I am a Pumpkin ...

We are enjoying our last days of October!

We were so busy picking, rolling, reading and singing about, baking with and re-creating through handwork all things pumpkin, we haven't yet had a chance to actually carve a pumpkin! Sounds like a perfect rainy day activity, doesn't it?!

The Little Guy has been so excited about Halloween; we've been counting down the days for a while now. He and I made his costume together, which we both really enjoyed, and will be spending today in the kitchen baking cookies. We have decided to do a little Treating, along with our Trick and Treating this year, and deliver homemade cookies to our neighbors as we collect a few treats. I'll let you know how it goes!


What is your favorite pumpkin project? Feel free to share in the comments below; I'd love to hear from you!

Cozy Knits

No Nature Shelf update today, I'm afraid. Check back next Monday for the first week of our November Nature Shelf!

Loyal readers may remember me talking about finishing up a couple of long time knitting projects here.

Well, one of them finally captured my attention long enough to get finished ... and here it is. My Mobius Cowl! (The pattern is from The Purl Bee).

Soft, snuggly and so easy to wear. It doesn't come undone, or fall off. I really love it!

I'll even admit that I used cheap-y cheap yarn for this, from my local craft store ... and I still love it!  I can see another one of these making it's way onto my pins in the very near future.

Hooray for knitted loves!

Upcycling Sunday!

Upcycling, def. the process of converting waste materials or useless products into new materials or products of better quality or for better environmental value.

Wikipedia.org

I keep a box next to my desk in my home office, and each time I find something that can be Freecycled I just pop it into the box. Then when I have a spare couple of minutes, I'll sit down to post a couple of items ... very efficient!!

This week I worked through the box a little more and found new homes for these ...

and these ...

and this ... (with thanks to Baby Girl for the help ;-)

and these ... 

and this ...

I had a major Upcycling project underway this week involving Freecycle and gifted clothing, a broken umbrella, a re-purposed hat, and some old felt! But the project is behind schedule, so you will have to wait until next week to hear more about it I'm afraid. But at least I've now piqued your curiosity!

And what about you? What are you Upcycling this week? Feel free to share in comments below; I'd love to hear from you!

The Most Expensive Birthday Cake in the World

Okay, so the title of this post may be a wee bit of an exaggeration, but only a wee bit!

We live a pretty frugal life here in the SimplyBurbs home, not a whole lot of stuff being bought, and we definitely watch our budget, including our grocery budget. I aim for no more than $75 a week for all five of us, including household and personal items. Some weeks are good, some not so much.

But all that rather went out the window a couple of weeks ago.

The eczema that My Little Boy has had little patches of for the past six months, suddenly got A LOT worse. Worse to the point that we came close to taking him to Urgent Care in the middle of the night because he, and My Good Man and I, were miserable with the scratching and the lack of sleep. It had been a long week.

So, we decided to try putting him on an elimination diet, and we saw instant improvements. Four days later, you would not have recognized our Little Boy for the same miserable baby four nights earlier.

The downside?

No more
   wheat
   gluten
   eggs
   soy
   corn
   dairy
   or nightshades (potatoes, tomatoes, peppers etc)

Yikes!

Our plan is to try reintroducing things gradually, and try to narrow down what is causing him issues. But all that is another post.

With their birthday last week, the prospect of baking him and Baby Girl a cake for their first birthday celebration filled me with dread ... no wheat, eggs, dairy etc etc? But friends better versed gave me a couple of recipes that would fit our needs, and the path looked a little clearer.

I decided on this Honey Yogurt Cake from the Nourishing Meals blog, which didn't look too tricky.  Of course what I hadn't factored on was that my baking supplies are geared towards a wheat- , dairy-, egg-eating household.

So I had to buy everything from scratch.  Which was a lot more expensive than I could have possibly imagined.

All in, the ingredients for the cake cost $45.10 (which includes the price of a bag of Peanut M&Ms ... bought to assuage the stress of the whole expensive ingredient buying process - ahem!)

And then I got home and realized that I didn't have vanilla extract, and sent My Good Man back out to the store; another $4.99! (Bringing the total for our homemade, supposed to be inexpensive, cake, to $50.09!!)

But the end result? The cake was good! Good enough that My Good Man went back for seconds and thirds, and the two Little Ones enjoyed it. Success!

And it was easy to make! Double yay!

Will we be making it again? For sure! (and especially now that I have all the ingredients!) Would we make it by choice, if we didn't have any food restrictions to cook for? Hmmm, maybe! It really was pretty good!

Do you have diet restrictions in your house, or foods you just prefer to avoid? Any favorite 'go to' recipes? Feel free to share in the comments below; I'd love to hear from you!