Our Weekend // Welcome, Fall

After a two week hiatus, I’M BACK! The end of September was a little rough for us. Work was crazy busy, Ellie and Dan were both sick, and I feel like I’ve been getting even less sleep than usual lately. After a long day at work, chasing E around all evening, and then fighting to get her to bed at night, I was lacking the motivation and creativity to plan and execute new blog posts. Now that I’ve kicked that “meh” feeling, I’ve found a new burst of energy going into the Fall and the soon-to-be-here holiday season. I’ve got a lot of fun posts planned for October, so hopefully I’ll be popping up over here more often.

This weekend, we did all sorts of traditional Fall things. On Saturday morning, we headed to a local apple orchard to pick apples with our friends, Kelsey and Mike, and their daughter, Avery. It was about 55 degrees, but it was cloudy and windy, so it felt much cooler. Because of the chilly weather, our trip was relatively short, and the girls didn’t really get the chance to run around and play as we had hoped. Maybe we’ll just have to try again another weekend, if it gets a bit warmer again.

On Saturday afternoon, I baked pumpkin zucchini chocolate chip bread following this AH-MAZ-ING recipe. {As a side note, if you haven’t heard of Ambitious Kitchen, you have to check it out. We’ve loved all of the recipes that we’ve tried, and she has a ton of suggestions on substituting healthy ingredients. Almost everything is kid-friendly, too.}

While the bread was baking, I spent a little time updating our decor for Fall. I don’t get super in to holiday decorations {except for Christmas, of course}, but I do like to make a few small changes with each season.

pumpkin cheesecake candle // copper terrarium // faux deer bust

For lunch on Sunday, we went to Empty Bowls Milwaukee, an event that raises money for nonprofit organizations that fight to alleviate hunger in the Milwaukee area. In exchange for a $20 donation, you get to select a handmade ceramic bowl {all of which have been donated by local artists and various other organizations}, which you then get to fill up with two servings of soup. There were over twenty Milwaukee-area restaurants there offering up some pretty tasty options. It was a fun event for a great local cause.

And, of course, on Sunday afternoon we watched the Packers game. We spent the afternoon over at my in-laws’, eating spaghetti and apple crisp. It was the perfect way to end the weekend – especially since the Packers won.

Eat // Smoothie Pops

Remember all those strawberries we picked back in June? We’ve finally put some of them to good use. After a surprisingly cold weekend, the temps have jumped back up to the high-80s and low-90s here in Milwaukee over the last few days. Without central air, we’ve found ourselves in need of a serious cool down. Enter the strawberries. I decided to whip up some quick, easy, healthy, & tasty smoothie pops {without a recipe!}. Here’s how I made them:

GATHER INGREDIENTS & SUPPLIES. You’ll need roughly 2 cups of fruit and 1 cup of yogurt. THAT’S IT. I used strawberries and a banana {not pictured}, with honey greek yogurt this time. I really love blueberries and bananas together, so I’ll probably try that combination next. The possibilities are endless.

You’ll also need a blender and a popsicle mold. I found our popsicle mold in the $1 section at Target earlier this Summer {similar here & here}.

BLEND. You’ll want to get the mixture very smooth, without any chunks.

POUR & ASSEMBLE. Fill up the popsicle mold and insert the base/sticks.

FREEZE. Leave in the freezer until frozen {seems logical, right?}. We ended up leaving ours in the freezer overnight, but that probably isn’t necessary.

ENJOY! {A tip for getting the popsicle out of the mold: run it under hot water for a few seconds. This makes it SO MUCH EASIER to get the popsicle out. Dan ended up breaking the handle on one of our popsicle sticks because he failed to take my advice on this.}