Apple Craft

Here is a really cute craft idea to make with kids, and its apple themed of course. :)  It was posted from a blog I follow, but it comes from the website www.naturallyeducational.com

Materials:

• cardboard tube (toilet paper roll)
• green or red or yellow paint
• green chenille stem
• brown chenille stem
• scissors
• hole punch

Paint your cardboard tube green, red, or yellow depending on which color you want your apple to be.  After the tube is dry, cut it into 3 strips. 

Take your hole punch and put a hole in each tube.

Insert the tubes inside one another and line up the holes that you punched.

Take a piece of brown chenille stem and roll it up on one end as shown in the picture below.

Put the brown chenille stem through your lined up holes in your apple from the inside center pushing it to the the outside.

Take a piece of the green chenille stem and wrap it around the brown stem.

Turn the green ends inward to make a leaf.

And you've got yourself a cute little apple!

Apple Orchard

Today I went with Kaylee and her class to an apple orchard for a field trip.  It was a beautiful, cool, sunny morning - perfect for apple picking!

She found her perfect apple.

I had another one of the Mom's take a picture of Kaylee and I in front of one of the apple trees.  There were over 1200 tree's planted on this orchard.  There were plum trees, pear trees, and grapes also. 

I found a Freedom Apple Tree on the orchard to see how the apples looked, and they were so red and gorgeous.  That is one of the types of trees we planted this Spring.  I can't wait for it to bear apples!  We had a great time together.  I love being able to go on field trips with my kids. 

When I came home, my husband, Tim, went with my Dad to my Uncle's garden and picked me about 5 1/2 dozen ears of corn and brought me home a bushel of apples.  Tim husked all the corn for me and I took care of the rest, so we have a bunch more corn in the freezer for this winter.  Yum!  It looks like tomorrow I will be making some homemade apple sauce, a few pies, and maybe some apple crisp.  It should smell sooo good in my house!



Moulding, Berry Plants, and Rhubarb, CHECK!

After I dropped the kids off to school, my husband and I met up with my brother in law who took us to a wonderful Amish family.  The man specializes in woodworking and had an amazing workshop run by a pulley system.  I was so excited to be able to put our order in for window moulding!  We replaced all our windows last fall and never got around to replacing the moulding around them.  We were debating on what type of routered edge we wanted, what color stain to use, and how to save as much money as possible.  This Amish family was a great option! We are going to have beautifully routered woodwork and edge squares that he is going to stain and seal for us at a fraction of the cost we would have paid at Lowes or Home Depot.  AND my husband is excited that everything will be finished.  He will just have to trim the wood and nail it up. 

On our way home from ordering our moulding I talked my husband into stopping at a greenhouse and we purchased a rhubarb plant and 3 blueberry bushes.  I had been wanting to get rhubarb for a long time and Fall was the most ideal time to plant it in the ground, so I've been waiting patiently all summer.  I love berries also so I can't wait for my blueberry bushes to produce fruit in a year or two.  Early this summer we planted raspberry bushes and 2 apple trees too!  How exciting, right!?

Here are my little blueberry bushes.

My husband had to clear out a bunch of Hasta plants so we could make room for our rhubarb.

 And here is our rhubarb waiting to be planted.

Instead of having beef stroganoff for dinner tonight, we decided to cook with some leftovers.  I made a huge pot of chicken and dumplings with all the leftover chicken from yesterday's meal.  It's one of my Mom's favorite dinners, so of course I invited her over tonight. We had a power outage for an hour or so this afternoon due to a tree limb falling down onto a power line, so I almost had to crash at their house for dinner. Its been extremely windy here all day.  At dinner my Dad said we are going to get some "bumpers" tonight.  My husband and I were clueless to this statement.  Have you ever heard of that saying???  Apparently, it means alot of  thunderstorms.  You learn something new everyday...

Canning Tomato Sauce

My tomatoes were finally ripe enough, so I got down and dirty and canned some tomato sauce.  Here is the method I use:

1.  Bring a large pot of water to a boil.  Put tomatoes a few at a time into boiling water for 30 seconds.

2.  Quickly remove the tomatoes and put them into ice cold water.

3.  Trim the tops off of the tomatoes and the skin should easily peel right off.  Cut the tomato in half and scoop most of the seeds and membranes out. 

4.  This is what my tomatoes looked like when I finished step 3.  We are ready to boil them down on the stove!

5.  Bring tomatoes to a boil and they will almost immediately start to break down.  Cook them down for 2 - 4 hours or until they reach the thickness you would like. I use an immersion blender to make sure no chunks are left in my sauce.

6.  Sterilize your quart jars and lids in boiling water. Fill tomato sauce 3/4 the way to the top of your quart container.  Add 2 tablespoons lemon juice and continue to fill jar until there is 1/4 inch of space left at the top. 

7.  Process jars using the boiling bath canning method for 40 minutes.  Remove to rack to cool. 

I ended up with 3 quarts of sauce.  This was my 3rd batch of tomatoes that I've canned.  I can't wait to make homemade pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, and use it for other recipes!

Menu Plan

Menu Plan

09/11/11 - 09/17/11

Sunday:

Waffles/Pancakes

Crockpot Pizza, Cantaloupe

Monday:

Assorted Muffins, fruit

Roasted Chicken, Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Vegetable

Tuesday:

Scrambled Eggs, Sausage, Toast

Skillet Beef Stroganoff, Vegetable

Wednesday:

Cereal/Oatmeal, Toast

Leftovers

Thursday:

Waffles, Gogurt

Homemade Pizza, Carrot Sticks with Ranch

Friday:

Free Friday - Kids can choose what they want

Cheeseburgers, Oven Fries

Saturday:

Egg McMuffins, Fruit

Leftovers

Remembering 9/11/01

10 years ago....I remember sitting in my computer class, it was my freshman year of college.  Our teacher had received a phone call and relayed the message to all of us that classes had been cancelled immediately for the remainder of the day.  We were all so confused, but quickly learned the details of what had taken place as we filtered into the hallway and looked up at the televisions.  I remember everyone being in a state of shock, and I couldn't help but think about all the students on campus that morning, whose homes were in NYC, and wondering if their loved ones were okay.  I met up with my fiance at the time and we quickly went home and were glued to our television screens as we watched the towers fall, one by one.  The panic in the streets and the horror on everyones faces was unbearable.  My husband was in the National Guard at the time and the phone rang shortly after the incidents took place notifying him to be ready to deploy at any given time.  I was so scared.  He had trained for a few years and the time had come for him to put what he learned into action.  He packed his bags and before I knew it he was gone.  Noone knew what the situation would be there.  We had just gotten attacked on our own land...and how many more plots had been planned?  Thankfully he made it home just 3 weeks later, but thousands of other people in the twin towers, at the pentagon, and on flight 93 didn't...So heres paying tribute to everyone who lost their loved ones on 9/11/01. Thank you to the military who continues to fight and die for our freedoms everyday.

I was really hoping to sleep in until 7 am this morning.  I thought to myself as I tucked everyone in last night, "They look exhausted from their first week of school, there is no way they will be awake before 7 am."  Boy was I wrong...5:50 am and my oldest daughter, Kaylee, came into our room just to let us know her nose was stuff...REALLY!? Following her early wake up call was her brother tagging right behind her...and so the shutting of bedroom doors began.  In one room, BANG, back to the other room, BANG, bang, bang bang....all.morning.long. I still love them though. :)  We did have a morning discussion that this wouldn't happen tomorrow.  I showed them how to not shut their door all the way in the mornings...hopefully they remember. 

I have been really into canning and freezing produce this summer. We weren't able to plant a garden this year, so I have been really thankful for family and friends who have passed along their extras to me. So far I've made about 15 jars of strawberry jam, 6 quarts of tomato sauce,  and froze 5 quart size ziplocks bags of fresh green beans.  Yesterday I was given about a dozen sweet corn, so this morning I shucked the corn, cut the kernals off, blanched it, let it cool, and then separated it into ziplock baggies to put into the freezer.  Corn is one our favorite vegetables and we go through a ton of it during the year, so we are sooo excited to be able to pull a bag out during the winter and have fresh sweet corn.  I am supposed to be getting about 5 dozen more, and I can't wait!  Here is a picture of it cooling in my colander.

I also wanted to post on an amazing website/blog I found recently.  I am always looking for new crafts, projects, and learning worksheets to do with my kids.  I came across www.homeschoolcreations.com and found these amazing preschool packs on her site, for free!  I have created 2 of them for my son so far, and he absolutely loves them!  He has completed the Toy Story preschool pack and today he started on the Circus preschool pack.  Here is a picture of him practicing his tracing skills:

There are a bunch of different themes to choose from on the site and many more printables too! My son loves playing the games with me and doing all the different writing excersizes. It makes me so happy so see him writing his name so clearly too, so I had to take a picture to share with you.

A great tip that I have is to just print off the worksheets and instead of paying alot of money to have them laminated, I just put them in sheet protects and then organize everything in a binder.  That way, my son can use dry erase markers and the worksheets can be used over and over.  I paid around $3.50 for 50 sheet protectors at Walmart.