FOOD!

Here in the Pierce household, we love food. And since I'm the cook (and the grocery shopper) I like to make new foods when I can! I get 99.9% of my recipes from Pinterest, and 80% of the time I adjust them, ha!

But sometimes we treat ourselves and eat out! Our favorite place for a lunch date is in Buffalo at Saika Sushi. All you can eat fresh made to order Japanese. Soooo good.

With our leftover homegrown grapes, I decided to try making grape jam from scratch! I wanted to keep the skins but discard the seeds so that added extra work and little yield, but it turned out so good! Best Concord grape jam you've ever tasted.

Sometimes I make a big batch of Bolognese sauce, then I can use the extra for future freezer meals! This time I made a lasagna for dinner, an extra to freeze, plus some freezer meals with spaghetti squash I had cooked. Quick and easy lunch or work meals!

We also had some homegrown Golden Delicious apples left, so used several of those to try making apple fritters for the first time. Those of course were delicious!!!

One beautiful afternoon Nick and I packed a picnic lunch and headed up to Point Breeze for a date next to Lake Ontario.

The lighthouse caretaker was there, so we got to go up to the top of it for the first time.

At work one of my lovely co-workers gave me a dozen of her farm fresh eggs! I love the colors.

And with a few more of my apples, plus some fresh apple cider I made a delicious triple apple cider cake! Apple cider, sauce, and fresh. So good!!

I also finally tried my hand at making some "farm cheese". It's made with whole milk and it's not quite mozzarella...more like ricotta. It made quite a bit, so I ended making another big lasagna! So yum.

With the leftover whey I made some homemade ranch dressing, and some biscuits.

For another sweet treat I made the boys some Fruity Pebbles treats! Delicious and sweet!

And now the Halloween festivities start! Check back for more....

My Crazy Boys

The Pierces have been busy recently! There is always something that needs to be done or something to get ready for.

Not too long ago I finally got Bradley in to see a Pediatric Cardiologist. Long story short...he told his pediatrician recently that he was able to "manually" increase his heart rate when sitting still. Of course this is not normal, so she did an EKG that showed possible atrial enlargement. That earned him a referral to a specialist to make sure everything was ok! It took a few months to get in, but they were able to do all testing at that same appointment!

They did another EKG, and had him increase his heart rate while he was on it so they could watch. He made it jump from 70 to 170! Thankfully it did not show atrial enlargement on that scan, but they still wanted him to move on to do an echocardiogram to see the function and structures of his heart.

We saw the cardiologist one more time after that and right away gave us the results--everything is normal! He's just a weirdo who can easily manipulate his vagal nerve to increase his heart rate. She recommended he stop doing that. Ha!

Next was Jacob's open house for 2nd grade! He got to show us his classroom, his desk, and the projects he is working on. He loved introducing us to the friends and teachers we saw there.

Here he is standing next to his "mini me" art project.

Last Friday we went to our first Halloween event--a haunted evening at the Point Breeze Lighthouse. It's such a beautiful setting right on the shore of Lake Ontario, and one of our favorite quick spots for a picnic or trying to see the northern lights. We also got to enjoy some hot cocoa, cider, and donuts!

Lots more Halloween events coming up this weekend! The kids will have a tons of candy by the time it's over.

I also finally managed to get some great family photos! We didn't do any over the summer, so I wanted to get some done right in our backyard while we have the beautiful autumn colors on display. They turned out so nice and I can't wait to pick my favorite for our Christmas cards

Here are a few nice ones I got of the boys together! See how big they are getting?!

Lots more to catch up on, check back soon for updates!

Autumn Apple Harvest!

Last Sunday we finally got out with the boys for our autumn trip to get fresh apple cider! We did not go into the orchard because our trees at home are big enough now to give us an amazing harvest. 

This farm also makes hard cider and wine with a tasting room, so we grabbed a table with the boys and ordered lots of treats! We got a plate of snacks to share, a cider slushie for the boys, a flight of hard ciders for us, and a flight of brandy. It was fun to try all the different flavors! We ended up going home with a large jug of our favorite hard cider from the tap.

The time had finally come to harvest our bounty from our own trees, so we grabbed a large basket and went to town on them! These golden delicious beauties turned out perfect this year, and we got at least 15-20lb of apples! It was so fun to pick them and know that we grew them ourselves.

Another fun fall tradition in the books with our boys! Now we have lots of great cider and apples to enjoy, and the anticipation of looking forward to next time.

Afternoon at the Strong Museum of Play

Last weekend I took my boys and a friend of Brad's to the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester. My job had a promotion for the month for free entry, so I took advantage since we had never been there!

It was a great museum focused on interactive exhibits about everything from toys, fairy tales, and science. The kids were able to run free and explore all over! We ended up being there for about 3 hours.