The October Birthday Celebration

The entire family was able to be here for the birthday celebration, which was amazing because Katie is working two jobs! Plus, Jake is away at St. Olaf. We picked up three kinds of Papa Murphy's pizza, one being vegan veggie that I added Daiya cheese to, and it all tasted pretty good. The chocolate cherry cake with homemade chocolate icing was also good, but very rich. Next get together will be Thanksgiving.

Birthday Cake

A Simple Supper

Decorating

Pumpkin

Since we're going to celebrate the October birthdays the day before Halloween, I changed my mind about the lone pumpkin being our only decoration. So I put a few favorite things out, and the house all of a sudden looked festive! The sunflowers were on clearance at Michael's for 70% off, how could I pass them up? I love sunflowers. Pumpkin the Cat isn't a real decoration, but she is the right color for the season, and she has the right name. Now to figure out the food. I'm thinking pizza and cake. 

A New Hat

We went up north again this weekend, and while Bruce worked on the leaves, I knit a hat on my loom. I'm thinking that I need to come up with some other projects I can do when we go up and Bruce is busy doing his thing. Maybe bring up all the photos that are stuffed under my bed and organize them into albums. I think I missed the whole scrapbooking craze, but albums could be good.

Jagerschnitzel with Spaetzel and Red Cabbage

Time to play catch up with the blog! Debbie and I went to our annual Oktoberfest lunch at Macy's Lakeshore Grill, and we ate Jagerschnitzel with Spaetzel and Red Cabbage. We didn't have any beer, but we did have some lovely black currant iced tea. I love this tradition. 💗

Wordless Wednesday

Dock's Out

The dock is now out, but there are still a lot of leaves coming down that need to be raked. And, we've had a beautiful fall, color wise, because of all the rain we had at the beginning of the summer. For each warm, sunny day that we have, I am thankful because that means one less cold and wintery day for the year.

While we were up north, we were invited to Curt and Teri's for a fish fry and fire. I think my summer bucket list is now complete!

Then Katie came home for a quick visit and we had just enough time to grab lunch at Chipotle, make a stop at Trader Joe's, and watch an episode of The Vampire Diaries on Netflix. She's a busy girl with her two jobs, and I love it when she makes it home.

Life is good.

More of October

Today the temps reached 70 degrees, plus sunshine and a nice breeze. I decided to plant a garden mum and some allium bulbs by the mailbox, and I'm excited to see if the bulbs come up next spring. I also took a drive to our old neighborhood in South Minneapolis to check out some controversial Halloween decorations that the local news had been talking about. Not sure I'd like them in our yard! Our decorations this year will be a lone pumpkin on our doorstep.

Fall Break

Jake came home for a few days over fall break! That's all. 💗

Bread Pudding

I made some bread pudding today. I had a bag of three lovely wheat buns sitting in a basket on the counter, and one of the cats "kneaded" the bag until the buns were squashed. I blame Pumpkin, although Cleo could also be the guilty one. (Minnie Mouse would never behave this way.)

I had some dried cranberries to use up, too, so in they went. And a little milk poured over was quite tasty.

I guess I learned my lesson about leaving food on the counters.

Autumn

I love this time of year, always have. There is just something about autumn that energizes me and makes me excited for the future.