Last Monday I carved pumpkins with friends. Interestingly enough, Renae had never carved a pumpkin before and Joie almost sliced her pinky off with her pocketknife. But, all’s well that ends well, right? I’ve heard Jo-Jo’s finger is healing nicely and Renae’s first pumpkin looks great (“now gimmee some candy”). I strung some orange lights on the porch, lit a few extra candles out front and now I think we’re officially ready for trick-or-treaters tonight.

Speaking of trick-or-treaters, this little giraffe is one UNhappy camper. Clarification: this is not the costume she’ll be wearing. Sure she looks cute, but the hood is too heavy and Punkins got kind of claustrophobic inside it. She’ll be making the neighborhood rounds in another giraffe outfit, the one I knew was a bit small when I bought it and now it’s really too small so the hood doesn’t fit on her head, but oh well. She still looks adorable in it.

Enjoy the day, friends!

My mom and I made this recipe last Thursday and it yielded a really delicious fall soup (or “stoup” as Rachael Ray terms her recipes that are somewhere between a stew and a soup). I found the recipe in the chef’s 30-minute Get Real Meals book.

2 TB vegetable oil
2 TB butter, cut into pats
3 knockwursts, diced into 1-inch cubes
3 bratwursts, diced into 1-inch cubes
1 red onion, quartered and thinly sliced
2 lb red cabbage, quartered and shredded
1 t caraway seeds
salt & pepper
1 12oz bottle dark beer
1 qt veal or chicken stock
2 C tomato sauce
2 TB Worcestershire sauce
1 bay leaf, fresh or dried
3 TB finely chopped flat-leaf parsley
2 Red or Golden Delicious apples, peeled and diced
juice of 1/2 lemon

Heat a big soup pot over med-high heat. Add 1 TB of vegetable oil and half the butter. When the butter melts into the oil, add the cubed worsts and brown them on all sides, 5 minutes. Remove the browned sausages and add the remaining tablespoon each of oil and butter. When the butter melts into the oil, add the onion and cook for 2 minutes. Add the cabbage and caraway, season with salt and pepper, and stir. Cook the cabbage for 10 minutes, stirring frequently. Add the beer and cook down 1 minute. Add the stock, tomato sauce, Worcestershire, and bay leaf and stir to combine. Add the wurst back to the pot. Cover the pot and bring the stoup up to a boil, 2 or 3 minutes. Remove the lid and simmer for 5-10 minutes longer, until the cabbage is tender. Remove the bay leaf. Combine the parsley, apple, and lemon juice in a small bowl. Ladle the stoup into shallow bowls and top with generous spoonfuls of the flavored apples to stir into the stoup as you eat it.

**We used Emeril’s Chicken & Apple Sausage in place of the wursts simply because it’s what we had on hand. In retrospect, we should have added these fully cooked sausages at the end of cooking. Also, it took longer than 10 minutes to produce tender cabbage. Nonetheless, the stoup made for an unusual and delicious dinner!

I thought the Internet should enjoy this photo as much as I do.

Jeremy had to dress up in order to get into his office’s Halloween party on Monday. And me? Well, I look like this everyday.

I awoke with hunger pains this morning and, instead of feeding Livia first, I shut the baby in the bathroom with Jeremy and ran downstairs for bowl of cereal. Halfway through the Grapenut O’s, I heard, “Rebecca, come up here, please!” Something about Jeremy’s tone of voice, and the fact he was using my full name to address me, made me run for the stairs.

What I found in the bathroom was hysterical. My husband, only partially bathed (our old house doesn’t have a shower), standing and holding on to a dripping wet, fully-clothed Livia. My mind needed a few seconds to decipher this picture: Baby still dressed, sopping wet… Okaaaay.

Apparently Livia’s love of walking along the bath’s edge while patting Mommy or Daddy with soapy hands resulted in a full-on bathtub dive. Jeremy tried to stay calm as he described what she looked like under water, eyes and mouth closed, hair waving about her head. All I can say is that I’m glad I wasn’t on duty when the Diving Baby Act took place!

We’re addicts. Thanks to our friendly neighborhood supplier, we’re hopelessly hooked on LOST.

Can’t. stop. watching.

1. This one is for Lincolnites: What do you think of Dish, the restaurant located downtown? I’ve eaten there twice some time ago and both times I thought the entrees were pathetic considering their prices. However, I’ve heard some positive reviews recently, so perhaps management has shifted hands…?

2. How do YOU save money? Any and all tips are appreciated. I’ve discovered that I’m better at spending than saving. Alas, things must change for this stay-at-home mama.

Today, as we left the Sunken Gardens and I began to strap my daughter into her carseat, Livia became fussy and started crying. The first thing that came to my mind almost came out my mouth: Now, don’t get all crabby and ruin our lovely time, Livia. Fortunately, my father’s advice (Think first, then speak, then act) is finally taking hold and I pondered the patronizing words I had wanted to say. Why did I expect anything other than tears out of my 17 month old child? Here I was, taking her from the fresh air and beauty of the gardens, from the paths where she did her Favorite Activity Ever (aka Walking), from the stone wall where she had been handed turkey and cheese and Sun Chips—and now I was strapping her back down in a stuffy car. Of course she didn’t want to leave! Her behavior was normal and it was silly of me to expect anything else.

I’m amazed sometimes at the words coming from my mouth. I am not simply regurgitating phrases my mother and grandmother used; all of a sudden, for better or for worse, I am tempted to use phrases I’ve heard ANY mother use! Think, speak, act. Hopefully this filter will be present throughout the rest of my life… And then I won’t be tempted to reply to crocodile tears with a shrill, “Now Livia, don’t ruin our lovely time!” : p Who talks like that anyways?!

I’m posting links to the following commercials so that I can quit quoting lines to people and simply point them to my blog instead. Watch this one and the fifth and twelfth ones here. Read Jason’s post on how Bob Ebel, the commercials’ director, gets his amazing results.

Identical twins are the most fascinating people ever—and I think the Helman twins are perhaps the cutest ever. Last weekend Mom2 (a.k.a. Jeremy’s mom) and her twin were together after more than a year apart. At a family dinner Sunday I waited patiently to use the bathroom. Lo and behold, the door opened and out popped Carol (Twin #1) and then Karen (Twin #2). Apparently, when they’re together they are really together. Not even a bathroom break can separate these two! *smile*

Some of you may be wondering what happened to my monthly letters to Livia. Well, I decided that these updates were too personal to be posted on the wonderful world of the internet every month. I started feeling like Livia deserves something to call her own someday, some memento that friends and strangers alike haven’t seen. Posting them on the blog was a nice way to keep myself accountable to writing on a monthly basis, but all good things come to an end right? I’ll continue to post pictures and writings about Punkins, I’m sure. But for now the letters themselves are treasures to hold a little closer to our hearts.

As for the present comings and goings of our beloved 17 month old? As you can see in the picture, she’s a toothy one. She’s now the proud owner of four molars and one canine. I can tell you from personal experience that her teeth are very sharp. Baby Vamp laid one on my neck yesterday, and boy, was I NOT a happy mama. The need for discipline has quickly entered our universe and Jeremy and I are talking about it on a regular basis now… How do we best discipline her when she bites and hits? How long do we leave her on her naughty mat? What if she scoots off of it? When is a spanking called for? And so on. The great thing about the whole need for discipline is that it simply means Livia is becoming more independent. And a natural byproduct of that is her increased interest in movement. Right now she’s cruising the furniture and taking more risks. She also does a mean butt-scootch around the house—a habit our early intervention team sternly looks down upon. I’m not sweating it anymore though. This child is going to walk when she wants to and not a moment before. When the walking finally comes, I’m in big trouble. Right now she can only reach yea high from a seated position, so I can’t imagine what life will be like when her sticky fingers can reach up and over the computer desk and up and into high drawers. Ah, motherhood! As my dad said yesterday, there’s a reason why people become parents when they’re young.