All 'Jacked' up New Hampshire Style

True to typical Midwest weather, the scorching heat from yesterday gave way today to much cooler temperatures and weather couldn't quite decide what it was up to today.  Wind, clouds, sunshine, it all featured at some point today and kind of kept us guessing at what we'd be able to or not able to do.  But my twosome (who is always up for pretty much any adventure I throw at them) were troopers and we all had a really great day.

This morning we ran a quick errand for supplies (do you know how hard it is to find orange tissue paper and marscapone cheese in Farmington???) and then headed back here to start work on our project for the day - jack o'lanterns!  In honor of the Pumpkin Festival in Keene which holds the Guinness Book of World Record for most lit jack o'lanterns (30, 581 in 2013!) I had found two fun jack o'lantern projects for them to try.  Noah decided on this one and the Bean chose this.  So in order to give things plenty of time to dry, Mikayla painted and Noah glued this morning while I worked on prepping up dinner - Pumpkin Mac and Cheese! (Kristi's note:  Yes, the original recipe does call for Lobster tail as well, but it just wasn't in the budget this week after pot roast and corned beef already.  Since New Hampshire has the least amount of coast line of any of the New England states, I didn't think it was too big of a blow).  Pumpkin is the official state fruit (yep, fruit!) of New Hampshire so I knew we had to have a meal where it was featured.  (For the record, the potato is the state vegetable and they were part of Monday and Tuesday's dinner and will be part of tomorrow as well)  I love recipes that I'm able to put together ahead of time, especially when I'm not sure what the rest of the day is going to look like and my crew ended up giving this one a huge thumbs up!

After they were finished creating we had a quick snack of Yogurt Popsicles made from Stonyfield yogurt.  The company is based in Londonderry and is known for its production of organic products.  Mikayla had to try one of each flavor she liked them so much.  We all finished up and headed off to Plymouth for today's lunch concert - Gemini!  We have seen them before and they are one of my favorite children's performers in the area.  The twin brothers put on a great show with a ton of different instruments and music from around the world.  Both kiddos said how much fun they had an behaved so well a quick stop at Starbucks (thanks for the gift card for my birthday, Gary!) was in order before heading home.

At home we tackled the "We've Been There State" (darn, no Gatchel's again this week!  But as I mentioned in Monday's blog, it is definitely on my bucket list now.  I want to see those jack o'lanterns!)  and then set out to finish our jack o'lantern projects.  I LOVE the way these turned out.  I even snagged some flameless candles when we were out this morning, so I was able to take pictures of them in all their lit up glory (thank goodness for blackout curtains in our bedroom!).  The Dynamic Duo was pretty proud of their creations and have already requested that they be allowed to use the as night lights tonight.

Wrapping this up quickly tonight, since Grant and the kids are off at a concert downtown and I am set to head off to a PTA Board meeting in just a few.  This is the last meeting of the old board (sad) and then Monday I have our first meeting with the new board (yay!).  I still can't believe that school starts so soon.  The summer has been so packed, but I wouldn't change any of it.  And we're not done yet :D  Not sure what's going on tomorrow, though Noah and Grant are off tomorrow night on a Cub Scout adventure and I'm going to repurpose the leftovers from last night's corned beef into another meal with a new veggie for my kiddos to try.  (Before this week I don't think they'd ever had parsnips or turnips) So until then...

New Hampshire Fun Fact of the Day:  Of the thirteen original colonies, New Hampshire was the first to declare its independence from Mother England -- a full six months before the Declaration of Independence was signed.

Hard at work

Painting away

Gluing his tissue paper down

Yogurt pops!

Still working away - I loved how diligent he was with this today

Plymouth!

We love Gemini

A treat at Starbucks

We decided New Hampshire was too long to fit on the state this week...

So we shortened it.  (And it was 20 seconds after I snapped this pic that I realized they had taped the letters to the wrong side and the sate was backwards)

But we fixed it!  And got it on the wall

Adding a face

Trying to get some good pictures of Mikayla's creation

(Along with Mikayla...  I'm not sure what her lack of being photogenic was due to at this point)

Noah finished too

So we tried to get some pictures of his

Yay!

Pumpkin Mac and Cheese