What did we do with all of those pears?

Remember a few weeks ago, when I took the boys to visit Grandma Linda and Grandpa Ray and we picked many, many pears? I ended up with two plastic grocery bags of pears, and I was rather excited to try out some new recipes. My favorite was the Pear Butter. We all loved it, and we've been eating it on my homemade honey wheat bread.

I didn't use a recipe, exactly. Instead I had three or four recipes pulled up and invented my own, without real measurements. I think my final one ended up most like this recipe. Plenty of tasting ensured a great flavor. I started out with ripe pears like these.

First, I grabbed my biggest pot and put in about 1 1/2 cups of water, a heaping teaspoon of allspice, 1/2 t. of cloves, 1 1/2 T of cinnamon, and 2/3 cup of sugar.

Then, I peeled, cored, and sliced that whole bag of pears. I didn't measure how many pounds or cups I had. I also wasn't perfect about my peeling. Toward the end, I didn't care much about pear peels. This is what it looked like.

This is what my kitchen counter looked like!

I cooked the pears and water/spice mixture until the pears were fairly soft. By this point, the whole house smelled magnificent.

In small batches, I put the softened pears and liquid into my Ninja Food Processor and pureed them.

Finally, I put the pureed mixture back into the pot and simmered it until I liked the consistency (an hour or so?).

I was able to fill several huge jars. I left one in the fridge and froze the other two. I will try real canning next time.

I liked the pear butter so much I'm wishing I had more pears. This stuff is amazing. Henry would eat it straight out of the jar if we let him.

What Does The Fox Say?

I had never heard of this song before Saturday, when my friend Trina asked about Nick's fox t-shirt.

Nick's shirt, incidentally, said "Trail Guide," though I think it would've been more culturally apropos with Trina's idea. She asked if it said, "What does the fox say?" like the song. I was immediately obliged to look up the song. Then, my children made me play it and replay it for them as they danced and shrieked with joy.

Witness the joy and exuberance of this dance.

Cute the first time (and even the fifth), but I can't get that damned fox noise out of my head now. When Nick and I did writing time tonight, I let him pick what words to write. Would you believe he chose "fox" and "say." Yup. That's my boy. 

He didn't do too bad a job of copying the words, considering he's still in preschool. Nicholas did sing the song the whole time he was writing, however. 

I'm going to be hearing this song in my dreams, I think. . . . 

Climbing Tanks at Cantigny

Today we took the boys to Cantigny Park in Wheaton, IL. We'd promised our friend Aidan that we would take him to visit the tanks, since he loves the Army so much. It was sunny, but there was quite a chill in the air.

The "Army Guy" statue was a huge success with Aidan, who ran towards it at full speed. Nick loved the statue, but the rocking chair on the front porch was an even greater attraction. My boy likes to rock.

The best part of our trip was the tank-climbing. There must be something about little boys and climbing on giant attack vehicles.

Henry has a thing for heights, and he surprised everyone by consistently climbing to the highest part of each tank, then grinning at us with unrestrained glee.

The kids thought that the tiger-striped tank was the coolest. It was unanimous.

Nick got really excited about finding Snoopy n the front of one of the tanks. And to think, Snoopy seemed so peaceful most of the time. . .

Here's a cute shot of Aidan showing off at the very top of one of the tallest tanks.

Once we were done with the tanks (we got cold), we went inside where a tiny version of Cantigny is below glass so that you can walk on top of it. The kids decided this was a reason to pretend to be giants and "step on the town." Fun was had by all. Note the midair jumps by my little monkeys.

We were really, really tired after all of our wanderings. No nap, climbing on tanks, and dancing on a tiny town. All in all, it was a great day.

Mooning Over the Moon

The boys, Henry especially, have been fascinated by the moon lately. I think it is because Henry faces backwards in his carseat and can look out the window at the moon. He asks all kinds of questions, and if it is a cloudy day, he wants me to check and see where it is hiding.

Henry likes to watch educational videos on the moon phases, and anything round that he sees, he has to tell us it is "like a moon." Perhaps he'll be an astronomer someday.

We have a book about the trip to the moon, and I've read this book both Nick and Henry countless times.

I suppose every kid goes through phases (get it, phases) of fascination like this one, and I'm happy that I have materials to support his obsession. I even bought the boys a "Moon in Your Room," which is a night light that has a remote control to show the moon phases.

Lately I've been having the boys come to my classroom every Friday while I try to get organized for the week ahead, and today I brought out the moon books and videos for them. They had a snack of oyster crackers, which Henry kept calling "little moons." 

I feel like if I stay late on Friday nights, the boys get a chance to hang out where I work, and I always have plenty for them to do. Give two boys a box of dry erase markers and a blank board, and they will create a. . . well, they'll create something, that's for sure. The more work I can get done in my classroom, the less work I have to try to get accomplished over the weekend, so everybody wins.

Progress for Nicholas

Nick had his parent/teacher conference today. I have a hard time with these, because I have been leading them for fourteen years now. This is only my 2nd year of playing the parent role, and I don't want to be THAT parent. You know, the one who is overly critical of her child OR makes excuses for problems the child might be having. I want to listen to what the teacher has to say and take it seriously.  Greg and I both arranged our schedules so we could be there together.

I thoroughly researched the public preschool that my son attends and I think they are doing a magnificent job. I made sure to tell the teacher how much we appreciate all she does. Nick loves school this year. His new teacher is a patient saint who actually seems to appreciate his sense of humor. I can tell in an instant if an adult finds my child adorable or annoying. I don't blame the ones who find him annoying, but I'm glad his teacher genuinely likes him. It is a good personality match, and I'm almost cried when she told me she wasn't having any compliance issues this year. He obeys well.

I snapped pictures of everything he'd done around the classroom, and I was very happy to hear he was at 100% with his letters and numbers, shapes, colors, etc. Writing is still a struggle for him, but we work on it every night and his teacher is seeing improvements. His focus is also getting better, though he has goals of focusing on one task for longer periods.

The best news of all came from his OT (Occupational Therapist). She said that Nick is one of the easier kids to work with and she can take him with another student or small groups. He's also advocating for himself, and while we were in his classroom, he showed us all the OT adaptive equipment. Nick's OT said that he hardly needs to use it, though, and he's really proactive about asking for a vest, pillow, or headphones when he needs them.

My favorite project of Nick's was his turkey. Note the references to Back to the Future. It made me laugh and give Nicholas a big hug. He has such a personality.

I've been buying Nick these compression t-shirts to wear under his clothing. He says they feel like a hug, and I do notice him more calm when wearing them. His teacher said he was showing his "hug shirt" off to everyone the other day.

I asked Nick why his pumpkin looked perturbed, and he told me he didn't want to be cut up. Good think they used paint. I'm up for two days of parent conferences myself, and I hope I can be as cheerful, positive, and clear as Nick's teacher was today.

New Coats, Haircuts, and Even More Pears

Last Saturday I had some errands to run. My boys needed new coats and haircuts. I priced the coats online and was astounded. The average seemed to be $50-$100 for a decent winter coat. Luckily, my mom had one of those really good 30% off coupons from Kohl's. So we decided to go shopping.

We ended up at Charlestowne Mall in St. Charles. We got some good deals on coats and socks and such, and then decided on lunch in the food court. This mall had a decidedly dead atmosphere. I once read a book called The World Without Us, by Alan Weisman. It's all about what would happen to the man-made parts of our world if all the humans in the world suddenly disappeared. Now, there were no wild animals wandering through the abandoned storefronts, but I got the same kind of empty, post-apocalyptic feel as we walked across the mall and up to the food court. I saw not one store (other than the anchor stores) still open, and only two restaurants remained in the food court. I felt a little guilty picking between them, since I didn't see any other customers in the entire mall.

After a fun but rather eerie lunch, it was time for haircuts. Little boys have to have haircuts fairly often, or they start looking shaggy. We went to Jac-n-Jill's in Geneva, and Henry was impressed with his choice of seating. (I know he doesn't look pleased, but he was.)

Nick chose to sit on a motorcycle for his haircut.

The kids had a good time, but they finished their haircuts and and styles within about fifteen minutes. For $40, I would've liked a little more consultation and talking, though I suppose getting them in and out quickly is a skill. The haircuts turned out pretty cute.

Grandma showed Nick how to use the rather ancient videogame system.

Nick always asks for a faux-hawk, even though he messes with his hair and flattens it in minutes. For a little while, he's cool, and that is just fine with him.

Henry wanted a faux-hawk, too, and it looked pretty cute with his ultra-pale blonde hair.

He didn't want to look at the camera. 

After haircuts, we went back to hang out with Grandma Linda and Grandpa Ray at their house. When I heard there were more pears to be picked, I was excited to join them in the pear-picking. Like Mr. Putter, I longed for pear butter and pear cake.

There were plenty of pears to be picked, though they were pretty high up on the tree. Grandpa had a pear-picker to help us out. The boys wore their fancy new coats.

Nick just wanted to eat the pears. 

I think free pears taste better than the kind you buy from the store. I'm going to make pear butter with them soon.

Picking pears made us pretty tired.

We filled the whole wagon and went home with two bags like this.  Ahh, the things I shall bake. . .

You would think they would've fallen asleep, but no luck there. They snuggled a bit, then were up and running again.

The Halloween That Almost Wasn't

As I drove home from work last night, carefully watching the slippery roads and listening to the "swish-swish" of my wiper blades, I had a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach. I heard phrases on the radio such as "100% chance of rain" and "pouring rain with possible flooding." I was pretty sure trick-or-treating was not to be, and as I pulled into the driveway and ran for the door, umbrella in hand, I rehearsed what I would tell the boys about our trick-or-treatless Halloween.

Then, we had a Halloween miracle. The rain let up and the sun peeked out just long enough for me to make the call. We hurried the boys into their costumes and rushed out the door, eager to gather sweet things to eat. We started at what Nick calls the "Haunted House." It's a few blocks from our house, and Nick's been asking us to drive past it every day, and I was afraid it'd start raining and he'd miss seeing this house and its special decorations.

Nick was very excited about the fog machine and the scary decorations. He begged to go inside the garage, which was all decked out like a haunted house.

Nick came out screaming, petrified by the darkness and the scary costumes. They said they tried not to scare him, but he was freaked out nevertheless.

Grandma Toni accompanied us on our journey, and she delighted in snapping pictures and checking out the decorations in our neighborhood.

Henry used this trick-or-treating opportunity to practice his speaking skills. Listen to his announcements!

Henry figured out really quickly how to open up the suckers and eat them. At one point he had two in his mouth and one in his hand. Good thing Halloween is just one night per year!

Grandma Toni got plenty of exercise chasing Yoda down the street and through the puddles. He mostly stayed on the sidewalk, though, thank goodness.

I tried my best to ensure my little men used their good manners, saying "Trick or Treat" and "Thank You" for every transaction. Mostly, it worked, though Nick sometimes ran ahead of us and used a rather aggressive approach to ringing doorbells.

When we arrived at home, both boys immediately wanted to dump their candy out and check out their candy. I can remember doing this as a child with my sister, and even trading candy to get my favorites.

I didn't wear my costume last night--the Halloween party at my work last week involved some intricate braiding that I wasn't prepared to beg for from my friends. This is what our whole group looked like, though. Maybe next year I'll be motivated enough to pressure Greg into wearing a costume.