Fancy Butterfly Fairy

Our church does a great job hosting a large Harvest Carnival for the local community each year on Halloween. Bouncy houses, petting zoo, horse and wagon rides, bible stories, fun games, costumes, and free food...We are always blessed by all who serve and share the light of Christ on a night that is typically filled with darkness.

Our girl dressed up as a Fancy Butterfly Fairy. We pulled together her outfit by raiding her dress-up clothes so thanks to Nana for the dress and Gr'ma for the pink boa! The sparkly pink shoes? Those are actually her cowboy boots. If only I could pull off barn boots that stylish.
A huge "thank you" goes out to Pastor Sean and all those who planned and served at the carnival!

Fall Comfort

One thing I really enjoy about Fall is getting to cook warm comfort sorts of food to help sooth the cooler days. I also enjoy searching for new recipes and like using ingredients that represent the season. I found the tasty recipe below during a recent search of Allrecipes.com and was not disappointed. I know it sounds strange but it's really very good...not to mention super easy and healthy! I modified it a bit from the original recipe based on the reviews so here's the recipe with a Southwestern twist:

Pumpkin Turkey Chili

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 cup chopped onion
1 cup chopped green bell pepper
1 clove garlic, minced
1 pound ground turkey
2 (14.5 ounce) can diced tomatoes
2 cups pumpkin puree
1 can black beans, drained and rinsed
1 can corn, drained
2 tablespoons chili powder

2 to 4 tsp Cumin (or to taste)
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 dash salt
Optional toppings: sour ream and shredded Cheddar cheese

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium heat, and saute the onion, green bell pepper, and garlic until tender. Stir in the turkey, and cook until evenly brown. Drain, and mix in tomatoes, pumpkin, beans and corn. Season with chili powder, cummin, pepper, and salt. Reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer 20 minutes. May serve topped with Cheddar cheese and sour cream. Happy eating!

Ladies Weekend Getaway

Mr. Wagner and the Little Miss enjoyed a "Daddy/Daughter Date Weekend" while Yours Truly and 5 girlfriends headed to the central part of our state for a lovely ladies weekend getaway. Our first stop?....

A rest area of course! Would you expect anything less from a van full of women? While others were using the commode, I had to get a picture of the beautiful Fall view. We had a fun weekend eating out a local breweries, indulging in tasty cupcakes, shopping and most importantly, talking...and talking...and talking! The highlight of our trip was definitely our hour-long massages, a "must-do-again" weekend! Thanks to all the great husbands who stayed back to watch the kiddos. Is it too soon to start planning our 2011 ladies weekend getaway?!

Much Needed R&R

We had a much needed, restful weekend in the Wagner household and it was ohhhh so lovely! What did we do? Not much! We did have one fun family outing where we celebrated a birthday with friends over dinner. Other than that, we ran some errands and mostly just enjoyed being home together.

Sometimes less is more and in this case, our family needed some downtime. The only thing I would have changed about the weekend was the outcome of the Beaver game. That wasn't exactly a "restful" game to watch (35-34 in 2x OT) but I guess you can't have everything!

Opening Season

We really enjoy celebrating Autumn with visits to local pumpkin patches and had a great opening season trip this weekend. The day could not have been more perfect. After a stop by Starbucks and Noah's Bagels (love their pumpkin bagels at this time of year!), we were literally the first to show up at a local farm for the hayride out to pick a pumpkin.

The Little Miss and her good friend Logan were the only kiddos so they each got to take a long turn helping to drive the tractor.The Little Miss always loves driving a John Deere with her daddy! Looking forward to more pumpkin patch visits to come!