Confession: I have a bakery weakness. OK, I have many of them. But when push comes to shove, I can usually resist the temptation of cookies, cakes and doughnuts.
But on the off-chance I spot a rare magic cookie bar at a bakery? All bets are off and I must buy it.
If you’ve never had a 7-layer magic cookie bar you’re missing out. Anything with sweetened condensed milk is a winner in my book but then add coconut, chocolate and graham crackers? #Winning.
For our pumpkin party this year, I decided to go one step further and add pumpkin. Try it. You won’t be disappointed. 
Perfectly Pumpkin Magic Cookie Bars
- 4 cups graham cracker crumbs (about 32 whole crackers)
- 1 cup of butter
- 1 14oz can sweetened condensed milk
- 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon cloves
- 11/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut
- 1 cup salted almonds or pecans, coarsely chopped
- 1 cup chocolate chips. I also chopped up some Hershey’s Pumpkin Spice Kisses, which are available seasonally.
Directions:
Preparation
Heat oven to 350 degrees. Create a foil sling with a 1 inch over hang in a 9×13 pan..
- Combine graham crackers and butter and stir until well blended. Press mixture onto bottom of pan
- Combine sweetened condensed milk, pumpkin puree, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and stir until well combined. Pour mixture over graham cracker crust.
- Sprinkle on chocolate chips, followed by the nuts and then finish by sprinkling coconut on top.
- Place assembled pan in the oven and bake for about 35-45 minutes. Let cool in pan completely and then transfer finished pan to the refrigerator to chill before cutting.
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In case you missed it: Delicious Pumpkin Pie Crisp Bars 
Our debut as professional pie contest eaters at Four Mile Historic Park
Four years ago when Jamie was in Portland visiting his buddy at a pumpkin weigh-off, the kids and I fell in love with Four Mile History Park’s annual Great Pumpkin Harvest Festival. This rustic 12-acre historic oasis and the site of Denver’s oldest house is a charming throwback to yesteryear. Scarecrow making. Caramel apples and apple cider. Pioneer games. Horse-drawn wagon rides. Museum tours. Wood-burning stove cookie baking and Native American fry bread. Mountain man encampment. Gold panning. Historic blacksmithing demonstrations.
I loved it all and have been dying to go back but last weekend was our first opportunity while Jamie was at another weigh-off.
Pumpkin ring toss
Very heated musical chairs cakewalk
New obsession: stilt walking
Apple cider doughnuts I’ve dreamed about for four years
Four Mile Historic Park had pumpkins for purchase in a cute little pumpkin patch but we couldn’t be bothered.
“We don’t need to stop there, Hadley. We’re pumpkin snobs.”
“What’s a snob?”
“Someone who thinks they’re better than someone else.”
“Why yes, yes we are pumpkin snobs.”
But there’s nothing better than pie-eating contests and darn it if Hadley and Bode didn’t hit the jackpot by being two of the lucky 15 kids who signed up.
There was some stiff competition: a lot of hungry-looking teenagers. Bode looks like he’s praying in this picture. It worked.
At least it did when he figured out it’s better not to lick the berry pie…
and just jump right on it. Little dude never looked back.
Hadley, on the other hand, started strong by smashing her face in her apple pie and ingesting it. About a minute later, she came up for air.
“Mom, I can’t breathe! I have pie up my nose”
“Breathe later, eat now.”
I have a future as a competitive pie-eating coach. My first rule: do not slurp the apples like a straw.
Or look at your competition. Bode lost precious seconds here.
But he needn’t have worried because he totally beat Hadley who ended up looking like this.
I don’t think she’ll want apple pie anytime soon.
But we had a blast and you’d better believe we’ll be training for next year.
When a Woman Loves a Man: The Pumpkin Version
I’ll admit it: I rarely go out to the pumpkin patch. I venture over there a few times a year to help Jamie with a few tasks but mostly, I watch the pumpkin’s progress from our porch or bedroom window. And I hear about the pumpkin 24-7 so it’s not like I’m absent from the process.
But the day of the pumpkin party, Jamie had a request: could I please come help him take the pumpkin’s final measurements? If you will recall, it was raining. Hard.
“Just wear some shoes you don’t mind getting muddy,” he counseled.
I did just that. As we were walking out to the patch, he noticed them.
“But those are my shoes you’re wearing.”
“Yup.”
Smart wife, non?
You haven’t lived until you’ve measured a giant pumpkin in the rain. He uses an over-sized tape measure and barks orders of where to hold it to get it exactly right. The pumpkin was wet and slippery so it took several tries but we finally measured the beast and emerged muddy and soaking wet.
The takeaway? Greater love hath no wife than she who measures a giant pumpkin with her husband in the rain.
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In case you missed it:
Drumroll: And the Great Pumpkin’s Weight is….
Like a giant pumpkin to the slaughter: a pumpkin party to remember
Stanley the Pumpkin Does Colorado Schools and the Fun Run
Recipe: Delicious Pumpkin Pie Crisp Bars
Recipe: Delicious Pumpkin Pie Crisp Bars
I still remember the day I became obsessed with eating all-things pumpkin. I was pregnant with Hadley, called home and my family was eating pumpkin pie for Canadian Thanksgiving. As a wave of homesickness washed over me, I developed a pregnancy craving for pumpkin that never went away.
Thankfully, the pregnancies did.
I absolutely love our pumpkin party and all the delicious treats our friends bring. I mean, just look at this spread!
Every year, I like to experiment and fell in love with two new recipes that I tweaked until they were just right. I’ll share one this week and another next week.
About the recipe: two of my favorite treats are pumpkin pie and apple crisp. This recipe melds the best of both worlds with the “crisp” not only as the topping but also on the bottom and delicious pumpkin in between. Then, add cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves and ginger and this treat tastes like fall.
Pumpkin Pie Crisp Bars
Ingredients
1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups quick oats (old fashioned works too)
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup packed light-brown sugar
3/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla extract
Pumpkin Pie Filling
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup packed-light brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ginger
1 pinch ground cloves
1/4 tsp salt
1 large egg
1 large egg yolk
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 1/4 cups canned pureed pumpkin
1/3 cup half and half
Whipped cream and cinnamon, for serving (optional)
Directions
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a mixing bowl, whisk together flour, oats, salt and baking soda for 30 seconds. Add in 1/2 cup granulated sugar and 1/2 cup brown sugar an mix until no clumps remain. Combine melted butter and vanilla and add to mixture, then stir with a spoon until evenly moistened. Gently press half of the mixture into a greased 8 by 8-inch baking dish (a 9 by 9-inch baking dish would be great to, just reduce the baking time slightly as needed) and bake in preheated oven 15 minutes.
Meanwhile in a mixing bowl, whisk together 1/4 cup granulated sugar, 1/4 cup brown sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves and salt. Add in egg, egg yolk and vanilla and stir until blended. Mix in pumpkin then milk. Pour mixture over baked cookie portion and return to oven to bake 15 minutes, then remove from oven and sprinkle remaining cookie crumb mixture over top while breaking the crumb into small bits. Transfer oven rack closer to the top-center (not directly beneath but a few levels below) and return to oven to bake about 20 – 25 minutes longer until golden on top and center only giggles slightly. Remove from oven and allow to cool 1 hour at room temperature, then transfer to refrigerator to cool 1 hour longer (or serve warm from the oven like a crumble with ice cream). Cut into squares and serve with sweetened whipped cream and a light dusting of cinnamon if desired.
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In case you missed it:
Drumroll: And the Great Pumpkin’s Weight is….
Like a giant pumpkin to the slaughter: a pumpkin party to remember
Stanley the Pumpkin Does Colorado Schools and the Fun Run
Stanley the Pumpkin Does Colorado and the Fun Run!
Before we move the Great Pumpkin onto our driveway where it stays until Halloween, both the kids beg for us to bring it to school. On Monday, Jamie and I showed it to Bode’s second grade class and it was a hoot. Bode talked about how much the pumpkins weigh, how he grew them and then announced. “OK, I will take nine questions” and then pointed to various kids with their hands raised. At the end of our Q&A, he brusquely said, “OK, I will take two more comments,” and then wrapped it up.
Little dude has a future as a teacher. Or a dictator.
For the second year in a row, we were able to take the pumpkins to Hadley’s school’s fun run. Last year, I hung out eating bonbons cheering for Hadley while she ran by as I talked to my friend Aime. This year, I volunteered to run it with her, not realizing exactly what I was committing to. I mean, it was a fun run so surely it was just that, right?
Warm-up!
Turns out it wasn’t just a few laps around the park but the challenge was to get in as many laps as you could during the hour-long run. Back in the day, I was Miss Long Distance. My elementary school would have Run for Your Life where we’d race around the fields collecting Popsicle sticks for each lap and every year, Paul MacEachern and I dominated.
Those days are long, long over.
This was the longest I’ve run on my knee since my surgery but I have to tell you how impressed I was with Hadley. The first several laps she didn’t stop at all and as we got deeper and deeper into the hour, we’d do brief walking and water breaks but she kept plugging along while many of her classmates stopped. If I hadn’t been there with her, I would have quit after about a half hour when my knee started bugging me but I kept going and she later said she wouldn’t have done as many laps if I hadn’t been there. Ever since her field trip last week, she’s been much more appreciative of me and commented, “you’re one of the only moms who’s running. That’s really cool!”
And how I know she’s mine: Every time we’d run up to a boy, she’d very sweetly rub it in by saying “good job!” and then blow past him.
In the end, she did 19 laps–the most of any girl in her grade and more than most of the boys. We ran just short of five miles and she blazed ahead of me on our final lap. Though she’s really athletic, she does more solo sports like skiing and hiking so having a measurable success was a huge ego boost for her.
Having a giant pumpkin to show off to all her friends at school didn’t hurt the ego, either.
(Drumroll) And The Great Pumpkin’s Weight Is….
After a thoroughly exhausting, fun and wet pumpkin party, the day of the weigh-off was even more chaotic as we juggled Bode’s soccer and my volleyball game (thanks to Aunt Lisa for coming to the rescue with rides!)
Jamie says he loves driving the Great Pumpkin to the weigh-off because of all the stares and cheers he receives.
And who can blame them with this cargo?
The festivities are at Jared’s Nursery in Littleton and have grown from a little podunk weigh-off to a veritable harvest festival with a haunted house, face painting, mazes, bouncy castles, games and food trucks.
But still, the highlight is always checking out the giant gourds.
It feels a bit like you’re wandering around the Land of the Lost with these 100-pound pears. And of course, all those pumpkins. 
I felt really happy for Jamie because, for the first time, his pumpkin was among the largest and was the one people singled out for pictures. 
Of course, we had to pose for our requisite family photo with the other woman. Though in this case, she’s a man named Stanley in honor of my dad and Jamie’s best friend. My friend Fiona called us the “Mannings of the pumpkin growing world.”
I’m sure that means we must be millionaires.
The kids’ division was first. Early in the season, Hadley lost her pumpkin so they both grew Bode’s pumpkin, which is just a nice way of saying he did most of the work but she wants part of the credit.
Regardless, they blew away the other kids and won with their biggest pumpkin ever: 429.5 pounds! It went 15 percent heavier than its measurements.
Up next was the adult division. Jamie’s pumpkin developed a small crack five weeks prior, which automatically disqualified it from competition but he still wanted to weigh it. It was measuring out to be over 1,400 pounds, which would have beat the 1,308-pound Colorado state record.
But it wasn’t to be so. Though Stanley was a beast, he went “light,” which in pumpkin terms means he wasn’t as thick on the inside so turned out to be about 200 pounds lighter than Jamie had hoped.
A man and his giant pumpkin
But 1,220 pounds is nothing to be sad about. Stanley was a few hundred pounds heavier than Jamie’s personal best and was one of the biggest grown in Colorado this year. His friend Joe ended up growing a 1,478-pound pumpkin and won the competition. Which just means there’s an even bigger goal for next year.
Congrats to my cute family on a job well grown!
Like a Giant Pumpkin to the Slaughter: A Pumpkin Party to Remember
Last week was a blur as I chaperoned Hadley’s three-day camping trip and returned home to throw our annual pumpkin party the next day, followed by the chaotically fun giant pumpkin weigh-off.
Translation: I barely slept.
We always invite oodles of friends and setup the party in our backyard, which, between that and our neighbor’s lot where Jamie grows the pumpkin, there is plenty of room to roam. But this year, we had a further complication: lots of rain. We have a good-sized four-bedroom house but it is certainly not big enough to comfortably house 60+ people but that’s exactly what we did.
That was only the tip of our muddy iceberg that night.
I expected people to un-RSVP due to the inclement weather and, if we’re being honest here, I kind of hoped they would so we would have a more manageable crowd. But we have wonderful, supportive friends (yeah!) and a deluge of them waited until the very last minute to say they were coming (not yeah!)
The motivator was probably my Facebook post that announced the party was still on despite the rain with the promise of mud wrestling in the pumpkin patch.
We told our friends to dress for the weather and that they did. Though Meredith went a wee bit overboard with her dorky umbrellas.
If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Admission to the pumpkin party is your favorite pumpkin dish and we had two tables full of pumpkin rolls, pies, cookies, pumpkin seed guacamole, cinnamon rolls, cakes, dips, pumpkin-spiced hot chocolate and so much more. I made two new treats that will become permanent fixtures–pumpkin magic cookie bars and pumpkin oatmeal bars (recipes forthcoming). It was one of my favorite spreads ever.
And I’m not just talking about the middle-aged spread I had after sampling them all.
Usually when it’s time to cut the pumpkin off the vine, everyone races out to the pumpkin patch but we had three kinds of people.
1) The “been there, done that” types who opted to stay inside.
Note: My unsupportive children were numbered among them. The Pumpkin Man may disown them for this major trespass.
2) The “I’m intrigued but I don’t want to get wet” types. These people crammed inside near the back door and the more interested sorts stood on the deck so they were able to dash back indoors if they got too soaked.
3) The “I’m all in” types. 
These hearty souls were rewarded with quite the show and major complications surfaced because:
1) It was raining. In case you’d forgotten that.
2) It was muddy.
3) Stanley the Pumpkin weighs several hundred pounds more than Jamie’s previous gourds.
Usually, Jamie and a few of his buddies adjust lifting straps around the pumpkin, they attach it to the forklift and the machine very carefully lifts it off its bed of sand onto the flatbed trailer while the crowd cheers.
But this year, there was muck everywhere so the backhoe could not get enough traction to lift the pumpkin out of the patch. After several failed attempts (and a backhoe that literally almost tipped over from the weight of the pumpkin), Jamie and his pit crew changed strategies. They knocked down one of the poles supporting the hail netting so the backhoe could go in at another angle. 
As we watched the drama unfold, one of our drenched-to-the-bone neighbor’s daughters raved to me, “This is your greatest pumpkin party yet! The rain! The mud! And they might not even get the pumpkin out of there!”
She sure has a differ view of greatness.
After what seemed like an eternity, the deed was done. Jamie and his buddies looked like the Swamp Things as they emerged from the patch and I was horrified when I saw one of them had blood all over his face.
“What happened?”
“I’m not sure. I was trying to push the backhoe when it got stuck and I got bloodied up.”
It was the Great Pumpkin’s first sacrificial lamb. But I’m sure it will not be the last.
Be sure to read the details of the weigh-off and the Great Pumpkin’s final weight!
The List: Outtakes from a Marriage
Last week, I was crazy-busy with a deadline, making dozens of cookies for the local flood relief command center, doing laundry and dinner preparations were on the forefront of my mind because we had invited the woman I visit teach over for FHE as well as a new couple in the ward. Jamie, like the saving angel offered:
“Do you need me to go to the store?””
“Yes, you would be a lifesaver, THANK YOU! Let me write a list of a few things.”
“OK.” I wrote the list and handed it to him.
“Oh wait. I just remembered something else.”
“OK.”
A few minutes later, after I’d made a double-batch of cookies, I realized I was out of brown sugar. I was remiss when I thought he had already left for the store. But then, WINNINGLY, I spotted him in the backyard!
“I just remembered something else: brown sugar.”
“You see, this is why I hate going to the store for you. You keep adding things to the list. And you already put brown sugar down.”
I should be married to myself; I can anticipate my own needs before I even know about them.
So, off he went to the store and I had a conference call. A few minutes, I heard him try to beep through on my phone. I didn’t pick up; what else could he possibly need? I had pretty thoroughly expounded upon everything with the list.
I grabbed a second phone and tried to call him back while juggling my other line. He didn’t pick up.
When he arrived home with a few grocery bags, I queried:
“I tried calling you back. Why did you call?”
“I lost the list.”
Why I may be the best wife in the world
Next week is allllll about pumpkins with our infamous pumpkin party and weigh-off. If you’d like to guess the weight of the pumpkin, be sure to go here. We’re giving away tickets to Elitch Gardens’ Fright Fest for the three closest guesses!
On a side note, I’ll be chaperoning Hadley’s class camping trip for three days next week, which makes for an even craaazier week for me.
But abandoning Jamie, Bode and Fat Kitty has been forgiven because of The Denver Post’s article 10 fun things to do in Denver before summer ends by John Wenzel. The reason? Not only did I score a very generous mention of the weigh-off but a nice picture of Stanley the Pumpkin and our cute neighbor Stella.
Let the pumpkin games begin!
Nintendo 2DS: Coming to an Excited Kid Near You
Every year, our friends at Nintendo swing by Denver to show us the latest and greatest on the market. Last year, it was the WiiU, and this year it’s the 2DS handheld, which will be released on Oct. 19. We got one of the first looks and they had enough security there to make sure we didn’t keep on looking by walking out with if afterward. 🙂
The Lobby’s lovely back patio
We congregated at The Lobby, a welcome reprieve after all of our flooding and rain. But forget the charming courtyard with flowers, ivy and delicious food (caramel-bacon ice cream Sammies, anyone?) When we pulled up to the restaurant and saw a huge Nintendo-theme trailer, the kids went wild.
Seeing is doing with Nintendo so after a brief overview, the kiddos and adults were set loose to try out all the new games and devices on the back deck and also in the decked-out trailer. Both kiddos fell in love with Pitkin 3 (can you say Christmas present?) and we all really, really liked the new 2DS. In fact, while the kids eventually gravitated back to what they were familiar with (the 3DS), the adults and I universally agreed we preferred the 2DS. Not only is it a more light, affordable ($129.99), family-friendly unit but I prefer its flat, tablet-like design because it’s easier to hold and navigate…the perfect starter device. All the capabilities seem to be the same so I think it will be a winner in the family market.
Nintendo 2DS
There’s nothing quite like a Nintendo event.
The best way to describe it: an anti-social, social bonding experience.
When Bode first entered the Nintendo-themed trailer, he marveled at all the technology and peppered the PR rep with questions.
Q:”Where do you drive this?”
A: “All around the country showing people the games.”
Q: “This is your job?”
A: “Yup.”
Let’s just say Bode has new career aspirations.
Bode is my Nintendo guy and I can get him to do pretty much anything in exchange for some highly-coveted Wii time (how do you think I potty trained him?)
Hadley, on the other hand, can take it or leave it but I think she found her game, Animal Crossing. You essentially design your own world with the perfect house, outfits and animals while learning life skills with in-game currencies but with a lot more depth than in your average Webkinz or phone app. The interactivity is mind-blogging; when you play it adapts your scene to whether it’s night or day and as the seasons change in real life, so do your scenes. That’s only the tip of the iceberg, of course.
I knew she was having fun when I brought her an extra-gooey brownie (her favorite) and instead of inhaling it like she usually does, she reprimanded me, “No dessert, I’m busy right now.”
The 2DS may be my new diet technique.