What's Up Wednesday

Today, I'm linking up with Mel, Sheaffer, and Shay for their What's Up Wednesday! I've never done a What's Up Wednesday post before so I hope I do it justice! ;)

What We're Eating This Week:

(I don't really take pictures of food?? Momma ain't got time for all that!)

Monday: Six Sisters Stuff chicken bacon ranch sliders with macaroni and cheese

Tuesday: sloppy joes with sweet potato fries (so we can use up our leftover hamburger buns!)

Wednesday: herb roasted pork loin with sweet potatoes and field peas (my grandmother is making dinner tonight--hallelujah!)

Thursday: chicken pasta (store-bought roasted chicken that I toss into a pot with bow tie noodles and my grandmother's homemade tomato sauce.  Yum!)

Friday: tacos with mexican rice and refried beans

Saturday: tailgate food!  We are headed to the Clemson game, so we will be sure to eat our weight in tailgate yummies.

What I'm Reminiscing About:

Our anniversary was Saturday and this time 5 years ago, we were on our honeymoon in Hawaii!  Best. Vacation. Ever.


On top of Diamond Head looking over Honolulu


Sunset on Maui!  Take. Me. Back.

Also- we are coming up on my baby's first birthday.  This time last year I was in the final weeks of my pregnancy.  Time flies, y'all.

What I'm Loving:

Pretzel m&m's.  My mom brought a bag this weekend and I can't stop eating them.  It's actually a little embarrassing, ha!

via

My 25 square prints from Artifact Uprising.  In. Love. with how they turned out!

What We've Been Up To:

iPhone pictures make for terrible quality photos, but it's pretty much how I capture our day-to-day events.
We've played outside a bit now that it's cooling down.



I've been working on my photography skills--hard when neither subject will sit still!

Hadley had her first homework assignment so we've worked on that as well!

What I'm Dreading:

Is it too early to say flu season?  Hadley was sick pretty much every other week last fall/winter and I don't want a repeat!

What I'm Working On:

Discussion questions, quizzes, and papers for my doctorate coursework.  I pretty much look like this every morning, nap, and post bedtime:



Also working on this baby blanket for my sweet boy!

What I'm Excited About:

Being back in Clemson on Saturday!  Some of my favorite years were spent on Clemson's campus!

What I'm Watching/Reading"

Watching: This is Us (cue the tears),

 Shameless (raunchy and hysterical),

 and The Polar Express on repeat.  We are taking Hadley on The Polar Express train ride in December, so we introduced the movie to her and that's all we watch these days!

Reading: Still trying to make my way through "A Prayer for Owen Meany". It's not a bad book at all, I just have no time to read.  Womp, womp.

What I'm Listening To:

Michael Buble's Christmas album.  I'm a christmas freak and I'm not ashamed.

What I'm Wearing:

I busted out the fall sweaters and boots this week!  Even though it's 80 degrees outside, it's FALL and I'm going to dress like it, dang-it!

And if we are honest, a lot of my days look like this...kids hanging off me everywhere.

What I'm Doing this Weekend:

Pretty much already covered this but....heading back to my old stomping grounds for the Clemson/Louisville game!  Aaannnnddd it's ESPN game day!  So essentially I picked the best game to go to this year. :)

What I'm Looking Forward to Next Month:

Oh both of my babies have birthdays in October so it is going to be a fun month of celebrations with a little "corner crying" going on!  Birthday parties, pumpkin patches, Halloween....October is just a really fun month around here!


*Last year at Hadley's birthday.  She turned two with a double ear infection and my little nugget was only a week old!*

What Else is New:

These good-looking people are my grandparents and they just celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary by hiking trails in Canada.  They have given us a wonderful example of a beautiful marriage!

This is how we eat pancakes at our house....don't you?

What is Your Favorite Fall Recipe?:

The recipe we use is a photocopy handed down, but this Betty Crocker recipe is pretty much the gist of our recipe!  Hadley and I made this pie after we picked apples a few weeks ago and I'm already wanting another!  I mean, what's more fall than apple pie baking in the oven?

Thanks for stopping by!

Apple Pie, Oh My!

I promised Hadley when we were apple pickin' Saturday that we could make an apple pie this week with some of the apples from our peck!  Tuesday night, I made the dough for the crust and let it sit in the fridge overnight.  Making homemade crust is the longest part of the process so having that already done was nice!  I also pre-sliced/peeled 8 cups of apples.

After Griffin went down for his morning nap, Hadley and I got to baking!

First, we rolled out our pie crust.  (*Before I took Griffin to bed, I set the dough out to start coming to room temperature.  It sat for about 20 minutes.)  We also rolled out the pie crust for the top of the pie.



Then we put the pie crust in the pie plate.  Hadley did such a good job making sure the pie crust didn't have any air bubbles and sat well on the edges of the plate.  Her favorite part was taking the excess pie crust off the top!

We set the pie crust out of the way and started mixing our ingredients.  Hadley has just recently started to enjoy "helping" me cook and she wants to do everything by herself.

We whisked all the dry ingredients together.  I always tell her to "go slow" so she won't toss the ingredients out of the bowl.  She told me I could have a turn and I whisked quickly to make sure they were well mixed and she said, "Mommy!  You have to do it slowly!"

Once our ingredients were mixed, we poured them on top of our apples.  We coated the apples with lots of sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg!  We then heaped the apples into the middle of the pie crust.

Once the apples were in the pie crust, we put the top crust on, scored it with a knife in a few places, and Hadley fluted the edges.  She was taking her job very seriously.

When it was time to pop it in the oven, I snapped a picture of my girl and her very first homemade pie!  It had to bake for about an hour and every 10 minutes or so, she would go over to the oven to check on it.  Sweet girl!

The finished product!  A delicious, from-scratch, apple pie made from apples that Hadley picked herself.  We had so much fun baking together and I think her pie turned out beautiful! (And delicious!)

Apple Pickin'

This weekend was really the first weekend we've had as a family of four in a long time.  My cousin Scott has lived with us for the last 6 months and moved out a couple weekends ago.  Then David had a bachelor party weekend to go to and I took the babies home to see family.  So, we have really been itching for some time together.  The weather was beautiful, both babies behaved, and we made the best kind of memories.  So, basically it was the best weekend.

We got up, got ready, and got out the door in one hour.  ONE HOUR, PEOPLE!  I'm pretty sure that's some kind of record.  We stopped by Panera for coffee (duh.) and bagel sandwiches and hit the road.  We like to go to Skytop Orchard in the mountains of North Carolina and it didn't disappoint.

When you get there, they give you a map, a rundown of the place, what apples are ripe for the pickin' and you pick a basket.  Do you want 10 pounds worth of apples or 20?  Hadley is almost 3 years old and with all that wisdom she's pretty much the decision-maker in our house these days, so she grabbed a red basket. (10 pounds.  Thank goodness.)



This girl had so much fun.  She told everyone we saw that she was going to pick a red apple!  A red apple!  A red apple!  So our first stop was to pick a red apple.  She started off picking her own from the bottom of the trees and we quickly realized those were spotty and starting to go bad.





So her Daddy lifted her up and she got to pick apples from the tippy-top of the trees.  This girl loves her Daddy and seeing him lift her up on his shoulders was a sweet moment for me.  Those two were having fun.







Mommy wanted some apples for baking (because pie.) so Hadley helped me pick some good jonagolds and we have big plans for pie baking this week. Griffin was content to just sit in his stroller, but we didn't want him to miss out on the apple pickin' fun!





Daddy helped him discover apple pickin' and Griffin liked it okay, but he really enjoyed eating the apple itself.  He wouldn't even put the apple down for a picture with his favorite momma.





We picked our peck of apples and headed around to visit the animals.  They have ducks, chickens, roosters, peacocks, sheep, goats...etc.  And Hadley got such a kick out of feeding the goats!



Probably the highlight of Skytop is their apple donuts and apple slush drinks.  The first time we went to Skytop, David and I bought one donut each and a slush drink to share.  We finished our one donut, realized our mistake, and promptly went back to buy a dozen apple donuts and another drink!  We didn't make that mistake this year and went ahead with buying the dozen apple donuts!  We got our own apple slush drinks but shared with Hadley and Griffin.



Being the second child has its perks, according to G-man.  You get to eat apple donuts and drink apple slush before you turn one.  Never in a million years would I have been okay giving Hadley a bite of sugar before she turned one.  The horrors! :)



They have a huge play area so we let Hadley run out some energy playing.  She's so tiny, but thinks she is such a big kid.  She likes to play with the big kids, too.  It makes my momma heart nervous, but she can hold her own and she had a great time.



We ended up driving 15 more minutes to Hendersonville to walk around the town and grab a bite for lunch.  Both kids slept the entire way home and I just really don't think we could have asked for a better day.  I am so thankful I get to do life with these people!