Amber the pretty Princess with her scepter and crown. What a doll!!!
Mazie the Bunny. She doesn't like the hat, and I imagine the slippers won't stay on long either. She's still absolutely adorable!!
This is so HER! She is such a ball of fun sometimes. 
Amber was sitting by me this morning and I looked over and she had this Jacob's ladder over her eyes and was saying "cheese", trying to get me to smile. It dawned on me that she's seen Hannah do this repeatedly, and she decided to try it. We bought this toy at the Amish store in Indiana last year, and Hannah never figured out how to use it, so she pretended that it was a camera. Now she's playing with it the way it was intended, and it's Amber's turn to play with it as a camera. 
I just love these photos - it is just one of those special moments when you can't help but smile and be thankful the little ones can see every color in the spectrum, not just the black and white we tend to see as adults.
We got 23 pints of lovely pink applesauce from 1/2 bushel of apples. They were a red apple, and we cooked them with the skins on to get the lovely hue. This picture does not do it justice, but it's beautiful in the jars, and it tastes soooo good!
We also got 20 pints of apple butter. Well, technically 21 pints, but we kept one back to eat now! I made homemade (well, Bisquick!) biscuits and that's what we had for dinner. Biscuits, butter, fresh apple butter & decaf coffee. Yum!!! That was worth all the work we've done today.
On the agenda tomorrow: Grocery shopping, go buy more jars, then come home to make lunch, using the very last jar of our canned beef to make beef & noodles. Then Mom and I plan to make a batch of apple pie filling. Since Wednesday night is church night, we'll try to get it done as quickly as we can. Will also ask Peter to make some more supports for our canned goods pantry, as the shelves are trying to bow some.
After that, it's time to relax! Well, until Thursday, when we start over again!
The remaining apples after our batch of apple butter was prepared. One bag of Arkansas Black, one bag of Winesap, and one bag of Granny Smith. The apple butter was made from the other bag of Granny Smith. It's so interesting to taste the different types of apples. They really do have different tastes and textures.
The lard can sitting on the stove, full of deliciousness. It'll sit all night and I'll turn it on in the morning, and after bringing it to a boil, will let it boil for 3 hours before putting it through the sieve and cooking it down in the oven. This one lard can will make 20 pints of apple butter.
Before...
After...
Being goofy...
My handsome honey...
Posing pretty for the camera... :D I'm so thankful he's doing all this hard work for our home. I really appreciate his willingness to learn how to do these things. He had to semi-disassemble the right end to replace the piece of wood that fits in the frame, because the original had bad water damage and the wood itself was bubbled and flaking off in strips. It was iffy, we weren't sure if it could be repaired without destroying the dove-tails, but he did it and it looks fabulous!
A rough shot of the inside. There are 3 drawers, including a metal bread box on the right side and a large drawer on the left, along with two doors below. The inside was gross, not dirty, just very discolored from age and use, so he's priming it to seal it.
You can see the top part of the cabinet. There's one long door on the left, then double doors in the center, and a single door on the right. The three small holes at the very bottom have drawers to go in it. The large rectangular home has the groove for a roll-top (tambour), but it wasn't included, and we didn't want to go to the expense of replacing it, when I plan to put my new blue & cobalt canisters in there anyway.
The top and bottom are attached with metal brackets that go on the sides and there's a porcelain tabletop that goes in between. When it's assembled, you can actually pull the top and it will come out quite a ways to give you an actual work surface. Looking at the top today, I think it's sorta an eggshell/pale cream color, which should look ok with the white.
You can see our nasty green ugly linoleum in this picture, too. Eventually we plan to replace it with a nice tile. I'd love to have cork tiling put down, but we may end up with a black & white grid instead, which would suit me just fine, too.
This is the kitchen itself - the part we're still working on. For some reason, the end of the cabinet is painted with brown primer (they had a dishwasher installed at that end, and we moved it when it died, but put the freezer there so it hasn't been an issue), so it's going to be painted. We also are planning to take the marble-print contact paper off the metal cabinets, and put on new drawer pulls and door handles. The walls are going to be apple green, just like the rest of the kitchen, and I'm going to make curtains & valences for the windows. The range vent hood will be replaced, and hopefully we can get the stove painted. The fridge is in a box that actually sits out in the garage, so there's not a lot we can do with it, although I'd like to make the box a bit deeper so the front doesn't stick out. The heater above the fridge will be removed and we plan to make a display shelf in the hole that is left. :) All the flourescent lights (5 of them in 1 room!!) will be replaced with pendant lighting, with a chandelier in the dining area to match.
So now you can see what I've been talking about all this time! Lots of work left to do, including painting the wooden cabinets on the other side of the room, but hopefully all that won't take but just a few months to do. Thanks for letting me share my excitement with you! :)
It's getting to be perfect soup/stew weather and new recipes are always welcome in our house. So I was excited to see that Tammy is hosting a recipe swap this week. You can find all the details here. I'm looking forward to the results of her endeavors!Cook meat and onions together until meat is browned. Drain well and rinse with hot water, then add with all other ingredients in a large pot, mixing dry mixes in well. Cover and cook on medium until it comes to a boil, then turn heat down and continue to simmer soup until all vegetables are tender. Great served with cornbread.
Ok, so I helped her - she's not quite pulling up by herself yet, but she DOES get up on all fours - hands and feet, with booty sticking way up in the air. But this morning I stood her up and she stayed like that for a loooong time, maybe 5 minutes or so, and I finally took her hands off the sides and sat her down. Needless to say, she was not happy with me for that!
Might not be able to tell it here, but she's grinning to beat the band! Guess she thinks she's hot stuff. LOL This little girl makes my entire heart smile. Just love her SO much. I love my other girls too, and they're just as special, but this one's just so much fun to watch as she grows from a little helpless handful of snuggles to an opinionated, outgoing, independant person. It's exciting to see her personality grow day by day. 
The girls wanted to go out and color on the sidewalk this morning, so Peter sat on the porch and watched them while I entertained Mazie inside. This is the beeeautiful results of their hard work. It started to rain so I snapped a couple of pics before it all got washed away, and it rained for about a minute, then stopped, so their artwork is still there for their Mommies to see. :)
My proud little artists, who had to come in out of the rain. :D
