Announcement

Since the only people that read this blog are family (any non family readers please comment and let me know) this isn't much of an announcement. Ladybug is going to be a big sister in just a few short months! We are due the middle of January although Chris is hoping for the end of December.

We again decided not to find out the gender and will be anxiously awaiting to find out when this little one decides to make their arrival. We have been busy getting prepared for this one.

Chris left his job at the county and is working on his own at http://www.simmonscomputersolutions.com/ This is an exciting time/change for our family and we have faith that it has been God's will for him to do this since we have both had such a tremendous peace about it. With this development he has moved his office out of our house and into the Centercourt office building. This leaves us with a sitting room/office/craft room in place of his office and our guest room will now be the baby's room.

There is still a lot of work to be done and our hope is to be finished before we get Christmas decorations up.

I foresee a lot of Saturday evenings (after hunting of course) and Sunday afternoons (with the game on) spent organizing and arranging.

Pumpkin Carving

Chris and Ladybug had fun carving the pumpkin Wednesday night. I'm pretty sure Chris did most of the work but I know he enjoyed Ladybug's 'supervising'. She did help some although I'm thinking she wasn't to sure about pulling the seeds out!

I think the face in this picture says it all!

This was the only scoop we could get her to do.

Once she realized that mommy had the camera out she was more interested in posing for pictures, Cheese!

The finished product - Ladybug says we put a happy face on it!

Apples

From two and a half bushels of apples, mostly Granny Smith, I was able make 25 quarts of applesauce, 5 quarts of apple pie filling and 5 quarts of apple butter. We should be able to make it until next fall now. I also had enough apples left over to make an apple pie and we've been eating apples with lunch for a couple weeks also.

For the applesauce I just peeled, cored and sliced the apples, cooked them down with a tiny bit of water and lemon juice then pureed them before canning.

The apple pie filling recipe was found at www.tastykitchen.com and the apple butter was made from 6 quarts of applesauce. I used splenda instead of sugar and cooked it down in the crock pot before canning.

I'm still working on the perfect apple pie recipe so as soon as I get it right I'll be sure to share.

Signs of Fall

We have been busy with fall activities! Apple picking and visiting the pumpkin patch. Our visit to Carter Mountain Orchards was fun and productive. We remembered to bring the wagon this year and it was helpful in toting the apples and Ladybug. She enjoyed eating the apples but was a little unstable trying to walk on the mountainside. Chris got quite the workout pulling her around!

We picked two bags of apples and then got another two bushels of Granny Smith. I'll be showing you later what became of all those apples.

Our trip to the pumpkin patch was just as successful. Ladybug enjoyed the hayride and loved following Gage and Riley around. She was insistent on getting a small pumpkin even though Chris and I tried to talk her into a bigger one. We did end up getting a large and small pumpkin and she points to them on the porch as Mommy and Daddy's pumpkin (the big one) and Madelynn's pumpkin (the small one).

She's holding her pumpkin and ours is in the front. Her and Chris will be carving that one some time this week.