Productive weekend!

The little guy is going thru transitions and some days are better than others. Between moving two times, starting kindergarten and then having to start another one, and make new friends, he has a hard time feeling settled. At least we got his room setup first, so he has his own space. And the living room is setup, as well as the dining room table, so we are able to make him comfortable, even if we are living around boxes everywhere else for another couple of weeks.

So he fluctuated between good times and difficult behavior all weekend, as an extension of the past few weeks. Not gonna lie, it's hard sometimes, and sometimes you just want to scream or cry. But, we keep our focus on what we need to do, and redirect.

Here are a few of the fun highlights from the weekend. Mike also took Chris to the Air and Space Museum, which he enjoyed and wants to go back and see again. He really liked the planet simulations. It's fun to discover what is appealing to children, it really does help keep us young!

Leaves are starting to fall on the back yard and deck. First, he tried to sweep them up with the broom.

Then, Mike took out the leaf blower, and showed him how to use it. It's a light-weight model, so he really had fun with this "job"!

Moving along to the yard, witness his first experience with a bonafide leaf pile. Okay, it looks a little small, but that didn't stop him for being excited about being able to jump into a leaf pile for the first time ever!

Later, his new friend Quintin from next door came over to play. They found the box of lincoln logs and built a whole town.

They had a museum, restaurant, bank, jail, train depot, roads, farms, and more.

Mike smoked a quarter section of pork and turkey leg quarters on his new grill all day, and it came out fantastic!
While he was doing that, I cut up two small pie pumpkins and put them in the crock pot to make pumpkin pulp for pies and pumpkin butter. We did a medium pumpkin yesterday, and these little ones today:

Cut them up, and took out all the seeds.

Cubed the pumpkin so it cooks a little faster on the low setting. Washed and then dried the seeds out so we can roast them in the oven tomorrow. Loaded the crockpot to the top and let it do its thing for a few hours.







The pumpkin gets really soft when it's done, usually about 3 or 4 hours later. Be sure to stir on occasion so it cooks evenly and doesn't burn on the sides of the crockpot.

Using a trusty old food mill, a staple for any kitchen that processes foods, the skin never had to be peeled off the pumpkin, it gets separated by the foodmill.

Amazing how much pulp is produced from two small pumpkins.

The medium pumpkin yesterday made 8 cups of pulp, the two small ones today made 9, so 17 cups of pumpkin from two crockpots of cubed pumpkin! That's a lot of pies. We store it in 4-cup quantities in freezer bags and then put into the freezer.

I've processed pumpkin every possible way over the years, I think. Steaming, boiling, baking, crockpot, peeling, you name it! For the record, peeling is hard to do! Baking worked okay, if you are careful not to burn. But, the easiest and best way is the crockpot, hands down. You like pumpkin, get it in the crockpot. Sure, Libby's pumpkin is good from the can. But, home processed pulp is by far so much better. Guaranteed! :)

If you don't have a foodmill and want to process foods like this, then get one. If you don't have one right now, you can always cut the pumpkin into strips, and then peel off the skin after it's cooked in the crockpot and then either mash the pumpkin or put into a blender. That would work, but will take a lot longer than a foodmill.

Happy harvesting!