Snow Dazed!

Here are a few photos from the snow day we had yesterday!

Thanksgiving

I know.....it's almost Christmas and I am just bloggin Thanksgiving pictures! Just be glad it's BEFORE Christmas :o) Here are some of the highlights from Bryan and Melissa's visit.

Watching the Thanksgiving paradeOutside playing
Leftovers anyone?
Guess I didn't get any pictures this year of the actual feast!

We went to the Baltimore Aquarium. Had a great time!

At the bubble tubes...They loved watching the fish




Waiting for the Westminster Christmas parade to start :o) (Gordon actually had a good time! He just doesn't look like it!) Did I say it was COLD??
More fun outside. Parachuting off the deck...

Most people may have GI Joe parachuting, but we had 2 princesses in the house. So.......
(No one was injured in this fun!)

Then came out the bubble gun!

Happiness

I saw this on a blog and really liked it. So I decided to share it with you :o)

Halloween

Gordon and I went to Bryan and Melissa's last week for Halloween. We had such a good time with them and the girls. Here are a few pictures of the highlights!

We dipped apples in carmel.....yum!



Me and the girls....Robyn showing us her 'princess teeth'! Here are 2 of the skirts I made. Don't they just look too darn cute!
Grandpa Gordon with the girls.
I don't remember what this was about, but it cracks me up!The girls getting dressed for the night on the town! She's putting on her 'bee crown'!
This beekeeper definitely has the best looking bees in the colony!


Melissa made the cute costumes! She had been a buuzzzzzeeeeee girl!!Just as we were getting ready to go Trick or Treating, these two girls came to our door...aren't they cute? They are dressed as a bee and ladybug!

Oh boy....here we go!
I just love these pictures :o)Trick or Treat!

We had a good time! Thanks Bryan and Melissa.

Little Witches

I made these cute little skirts and embroidered the shirts for the 4 little girls. I think they turned out so cute. I am anxiously awaiting pictures of little bodies in the skirts to show them off :o) I think the pattern can be made for bigger girls too, so next time I will have to try to make one for Sydney too so all 5 can match....even though they are all in different places :o( I will post pictures as I get them.

Adventures in Steam Juicing

Last weekend , Gordon and I tried our hand at making apple juice. We had made some grape juice this summer using the grapes from our garden. It took two days and it wasn't easy at all! We knew there had to be an easier way. I saw this in the flyer we got about a month ago. I hadn't ever seen or heard of one before. I happened to mention it to a friend and she said she had one that she loved it! She explained how it worked and just how easy it was to use. That sold me on it and we ordered one from Amazon I think. Any way - here are some pictures of our adventure into apples!

We started with a bushel of apples. (these were seconds and were much cheaper)
You start by washing and quartering your apples and putting them into the steamer basket.
This is the middle section of the Steam Juicer. The steam comes up from the bottom to through the funnel and the juice is collected here.

The steamer juicer together on the stove top. (There's a lid that goes on top, but you couldn't see the apples if I put the lid on!)
After collecting the juice through the tube into a collection pitcher and poured into hot jars and canned, we scooped the mushy apples from the top and put them (skin and all) through a food mill that we had for the kitchen aid. The sauce you can see coming through the strainer part in the middle and down into the bowl, and the skin and seeds out the end into another bowl.
The end products!
We ended up with 12 quarts of juice, 16 pints of applesauce and a quart of apple butter that we put into smaller jars. It was amazing and very easy. I am so anxious to share.....where are the kids at when you want them around??