Weekend Wrap-Up & Kids Cook!

What a busy weekend!  So we started with Friday night and a phone call as I was leaving work that a routine out-patient surgery for my uncle had wound up with major complications after his lung collapsed!  By the time I got the call he was stabilized and in ICU and they were not allowing visitors so we all gathered at my brother's hockey game instead.  Thankfully, my uncle is now back home and feeling much better.  Now we await test results to find out the why.  And my brother's team won in overtime.

On Saturday, the kids and I covered a lot of ground.  They had their hockey lesson in the morning (the Princess has officially switched from learning basic skating to deciding she likes hockey too).  Then we headed to town for groceries and a load of pumpkins from the cider mill.  At the end of the season, the mill has started selling leftover pumpkins as livestock feed for $10 for one of those giant shipping crates full.  I had decided to try these as a cheap feed addition for the horses and goat after doing a little research and testing their interest with the few uncarved pumpkins we had left from Halloween that were still good.  Topper doesn't seem to know what to do with them but the goat and pony seem to like them well enough.  So the kids helped me unload the trailer full of pumpkins - hauling the rotted ones to the pasture and stacking the good ones in the barn.

They decided pumpkin chuckin' was pretty fun even though we don't have one of these launchers like the cider mill does.  

My husband came home just in time for everyone to snuggle in for the night.  He was successful in his hunting trip and we pulled out the first log of venison sausage of the season in time to take it to his parents' house for Thanksgiving.  We get most of our deer processed by Specialized Deer Processing in Dewitt.  They make the best Pepper Jack cheese venison sausage ever.  Paired with Michigan's own Williams Pinconning cheese out of Linwood, Michigan, and some tasty crackers - this platter disappeared fast.

And one last thing to share, those of you on Twitter may have seen my tweet about the kids cooking dinner one night last week.  Well, how does that gooey pizza pocket look for a great dinner!?  

I took a package of refrigerated pizza dough (look wherever the biscuit and cookie dough is) and laid it on a cookie sheet and cut it into 4 pieces.  Then I rolled each piece flat with my rolling pin.  The kids put a couple spoons of pizza sauce, some pepperoni and a handful or two of shredded mozzarella in the middle.  

Then we carefully folded them and pressed the seams together.

And placed seem side down on the cookie sheets - 2 pizza pockets per tray.

I baked them at 375 degrees (whatever the package calls for) for about 12-15 minutes until the dough was cooked.  The kids were so excited to help and snatched these right up.