Thankful

I have much to be thankful this past week. I had my "10 wk" appt. this past Wednesday with ultrasound. I have, well had been really nervous these last several weeks about this pregnancy. It was a super long appt or what seemed like to me, but everything checked out well for mommy and baby. As little as the baby is, we were able to see the little one move about and wiggle. Which is exciting, but at the same time kinda scary...because with Alex he was very active in the womb... and has yet to slow down :)
Speaking of my little man...although there are days I wish he would just put this whole language thing together, there are so many other things that he constantly amazes us with everyday. I am thankful for how he continuously surprises us with what he does learn.

 

 

Fall Festivities

Well, I'm finally feeling better! So now it's time to catch up on life's happenings. First, due to some issues I was having, we had an ultrasound last Wednesday the 3rd. Thankfully everything looked good. We will have another one next Wednesday to check again.
In the meanwhile, I had been feeling like Alex was missing out on something. All last month, it seemed like everyone had pictures of their kid in a pumpkin patch. Granted, the only times I went there as a kid were on school field trips...but still. It finally dawned on me....we have our own pumpkin patch in the backyard...duh. This actually worked out well, as Alex didn't quite get the idea of pumpkin picking. I would give him a pumpkin and then he would go put it back... finally, we got a bucket to put all the pumpkins...this must be what he was waiting for or something, because then he started picking them and putting then in the bucket.

 

Decorating didn't go much better.. well that is he had no intention of "helping" Daddy carve and clean the pumpkins. I did give him some paint and markers to decorate his pumpkins and of course he loved that. 

 

We also went on our first trick or treating adventure in town. This went better then what I thought, as he was very excited about ringing doorbells and then getting candy.

 

And finally, here is some of our Fall/October themedish artwork.

B is for....

B is for Baby. This pregnancy has not been the happiest and most pleasant so far... Between the dizziness and nauseousness and some other things... it's been a long two weeks. So sorry if the B projects lack imagination, but here we go. I wanted to post them before I completely forgot :)

Things that start with the Letter B

The idea was to use "dot paints" to fill in the dots...

Boat painting :)

Squash Galore!

I have on my hands what would appear to be a plethora of buttercup squash...any ideas other then baking on what I should do with them? I have been trying to give them away, but they are a funny looking thing.

 So this afternoon, I went out back to the garden and did some small maintenance work and some harvesting. I can't believe that I'm still getting cucumbers, I'm  thinking though this has to be the last of them. The zucchini also seems strong willed to keep on producing. One nice surprise has been the spinach reseeding itself from the spring. Along with the spinach came radishes... which I'm not too sure how I feel about that quite yet.

Today was a beautiful and Alex and I spent a good amount of time outside playing, well me watching and him playing. I tried to have him make "moon sand" but well.... maybe next time it will turn out better. He still had fun mixing and playing with the outcome. It was also warm enough to turn on the hose, so we did that too. Got to love those warm fall?days :)

A is for Apple

This seems to be my reoccurring theme these days. I did make another batch of apple butter this morning, but that's not really what I had plan to write about here. So it dawned on me, Alex should be getting more familiar with letters outside of his books. So, the goal is to at least once a week talk about one specific letter. (I'm being realistic here). Sometimes we will do this with other kids and sometimes it will just be by ourselves. So here are the pictures from this week. Enjoy!

Using a half apple to make prints.

Gluing  and placing various "A"'s on the paper.

Apple!

And least I forgot completely.... here are some of the websites some of these ideas come from....
http://www.notimeforflashcards.com/
http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/search/label/Letter%20Aa
http://ourcraftsnthings.com/category/toddler-activity/letter-of-the-week/letter-a/

Art Projects

Another reason I had for wanting to blog, was to keep myself accountable with intentional projects with Alex. So here are a few things we have done the last week or so....

Yogurt Painting

Painting with an eye dropper

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I forgot to take pictures but we also did marble painting and made "rainbow stew."

Apple Butter

So I finally found the time to make one of my all time favorite things... apple butter. Can we say yum! I search for recipes and also listened to what other experience people had to say and morph my own recipe. Beware the sugar content is not for the faint of heart. The apples I use were very tart and needed the extra sweetness. So here is my recipe with some pictures to follow. Peel, core and slice as many apples that will fit into your crock pot. Mine is a Hamilton Beach Portfolio which I think holds 6.5 quarts. To this I added (now remember it was A LOT of tart apples) about 6c. of sugar (which obviously one can adjust to taste), 4 tsp of cinnamon, 2 tsp of apple pie spice, 1.5 tsp of ground cloves and last but not least a bag of red hots. This goes on high for 6-7 hours depending on your crock pot. Basically you let it go till you just about get the thickness you want. After 7 hours, I still wanted it thicker, I took the lid off and replaced it with a metal screen. Closer to the end, I did mash up what was still in there that was chunky and also did some stirring. When I got my desired consistency, I ladled it into 6 pint size hot canning jars and stuck them in the canner for 15 mins. Today, I have been enjoy the fruit of my work :)

Beginning Stage

Middle Stage

End Product!

Alex is TWO!

This past week we celebrated Alex's birthday on Thursday. He is officially now two. His height is 36 inches and he weighs in at 30 lbs. Although there is still plenty that he can't do, the list for what he can do seems to grow everyday. Here are some of my favorite things that Alex does....
- Sign flower (pinch fingers touching one side of the nose the other) while saying "flau wha," and then handing Momma said flower while doing the sign to her with the flower on her nose.
- Playing in the sandbox with his dump truck. Emptying it out and then filling it up...over and over and over again.
- Signing Cracker (knocking elbow with other hand) and saying " Crack - ker" for anything that remotely resembles a cracker.
- Giving Momma hugs and kisses...even though they be open mouth kisses.
- Pushing his "Discovery Rig" all over the house.
-Playing on his slide and pushing trucks down it.
- Sitting in a booster seat to eat.
- Using a spoon and fork (well most of the time).
And now for the things that are not so much my favorite...
- Knowing that keys go in doors.
- Being able to stack things strategically in order to climb up things.
- Figuring out how to work the baby gates.
- Knowing the concept of how the VHS/DVD player & TV work and trying to go it on his own.
I know there are plenty more things I can add but this will do for today. :)

For Alex's birthday we celebrated with a trip to the zoo in Sioux Falls. Steve would show Alex the "Kitties" and say "meow" and Alex would repeat. He also liked looking at all the birds. The zoo has peacocks wandering all over the grounds. While walking around Alex felt the need to push his stroller around by myself. At the end of our zoo tour, Alex picked out a pinwheel at the zoo store to take home.

PEACHES

So this morning, I drove 16 miles to buy a half a bushel of peaches from a guy with a horse trailer. I guess every year he comes and brings back a load of fresh Colorado peaches to sell here. Twenty minutes later and about twenty people later, I was on my way back home with my prize. Half went to a friend, who wanted some and the other half is all mine. At home, I finally sliced a big juicy peach open -delicious. Steve really liked it too. I may need to hide them while I’m out.
Okay, so plans for the peaches. I had thought about canning them and then my Dad mentioned making preserves. Yummy. I forgot about that… I love peach preserves! So today I made my first batch of peach preserves, keeping my fingers crossed that it works. Here is the website that I used for the recipe:peach-preserves. It was really super easy. I’m also going to do what my Mom does and sliced and freeze some peaches with a sugar glaze. Right now, I have a pan in the freezer with slices on it. Each slice will get frozen by itself, this way I don’t have to unfreeze the whole bag when I want just a few. Below are the jars of preserve that I canned. They need to wait 24 hours of so before we should "test" them. Wednesday, I hope to have time to make some Challah bread. My mouth is already watering thinking about how good the combination will be.