Apple Butter Recipe

Here you go Angie!! This is a yummy one :)

8 medium apples, peeled, cored, sliced
4 cups sugar
4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cloves
1/4 tsp. salt

Put prepared apples in a crockpot. Add sugar and spices (I use 1 cup less sugar).
Cook in crockpot on high for 2 hours. Then turn on low for another 2 hours. Transfer to blender and mix to desired consistency. Return to crockpot and cook on low without the lid until it thickens. Then I can it so I don't have to refrigerate it!
I must add that I couldn't have made all that apple butter without my wonderful, generous mother in law giving me so many apples. Thanks Mom!!
--If you have a large crockpot, you can easily double the recipe too :)

My new favorite thing this week

Apple butter. Something happened to me in the last week and I've discovered my love of making apple butter. It's very Little House on the Praire-ish, but it feels so good to have jars of the stuff piling up in my pantry. So any of you who read my blog will probably be getting some at Christmas time...whether you like apple butter or not! Oh, and it makes my house smell really, really good!

I did it!!

This story will sound pretty silly, but I'm telling anyway :) At the beginning of the summer we were at the lake and I started thinking out loud. I said to Loren, "I wonder if I could ski from Rockford Bay (where we go every weekend) to Coeur d'alene." That is about 15 miles. I was thinking somewhere in the 5 year range. By the end of the conversation I had made it my goal for the summer. So yesterday, my very patient husband took the day off from work and humored me by taking us to the lake so I could do my silly ski. So I did it and it wasn't nearly as exciting as I had hoped it would be :) Oh well! Now I have to think of something else for next summer. Any suggestions??



My sweet Katie cheered me on and this is how exciting it was for Sammy....

Happy (almost) Birthday Grandma!

Yesterday we celebrated Grandma Marilyn's birthday a few days early and headed to the fair. It was a beautiful day and the kids got the full fair experience.

He did it!!

Yup, he actually did it. This little baby became a big boy and went to preschool today! Or as he calls himself "a very fast man." So my very fast man went off to school and I got the report that he only cried a very little bit for a very short time. Hooray!! It doesn't hurt that he has known his teacher Mrs. Larson for two years now :) We love Mrs. Larson around our house! I'm so relieved and proud of my very fast man for doing so well on his first day of school. Good job Sam!





Another first day of school tradition...the picture by the front door. So far no tears have been shed and we are all still smiling :) This is a good sign.





Well here we are in the sanctuary of Beautiful Savior. In a few short moments we will get an introductory speech from Pastor...then the fun starts! And by that I mean Sammy will start crying. But wait......he actually didn't!! Hooray!



You'll notice the after school picture is not the teary eyed, sad faced little boy I was expecting. Instead I walked to the car with a happy, smiling, very proud of himself big boy who had fun at school! I asked Sammy how he got to be such a big boy and he said, "cause I went to school." Duh Mom :)




The traditional first day of school McDonald's ice cream :)

Is there such a thing as a "quick" trip to Greenbluff?

I got a wild hair this morning and decided we would head up to Greenbluff for a quick apple picking trip. Can you really have a quick trip to greenbluff? Apparently you can. I thought we'd be there all afternoon, but I guess we picked a pretty good time to go. We arrived and were the only ones picking! It was a beautiful afternoon and although we didn't come home with tons of apples, we were there just about 30 minutes. That's a pretty quick trip for us anyway. I think this was the first time Sammy actually enjoyed picking fruit :) Now what am I going to do with those apples?

Ready....set....pick!!





He's working pretty hard to pull that cart! He decided he didn't want me to have to pull it, so he would. What a gentleman :)




Mmmm, apples taste pretty good on a hot afternoon!




This is me forcing them to stop and pose for the camera!




Sammy continues to eat apples...




Katie being the good little worker bee that she is, eagerly searched for the biggest apples with no holes or brown spots. Good girl Katie!




....and Sammy still eating...




Already enjoying the fruits of their labor, so to speak...




Two exhausted kids!

Tea Time

This afternoon Loren, Grandpa Larry and Sammy took off for the lake so the girls decided to get together for a "real" tea party. By real I mean we drank out of actual tea cups, had yummy food, dressed up fancy (well.. as fancy as we get) and then we called it a real tea party. I'm pretty sure we didn't follow any of the "real" rules for a "real" tea party, but we called it real so there you go!

Say hello to Kindergarten!

It's happened. My little girl with the tiny bit of hair on the very top of her head, who used to want to guggle (snuggle) every night, who would go everywhere with me and be my little pal had her first day of Kindergarten today. After 2 years of preschool I knew this day would come. I found myself not being nearly as prepared as I thought I'd be. After much prayer, God has given me peace about sending her out into the cruel world of public school. Ok, I know Kindergarten isn't exactly the "cruel world" but in my mind the last few days it has been! I have a feeling my prayer life will grow dramatically this coming year :) All that said, Katie had a great day and I didn't get arrested by driving around the playground 4 times in a row looking like a psychotic stalker rather than a mother trying desperately to see her baby playing outside :)




This sweet little thing went to bed a child and woke up as a Kindergartener! Ok, she's still a child, but where did the time go?




Our annual picture in front of the house. The kids stay still longer every year :)
Katie would have you notice that she has brown in her shirt (the color for the day at school) and she has jeans on. Yes, you read correctly. I said jeans. She has decided after 5 years of hating any clothing with 2 leg holes, that she absolutely loves them. Go figure!





Can you feel the excitement building?? We're in the car, we're buckled....and here we go!




Loren got to come to school with us this morning (we love having a Daddy that works from home). This is where Katie and her classmates will stand in the morning while they wait for Mrs. Jacobson to bring them in to class.




.....the after school pick-up...




And of course the day wouldn't be complete without our annual after school trip to McDonald's for ice cream! Yumm!