Round & Round

September is when school “traditionally” begins and when my brain still thinks it should.  Autumn is in the air and thoughts turn to structure once again.  The “theme” for the month with my pre-school-ers had to do with “the wheels on the bus” and my activities for them centered around this idea.

I love to watch their imaginations blossom as they play with the “little people”.  Of course we had to sing “The Wheels On the Bus” again and again and again.

 

More wheels on another bus.  When pulled, all of the people and animals spin around and around.

We read lots of our favorite books about going to school and more books about making friends and being a good friend.

Kaitlyn loves to “read” and look at all the fun pictures in the book If You Take a Mouse to School.  She is inspired by the block scene and begins making letters and spelling words with her own wooden blocks.  She is spelling the word “it” above and is pleased with herself.

Nathan still likes to walk around with blocks in his mouth if he’s not knocking over your castle but he is beginning to stack the blocks as well.

We read stories that help with self esteem issues as well.

Kaitlyn matches the split pages in this Eric Carle book; color word to color object and then spells the color as she reads the letters.  She is getting really good with her beginning sounds now.

Gears spin round and round and it is fun to configurate them and watch them spin.

Even my kids spin round and round themselves!  This great sit and spin is even better with music.

 

Even our kitten figured out how to push the button on this activity cube to make the top light up and spin!  So silly.  She thinks she’s one of the kids.

So…

Why???  Why do I have a theme each month?  Well, first and foremost, I have a very small home for our family being the size that it is.  I find that there really is no place for ALL the toys that five children collect over the years.  The kids all use them and they all pass the toys on to the next one.  So most of our toys are actually put away in labeled (by month and theme) bins put in storage downstairs.  A perk to this plan is that every month my toys and bins not only get cleaned but NEW toys come out.  They can be toys that have been in the house over a decade but all of the sudden they are NEW and my kids couldn’t be more thrilled if I had just spent a small fortune at Toys R Us.  Remember, a few months is a long time to a child in their little lives.  And finally, there isn’t as much to mess up, pick up, and keep track of all at one time.  The down side is that this takes time… but it’s worth it.  And having been a teacher, it helps me to focus on various things that my children need to learn.  It’s just kind of how I think now.  Living in small quarters, this really works for us.

Cub Scouts

In early August I was released from my calling as Activity Days leader that I had served in for 6 1/2 years.  I loved working with the girls.  In fact, if you are a girl in my ward who is anywhere from 8 years to 18 years of age, then I have worked with you in Activity Days.  It was the most fun I’ve ever had with a job in the church.  It was a great deal of work, too.  At any rate, it was time to let someone else take the reigns and learn the ropes and I knew that this change was coming.  What I find amazing is that immediately I was put into the position of Webelos Den Leader in the Cub Scouts working with the boys in the same age bracket… but more specifically the 10 year olds.  We take a two year program and pack it into one year so they can become 11 year old Scouts.  It gives them a better chance of earning their Eagle in Boy Scouts this way.  So now I not only have a son in Cub Scouts but I have a uniform of my own, meet every single week now and have a whole new set of things to learn, though my knowledge of the program I’ve been running with the girls does help since at least the FIG requirements are the mostly the same.  I think working with the boys will be as rewarding as it was working with the girls all those years.  They are different though!

Last night we held our September Pack Meeting with a special ceremony for one of our Webelos who earned his Arrow of Light.  All of the younger Cub Scouts were soaking it in as the bridge was crossed and our oldest Cub was welcomed into Boy Scouts. 

I caught a few pictures of my family on this occasion.

After the flag ceremony and a cheesy Cub Scout song, Tristan along with a few other boys in his Den put on a silly magic show at the beginning.  This helps him pass off some requirement.  Their show involved the first boy taking a drink of water and gargling.  Then passing on a message into the ear of the next boy and the next until they got to the last boy who spit water into the cup (as if they’d passed water from mouth to ear).  Tristan happened to be the last boy spitting out the water who got a chuckle from everyone until he shrugged and drank it back!!!  Loud groan from all!!!

Tristan also got up on his own and did a “disappearing coin trick”, hence the long sleeves under his uniform.  I must say there was nothing too magical here but he had fun and he did it all on his own.

  

I was grateful that the ceremony didn’t take too long since there were several tired babies in the audience, including my own who is enjoying a “mostly blue” and gold “arrow of light” cake in this picture.

Aside from assisting my Webelos in their presentation on the meaning of the Pledge of Allegiance these gold cupcakes were my contribution to the evening.  Ironically, the other girl who made the cake had to make it twice as I also had to make cupcakes twice; both of us discovering fallen cakes at 11 p.m. Monday night.  Something was in the water.  I then resorted to a box mix at 7 a.m. Tuesday morning and later made a confectioners frosting which was almost armor like but good tasting.  I ejected it onto the cupcakes from my cookie press, which I have only ever used for frosting.  They told me they wanted “fancy” and without being a cake decorator this is what I came up with.  The top centers are lightly sprinkled with sugar that I dyed blue.

 

Kaitlyn, still dressed for tumbling class earlier in the day, met up with her friend Madeline who is now in Kindergarten.  Much to Kaitlyn’s chagrin, Madeline can no longer attend play group on Friday mornings because school is in the way now.  Imagine that!

Finally, there is Tristan with 4 of the 5 Paulson brothers and one other friend from Cub Scouts as well.     Tristan LOVES being a Cub Scout.

Dunking for Apples

This past Saturday we set our alarm so we could rise with the sun to get started on our apple canning.  Rick was going to go to work in the middle of this process for a little while and I had a conference to attend in the evening not to mention we expected five children to be needing attention through the day as well so there was no time to be lost.  Plus, the fresher the better and these apples were already a week old.  Our equipment was clean and set to go so we began by cleaning the 2 1/2 bushels of apples.

Once clean we would bring a load over to the table for the next person to begin working on them.  This basket carries less than a half bushel.  The person at the table had to move fairly rapidly as load after load of apples was cleaned.

Our first bushel of apples was destined for jars of apple slices and so needed to be peeled and cored, followed by two other recipes for additional bushels.

More apples awaited under the table, their “hiding” spot all week!  Where else could we put three bushels of apples in an eat-in kitchen? 

We had big apples, small apples and all in between.  

This heavy-duty corer/peeler/slicer makes the work so easy that our three year old could easily perform this task a year ago.  There is very little wastage.  And it makes the job so much quicker; we literally go twice as fast as we used to!!!  And it gets more people involved in the work.

Later, Lindsay took a turn with the food mill as we prepared the apple sauce, a wonderful golden color this year.  She worked at this until she thought her “arm would fall off”!

And of course we had Sandy’s help.  It is her first autumn as she nears her very first birthday next month and she was checking into EVERYTHING!  What could be better than apples floating in the water, except maybe a rubber duck floating in someone’s bathwater?  This cat is so funny!

 

We funneled hot apple slices into jars and processed them in the old boiling water canner which my mother let me “borrow” fifteen years ago claiming that she would ask for it back if she ever wanted it.  I don’t think she has used it since sometime before we moved away from Michigan.  We have enjoyed it for many years now.  I’m attached! 

I have a somewhat eclectic collection of jars.  Mason, Ball, Kerr and Atlas all have differences  and jars change a little bit over the years anyway.  I enjoy looking at the differences in their designs and shapes.  I think my very most favorite jar is the one with a Liberty Bell on it that says 1776 over the top and 1976 underneath.  I imagine it was some special bicentennial edition that a canning jar company put out way back and I imagine that it must have contained dill pickles from my Grandma.  Exactly how I came to have it… I’m not sure at this point.

Another point of interest, although I have plenty, I looked at a box of a dozen canning jars in the store recently that were priced over $12!  I still have the price tag on one of the boxes I bought 14 years ago that says $3.89.  I guess jars are an investment of sorts.  I guess the fact that there is an actual price tag also says something.  If you are looking for a “cheaper” alternative or to round out your jar supply from a few that may have been broken or given away I have checked around and you can use jars from Classico pasta sauce.  They are smaller than a quart but they say “Mason” and work perfectly well as a canning jar.  They ARE Mason jars.

Apple butter simmers on the stove top………….. These apples simmer to soften for milling into sauce.

 

After 17 hours of kitchen labor (at least one of us working in the kitchen at all times), lots of help, and putting out two fires (Rick ended the lives of two hot pads two separate times) we set hot jars out to cool on towels and stumbled to bed.  All lids sealed but one, and Sunday morning we counted 14 quarts of apple slices, 19 1/2 quarts of apple sauce and 9 pints of apple butter.  Yummy Success!

Apple Season

Each year we find a farm to pick apples at.  This activity has become a much beloved family tradition and helps us to mark the change of seasons once again as we acknowledge the passage of time.  This year our favorite farm to go to was already done with picking Jonathans… our favorite tart apple that grows here.  Far to our north, the apples weren’t ready yet which spoiled a day we had hoped to spend with Rachael and her family so we did some investigating.  We found that northwest of Dayton, there was a farm with one day of Jonathan picking left.  We made the drive… not much farther than we usually have to drive to a fruit farm.  We made an afternoon of it.

Many trees were picked out but there were enough trees that were still plentiful.

We headed out into the orchard armed with 6 half bushel bags we hoped to fill.  Our family has grown and after last year we didn’t feel 2 bushels was enough anymore.  We love our apples.

Fresh is best!

Nathan had a great time walking around.  He found a patch of “tickle trees”.

Haley found a good sized apple in spite of the moderate draught we are experiencing again.

The greener the apple the better the flavor, so say my kids.  They like tart and this type of apple has a good mix of red and green shades.

These trees were short and dense.  Many could easily reached by our shorter family members but staying out of poison ivy was a real trick.  It was growing around the base of each tree at varying heights. 

Some lucky birds wake up each morning to a garden in the sky… beautiful!

Boys and their sticks!  It must be hereditary.  Lindsay enjoyed playing around with Nathan.  He enjoyed her attention too.

Rows and rows of apple trees, these being mostly picked out now.

Late summer flowers in bloom with plenty of bees and butterflies.

Kaitlyn and Nathan found a pile of corn to play around in opposite a bird watch in the woods.

Here are half of our apples; three bushels total loaded into the van.  Tristan himself ate seven of them yesterday and three or four upon arriving home Saturday night.  Two apple pies were made yesterday, which we shared with a neighbor.  After eating these fresh juicy sweet-tart apples all week this weekend we will put some apples aside for eating and the rest we will dry or process into apple sauce, apple slices, apple butter and apple snacks.  Autumn is a favorite time of year for us.