Grandpa's Carrots and A's New Friend

Every year Grandpa W. grows a great big garden. He supplies the whole family with potatoes for the whole year. I had to learn that WE do NOT 'buy' potatoes. It's just NOT done. K looks horrified when I tried to buy potatoes when we were first married. Quite comical actually. Grandpa W. also supplies us with other vegetables as well, namely carrots. Big, oddly shaped, yummy tasting carrots. Today A got her first taste of those carrots and she loved them!

She tried to hold it with one hand but it didn't work so I had to help her try it. :)

A- Are you sure that's not for me? I'm hungry Daddy! K- This is mine. Yours is mushy.

A- I want more Mommy! Yummy!

 All done?

NEVER! I want more! Yummy carrots! Hooray for carrots! 

Every evening A gets time in her Jolly Jumper. She loves to jump. Tonight we added a little fun by putting up my new mirror beside her and got the camera ready....

Applesauce and Cinnamon Spread

Today was a MAKING day. I started by making up a batch of homemade cinnamon spread. Typically it would be an expensive thing to make seeing that I use real butter but the local IGA has it on free if you have 4 filled cards of stamps. Which I typically have, so mine is free! :) And K is a HUGE fan of cinnamon spread on his bagels in the morning.

One happy helper! She's up and raring to get going. Bring it on! 

One helper who is not so happy until he's had his morning cup of Joe. K's lovely 'mug'!

The finished cinnamon spread (1 lb butter + 3 cups icing sugar + 5 tsp cinnamon). Yummy!
Now onto the BIG project of the day: APPLESAUCE! Note- it's on the TO DO list! Love crossing stuff off!

All the apples I picked at a friend's house. Later another friend stopped by and brought me even more! Those ones were green though.

K did lots of cutting and I definitely would still be making applesauce if it was not for him! Thank you honey!

Three pots at a time making beautiful pink mush of those apples. I think we ended up boiling at least 12 pots of apples today. Why do I cook on hot days? It was 24 degrees C outside today but definitely felt hotter in the sun and in my kitchen. On a side note, it was cloudy first thing so I was really excited, but it didn't stay. Still hoping for those thunderstorms the weatherman was predicting for tonight.

Princess A making sure all the containers are without lids so they can be filled quickly. She was very serious about her job and quite good at it, as you can see. :)

First batch is in their Dutch tupperware and labeled, ready for the freezer. 

 You can see the difference in colour because of the apples used. The red apples made pink sauce and the green ones made yellow. The yellow applesauce is all sweetened with sugar and cinnamon. Yummy!

All the applesauce ready for the freezer. Notice all the Dutch Tupperware in the back rows. I now have no more regular sized containers in my cupboards. They are all in my freezer. When we do pie apples I'll have to use bags again.
But in all it was a very productive day and I'm happy to say that we now have 14 large containers of unsweetened applesauce and 12 smaller containers of sweetened applesauce. And Princess A seems to like it when she got a little taste! :D

Ideas Ideas Ideas

Okay, so the web is so full of ideas of things that I could, would,  or should be doing if I was not surfing the internet looking for ideas. My baby sister, C, directed me to a site that now allows me to 'pin' photos or videos to a 'board' to keep track of them. Personally, I think that this is ingenious! Now I no longer have to bookmark everything and try to remember based on the name of the site, what was there that I was so interested in in the first place. Instead, I now go to http://pinterest.com/jesslv/ and I can see the pictures of the projects that I was really interested in. Check it out! Now my 'to do' list can get bigger but nothing will get done because I'm too busy looking for more things to 'pin'! ;)

The Belated Welcome

I suppose I really should have started my blog by welcoming any would-be readers. WELCOME! This is to my creative outlet since ceasing to be full-time teacher and becoming a full-time stay at home Mom. Why do I need a creative outlet you ask? Well frankly, I've been putting all my energy into making my classrooms pretty and bright and have been receiving all the recognition from my students, fellow teachers and parents that now I find that I need a new audience. My daughter is number one and I just to show her off! :) Who knows? I might actually do something right and will want to go back to this blog someday and see it, because I may not recognize it when it happens. Join me on my trip down this learning curve we call Motherhood...

The Roll Over

So Aurora decided to roll over yesterday. Where was I? I was in the same room as her but chatting with a friend and discussing the changes occurring to the rooms on the show we were watching. Baby Girl was laying on a quilt on the floor playing with some toys that my friend just could NOT be parted with, even though her boys are 6 and 4. One minute Rora was gurgling away on her back and the next time I look, she's got herself all the way over on her tummy!
Now you need to understand something about my daughter. She's been working on this "roll-over" since we were in Winnipeg back in June for her Aunty Kelly and Uncle Trevor's wedding. At which time, many videos were taken of just how far she could get herself without actually going all the way over. She kept getting her arm caught. So now we are in August and she has finally gotten herself over. We'll have to see if she does it again, at home this time. :)

This is what we get to see all the time... So close! So close!