Pumpkin is my weakness

I love pumpkin. I love pumpkin coffee, pumpkin liquor, pumpkin pie, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin. Mmmmm pumpkin. If you love pumpkin as much as I do, try out these Weight Watchers Pumpkin Waffles. They are only 4 points for every "1/2 waffle". They did not include a picture on their website so I took one of my own. If that doesn't shout deliciousness, then I don't know what does.

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/8 tsp table salt

3/4 tsp ground cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1 lrg egg, lightly beaten

1/4 cup dark brown sugar, packed

1 tbsp vegetable oil

1/2 cup canned pumpkin

1 1/4 c buttermilk

cooking spray

Instructions:

*Lightly spoon flour into a dry measuring cup, level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder and next four ingredients in a large bowl; stir well with a whisk

*Combine egg, brown sugar, oil, pumpkin and buttermilk in a bowl; stir with a whisk until blended. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture and stir until well combined.

*Coat a waffle iron with cooking spray, preheat. Spoon about 1/4 cup of batter per waffle onto hot waffle iron, spreading batter to edges. Cook 5-7 minutes or until steaming stops; repeat with remaining batter.

*Yield: 5 servings (serving size: 2 waffles)

(Notes: I don't use buttermilk, I use fat free milk. I usually double the recipe so I can use an entire can of pumpkin and freeze the rest of them to have later in the week. I usually just pop them in the toaster to un-thaw them.)

A Kick-Off

James, Jimmy and Carter were have a Kick-Off contest on Sunday during the Bills game. Yes, the game was that bad that they resorted to challenging each other to a Kick-Off. It then lead to them just kicking each other. Exciting times at 24 Lemon Tree.

My Utah Men

Road Trip to Lime Lake

James's grandparents used to have a cottage on a small lake about an hour outside of Buffalo. They sold it about 15 years ago and James hasn't been there since. So last Saturday, when it was 65 degrees, practically a heat wave, we decided to take a drive down there. We took Tank, which turned out to be a bad idea. He usually falls asleep after about 15 minutes in the car, but he was awake THE WHOLE TIME.

We stopped at this restaurant called Earl's, where we drank out of Mason Jars and the meals did not come with fries. Yep, I ordered a chicken sandwich thinking I'd have fries, maybe chips with my sandwich. I had neither, nor did I have any mayo or ketchup on my sandwich. It was an odd place to say the least. But we did see Earl himself. He was inhaling a sandwich at the counter as we were leaving. We knew it was him by his overalls and white handlebar sideburns. It was like a page out of the website peopleofwalmart.com. We finally made it to Lime Lake and drove down near the cottage on the lake. I'm not sure what James thought we'd be doing, such as knocking on the door and asking to see inside the cottage now, which we would not have done, but he was disappointed no one was home. So instead we went and parked by Bob's Ice Cream and creeped around the parking lot for awhile.

He was back and forth between the front and back seat.

Lime Lake

Such a cutie

Trying to do a self portrait.

He was being such a jerk.

A real man fixes things

James was using a straw the other day that had a hole in it. Instead of just getting a new one out of the package, he decided to "be a man and fix something". So he got out some electrical tape and "fixed" the straw. He was so proud of himself. Now if he can just learn how to use some power tools, measuring tape and possibly a hammer, we'd be all set.

Wow, these ladies are awesome!

A couple days ago my friend Ashley became a fan of Becky Higgins on Facebook. I recalled hearing that name before so I clicked on the fan page on Facebook and I saw her face and realized she was an editor for Creating Keepsakes, a scrapbooking magazine. Since I'm practically obsessed with scrapbooking I became a fan as well. As I was perusing her website, I stumbled upon another website called Bakerella. This woman makes fantasticly delicious looking desserts. I'm attempting to make the Snickerdoodle Duo for Thanksgiving dessert. After looking at Miss Bakerella's website I found this other website Smitten Kitchen (It's a play on words, you know Smitten Kitten...) I'm tempted to make the Chicken Meatballs for our Sunday dinner to go along with our veggie lasagna, because according to James, dinner isn't dinner unless we have meat. Obviously he will have a BF (bitch fit) if I don't include some sort of meat so I think this will be a good addition to dinner. I just wish I was this clever/talented/creative to have ideas and websites such as these ladies.

Tank does not enjoy being a pumpkin

To me, this face says "Get this damn thing off of me". Nope, I just kept taking pictures.

This face is worse. It says "I'm going to kill you"

This was at the Great Pumpkin Farm. I'd like to believe it was the same one used in the movie Big.

So happy to have his picture taken. My pumpkins. I love finding ones with weird stems. James says the small one looks like Tank. Googly eyes and a snagle tooth.

Joke not funny

So I'm always, well not always, but I've heard of a few people who have gotten kidnapped and stuffed into a trunk. Then after this happens, the Today show has a special on "how to escape a trunk", which is useful everyday, right? Anyway, the "key" to escaping from a trunk is to punch out a taillight and stick your hand out and wave so passing cars can see someone is trapped in the trunk. Well tonight as I'm driving to the dry cleaners I pull up behind a car with a hand sticking out of the trunk! I almost run into the back of this car because I'm so focused on the hand sticking out and I start wondering what I should do. As I get closer (about as close as I can get since I've almost rammed the back of this car) I see this hand is fake! And I say out loud to myself "What the fuh". I do not find this joke funny and it is in bad taste. These people who have placed this hand there are asking for trouble because crazy people such as myself are going to see it from a distance and think it's real and call the police. Especially old people who can't see 5 feet in front of them and probably shouldn't be driving in the first place.

I almost missed the turn for the dry cleaners so I could get a picture of this stupid car.

The tooth fairy?

No, it's just Tank. He has started taking his bones (which he has several of) and hiding them in certain spots. He's been hiding them in the top of the couch (which has a crack between cushions), behind the pillows on the couch, in between my pillows on my bed, or when the bed is not made he tries to dig a hole in the blankets then ends up going under them and hiding it in there. He has also been very secretive about it, which baffles me. He will only do it when James and I are out of the room or when he thinks we aren't looking. I've caught him doing this a few times. He started hiding the bone in the cushion crack while we were watching TV in the living room. Then one day I had walked out of the living room and came back in just in time to see him pop his big head out of underneath the pillow on the couch. The other morning I was standing at my night stand putting on my earrings and watch and out of the corner of my eye I see him jump on the bed with a bone hanging out of his mouth. Then he shoves my decorative pillows out of the way with his head and then dives in between the two sets of regular pillows, still with his bone in his mouth. He was in there long enough for me to get a quick picture with my phone. Later that night before we got into bed I had James check under his pillow and sure enough, there was a bone. I'm not sure if Tank thinks he's now the bone fairy or what?

It's not a very good picture, but you get the gist of it.

Pink Dress Run

My two friends Kristin and Kristin organized the first annual Pink Dress Run to benefit the Roswell Cancer Institute. There were about 100-150 people that participated and hopefully next year there will be even more!