Halloween Fun!

This year we did all kinds of fun things for Halloween. Alma dressed up as Princess Leia, and Neil went as Yoda, which was extremely adorable. We only took her trick-or-treating to a couple of houses before returning home.

We each carved our own pumpkin - well, actually, Dan carved three pumpkins!

We had to buy Alma a Halloween outfit to wear to her day-care party. She also wore this outfit to Shriners one day and got all kinds of compliments. I made this cute bow one afternoon with my little sister.

At Shriners this week Alma got her very first pair of colored casts - bright orange for Halloween.

Alma had a little Halloween party for some of her friends. We frosted Halloween shaped cookies, made spooky masks, and played "Monster" games.

Apple Mash 2010

After weeks of working on his cider press and picking apples, we were finally ready to press apple cider. We invited all of our friends and spent the afternoon in the yard. Even the rain couldn't keep us away! At the end of the day everybody took home about a gallon of fresh cider, and we ended up with two full carboys of juice that Dan plans to make into hard apple cider.

Applesauce!

We have apples coming out of our ears! We have baked pies, cakes, tarts, strudels, and made apple butter, apple sauce, and eaten at least ten pounds of just plain apples. Next year, we are going to invite people to come and pick their fill!

Adventures in Food

Alma is almost completely done with baby food. She is really into eating blueberry bagels, pesto rolls from the co-op, and french toast is her absolute favorite! She is also starting to drink out of mom's cup. It doesn't matter what I am drinking, whatever I have she wants to drink. She is growing up so fast!

Cider Press

One of the biggest reasons Dan loves our new house is the Orchard. With five fruit bearing Apple tree's it has been apple-mania at our house. We have made applesauce, apple dumplings, apple cakes, apple pies, and now we are going to make Apple Cider. Dan did a lot of research on cider presses - but the ones he wanted were all over a thousand dollars. So, what's an Engineer to do? Build his own, of course! Dan designed and built this bad boy for under $200. That doesn't include his time - which is very valuable, so really I think his cider press is invaluable. He did a really beautiful job, and we can't wait to get it working!

Harvest Time!

Our new house has an amazing orchard. We have four apple trees, a pear tree, and a plum tree. They are all very developed and mature, but they do need to be cut back and sprayed next year. We have been very much enjoying harvesting our crop and Dan has been working very hard on his cider press. In a few weeks we are planning a big party to make apple cider, but this weekend we did a trial run and made some pear cider. The Jarolimeks and the Terry's joined us, so we had a total of seven kiddos totting/running around! Everybody got a turn so it was lots of fun.

Alma is starting to discover solid foods - and this was her first s'more. It was a very messy endeavor, but she was very happy about it.

My first attempt at Pear Honey. A little thicker than I wanted it, but divine.

Our Plum harvest!

Harvesting apples! Tons, and tons, and tons of apples!