Pumpkins

Yesterday was all about pumpkins. I carved a pumpkin for Halloween; Nikita chose the design (from this site) and helped scoop out the seeds. Then I made a yummy pumpkin bread. The only things I changed was substituting 1/2 cup of butter (for half of the oil) and 1 cup of dark brown sugar (for the same amount of sugar). Everyone except Igor loved the bread, which is not suprising because Igor's not fond of sweet spicies or baked goods that don't have yeast. The recipe made enough batter for a dozen muffins, which I'll bring to Nikita's class later this week, when I carve another pumpkin. That means I had to buy two pumpkins this year. Thank goodness Stop 'n Shop has them for $5 a piece, which given the large size of the pumpkins, is a bit obscene.

Igor barely left the kitchen this weekend. He's in one of his baking binges, and has been using heavily the Russian cookbook Please to the Table. For the past few weeks, he's been making two batches of cakes: two poppy seed cakes, two apple cakes. I end up making omelettes with the leftover egg whites (about 10 eggs total). This weekend, he only made one batch of cakes, but also made thin-crust pizza and ham-n-cheese rolls. The pizza, despite the Cooks Illustrated recipe, was not successful; the dough tasted like crackers. The ham-n-cheese rolls were better.

October has flown by so quickly. I was really busy with writing a travel grant and a high school reunion. I'm glad the travel grant is over. The high school reunion (20 years!) was a blast. I remember being overwhelmed at the 10 year reunion; the 20 year reunion was much better. Perhaps because I was able to touch base with more people beforehand through Facebook? With all the work, I finally came down with a cold last week, which thankfully seems over. Another thing that is over: expressing milk for Ivan during the day!

Which brings me to my boys. Nikita has taken to answering the phone. It's so nice to hear his, "Hi, Mommy!" at the end of the day. Also everyday, when he gets home, he recreates some art project he worked on at school that day. Ivan is slowly picking up words. Nikita is "Da da", Igor is "Pa pa", and I am just "Ma!" He's also quite obsessed with putting on clothes. Galina's apron looks particularly cute on him; gotta take a photo of him with it one of these days. He's finally able to sit down for a story with me, but doesn't like to eat anything except sweet things (thankfully, this includes fruits). At his 18 month appointment, he seemed to be falling off his height and weight curves (he's down to 1% for weight), but his head circumference is still on track. So, I recently bought flax seeds and tahini to supplement. And we're back to cod liver oil for both boys!