Cheesy Rice, A Birthday & Stinky Socks

How about a recap of what's been going on in the life of a Dewey this past month?

Lots of fun activities, food making and eating, running, enjoying the outdoors now that it's not 150F degrees outside (hello Arizona). So for your picture viewing pleasure, please enjoy.

Warm tea any time of day is still great. Even if we still have temps in the 90s in October.

Cheesy zucchini rice. I could eat the whole pan. But I didn't.

Oktober Fest at Tempe Town Lake. Had a blast!

Coffee love from my Gal Pal Jess at work. Can't get enough PSL.

Recovering after a 5.5 mile run few weeks ago in my Pro Compression Socks & fueling with Nuun. Addicted, yes.

Someone had a birthday back in September. A 2nd birthday. Oops, I haven't recapped that either?!

Jackson turned 2 in September. When asked how old he is, he's admitted to "Seven".

PSA: Shirt was custom made from a friend. Check out her Etsy shop. Highly recommended!

Now that the summer Monsoon season has come to a halt, I should have more time to do anything I want catch up and write some blog posts. I won't forget the cooking and recipes and I absolutely need to post more pictures of these two guys. Can't get enough of them. Except when they gang up on me :)

Hey, Hey Little Pumpkin Muffin

My pumpkin baking and cooking is not limited to the Fall holiday season, it is just kicked into overdrive. From Pumpkin bread, lattes, bagels, muffins, pancakes, cheesecake...the list goes on. I haven't tried something Pumpkin that I don't like.

Made these Pumpkin Pancakes a few weeks ago, delish! I didn't use a bisquik base, but made them from scratch. High Five! So with the latest muffin trend here in the Dewey house, I wanted to continue that. I used this Pumpkin Pancake recipe and put it into muffin tins. Add chocolate chips. Devour. Repeat.

Can you smell them fresh from the oven? Scoot closer.

Pumpkin Pancakes (from scratch, original recipe by me)

1 1/2 cup milk (soy or dairy-free work well too)
1 cup pumpkin puree (room temp)
1 egg
2 tablespoons apple sauce (in place of vegetable oil)
2 tablespoons white vinegar
2 cups flour, white or whole wheat
3 tablespoons brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground all spice
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 - 1/2 teaspoon salt
1-2 teaspoons ground flaxseed
*Optional: 1 teaspoon vanilla extract, chocolate chips

In one bowl, combine all wet ingredients, mix. In another bowl, combine all dry ingredients. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. I used re-useable muffin tins, sprayed with non-stick spray. Add dry mix into pumpkin/wet mix and mix until JUST COMBINED, don't over mix. Muffins/pancakes will be tough. Add chocolate chips at the end.  I scooped a heaping spoonful into each muffin tin. Baked for 15-18 minutes, until done in the middle.

Second batch, ran out of batter. Used water to fill empty spaces.

Here's a tip. If you run out of batter (I got 20 muffins total out of the batter), fill remaining empty spaces with water. This will help muffins bake more evenly. Works..like..a..charm!!

Aren't they cute? These will make great grab-n-go breakfasts too! If I don't eat them all before dinner :)

{Fall into Autumn: Northern Arizona}

Some things I love about Autumn are the the cool, crisp air, the leaves falling off the trees and the changing of the color of the leaves. Living in the desert with plants that don't lose their leaves, and cactus that don't exactly have leaves to lose, makes it difficult to see such things. Not to mention we just left our triple digit friends for the lower 90s a few days ago. Luckily for me, and many others that enjoy this, northern Arizona is not too far away! 

A little climb in elevation, drop in temperature about 20 degrees and a completely different climate exists. We drove up to Flagstaff last weekend and got to see some changing Aspen trees. Explored the hilly-mountainous area around Flagstaff and Jackson got his first hike in.
[Warning: Photo overload!] All from October 7.

Pinecones aren't that tasty.

Look Mom, I found dirt to play in!

Family trip success! Next on the agenda: Snow.   

A Sunday hike & photo shoot

Josh and I got lucky, due to him getting last Saturday off and me getting both Saturday & Sunday off from trading at work, to have this last weekend off together, saaaweeet!

While we didn't get as much done as I'd hoped, usually doesn't go that way anyway, we did get one thing done that I'd been wanting to get done. Took pictures for a Christmas card, and plus I just wanted to get some more nice pictures done of us. Luckily the rain was kind enough to give us a window but the wind didn't stop.

I still have to decide which one(s) to include in the card. Which one do you like best??? For your enjoyment...

I like #4, #6, #7...counting from the top.

I realize are a bit grainy but it was the time of day with the lighting. We tried the flash and it just didn't look great either. Pretty good for doing these ourselves! Happy Holidays from Arizona. Who knew the desert was so pretty?! If you haven't guessed, I have a thing to try to find the coolest, strangest looking saguaro cactus. It was pretty chilly but nothing like Utah or Northern Arizona with the snow. Colorado hasn't gotten much if any snow yet.

{Pumpkins}

I think it has been more than 5 years since we last carved pumpkins so we decided we should carve some up. It just didn't feel quite like Halloween around here since I'm used to colder weather, snow even and it has been in the 90's here. So carving pumpkins did the trick.We enjoyed carving out on our little porch, Lucy even joined us!

We had our Pumpkin Beer, pumpkin carving set and pumpkins!

She really was curious about the pumpkins

My Arizona "Zona" state flag pumpkin

Josh's "New Belgium" pumpkin