Dread was the first thing that entered my mind when I realized I didn’t have a choice but to take my 3 year old shopping for pants. It’s always the same. To get pants that fit her in the waist, they are about a foot too long. No joke. So basically, rolling them up or even hemming them hasn’t been an option in most cases.

I have mostly been buying leggings, because they can be a little long and still not get caught under her feet. However, with it getting colder, I wanted her to have some jeans. You know, jeans are also just so versatile.

Well, I walked into Target the other day to see if they had any doable pants. As I glanced at the clearance rack full of blue jean capris, I was struck with an idea. Could I buy capris in my daughter’s waist size and let her wear them as long pants? It was certainly worth a shot, especially considering they were on clearance.

So, I tried the capris on her and voila! They fit like a charm and looked just like long pants that were actually the right length. While I was there, I decided to go ahead and grab the next size up too, since it will be harder to find capris on into the winter months. Now she will have some pants in a few months if she grows out the ones that fit her now.

My question to myself: Why didn’t I think of this before? What a great solution!

Have you run into any big dilemmas buying clothes for kids? What kinds of solutions have you found to overcome them?

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Two weeks ago my three year old had her first preschool field trip to the pumpkin patch. Once we got to there, she informed me that she wanted the biggest pumpkin in the pumpkin patch. She also let me know she expected me to make her a pumpkin pie out of her pumpkin.

Well, if you know much about pumpkins, you know the big ones are not usually the best for cooking. Fortunately, we were able to come to a compromise on the medium sized pumpkin you see in the picture. Can you tell she was proud of it?

For a week, she begged me to fix that pumpkin so she could eat it. So, finally, I did.

How to Cook the Pumpkin

First with a good sharp knife, cut the pumpkin in half so you can dig out all the seeds and goop inside.

Be sure to save those pumpkin seeds. You can roast them later for a snack. I put mine in a colander under running water, rinsed them well, and then scattered them on a clean towel to dry.

Okay, now back to the pumpkin. Cut the pumpkin into large chunks and place them in large baking pans. (If you are using a small pumpkin you may be able to just half it and place the halves in the pan.)

Cover them with foil and bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes to a little over an hour. Start checking them at about 45 minutes. They should be very tender when pierced with a fork. You should be able to easily scoop the pumpkin out from the skin.

Once you get all the pumpkin scooped out, you’ll need to puree it in a blender or food processor to give it that nice smooth consistency for baking.

I ended up with nine cups of pureed pumpkin from this pumpkin. Five cups went into the freezer in freezer bags (one cup each) for baking later.

I put the other four cups in the fridge to make Pumpkin Pie and Pumpkin Bread. Yum!! The Pumpkin Pie recipe is coming soon.

Do you have any favorite pumpkin recipes?

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I know many of you are wondering what has been going on. Well, I mentioned in this post that we were about to be doing some work on our house. However, at the time we wanted to keep to ourselves that we were fixing it up to sell.

We don’t quite have everything ready to put it on the market, but we are getting really close. I hope we will be there in just a few more weeks.

It’s amazing how many little things need to be done to get a house ready to sale. I’ve been repainting rooms, including doors, baseboards and closets, cleaning light fixtures, scrubbing floors, and I can’t forget to mention purging. Yeah, I don’t want to pack and move a bunch of extra stuff.

We’ve even had our roof replaced. Thankfully insurance paid for that one since we had recent storm damage.

Our big project however, that we have spent hours upon hours working on, is landscaping. We have lived in this house for almost 12 years and never bothered to do any landscaping. How pitiful is that?!

As you can tell, I’ve been very busy trying to make this house look as good as possible.

But why are we wanting to sell, anyway?

For the last several years my husband has commuted an hour to work and then an hour back home almost every day. Sometimes he works long hours and this really cuts into our family time and makes his day extra long.

Of course, there’s also the fact that he is simply tired of driving that far every day.

Our hope is that the house will sell quickly even though we know the market is slow right now. We feel if this is what God wants us to do, it will sell. Otherwise, we will accept it and know that it is not what God wants for us, or at least not right now.

If nothing else, we’ll have a great looking home.

Coming soon….No Bake Oatmeal Chocolate Cookies…

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