Category: JSL

Apple Picking and Pumpkins Too

Food, Fun, JSL, NHL, Photos

On Saturday, we were trying to figure out what to do.  We had wanted to go apple picking for some time, but weather, Jewish holidays and other things kept getting in the way.  With the weather cooperating and no other plans on our agendas, we finally decided to stop by the local Pick-Your-Own place.

Needless to say, the boys were excited.  They love picking their own produce.  Not only do they get to wander around outside in the fresh air in large fields, but they get to pluck things off trees and put them in bags.  This may sound like a simple thing, but the simplest things are sometimes the most entertaining.  The bonus is that they can eat what they are plucking!

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I tried to get shots of everyone, but I must confess that the photos were a bit JSL-heavy.  That’s mainly because NHL was too quick.  He was off, finding apples, plucking them, sticking them into his bag and running off to the next tree for more.  Meanwhile, JSL was having trouble navigating all of the apples that had dropped to the ground.  This meant he was slower and more photographable (if that’s a real word).

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In the end, we picked 29.5 pounds of apples.

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Our fridge is now packed full of apples and we’re going to need to figure out what to do with all of them.  Slow Cooker Apple Sauce will be made, but we’ll need to come up with some other things as well.  We have some frozen pie crusts…. Maybe apple pie?

During our apple picking, we also stopped by their pumpkin patch to get a pumpkin for carving.  There were plenty of interesting specimens here for us to look at.

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In the end, we decided that these had been sitting on the ground during too many rain storms.  So many were rotting that we were worried that any “non-rotting” one we picked wouldn’t last until Halloween.  On the way back, we passed a place with plenty of pumpkins to pick from.  (Try saying that three times fast!)  Here we picked a 22.5 pound pumpkin which will soon be sliced and diced into a Jack-o-Lantern.

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I plan to save the innards to make something with.  Roasted pumpkin seeds, of course, but I’m open to other “pumpkin innards” recipes.

We headed home with a car 52 pounds heavier and a pair of very happy boys.  Hurray for pick-your-own farms!

What are your favorite pumpkin and/or apple recipes?

Aloha Friday: Minimum Age For Superheroes

Aloha Friday, Geeky Pursuits, JSL, NHL

Being a geek, I love superheroes.  I grew up watching He-Man, Superfriends, Spider-Man, Batman: The Animated Series, Superman and more.  Super powered individuals who protected the innocent from the forces of evil resonated deeply with me and I spent plenty of time pretending I was super-powered as well.  It should come as no surprise that, when I became a parent, I wanted to introduce my children to the world of superheroes as well.

I can’t remember exactly NHL’s first encounter with superheroes, but it might have been a Spiderman kids’ book.  After that, I expanded to Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Ben 10 (both the original series, Alien Force and now Ultimate Alien).  NHL and JSL love running around pretending to turn into aliens.  I even went online with them to the Superhero Generator to let them make their own heroes.

Unfortunately, I’m not sure if the world of superheroes is having a bad effect on them.  Their playtime together seems to revolve around them “turning into” superheroes and fighting each other.  NHL will also “turn into” a superhero to ignore us/run away from us instead of listening to us.

Part of it is their normal development, I’m sure.  After all, siblings fighting isn’t abnormal.  Neither are kids who want to do their own thing without their parents telling them not to for whatever reason (dangerous, no time, homework to do, etc).  Still, I find myself wondering how much their normal development has to do with it and how much has to do with the folks in spandex and capes.

Thus, my Aloha Friday question for today is: At what age did you introduce your children to superheroes?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha Friday by Kailani at An Island Life

Aloha #59

Big Time Big Wheeler

JSL, Photos

All summer, JSL, envious of his brother’s “big kid” bike, has wanted to ride his tricycle. Unfortunately, he couldn’t figure out the pedals and would wind up insisting that I push him. Of course, he being so low to the ground and me being so high up meant that I needed to bend down and put pressure on my back. A few minutes of pushing later and he was squealing for more oblivious to my growing back pain.

Recently, we tried pushing a big wheel bike we had for him instead of the tricycle. My theory was that this bike would give him better leverage and he would learn to pedal it better. Sure enough, after a bit of practice, he was pedaling like a champ.

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In fact, he was pedaling too fast! Most of my photos of him from the front are blurry. I would run in front of him to give my camera some “focus time” but he would be moving too quickly.

Still, he was having a blast. And he didn’t just pedal up and down our block. He wanted to go for a ride *around* our block. We set off, leaving NHL and B behind, with me on foot and JSL on bike. As we walked/rode, we stopped for red lights. Not because we had to, mind you. We weren’t crossing any roads. No, we stopped because JSL insisted that we need to stop at red lights. He’s already following the rules of the road.

Around we went, all 1,800 feet or so. (Yes, I Google Map’d it.) Then, he insisted on going around a second time. He would have likely gone around a third time, had I let him. However, while we stayed on our street from here on out, he kept pedaling up and down the block. He easily biked a mile by the time he was done.

At the end of his bike adventure, and after NHL had done some biking of his own, I let JSL try out NHL’s bike.

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He can’t quite reach the pedals when they go down, but he might be able to use NHL’s “big kid” bike next year. NHL was worried about this prospect as his bike was our birthday present to him last year. We assured him that, when he eventually grows out of his current bike and gives it to JSL, he would get to pick out a bigger bike to ride himself. Perhaps B and I will also get bikes and we can go on family biking trips around the neighborhood!

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