Canning, AGAIN

This is just a random picture of Evelyn.  She loves to climb in and out of the dryer and also the bathtub.  

I feel like the entire month of September has been spent canning.  Ugh.  Seriously, does anyone actually like canning?  I mean, I love having the canned fruit, but the process is just hot and messy and horrible.

Our apple tree had a bumper crop this year.  WOW.  In the 5 years we've lived here, we've never had such a big crop.  I guess it makes up for last year's crop of like six apples.  Ha ha.  We had plenty for ourselves and lots to share with neighbors. I've been making dried apples galore, and the kids have been eating them almost as fast as our dehydrator makes them.

We got tons of peaches, plums, and pears from neighbors this year.   I've REALLY enjoyed making fresh peach cobblers, plum crisps, pear crisps, and apple crisps this fall.  Mmmmmmmm.

Alan and I spent an evening making applesauce.  Jared (and Maggie) were genuinely helpful!  It was really nice to make it a family affair. Doesn't Maggie look cute in her apron?

Peach pie filling in back and applesauce in front

This year's results:
14 quarts pears
8 quarts peach pie filling (We already had enough canned peaches in the basement)
21 pints applesauce (we should have made more, but it was sooooooo sticky!)
42 quarts apple pie filling (These are going to be my neighbor Christmas gifts this year, as well as families we visit teach and home teach...)

We have already had two peach pies.  Yum.  Sounds like all we've had to eat this month are fruity desserts, doesn't it?

Now I need to clean my house, which I have been neglecting for the past several weeks!

My "New" Kitchen

We've had these done since October, but I'm finally posting the final picture.  Last September we hired our friend Brian to install a coat closet and pantry (with storage bench in between) in our kitchen nook and couldn't be more thrilled with the result.  Since we were going to have to do some painting anyway, we decided we were tired of the brick red kitchen and went with a light aqua instead.  (I helped prime our kitchen one evening but then Alan ended up doing 95% of the painting all by himself since I was still in my first trimester of pregnancy and we realized I probably shouldn't be painting.)

Here are the before pictures.
Before the cabinets were added:

After the cabinets were added but before we painted:

Happy Easter

We had a lovely Easter weekend at our house. On Saturday we hosted my ENTIRE family over for the traditional dinner of ham, funeral potatoes, etc., which is a big accomplishment! Our house doesn't easily accommodate so many people, so we had to move around furniture to be able to set up some extra tables and folding chairs.

It ended up working out pretty well, and the weather decided to cooperate so that Jared and his cousins could play outside on our playground and have an Easter egg hunt. Unfortunately, my camera ran out of batteries during the middle of the dinner, so I didn't get good pictures of the egg hunt nor the singing of "Happy Birthday" to my Mom and Alan. (We like to combine holidays in my family.)

It was a good excuse to dust off my china, silverware, and crystal goblets.

On Sunday, we had an awesome visit with Alan's brothers Spencer and Mason. We were originally hoping that we could host a nice dinner with about half of Alan's family (the half that wasn't out of town for Spring Break), but it turns out that no one could come for dinner except Mason. I think Spencer had pity on us and came to visit anyway, even though he couldn't stay for dinner. :)

Alan and Mason had a good long talk about Mexico, since Alan served his mission there and Mason will be leaving for his mission there in less than 2 months!!

Mason also brought treats from Alan's mom so that our kids could have another egg hunt. They loved it!!

Cutie

Here is a picture of my newest niece! She is so adorable! I got to hold her for the first time last night, and I immediately fell in love...

P.S. I crocheted the baby blanket that was used in this photo shoot. :)

Done for this year...

Today I canned pears, which wraps up all the canning I'm going to do this year (actually, I might make pear jam if my sister-in-law says it's not too hard to make...) Since the peaches on my peach tree were ripe in mid-August, I feel like I have been doing some sort of canning for two months now. Does anyone actually like canning fruit? I surely don't. I mean, yeah, it's nice to have the lovely jars all lined up when I'm done, but it sure is not fun while I'm doing it. Either my kids are nagging me the whole time, or I resent the fact that I'm using precious nap time or time while Jared's at preschool to can fruit. I'd much rather be doing something else.

Results for this year:
21 quarts peaches
52 pints applesauce
6 pints peach jam
14 quarts pears

Yay for me! Sorry, no pictures for this year. But I think I've posted pictures of my canning efforts in years past. They look the same this year. :)

Four Little Stockings Hanging in a Row

I haven't blogged for a month and have some fun things I would like to write about (I am counting my blog as doing my family history, after all). Until I get to it, please know that we had a VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS!


Last year I dedicated a post to Jared's stocking that I crocheted. I was pretty proud of myself because I made up the Christmas tree pattern all by myself and bought the right colors of yarn so that it would at least somewhat resemble the stockings Alan and I got for our wedding. Well, since I was on a roll and also pregnant at the time, I went ahead and made another stocking with a Christmas ornament design. As soon as we found out we were having a girl (a few days after Christmas last year), we decided on the name Maggie so I could finish it. I must admit, I have LOVED having four stockings to gaze at on our mantel this year. It will be fun to add more in future years! (No, that is NOT an announcement.)

What We've Been Up To Lately

Sleeping (some of us more than others) :)

Tummy Time (Maggie can now roll from her back to tummy. Thanks again for the texture blanket, Adrianne, and the outfit, Brooke!)

Cuddling with Daddy

Drying apple slices

Canning peaches and pears with my mom-Yum!

Making applesauce with my friend Cindy-Yum again!

I am reluctantly recognizing that fall is now here and am desperately trying to make plans so that I won't go crazy indoors this winter!

Free Money!

I have been tutoring precalculus to a couple of girls in my ward the past month. I have really, really enjoyed using my degree again, and it has been nice to get some extra cash! Alan and I decided to use the money I've made so far to buy some little pieces of furniture we've been wanting for our house (rather than putting the money in savings, which we probably should have done. Ha!)

Here's the result after a fun run to IKEA: a new entryway that solves our lack-of-coat-closet problem!

Here is our new sofa table with a shoe rack that fits PERFECTLY underneath!

Also, we bought a coat rack!

I'm loving my new entryway, and I'm already planning on more little things I would like to buy for our house. Bring on the tutoring!!!!


This post has a bonus picture: my almost-25-week bump shot, and me in my new glasses! (I think after nine years of the same old glasses, I deserved a new pair, don't you?)

I Did It!

With the generous help of one of my neighbors and new friends, Cindy, we made 50 pints of applesauce this week! It was definitely a two-person job. Whew! But it is so satisfying to have all those lovely jars (well, half of them--of course I gave some to Cindy) lined up in my food storage room and to know that the apples all came from my backyard!

First, slice and boil the apples

This is the lovely Kitchen-Aid attachment I borrowed from my mother-in-law. You put the soft apples at the top, and applesauce comes out one end and all the peels and seeds come out the other! Magic!!

Then you add sugar and cinnamon to the applesauce to make it taste even yummier!

After boiling the jars in a regular canner, this is what you get! Lovely, aren't they?

I still have tons of leftover apples. I am planning to make apple crisp this weekend, and then maybe I'll try drying some apples in my oven.

Applesauce

(Image from foodblogga.blogspot.com)

We have an apple tree with green apples that are almost ripe. I'm trying to figure out what to do with them. Anyone know an easy way to make applesauce? I think my mother-in-law has an attachment to a Kitchen-Aid that somehow spits out the seeds of quartered apples, and I'm hoping to borrow it. However, I have never made applesauce before and would appreciate some help or links to helpful websites.

Jared's Stocking

This will be Jared's third Christmas, and he finally has a stocking!!

Alan and I got beautiful machine-knitted stockings for wedding presents, so I have delayed getting Jared a stocking because I wanted it to semi-match the ones we already have. Since it would have been expensive to order one just like the ones we had (like $50!), I have spent a long time looking for a free crochet pattern online for a stocking. Since I didn't find any that I liked, I finally decided to just make up a pattern myself--something I have never done before!! It is quite obvious below which ones were machine-made and which one was hand-crocheted, but I am still quite pleased with the result.

I even found yarn colors to match, so at least they-re the same color. :)

As I was working on this, I was trying to teach Jared about stockings. I will ask him, "What are stockings for?" and he'll say "Christmas!!" Then I'll say, "Who is going to fill your stocking with presents at Christmas?" and often he'll say "Jesus!" instead of Santa. :)

Finished!

So, if I can't show off on my blog, then where can I do it? Ha ha!

I just finished a blanket that took me months to complete! I honestly wish that I could crochet faster (or just have more time to crochet!) so that I could give more blankets as gifts, but by the time I have put so many hours into a project, I get selfish and want to keep it myself.


In case you can't tell, the alphabet is stitched onto the squares using a popcorn stitch. There is a star in the bottom right corner. It is such a huge, cozy blanket!