Happy Happy Wedding Day...

Not for the royals, for us! I suppose it's not our wedding day but it was 2 years ago!

My anniversary present from David. I'm excited! And I've already designated uses for several of these beautiful fabrics.

Here's our year recap:

Went to St. Louis for our friend's wedding. I love St. Louis and I would love to go back for a bit longer stay.

Started fertility treatment.

Had a long weekend in Denver.

Did Raft for the Cure with friends.

Put in new flooring on our main level.

Surprised my Dad with a visit to Michigan.

Fertility treatment hell paid off and we found out we were having a baby.

Visited Beijing China for a week. It was fabulous!

Visited Michigan for Christmas.

Visited Denver again.

Found out we're having a boy.

I quit my job at the end of March.

Today we're going for a tiny last getaway before baby.

Plans for the year to come:

I go to Michigan next weekend for a baby shower.

Have a healthy baby in a couple months.

Adjust to parenthood and try to get some semblance of a routine going.

Visit Denver for Christmas.

Live the life.

So our plans are a little less ambitious than in years past but that's probably wise. There will be a lot of change in the next year for us so we'll just enjoy the ride together. I'm so lucky I married an amazing man who's perfect for me.

Happy Easter

Today was a pretty good day as far as weather goes so i wanted to show off my beautiful tulips. I'm so pleased with how nicely they came in! My reward for a day of planting in the fall. I love looking out the window everyday to see which new ones have bloomed. And i love the color! Yay for spring. Hopefully they don't get covered in snow again this spring.

Happy Easter to you. We decided that even though we don't have anyone to surprise with Easter goodies this year we still wanted them so we made ourselves a lovely Easter basket. We dyed eggs yesterday with our favorite niece. And we've been enjoying candy and yummy eggs yesterday and today.

All of our extra church meetings got canceled so we got to sleep in this morning and just go to church a few minutes early to practice with the choir. We enjoyed the talks and reminders of the sacrifice and resurrection of the Savior. This afternoon we have been relaxing and now we're making pork chops and sweet potatoes for dinner.

Living away from home doesn't faze us much. It's only when there's a "family holiday" that we really notice that it's just us. Everyone at church was talking about what they were doing with family after church and where they were going. Well we're just our little family and we're trying to make Easter a little special with a kind of fancy dinner. Maybe next year we'll feel more like we have real family traditions since we'll have a little one who will enjoy looking at the bright colored eggs and candy and who will probably get a taste of the good food. However, whether near family or far we are thankful that we can celebrate the Savior. Happy Easter.

Eating M&M's has finally paid off

That's right got a pay off from M&M's. They have a sweepstakes right now for free movie tickets. We bought a few packages a week or so ago and i figured I'd look up our codes. The first two packages were not winners :( but the third was! Awesome! $3.00 off our next movie date! Haha little triumphs!

Applesauce

If you want some delicious homemade applesauce gather yourself some apples at a good deal. I price matched these at walmart for 3lbs for a dollar. Get a little workspace ready. (I like to do my peeling and cutting on our little coffee table chest because then i can watch TV while doing it and it makes the time go faster.) My approach was to peel as many apples as would fit on the cutting board then use my handy apple corer/slicer to easily cut the apples and get them into the big pot, add some lemon juice to prevent browning and repeat until you pot is full to the brim (see below). I could fill one pot with about 13lbs of apples and those 13lbs made exactly 6 jars each batch.

Now you're ready to get these on the stove. I added 2 cups of water to prevent sticking to the bottom of the pot. Let these work on the stove until they reduce and are soft and mushy. It took me 20 minutes or so to get them to the right point. When they're ready to be mashed they'll look like this. (below)

Now you're ready to mash or blend these apples into applesauce. I have a stick blender that i used. It's convenient because i didn't have to worry about transferring apples back and forth between a blender or food processor. If you don't mind a coarse applesauce then a potato masher will work fine too.

After the apples are to your liking add sugar and cinnamon to your liking. You don't have to add sugar at all, i added 1 cup for this entire pot and it was to my liking. And we like cinnamon applesauce so i added a bunch of that too.

Now you're ready to put your sauce in the jars and process them. Ladle hot applesauce into clean hot jars (soak them in hot water while you're apples are reducing and you're set). Leave a generous 1/2 inch head space (area between where the applesauce ends and the lid begins). Clean the rims of the jars and place the lids and rings on tightly.

Place the prepared jars into a canner or large pot, cover with water, bring to a boil and let boil 20 minutes. Turn off the heat, remove the jars after standing for 5 minutes. Let stand until all jars have sealed (when the middle of the lid is down not up). Mark your lids with month and year and get ready to enjoy for months to come. I also love to give canned goodies as thank you gifts or Christmas gifts.

Entire process about 2 hours per batch.

Ta Da! In the past couple days i made 18 jars of applesauce. When all was said and done each jar cost less then a dollar to make and some of my time. We already had the jars and lids so all i had to buy was apples. If you have to buy jars the first time your cost will be slightly higher but then you'll have jars for the future so it's an investment. And you can find jars at your local thrift store for very cheap. You're also likely to find them at garage sales. We have dozens of jars thanks to friends who have scouted them for us!

Remember these...

Not my best friend. Possibly worst enemy.

Finished!

Just a little pop of color did just the trick to brighten baby's room!

28 weeks!

What's that big smile for? Being in the 3rd trimester that's what! 12 weeks to go! He's getting bigger too!!!

Did i mention i quit?

Correct, I quit my job last week. There were various reasons that i won't get into here. I was only planning on working through the end of April anyway so it was only a month early.


All that being said, it's pretty strange to be home all day every day. Being an at home wife was something i never planned to be and being an at home mom was something i am looking forward to but that intimidates me at the same time. It's very nice to be able to keep the house clean and work on my crafty projects more but i can't help but feel that I'm not contributing too much to the family. I know that's not really true, and don't worry David tells me that's not true too but i can't help but feel it. Hopefully in the next few weeks I'll fall into more of a routine and get used to this staying at home thing.


Until then do you have any suggestions on what to do with my abundance of time? Books you'd recommend? Things you keep busy with? I have a few projects that are contingent on the weather so once that stabilizes I'll get outside a bit more. I also love the projects I've done sewing but i find my pregnant body can only take about half a day of sitting in a hard chair cutting, sewing, ironing etc. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated!

Diamonds are a girls best friend...

Rediscovered this fabric that i bought in Africa 6 years ago. Have some diamond inspiration for it. This morning i cut cut cut. I'm waiting on my 1/4" foot to come in the mail to sew sew sew but I'm so excited to use these gorgeous fabrics!

This weather is not, however, my best friend! 8+ inches Saturday night has made for a depressing couple of days. At least it should all melt before the second round comes in a couple days.

Mustache March ii

This is 6 months of growing a beard for this sole purpose.

Final product. Pretty awesome huh?

And that's the whole costume for the work competition. Suit vest, pocket watch, hair slicked and all.

In case you were wondering, he totally won best in show for his work's competition. Got a trophy and mug for it and everything. We had to go downtown that night for some training meetings and the looks he got walking the 5 block from where we parked to the conference center were priceless. It was a pretty funny day all in all. And now he's all clean shaven again and it's kind of weird after so long with the beard.