My new dear friend Susan came over today and held my hand through the creation of three pumpkin pies, one non-dairy pumpkin pie, and a pumpkin custard. The cheese pumpkin I had picked up was so large it made all the above, plus had about three to four cups of cooked pumpkin left over. I sent it home with Susan for pumpkin bread. Mmmm…. pumpkin bread.

How did I do? See for yourself:

Two crust pumpkins adorn the dairy pie.

A crust Monkey hand print adorns the non dairy pie.

The three pies destined for Thanksgiving:

The custard is sitting on my island waiting for dinner to be over so we can all consume it. It is also soybased, so the young man may partake of the sweet goodness.

Mmmmm… pumpkin custard.

The pie making was a lot of fun, and we experimented with honey, or all sugar, or half brown sugar/half white sugar, so each pie is a little bit different. The smell in my house is amazing now. I made cinnamon crust cookies with the left over crust bits, and Monkey and I munched on them while we watched the pies cool. Let me tell you, I have never been so glad to have two ovens. We made each pie separately, so it took from about 10:30 until about 2:30 to bake them all, using two ovens. Tee hee. Now let’s hope they taste good.

Today was a good toy making day. Both children were home sick, so I sewed away on baby toys while Otter played in his exersaucer and Monkey lay in bed with movies and homemade chicken noodle soup. I was able to finish a socktopus and a ball for Otter. Best of all, I found some chinese exercise balls in a drawer and safely stuffed one into each toy. They chime! Whenever he shakes them or rolls them he will hear a melodious chime!

Aren’t they cute?

**** Monkey is doing better today. She has been on the super strong decongestant, and that, combined with bed rest, seems to have calmed her asthma down some. Now it is just a matter of getting it all back under control.

Once upon a time there lived a family with a Royal Mom, a Royal Dad, a princess, and a little prince. The prince was pretty brand new to the world, and was still busily trying to understand the way it worked. It seemed to his royally fretful mother that he was all mouth. Hungry mouth, testing mouth, tasting mouth. Every single thing he encountered went into his mouth.

The weather in the kingdom turned cold, and the hearts and minds of the children went to the holidays. The royally fretful mother got increasingly concerned when looking to getting her children gifts. Many of the merchants had been imprisoned in the tower for using toxic chemicals in their fancy, decently priced toys. She went to a few toy tinkers, but in that twist of fate that is commerce, their prices had skyrocketed in direct relation to their scarcity, and she simply could not empty the royal coffers on their high priced, yet toxin free toys.

Shopping for her eldest child was slightly easier that shopping for the prince. The royally fretful mother was taking the princess to the royal ballet as her primary gift, and the princess put little in her mouth at her age, but as news of more and more toxic chemical use spread, the holiday gift giving seemed bleak.

One day, the royally fretful mother came across a bolt of fabric, a ball of yarn, and an empty Teas of the Republic tin. Hmmmm… she thought. If I clean this tin out, fill it with dried beans and rice, and then cover it in a crochet cover, I will have an interesting baby toy, with no toxic chemicals at all.

Looking over her bolt of fabric she thought, a tossing game. I will cut out the patterns on this fabric, stuff them with beans, and make a scoreboard for my eldest child to toss the beanbags into. I can make a mobile for the baby out of the same fabric. Maybe even some cloth blocks, or a crocheted ball.

Seeking knowledge from Google, the royal sage, the royally fretful mother found crochet patterns for teas sets, teddy bears, everything you could imagine. Digging through her stray sock bag yielded legs for a colorful socktopus, and the contents of her craft bag yielded materials to cover a fleet of safe baby toys.

The holidays began to look more cheery, though very busy, for the fretful mother, as she gathered the materials at hand and a little craftiness to make safe, non toxic toys for her children this year.