Smash Cakes

 Stacia was asked to make a "Little Mermaid Smash cake."  This is a difficult concept. People spend good money for a 6 in cake, fully decorated and no one will EAT it. It's the THING for One Year Olds.  Stacia sold this one to a gal from Josiah's work.  It was darling and they loved it. 

She made two of these for Danny and JoJo's first birthdays. In the future she will not use fondant on the smash cakes...it made it difficult for the kids to get the idea of smashing the cake. 

Alaska Problems

The majority of our spare moments this week are filled with prepping for speaking at an upcoming 3 day Parenting Retreat for JBER.  

The girls are quick to jump in the car for any errands I need to run. Today,  I zipped through a coffee shack drive-through and we stopped beside the river, on our drive home. What a blessing it was to sit together and enjoy  a bit of nature -  the world outside our walls. 

As I attempted to clean up spilled chai, I discovered while it IS still fall, and I am FULLY EMBRACING FALL  for the beauty it IS (rather than dreading the winter it heralds), THE WIPES WERE FROZEN. 

Yes, frozen. I didn't think alcohol froze...Alaska problems. 

And the river? Beautiful. I need to go back with the camera (rather than the phone).  The river is a big, moving slushy! 

The white is ice...not waves....

Some of the water near the banks is frozen (though one should NOT go out on it), the river will continue to flow...but it is showing more and more ice and snow in it..... 

I DO love the sun coming through the trees in the back yard in the morning. 

This will be a ramp for the sledding "hill." 

Since there is still NOT significant snow on the ground, I am still comfortable calling this Alaska fall. 

Busy Day

No respite care today. I woke up feeling overwhelmed and realized how wonderful those few hours on Monday really are.  We had told Arielle not to come as she and her guys will be here for two nights and three days this weekend. 

Michael and I spent time this afternoon going over slides, notetakers, and notes for the upcoming parenting workshop we will be facilitating for JBER. 

I had saved my notes from the last workshop - and I can't figure out what in the world I was trying to remember. ::snort::  Michael suggested it might be better for me to start clean. LOL 

The girls finished school and began another painting project...I think I need to find more things like this for them to do during winter. I love seeing projects in this downstairs room - it's what our vision was for the room. 

We are currently reading Frankenstein. None of us have ever read this book. ::blush:: It's been a surprise. We are enjoying it and it is certainly leading to some fun conversations.  I'm enjoying Brit Lit quite a bit...once we got out of the lop of the head/poetry genre. 

Stacia, Allie, Nolan, Alex, Grandpa, Michael 

Michael and I were working into my dinner prep time. Tacos are a favorite of his and so we threw together Tacos for dinner. I keep ingredients for a few meals that are easy to throw together on busy nights. Tonight was a special dinner as EVERYONE was home. We had gone months without Nolan at home, but he's getting a bit more time off these days. 

Saturday Celebration

Danny turns one year old on Nov 10th. Benny turns 4 years old on Nov 15th.  Michael turns 61 years old on Nov 17th and Jojo turns 1year old on Nov 17th as well. We typically try to have a monthly dinner and celebrate birthday celebrations then....this month we'll celebrate our November birthdays together on Thanksgiving Day. 

CoRielle invited us to join them today to celebrate Danny and Benny's birthday.  Nolan and Alex are working. Michael is preparing for a sermon. Grandpa, the girls and I joined CoRielle, Cy and Livie the Fly Park. 

Cy and Livie brought the boys gifts. Danny loved the crinkling paper as much as the gift. 

Benny is impressed with Danny's gift. He loved his too. 

 

Three of my favorite seven people in the world in one spot. 

Livie, Danny & Benny 

Livie, Josiah

Look at her go! 

Everyone had stepped and wobbled across these. Benny JUMPED from pad to pad. 

Livie excels at back flips. 

Cory does an amazing back flip too! 

Stacia and Danny 

It was hard to get good photos from the available angels. First they climbed a "high tower," grabbed a rope and swung into a pit of foam cubes. 

Go Allie! 

Yay, Stacia!

Danny loved jumping with Arielle

Look at those guys jump! Cory's a monkey! 

Arielle, Stacia, Livie, Allie

Jump, girls, jump!

 Grandpa and I had a nice visit and helped occupy Danny so Arielle could jump with the big kids! 

We decided to get lunch together after we finished at the jump park. When we asked where he wanted to go, Benny asked for a place with a cheeseburger. We found that place WITH a play area...

With lunch finished CoRielle headed home for the boys to nap. Cy and Livie came to our house.   Stacia and Livie began working on Benny's birthday cake.  These will turn into planets. She will bake most inside the cake so that they show up when the cake is cut....four of the planets will float above the cake on skewers of some sort, a rocket will blast off from the cake into the planets.  The party won't be until Thanksgiving....check back if you want to see how it all turns out. LOL 

While the cakes baked, and we visited, the girls played Twister. I am once again very thankful for the basement oven. 

Millie didn't get her morning romp and run...she was quite ready to play this afternoon. 

It was a great day...Grandpa enjoyed the outing. Michael was able to work on a sermon with quiet, I enjoyed being with the kids and grands, we got a bit of time with Josiah and Livie back at the house before they leave for an adventure to warmer areas. 

Friday Fun

Alex helped Michael up the fall lights. 

The sun rose this morning at 9:36 and set at 5:43 this evening. Tomorrow we are forecasted to have 8 hours and 1 min of sunlight. We are losing 7 minutes a day.

The lights make everything cheerier. These are NOT Christmas lights, they are our fall/winter lights. Michael is not happy they don't match...I am happy they are up and lit.

Stacia and I were surprised how DARK when we went out for Bible study. We can't sit at the river or on the mountaintop at 0700 any longer. 😂 We are nearing the end of the New Testament. 

Stacia has been talking about cutting her hair short. Arielle came over to give her an idea of what it would feel like to have short hair. 

In the end they went with a tamer look. Grandpa said she looked like Mickey Mouse in the first hairdo.

TGIF - the girls finished week 11 of school this week. We have  on from Peter Pan to Frankenstein.  

I got the rest of the kitchen picked up and found places to store our canning. We are brainstorming a better set up for canning, maybe under our stairs. 

I had hoped to have a photo of a brilliantly working oven tonight. Alas, the oven was looked it and he will be back with a part next week which will "hopefully" fix the oven. In the meantime I will close with this photo of Michael counter surfing while he Nolan initially worked on the oven.

We ended the evening with pizza and movies... "Sonic The Hedgehog," and "Yes Day."

A Well Oiled Machine

As part of Pastor Appreciation month our church presented me with a dozen beautiful yellow roses, as well as a card and gift for Michael, on Sunday. Thanks guys, we love and appreciate you as well. 

It was very sweet.  I am reminded of our church family often this week,  as it has prompted dad to sing the, "Yellow Rose of Texas,"  every time he enters the dining room. 

One more unexpected blessing from having Dad live with us. 

Our day progressed like a well-oiled machine. 

Stacia and I had dental appointments at 0830. We made it home in time for Stacia to go work on school, and for Allie  - who had gotten an early start on school - to jump into the car. 

She and I found a secluded spot to continue our Bible study.  

Michael had asked us to be home by 12:30 so he could make it to his appointment. We walked in the door at 12:20. SCORE. 

Stacia and Allie finished school. 

Grandpa asked for a sandwich - seems the breakfasts I make have more staying power than the oatmeal Michael gave him this a.m. He told me he didn't have toast or bacon. ::snort::  He ate and decided to nap. 

This gave me time to lug jars of applesauce and canning supplies back to the basement AND spend 45 minutes on the elliptical. I had just finished when Michael walked in the door. 

Dinner. 

An episode of Librarian.

Grandpa and Stacia went to bed.  

Michael met Nolan on the other side of the door when he went to take care of chickens. 

It all worked well - I love days like this. Many of our days are more like herding cats. 

Winter Prep

What in the world is going on outside the world of canning? What are they doing? 

 

Winter prep, of course. They are building a platform for what will be this year's sledding hill...IF we get the right amount of snow. Stacia has been dreading the snow, but she was getting excited at the possibilities for winter fun.  I promised hot chocolate from the deck...and Michael plans a warm fire...fun ahead. 

But inside the house there WAS canning...the last day of the apple marathon of 2021. The final case and a half of the produce tower processed and on the shelf.  These little stickers became the bane of my existence. Seriously, a sticker on EVERY apple...who wants little plastic stickers going into their applesauce....and this? Certainly adding insult to injury in my book! A tad bit excessive me thinks. 

The final load coming out of the canner...7 more quarts of apple juice. 

I'm going to add the tally here so I can judge how many cases to order next year. From a case of Granny Smiths and 1/2 a case of Honey Crisp we put away 20 bags of pie filling and 1 1/2 gallons of pear/apple juice. 

From five cases of Fuji apples we processed 65 quarts of various kinds of applesauce and 4 1/2 gallons of apple juice.  I only did 2 loads of dried apples. That is less than last year, but I can order more as the time goes by and dry them.... I checked and last year we had 48 quarts of applesauce. We ran out in October. I wanted a bit more...I'm happy with the outcome. 

Text notifications were going off all day as the youth organized a prank on Pastor Shannon. He had sprayed some silly string in his sermon on Sunday.  You can guess where this went.  LOL I needed to duck out early to take the girls to the store. Michael, Alex and Grandpa settled for YOYO night (you're on your own)....or the meals that goes down and back up? ::snort::  Anyway, the girls and I headed to the store and then planned to go on to church for youth and Bible study.  

Millie began to wildly bark....three moose in the garden area. I decided not to head out to the compost....the chicken's weren't impressed either. 

I clicked a couple of photos and jumped in the car instead. 

The kitchen is a mess - I'll work on that tomorrow. It's a GREAT feeling to know that we have jars of organic, sugar free applesauce for the year. The garden didn't produce enough to really can this year, so I'm happy to be able to order cases of things from co-op.