October 30, 2013

Three Against One: A New Niece On The Way!

Yesterday we talked all about our time spent with our nieces and nephew at a local pumpkin patch. What we didn't tell you is, we are excited that my sister is expecting her 4th child come March!


That's right, my sister is expecting once again and we all just found out yesterday that we'll be welcoming another little girl into the family — this will be our 3rd niece on her side. You can see a little bit of her baby bump peeking through her coat above.

October 29, 2013

Pumpkin Patching It!


Friday we took some time off to make a day of heading out to a local pumpkin patch, Gallmeyer Farms, to spend time with my sister, all 3 of her children, my mom and aunt. It was a big crowd, and with so many of us "big kids" on hand, there was plenty of attention to go around.

October 28, 2013

Weekend Basics

Our weekend was one of those amazingly jam-packed few days filled with fun fall events and activities. We actually made it a long weekend and kicked it off on Friday by spending time at a local pumpkin patch with family, including these three little wigglers:


We'll detail more of the fun from the pumpkin patch in another post, but who can resist three little ones in a wheelbarrow?

October 24, 2013

It's About Thyme


It's getting much colder here in Virginia, which means we've cleaned up much of our late summer plantings and put the containers in storage for safe keeping over the winter. It also means we have more time to look after our more hardy, cool weather perennial plantings that will hang on with us through the winter months. This week we began prepping our thyme plantings for healthy autumn maintenance.

October 22, 2013

Origins Farm: Natural Cinnamon Apple Fruit Leather



It's apple season! We couldn't wait to share today's recipe for simple, natural fruit leather, using the fresh local apples sourced from Origins Farm. Fruit leather is such an easy (and delicious) way to preserve the bounty and flavor of ripening seasonal fruit. It's a healthy snack for little and big kids alike and when made naturally, can even be a special treat for your favorite four legged friends.

October 21, 2013

It's Golden! My Parents' 50th Wedding Anniversary


This weekend we had the opportunity to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. These two are pretty amazing and a true inspiration — we felt so honored to get to spend this special time with them.

October 18, 2013

Our Old Friend, The Beechwood Sideboard


We've been working slowly but surely to complete the different rooms in our house. We're not in a huge rush since we're planning to be here for the long haul, and want to take our time. That being said, it's nice each time we find or make a piece of furniture that helps complete a room or fill up what's been feeling like an empty space (like our tree stump side table or locker console). Today we're talking about the new-to-us sideboard we recently added in our dining room...

October 16, 2013

Decorating with Toddlers: Painted Letter Pumpkin


Our youngest niece, Sophia, stayed with us over the weekend. She's just over 2 years old, full of energy and sweet as can be. We'd planned a couple indoor activities since it was expected to be a rainy weekend and painting her very own family pumpkin turned out to be one of the biggest hits.

October 15, 2013

Our Weekend Date with Sophia


As you already know, we had the pleasure of hanging out with this adorable little wiggler over the weekend. We were excited to have our youngest niece, Sophia, come for an overnight while her parents ventured out for a kid-free weekend. We were certainly up for the task, but also appreciated all the tips you gave us for 2 year old friendly activities to keep her busy and occupied while at our house.

October 14, 2013

Weekend Basics


Ello and Good Morning! I've been joking all weekend that we now live in London — the weather's been overcast and spitting a steady rain for what seems like days straight now. Weather aside, we had a busy weekend as usual!

October 11, 2013

Small Wonders

Meet Sophia, our youngest niece:


Tim and I are the lucky Aunt and Uncle that get to spend some time with this adorable little bundle of joy over the weekend. She'll be hanging out with us and spending the night Saturday. We've got some fun things lined up (perhaps Maymont and the Children's Museum) and a full arsenal of kid-sized fun for the house, but would love recommendations for your favorite things to do at home with a 2 year old, including any suggestions for great toddler-friendly iPad apps.

Hope you have a great weekend — ours will be filled with lots of energy and this adorable smile!

P.S. Her shirt says "Meow means I love you."

Update: Harvesting Our Horseradish Root

Early this week we saw the following comment roll in on our original horseradish plant post and realized it was high time for an update:

"Any follow-up on your horseradish planting? I've a root we picked up at the grocery yesterday, and want to get it into the ground. Would love to see how yours turned out!"


We'd actually been ready to harvest the root for the past couple of weeks, so this question was a good virtual kick in the pants to get it done! You might recall we first planted the root back in February (get the full rundown here) and before we knew it, we were seeing major leaf growth in March.

October 8, 2013

DIY Pumpkin Decorating: Golden Doily Pumpkins

Shop this post:



I couldn't wait to share this simple and quick way to bring a little autumn decor into your home. Tim and I picked up a few small pie pumpkins a couple weekends back and I'd been looking forward to dressing them up a little ever since — all it took was a few gold paper doilies!

October 7, 2013

Weekend Basics


It was one of those weird weekends where we reached 90 degrees on Saturday and Sunday in the midst of October. Despite the heat, we ventured out to watch our niece, Caitlyn, play in two back to back softball games. We had to leave early in order to make it in time for the surprise 60th birthday party for one my previous coworkers, but she played amazingly while we were there! As life would have it, right after we left we heard she pitched a shut out inning and drove in 2 runs with a ball hit to the fence. You go, girl!

October 4, 2013

We're Feeling The Love


Hey! You guys helped us over the 5000 mark on Facebook! We couldn't help but try to snag a shot of Basil in front of the #VMFA LOVE sign at the Virginia Museum on our walk this morning. As you can see, he sat so pretty for us....before jumping up to bolt back over to Tim:

October 3, 2013

How To: Grow Turmeric Root


We've mentioned a couple times here on the blog that we're trying to grow turmeric root, so we thought today would be a good time for the full rundown and updates.

October 1, 2013

Lockhart Family Farm Visit


Last Friday I ventured out to Woodford, Virginia to spend a good part of the day at Lockhart Family Farm. Lockhart is a small scale farm specializing in raising heritage breed pork and poultry — they use what they call old world sustainable farming practices. You might remember the recap from our first visit to this farm for the community Food Coop farm dinner.
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