Magnetic Smile

Somebody at our house has a new smile.

She brought headphones and music to distract her from the process, she was pretty anxious about being in that chair.

"Phoebe, how do you feel about getting braces?"

She was a good sport about it though.

She has the top braces on now and will add the bottom set in October. And she hasn't eaten solid food since Friday morning, but hopefully that will change as the soreness goes away.

Happy Birthday to Us!

Today our family is twenty-two years old. That number is kind of mind boggling, especially considering that when we got married I was twenty-one and Bryan was twenty-two. We've been married about as long (or longer) than we'd been alive when we got married. That's crazy. Awesome, totally, but also crazy.

Because of some things on today's calendar, we had our traditional family birthday dinner last night. Our meal contributions were:

Bryan- chips and french onion dip

Me- watermelon

Peter- sushi

Cooper- frozen supreme pizza

Phoebe- egg crepes

Sophie- chicken salad on croissants

Topher- cupcakes

We added root beer floats as our drink, just for fun.

Sophie suggested that we go around the table and each say something that we love about our family, just like we do when it's an individual's birthday. We did and I loved hearing each person's thoughts. The members of our family love (in no particular order) that we eat dinner together, that we're musical and like to read, that we go on adventures, that we love talking to each other, that we ate cupcakes with our dinner, that we do things together, and that we have family movie nights.

Our personalities are just as eclectic as our meal and I wouldn't have it any other way.

I really love this family of ours.

Buoyant

We spent three and a half hours at our local pool yesterday and some of us have the sunburns to prove it. I didn't take any pictures at all since I was in the water and my phone was tucked away in my bag not in the water. I did take this picture the day before. We have a primary pool party coming up and I decided to buy this wearable floaty for Topher in anticipation of the activity. He wore it most of the day, and loved it, but adopted this face for the picture. 

The point of this post is to say: THEY WORKED SO WELL! He wore them the whole time we were there and between these and the skills he learned in swimming lessons, he was pretty self-sufficient. I still stayed near him and kept my eyes on him, but I didn't have to hold on to him the time, which was a nice change.

Not-So-Secret Sauce

A week and a half ago I got a text from a friend in our ward saying they had too many apples on their tree and offered to let us come pick what we wanted. She warned me that they weren't good for eating, but made great applesauce. I took the four younger kids and some plastic bags and we visited while we picked apples. We left many apples that we couldn't reach and somehow still came home with 42 pounds of apples!

I found a no sugar, instant pot applesauce recipe and wanted to get started right away, but I didn't have all the needed equipment. Originally I was going to use our apple peeler/corer, then cook the sliced apples and mash them in the blender. But I wanted to use as much of the apple as possible, so instead I ordered an applesauce maker from Amazon and then waited for it to be delivered.

A few days after gathering the apples, we finally started the applesauce making. The last time I made applesauce was before Instant Pots were a thing. This was soooooo much nicer and more efficient than cooking the apples on the stove. 

Several of the kids thought these were potatoes.

Even with the Instant Pots speeding the process along, this took several hours. I was down to the point of cooking the last batch when I made myself call it a night, well after midnight. This very cool tool did make the process easier. 

The next morning we cooked and mashed the last of the apples. I had a few helpers. 

Those 42 pounds of apples made 12 quarts of applesauce. I had discovered that my trusty canner that had been taking up space in the basement for many years could not be used on our glass cooktop. So instead of canning the applesauce right away, I stored it all in the fridge in the garage and waited for a new, flatbottomed canner to be delivered by amazon.

I was thrilled when it arrived, it was a thing of beauty. For real life. And then we looked up the manufacturer information on our stove top and found out that the pot was so big it could possibly crack the stove. Ugh. We returned it to Amazon.

Thankfully, we have a restaurant supply store nearby. They don't sell canners, but they do sell giant stock pots and steamer racks, and that's how I cobbled together a canner that would fit on my stove. I have ordered a proper canning rack to fit this pot, but it won't be here for a few weeks and I needed to get that applesauce canned while it was still edible.

Yesterday was the day! The hardest thing about the canning was that I had to warm the applesauce back up and I could only heat 4 quarts at a time in my second biggest pot on my second biggest burner. It took most of the day, but we ended up with 8 quarts and 8 pints. It's delicious, those apples really do make excellent applesauce.

Split Focus

An Apple a Day.

Sophie pulled out the water colors last week and created this awesome apple. Water colors baffle me, I really can't figure out how to use them properly. Maybe that's why I'm extra impressed with Sophie's work.

Brotherly Love

Part of the Process

Phoebe shared some of her latest work with me, including a few in-process shots. She usually shows me what she's drawn and points out the parts that she thinks are flawed. I see these pieces of art and am amazed at her skill and dedication. I think this is beautiful.

Old Fashioned Country Girl

Sophie asked to borrow my big, floppy hat for our walk yesterday morning. She thought it matched her dress so perfectly that she asked me to take her picture to document her cuteness.

You Oughta Be In Pictures

Bryan and I took the younger three to the library on Saturday for their end-of-the-summer-reading-program celebration. The theme for the summer was animals and participants were encouraged to bring their pets. Since the only pets we have are of the stuffed animal variety, that's what our kids brought. They introduced their animals over the microphone, played some games, then waited in line to have their pictures drawn. We love the result.