find a pattern that would work. This year I just went for it. I had to cut out the body 3 different times and ending up sewing two different versions before I got to this version. Then I was a little worried that people wouldn’t know what he was but everyone who say him at the park today recognized right away that he was an owl.  And Simon loves the costume, which is a huge surprise since he screamed every time I tried it on him and I had to bribe him with a piece of candy to get him to put it on and go to the park. He really thinks the padding in it is funny and quickly learned that he could run into things with his padded belly and he kept running into me on purpose. Only at one point I was trying to take his photo and he  ran smack into my camera lens – which hurt! and has now resulted in a circular bruise on his face (you can see it starting to form in some of the photos). He cried when I had to take the costume off him to put him in his car seat. I think this year is going to be fun trick-or-treating. Simon already knows how to say “trick-or-treat”. At first he would only say “Want a treat!” but now we have “trick or treat” down.  I have also been practicing with him trying to get him to say “WHO! WHO!” on command (so far no luck). If there are any other owl babies out there please send me a photo of your costume as I would love to see what you came up with.

have a happy Halloween everyone!
-Emily

P.S. if you want to see Simon’s Halloween costume from last year (and how much he has grown) here is the turtle baby.

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I loved this session!

we had a great conversion about how wonderful it is just to be able to relax and enjoy pregnancy and being a mother.

and this little lady is very excited to be a big sister. She is also very opinionated about the name and has cast her vote! So cute.

I can’t wait to meet this little guy and photograph his big sister holding him ♥
and i know I have been slacking on the blog post lately but that’s because I have been making all kinds of pumpkin goodies, sewing Halloween costumes, and taking tons of photos. So more updates to come soon.

-Emily

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No, I haven’t dropped off the face of the earth, I am just in full Christmas rush mode and crazy busy. But I wanted to post about sugar beet harvest before I forgot everything. What are sugar beets? Basically just what they sound like, a large sugary beet. Instead of being red or golden like the traditional borscht beet they are white and about 5x the size. The sugar beet is 15 – 20% sucrose and according to Wikipedia beet sugar accounts for 30% of the world’s sugar production. My in-laws are doing their part to make sure that Americans get their 120 lb annual average intake!

This is a fully loaded sugar beet truck heading off to the beet dump (where the loads are weighed and collected for processing into sugar)

There are two basic steps in beet harvesting (and I would imagine it to be a similar process for all root vegetables). First the beet topper whacks the leafy green top part of the beet down and then slices off the top portion of the beet. This process is pictured above. The goal is to just cut off a small amount of the top so that only silver dollar size portion of the white beet interior is exposed. After the beets are topped the beet harvester digs up the beet.

as the beet harvester (also called a beet digger) is pulling the beets out the grown it simultaneously loads them into a truck driving parallel to the harvester. As one truck is filled another truck pulls up behind ready to collect more beets. The average field on my in-laws farm is about 150 aces and it takes approximately 4-5 days to completely harvest it (depending greatly on weather).

Here is a better look at some freshly topped sugar beets that are about to be harvested and a harvested sugar beet laying in the field.

And here is a look at a happy farmer with a very cute grandson!

While I was riding around in the tractors and trucks I asked every worker if they had every cooked, eaten, or made anything from sugar beet. And while almost everyone had tasted sugar beet I could not find a single soul who had ever made anything with a sugar beet or cooked it in it’s raw form. So of course I had to try it. I took home a sugar beet from the field and had Myles use a hack saw to chop it into a reasonable size piece. Then I scoured the Internet for a suitable recipe. Surprisingly the Internet is almost void of any sugar beet recipes. Luckily, I did find this one recipe for sugar beet and black sesame bread. Though I am not sure the recipe author was actually using sugar beets as the picture of their bread looks suspiciously red. But I tried it any way and it actually turned out pretty well.

Sugar beet in it’s raw form has a very earthy flavor and the sesame seeds balance it nicely. The recipe called for black sesame seeds but we didn’t have any black sesame seeds so we had to make due with the standard off white ones. (Actually I had never even heard of black sesame seeds before.) I thought it was pleasantly nice and I would be open to making more foods with sugar beet.

until next time!

-Emily

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This past week we have been in Aberdeen Idaho visiting Myles’s parents. Right now it’s sugar beet harvest and Simon got in on a lot of the action. That kid now knows how to say “John Deere!” I have a lot of photos but I thought I would just share a few right now.

Here is Simon getting a tractor ride. My Father-in-law (Neil) was plowing up the field in preparation for planing winter wheat. Seagulls love the freshly turned worm ladened earth.

I tried to get a picture of Simon standing in one of the Tractor wheel wells but he would have none of it.

This is my Brother-in-Law Greg feeding his cows. He has quite a few that are out on open range but these four are the ones that they are keeping for themselves, friends, and family. They will be butchered as soon as they reach weight but right now Greg is “grain finishing” them. They have access to as much grass as they like but Greg also gives them 3-10lbs of barley and corn mixed with molasses each day. This barley, corn mixture helps them put on fat and puts that nice marbling in meat that we all love.

I have a lot more pictures of them actually harvesting sugar beets but I thought I would save thoes for their own post. When most people find out that my husband grew up on a farm they want to know what kind of farm. When I tell them sugar beets their next question is always “what’s a sugar beet?”. Odds are that if you have eaten any table sugar or any product made with sugar you have eaten sugar beets and not even known it. I didn’t know what sugar beets were before I met Myles so don’t feel bad! They are really nothing like the red, yellow, and orange beets that we enjoy all summer. But yeah, bassicaly I married Dwight.

More to come soon!

-Emily

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I have declared October Pumpkin month and we are on a mission to make and consume as much pumpkin as possible. So this recipe is part of the pumpkin project. Risotto is  really not the most photogenic of foods but this was sure delicious.I am giving it 5 stars and i will most definitely be making it again. Here is the recipe if you want to try it. I did add mushrooms and spinach to the recipe and we ate it as the main dish. It was very hardy and satisfying.

Here is everything that went into the risotto minus the pumpkin, onion, and garlic

They were such beautiful mushrooms I thought they deserved their own photo

I tried to get Simon to do some of the chopping for me but I don’t trust him with a real knife so I just gave him pumpkin carving tool. It’s nearly impossible to cut yourself with it because you have to saw with it to make it work and it’s pretty dull. Turns out it’s also pretty hard to cut mushrooms with it and Simon gave up pretty fast. On a side note anyone sell pampered chef? it seems like I remember them making a kid knife that was similar to the pumpkin carving tool but only better. I would love to get one now.

stirring stirring stirring…

This is probably the main reason that I don’t make risotto more often. It requires nearly constant stirring for 20 – 25 min. Simon was only interested for about 2 min. Notice the Thyme in his hand, I did get him to pick off the leaves for me :  )

and here is the final product. So I know it looks like a blow of orange rice but tryst me it is amazing! The pumpkin flavor is very subtle though and I thought it could actually do with more. Maybe even chunks of roasted pumpkin in there.

until next time!

-Emily

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Isn’t that a cool name? and the cutest face!

sweet!

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I have been reading the blog Foodie Tots. It’s a good read and it has inspired me to cook with Simon more. Simon really enjoys “helping” (read: making a mess) with all things kitchen related. Truthfully Myles is much better about incorporating him. I get in the mind set of “I just need to get it done!” So this week I set aside some time to bake with him, no stress to get it perfect or time constraints I just wanted to let him experience it and have a good time. Since it’s October and we are into all things pumpkin related I deiced to make pumpkin cookies. (We are going to try and eat as much pumpkin as we can stand this month – more post about this to follow shortly).So here is the story of our pumpkin cookie adventure told through photographs.

“you’re the one who thinks this is a good idea mom.”

smelling the ingredients (nutmeg) – it’s important to experience your food with all your senses.

Measure out the flour. (I quickly learned that I can’t step away to take a photo as Simon will just shovel as much flour out of the container as fast as he can.

adding the other dry ingredients – I think this was the highlight for Simon he liked dumping out the contents of the “poon” (spoon).

Sifting the dry ingredients

being annoyed with mom because she has taken over sifting the dry ingredients because they were being thrown all over the counter and floor.

adding the pumpkin puree.

Simon is afraid of the mixer – well the sound the mixer makes, so at this point he left the kitchen and I dropped the cookie dough on to baking sheets.

The hard part, waiting for the cookies to be done. This was the first time that I have thought to show Simon the window in the oven. He was fascinated!

having some dinner while waiting for the cookies too cool.  Whole wheat pasta with fresh pesto – maybe he is a foodie?

Here they are iced and ready to eat…

and the verdict is…

YUM!

Thanks for reading! That was actually fairly painless, I am going to try and include Simon more in the cooking. After all at some point I  want to hand over that task to him and let him be in charge of making dinner!”

until next time!

- Emily

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…that’s what little girls are made of.
Seriously a darling little bub. I love it when little babies have chunky cheeks like that. Maya, was 4 weeks old at the time these were taken but slept like a dream!

And now you know where she gets her good looks!

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