Olivia, Buckeyes, Lasagna & Pumpkin Pie

I slept until I heard Olivia calling out for me. It wasn’t a panicked cry. Instead, just an innocent call for attention. I went and retrieved her from her bed and carried her back into our room where she happily joined Mindy & I in bed. She was very cheery. It wasn’t a minute or two later that Bella joined us. It was still before 8am, all of us headed downstairs to start our day together.

More often than not, I am up for about 30 minutes before anyone else. It seemed odd having everyone downstairs right out of the shoot. Shaking things up a bit, I walked Ykraps instead of waiting until after exercise. He was chomping at the bit to get outside. It was a gloomy, chilly morning. It couldn’t have been much above freezing. I later learned that it was 37 degrees. It felt colder after several days of much warmer weather.

The kids played and asked to watch Shrek 3 again. I put the movie in while Mindy started making maple bacon and pancakes. Olivia asked to go outside and swing. I promised I’d take her out after my run and breakfast. I left for a run a few minutes later. I ran along Trabue & Hague. It was a chilly but good run.

The kids were already eating breakfast by the time that I made it back home. Mindy soon prepped my plate as well. Olivia seemed to be enjoying her pancakes and even helped eat some of mine. Jacob & Bella do such a good job of helping and playing with Olivia. Not long after breakfast, me and the kids headed out into the yard where I pushed all of them on the tree swings. After getting their fill of swinging, we fed the ducks from the backyard benches. I had to keep a close hand on Olivia. She doesn’t listen well and often goes to close to the water. The ducks wouldn’t come after the cracked corn until we moved back from the area. We went and sat about 20’ feet away before they came after the food. We enjoyed the view.

All totaled, we were outside for a good hour. Back inside, Mindy took a rare nap. I thought that she was in the shower. Bella said otherwise. I did my level best to clean up the breakfast mess while also entertaining the kids. Mindy came downstairs around 11:30am ready to head out for the grocery. She put Olivia down for a nap before leaving. Ashley called about the same time to arrange Olivia’s pick up. I told her to come in an hour and a half. Bella went with her momma.

While Olivia slept, I got busy making a pumpkin pie. At the same time, I tuned into the OSU/Northwestern game. Lessons learned from last week’s chocolate pie, I took extra care rolling out the pie dough more thoroughly. First molding it in my hands seemed to make a big difference. My pumpkin pie recipe called for evaporated milk, however we had none. I did a cross reference on the web looking for substitutes. Half & half and whipping cream were two choices. I used half & half since it was readily available. That seemed to work, but knew that the only true test would be the end product.

I made sure to clean up my entire mess as soon as I had the pie in the oven. I don’t like leaving a mess set too long. I had the kitchen/family room looking good by the time that Mindy & Bella returned from the grocery. Meanwhile, the pie was still in the oven. I made it for Mindy. It’s one of her favorites. She seemed appreciative. All three of us carried in the groceries (me, Bella, and Mindy). It wasn’t long before Ashley showed up to pick-up Olivia. She went to the spare room to retrieve her. Olivia wasn’t in the best of moods – still sleepy. She gave her momma some fits as she tried changing her. Honestly, we never see that kind of behavior from her.

Olivia finally calmed down and soon she and Ashley departed. Mindy again headed out, only this time to decorate the church altar and then to pick-up some ground beef and sausage for lasagna. She’d be back in about an hour. I kept watch over the kids while also watching football. It hardly seemed that Mindy was gone for any length of time at all. When she returned, she promptly got busy making dinner – lasagna.

Jake, Jacob and I went out back to play a little two hand touch football. As we so often like to say, the two of them bicker like an old married couple. I was asked to be all-time quarterback. We had fun. Neighbor Jake still struggles to catch the ball consistently and frequently falls to the ground after almost every attempt at a catch. Jake doesn’t have the same burning desire to play football that our Jacob seems to have. We stopped after about 30 minutes of action. Jacob wanted to keep playing but it was obvious that Jake had enough.

I kept a loose eye on the Penn State/Iowa game for most of the late afternoon. Iowa won with a last second field goal. I went back inside to fetch a shower. Before my shower former father-in-law Al phoned to share some insight regarding Courtney’s poor decision making. Mindy & I talked afterward. Mindy gave Courtney a call in an effort to convince her to make better choices. It never ends.

After my shower I took Ykraps on his evening walk. Sometime near 6:30pm Mindy’s lasagna was ready complete with Italian bread and salad. It was quite good. We all saved room for the pumpkin pie I made earlier. It was good too. All in all, it was a very satisfying dinner.

The kids were in bed around 8:30pm after a late night Friday. Mindy wasn’t long for the evening, either. She went to bed around 9:30pm. I stayed up and watched a little more football.