A Lovely Fall Treat

Oh, how I love fall.  I can't think of a single person who doesn't love this time of year.  The vibrant colors both outside and in, warm and yummy smells from apple cider candles burning to something baking in the oven, cool, crisp air, and football announcer voices setting the tone for the background noise throughout our home, all make for one heck of a beautiful season.

One of my favorite things to do on an early Saturday morning is sit downstairs on the couch with a good cup of coffee in my hands and flip through cookbooks.  Not just any cookbooks, but ones that intrigue my senses with beautiful pictures and words.This is one of my favorites that I pull out this time of year and read over and over.

This particular morning, TJ had just left to go for a run with Thomas following him on his bike. As I was flipping through her book, I stumbled upon this little beauty, and even better...I had all the ingredients.  As I got up to make a pumpkin latte, I thought wouldn't it be fun to surprise TJ and Thomas with a fancy little fall brunch when they got back.  So the kids and I set to work, which was really no work at all since I had all the ingredients for both the scones and pumpkin latte.  George thought I was funny as I was scurrying about the kitchen tyring to work fast so they would be all done when the boys got home!

Pumpkin latte.  So very good.

And to top them off you drizzle an orange glaze over the top.  YUM!

Right as we were finishing up in the kitchen, the boys called from TJ's parents house where they had stopped.  So we invited Tom and Tonja to come over for our little impromptu fall brunch!

I love how Tom has his napkin tucked into his shirt pocket!

For as much as I love this time of year, I also dread it.  It's the sickness.  This is the time when we seem to catch whatever is going around which usually involves the stomach flu.

I. Hate. It. 

I realize that no one enjoys being sick or watching their little ones not feel well, but I get very anxious about it.  I will say that over the years of my parenting, I have gotten a little better dealing with them being sick, but I still have a long way to go.  The anxiety of someone being sick hovers over me all through the fall and winter.  I dread the wondering of when we'll get it more than the actual sickness itself.

Annie broke me in right on schedule.  October 2nd, the very beginning of fall, she was sick.  Oh well, here we go....

A New Life Begins

Welcome to the world, little Dominic Raynard.

You are truly a miracle.  Your life is so treasured by your family.  You were so wanted and hoped for.

Who will you be?  Who will you look like?  What features will you possess that look like your big brother's, if any at all?  We already think you are a nice boy.  You were born three hours after your due date, you caused your mother to only labor for a few hours, you started nursing right away, you were only seven pounds....thank you for starting off your worldly debut so lovely.

You are the second born, just like your mother was.  We all think she turned out pretty well, so will you.

I always forget how tiny babies are when they are just born.  How I can hold their entire body with one hand, how they squish into a ball and rest high up on my shoulder.  How their little face is as big as my fist, and how their little bottom fits so nicely into the palm of my hand. 

I got to come and meet you Dominic, the day you came home from the hospital.  Your mother and I ate a lot, held you a lot, and watched three other babies (George, Evelyn and Andrew) play who grew very big the moment you were brought home.

It was a wonderful two days.  I think it's the nicest place to be, in the house when a newborn comes home.

Congratulations Laura and Jarod!!!

The Feast of St. Therese

For the past month I've been thinking, preparing, mixing, baking, cutting, wrapping and planning to celebrate a very special feast day.  It's the feast of St. Therese, who is also the patron saint of our children's school. The girls can dress up like St. Therese for mass and school, there is Eucharistic adoration all day, they do fun activities/projects instead of their regular school work, and they get a special treat to eat during lunch.  I was in charge of many of the preparations for this beautiful day!  So...I came up with the idea of serving chocolate eclairs to the students and teachers for their treat.  Chocolate eclairs were a favorite treat of St. Therese......perfect!

I began calling around town to see who could bake 365 chocolate eclairs for the cheapest price, since I had a budget, of course.  To my dismay, I couldn't find a bakery that even made eclairs, let alone cheaply.  I finally called a small bakery shop and they would do it, except it would be for an outrageous price.  Thus, the idea to make them all was put into action.  I figured if I made four batches of 15 eclairs every day for six days, I could bake them, freeze them, and then the evening before the feast day fill them with pudding and frost them.  So, for the next week and a half, my kitchen turned into a french bakery, we had eclairs popping out of everywhere! 



The dough itself was incredibly easy to make.  You boil water and a stick of butter on the stove.  Mix salt with flour, turn down the heat and add the flour to the butter mixture.

You stir it until it becomes a thick, sticky paste.  Remove from stove, and dump into a mixer.  Add four eggs on at a time.



Then you fill a large piping bag with the dough and pipe out fifteen hot dog looking logs.  Bake for 30 minutes at 425 degrees!  Once they had cooled I popped them into Ziploc bags and stuck them in the freezer.



This is about half of them, the other half were in the freezer inside the house.



Then the night before I had four dear friends come with me to the church kitchen and we filled, frosted, and tagged them all.  We soon had a great assembly line going and it was fun!

Setting up the teachers lounge with goodies for them to enjoy!



I love that our school makes such a beautiful day for the celebration of St. Therese.  Seeing all those little girls dressed like Therese is just darling.



The children at school were so grateful for the treat.  I had thought to myself earlier how wouldn't it be awful to spend so much time making these and then nobody liking them?  To my surprise many children asked if they could have seconds, and many of them came over to me on their own thanking me for the treat.  It was so worth all the time spent preparing for this day to see how grateful the teachers and students were!

Then on Saturday, which was the actual feast of St. Therese, we had our titular mass celebrated and the girls were able to process into church and also out to the garden after mass where we were showered with doughnuts! 

"St. Therese, you who are called the Little Flower, pray that I may always live as a good child of God.  May I always do the little things of life extra well for the love of God.  St. Therese, you love flowers and you wanted to give to Jesus the flowers of many, many souls.  Now that you are in heaven, let fall upon earth a shower of roses by your prayers.  Bring many more souls to Jesus.  Pray to the Mother of God for us that she will smile on her children here on earth.  Amen."