Canning

It's time for cranberries again! I got little jars this time and they are much prettier.

I'm starting to get the hang of canning and learning a little about it. Like why some foods need a water bath and others need a pressure canner. The low acid foods need a higher temp for longer to kill any bacteria. The fruit will break down too much in that high temperature.

Since I am doing cranberries, it's a water bath.

I love the color of the cranberries. They will look perfect on my kitchen shelf (when I get it) through December.

Of course I can't forget a picture of my little helper. She got a new bike helmet and loves it so much, she didn't want to take it off when she came in to help me.

Next, I want to try to can my blueberry pie filling. I think it will be wonderful on pancakes or waffles in the morning.

50's day in kindergarten

Wow! It has been an exhausting week! It is really nice to have my feet off the ground and to finally be getting to this post. L had 50's day at school because it is the 50th day of kindergarten and what better way to celebrate being 50 days smarter then to dress in 50's attire and have root beer floats.

When I heard they were doing a 50's day, I was so excited I finally had an excuse to make a circle skirt. It really is as easy as they say. It probably would have taken me 15 minutes if it wasn't for the sequence leash on the poodle. Maybe it's supposed to be sewn on by hand, but if you've read my blog for any amount of time, you know I will do anything to get away with not sewing by hand.

L loved the way her skirt flew out when she spun. Too bad she wasn't in a picture mood though. I wanted to take a ton as a cute little 50's girl. One spin was all she would give me.

Hopefully, I will be back soon!

Kristen

More Sewing...

Remember this robe? Well, C has grown quite a bit and he puts that robe on every single day when he gets out of bed. It's pretty worn. Not to mention it was just a quick throw together robe with the edges surged because I didn't think he would actually wear it. I'm glad I was wrong and I should have known better with this boy!

He has been asking for a new robe for a while now. So, we went to pick out fabric. C picked the softest he could find and wanted a soccer print for the trim.

Again, I don't have the best blog worthy picture to really show off the details, but I will get the hang of it again.

My kids are very particular about their clothes. C specifically requested his sleeves to be this length so he could eat his breakfast in the morning with his robe on. He also wanted pockets this time.

I put in pockets, but he doesn't like how they are not angled. Picky, picky! At least he loves the robe.

Kristen

Apple Picking

L is so excited about kindergarten. She loves going to school and all the activities. One day L came home to tell me to check my email because her teacher had emailed the class about apple picking. Since the last time we went, L was still in my belly, we decided to go.

Don't these apples look wonderful!

We met some friends there, here is the rest of the crew.

L wanted to pick and eat every apple.

Since I had recently finally upgraded my old camera, the kids were over smiling nicely for the pictures. Another reason for the long time no blog. My camera would take days to download the pictures.

Now, I am having so much fun taking tons of pictures again and especially when I find a place like this. There is a perfect picture spot at every turn.

C even took his turn at snapping a few.

I guess nobody wanted to give us a nice wall worthy picture that day.

I just love the setting here! I was so beautiful.

And then daddy has scare L. He told her this was a giant catapillar.

After the first two apple farms we had to go back to a farm that we went to before that had a nice little hike. Of course we had to stop and read all about each little thing, of course I had to take a picture of each one. (No, I won't make you look at each and every stop.)

The main reason we had to go back to this farm was for this picture. It used to be hanging in our house, but I haven't seen it in quite a while. We wanted to get the same picture with C being older now.

I just couldn't quite remember the picture. I knew it was at a bench. Not this bench!

This one looked like the right bench, but wrong spot. Too bad I didn't look at the picture before we left.

Trying to get them to pose for a perfect candid picture 6 years ago isn't quite the same. Especially when you can't remember quite what the picture was and know it's wrong, but can't figure out why. Ugh!

Oh well, we will just take a picture at every bench.

We finally decided we had to give up on finding the exact place and pose when we didn't quite remember the picture and so we joined our friends who decided to press their own cider.

At the end of the day we found out that we didn't have to pay for raspberry picking because it was the very end of the season. That's alway a fun little surprise, something free. Especially something you would have paid for. C and I were very determined to fill that bag of raspberries after a lot of searching and getting scratched by the bushes, we almost filled it. They were so worth it!

I love fall. Ooh! That reminds me, I even canned again. I'm back to normal, no more working on the house, instead, I'm canning, making lotions & soap and sewing once again.

Kristen

I'm Sewing again!!

Wow! It has been a long time. Not just from my blog, but from sewing. It's been a year and a half since I've sewn anything aside from a little mending. It is wonderful to create and sew once again. I am finding I love making patterns especially when the finished product turns out the way I wanted it too. I am not a fan of sewing the same thing twice. 

Halloween was my second sewing project back. (I will have to take pictures of my first project and all the stupid mistakes.) 

For Halloween, I put the wonderful idea in L's head that she could be Blueberry Muffin. We already had the skirt and I had an old blue dress that I was ready to make into something else. There ya go, one cheap costume, just my style. I couldn't find the right fabric, blue with blue polk-a-dots for the shirt, so we came up with a pink shirt and used the dress for the blue cropped sleeve knit cardigan. (Not sure what exactly it's called.) 

L was very specific about having 2 buttons, she was also very particular about the placement of the buttons. The best picture of the outfit I had was in my phone, so it's a terrible picture. I'm not used to blogging so, I'm not taking blog specific pictures. 

Anyway, here it is. She insisted on tucking the shirt into bow on her skirt. Even though I didn't have the right material, I wanted the shirt to have the scallops at the bottom.

What a lovely wig!

Here is a better picture at school on Halloween. I didn't get her ready for school that morning and I was not thrilled about the slicked look to the blue hair.

The buttons weren't that important once it came to trick-or-treating. The first time we took her trick-or-treating, I brought a wagon, (she was 1 and a half) because I thought no way would she walk from house to house. I was totally wrong, she ran from house to house and kept going long after her brother was asking to go home. Things haven't changed much.

Here is the rest of the trick-or-treating crew.

It's fun to sew again and I'm figuring out how I can find time to sew again! See you soon.

Kristen