Adventures in Canning

Previous canning experiences for Mckay and I were much like our gardening experience. We'd seen/helped our parents can things before when we were children, but had never actually done it ourselves before.

We got a lot of tomatoes from our garden this year, so I figured I'd try to can some of them. I talked to several friends who had done it, read books and felt like I could try it out. I borrowed a water-bath canner from our wonderful friends and set out one afternoon to can some tomatoes.

It took way longer than it should have (mostly due to me checking and double checking every little step to make sure I didn't mess things up), but I came away with two beautiful quart jars of tomatoes. I was so proud of myself. This was on Monday of last week. 

That night, we decided on a whim to join some friends for apple picking. A family from church has 12 apple trees that were ready to pick and they invited us over to pick some apples and make apple cider. I thought we'd come home with a box of apples for pie making and a bit of cider. I WAAAAYYY underestimated. We worked several hours that night and made 13 gallons of apple cider using this family's cider press. AFTER making the cider, we still had 10 or so big boxes full of apples between the 3 families who picked apples that night. While the other wives and I were cider-making and talking, we decided that we could make some apple sauce and pie filling with all the extra apples. Having just successfully canned my tomatoes that day, I was totally on board with more canning.

So we made an afternoon of it. On Tuesday, we met at one house and we peeled, cut, cooked and canned apples. For five hours.  ...  Our 6 children ran around the house entertaining themselves while 3 beginner canners worked and worked and worked.

And after that tiring, long day we hadn't even canned any apple pie filling yet! Knowing that Mckay would fire me if I came home with only applesauce and no apple pie fixings, we planned to meet together again two days later for more canning. We all thought it would be best to take a mental health day in between canning days. After 5 more hours of canning on Thursday, we were exhausted but oh so proud of our hard work.

In all, we canned roughly 28 quarts of apple cider, 18 quarts of pie filling, and close to 30 jars (both big and small) of applesauce. Every single jar sealed and not one of them broke. I'm told that's rare among so many jars.

 And after we were done with all our canning, there were still five boxes of apples leftover.

I took some home with me and made apple turnovers on Friday.

They were yummy.

By Saturday I had more ripe tomatoes so I canned two more jars.

And then I made two apple pies; One for us to eat and one for a friend who just had a baby.

And then I rested for a few days and tried to clean up the tsunami left behind in our kitchen.

 We divided 80 or so jars between our three families, so here are my canning spoils from the week:

9 quarts of cider, 8 quarts of pie filling, 5 pints and 1 quart of applesauce, and 4 quarts of tomatoes.

 Mckay said that our finished product picture should look like this:

because we still have apples leftover!!

And after taking this picture I found 3 more jars of applesauce on the counter. There are apples all over my house!!

In all seriousness, it was a super busy week, but a very rewarding week. I had a crash course in canning that will pay off hugely when we get to eat yummy food all winter. I'm not nearly as scared of canning as I was before and I'm happy that I learned a new skill. Maybe next near I'll try pressure canning.

Angry Birds

One of my piano students recently tried out for his elementary school talent show. His mom mentioned it would be coming up and thought it would be nice for me to find him a new, special song to play for the talent show. I though for a good long while about his song choice. I wanted it to be something "cool" that the other kids at school would really appreciate. And then it hit me: the Angry Birds theme song!

 This boy LOVES angry birds. And so does every other kid. And many adults. I'm not sure why... Anyway, I found free sheet music for an arrangement of Angry Birds for piano (link here), but this was a little advanced for my student. So I just arranged a easier version for him! (No big deal...) It actually wasn't too difficult to do. I mostly used the music I had already found, but I changed the key, simplified even more and shortened the song. Ok, so I changed a lot of it. Here it is:




And here's a link to the actual sheet music. (I was actually hoping to have a picture of the sheet music displayed above but I can't figure out how to do that exactly. It is pretty cool that you can hear and "see" the music though.)

I found this cool website called Noteflight that allows you to compose your own music online and print it. The music editor is a little tedious, but this is the first program like this that I've ever used so I don't know how it compares to others. And it's free (up to 10 compositions) so I figured I'd give it a try.

I'm pretty proud of this song, probably because it's the first arrangement of anything I've ever done. Oh, and my student passed auditions and will be in his talent show! I'm not sure how competitive this talent show audition was, but I am very proud of all his hard work in practicing.

2012 in review

I know we're well into the new year now, but I'm still catching up from being out of town.

2012 was a great year for us. It was a year of exploring and trying new things. We took a spring break trip to Cincinnati, bought a bike trailer and went on several bike rides, and went camping one and a half times (we were hit by a huge rain storm and went home early one time). We flew to California twice and Denver once and learned that as much as like living here in Indiana and doing our own thing, we miss our family. We had family members visit us here and took trips south to Indy and north to the Sand Dunes and Chicago.

Dallin started preschool this year and has loved every minute of it. He learned to talk so much this year and is actually putting his own thoughts into words rather than just mimicking others. He got to go on his first school field trip to the pumpkin patch. He discovered his love for pancakes and ate them for breakfast about 330 days last year. (As a result, I've gotten VERY good at making pancakes.)

Connor has probably changed the most over the year. He started it as a brand new baby and ended as a full blown toddler boy. He rolled once or twice before quickly moving right into crawling. He learned to laugh, walk, talk, eat solid foods, all with very little help. He is a busy, busy boy, always running around and playing with cars, and he is always hungry.

I didn't know two kids could be so angry with each other one minute and then best friends and laughing the next. I guess that how brothers are.

I've loved watching these two play together and be so loving and kind to each other.

Mckay has played many sports this year. He played several ultimate frisbee pick up games. He started playing basketball weekly at the church and joined a volleyball league. And he played soccer alongside his classmates against the Chem.E. professors. The students won. Mckay landscaped some of the front yard and spent countless hours watering and trying to bring our grass back to life. He still says it need lots of work, but it looks better than our neighbor's grass!

I started teaching piano lessons and had my first student recital in November. I tried out countless new recipes (several of which I posted about here), learned to make yogurt, gingerbread houses from scratch, and kept our grocery budget between $250-$300 each month. I helped plan and host a walk for Williams Syndrome, and I got to write a guest post on a friend's blog about our life raising a child with WS. I did many crafts (a diaper baby, bow ties, crayon roll, necklace display and bathroom artwork,  finger puppets and an advent calendar), some less successful than others (like the Valentine's heart).

Here are my personal and family goals for 2012 and how we did with each one:

• Read scriptures daily as a family. We didn't read every day, but we did better in 2012 than the previous year, There is certainly room for improving this one. 
• Weekly Family Home Evening. Every Monday night, we set aside time to have a gospel lesson (about things like prayer, service, faith, etc.) and quality time as a family. We did very well with this goal and had family night almost every week.
• Watch less TV. Having started the year with a new baby, I was at a pretty low point as far as productivity. I pretty much spent all day feeding Connor. That on it's own is an important accomplishment, but the rest of the household duties were lacking. And watching TV all day didn't help things. We went through phases with this, but ultimately, we spent a lot less time watching TV.
• Less wasted time on the computer. This one kind of goes with the TV one. Same excuses: it's easy to waste time while you're stuck feeding a baby. I did pretty well with managing my computer time. It amazes me how much more I can get done in a day when I don't go near the computer.
• Read more books for entertainment. Part of having less screen time involved finding something to fill the absence because I still had to sit and feed a baby. I finished seven books this year (maybe more that I can't remember): The Picture of Dorian Gray, Catching Fire and Mockingjay, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Help, The Strangest Song, and Brave New World.
• Establish a daily cleaning routine. I kind of worked on this and was really good about it through the summer, but then got really busy as school started up again. We'll say I half accomplished this one. :)
• Plan a weekly Dinner Menu. It took some time but I got really good at this by the end of the year. It really helped me save time trying to figure out what to make for dinner each day, and I tried to plan dinners that would use similar ingredients so food didn't get wasted. Planning really helped me to keep our grocery budget down.

Overall, I'd say 2012 was a successful year for us. I'm looking forward to the new year. We're making more goals as a family, and I'm excited to see how we grow and change for the better this year.

Guest Post

I was featured as a guest poster on a blog!

Ashley at The Pickled Bean blog is the mom to an adorable little boy with Williams Syndrome. We met through the WS support group on Facebook. She has family in Utah (so do we!) and lives in San Francisco (close to my parents!) so we have a few things in common. Every week she features the story of a WS parent and she chose me. If you haven't already, you can read my post on her blog HERE.

Piano Lessons

I've started teaching piano lessons. I always had it in the back of my mind that I would teach lessons someday to earn a little extra money. I figured it would be years from now though because my kids are still very young. But a few months ago, my friend asked me if I would teach her son. And I realized that I could! I have a piano and space in my house for lessons. People teach piano lessons with young kids all the time, and mine are fairly well behaved. So I said yes. And now I'm a piano teacher.

I'm taking it easy and starting out kind of slow. I have 3 students and it seems like a good amount for now. I'm pretty busy with the rest of my life, so I don't want to get too booked up with lessons. But I'm really enjoying it. It's fun to get back to the basics of music. It reminds me of how much I loved taking lessons as a kid. And it's nice to have something that I do for myself, with out my kids being involved. (Although, I'm often holding one of them on my lap while teaching.)

Dallin likes that people are coming over to our house, even if they're not coming to see him. He likes to watch during lessons, and after the students leave, he hops up on the bench and starts playing.

He has pretty good form and he's very gentle on the keys. He plays very deliberately, one note at a time, all ten fingers on the keys. I think he watches how the students act and hold their hands during lessons and then mimics that. It's pretty cute.

Since I teach all my students on Tuesday afternoon/evening, it doesn't leave me much time to make dinner, and by the time the last lesson is over, we're pretty hungry. So I've made Tuesday night my Crockpot/freezer meal day. Last night we had Crockpot Chicken Tikka Masala.

I've haven't made a lot of Indian food before or thought to make it in the crockpot, but this stuff was delicious! The spices were amazing, the chicken was so tender, and it's a pretty economical meal. I'd recommend it. The naan was purchased pre-made from a store. The perks of living in a college town with lots of international students: international food stores!

Slow Cooker Chicken Tikka Masala

Chicken Tikka:
1 cup plain yogurt
1 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp cumin
1/4-1 tsp cayenne (depending on how spicy you like it)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pepper
1 tsp salt

6-8 chicken thighs (skin on, bone-in)

Stir all ingredients except chicken into the bottom of a large plastic container. Add the chicken and coat the chicken completely with the marinade, cover and place in the fridge for at least an hour or overnight.

Masala:
1 can 28 oz. diced tomatoes
1 can 5.5 oz tomato paste
2 inches fresh ginger, grated (store your ginger in the freezer and it will be super easy to grate)
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 onion, diced
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tbsp tikka paste (could use mild curry paste instead, but then also add about a tbsp of lemon juice)
1 tsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 tsp dried coriander


1/2 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp garam masala
Salt
1 cup cream
2 tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped


Turn your oven to broil. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and place a rack over top. Take the chicken out of the marinade (discard the marinade) and place on the baking rack. Place under the broiler about 6-10 inches from the heating element and broil on each side about 10 minutes. You could also do this on the BBQ.  You don't have to worry about cooking the meat all the way through, you are just looking for a nice browned color.

While the chicken is broiling, in a pan over medium high heat, add about a tsp or two of oil. Add the onion and saute for a few minutes to soften. Add the garlic and ginger and saute for a few more minutes until the mixture is nice and fragrant. Place the mixture into your crockpot. To that, add the diced tomatoes, tomato paste, garam masala, tikka paste, cumin, chili powder and coriander. Stir together. When the chicken is done broiling, add them straight to the slow cooker and stir into the masala (sauce). I have cooked and experimented with this dish quite a few times, and it by far tastes the best when the chicken is first broiled and then slow cooks in the masala sauce. It gives the sauce a real richness of flavor. Slow cook on high for 4-6 hours or on low 6-8 hours.

Before serving stir in 1/2 tsp cumin, 1/2 tsp chili powder, 1/2 tsp garam masala and salt if it needs it. I find this just brightens up the spice flavors a bit. Then stir in the cream and fresh cilantro. Serve a chicken thigh and lots of sauce over basmati rice or Yellow Basmati Rice: 2 cups basmati, 4 cups water, salt, and 1/2 tbsp of turmeric. Stir together and prepare as you normally would. When the rice is done, stir in 1/2 cup frozen peas.

The Big 25

My birthday was this last week. I'm 25 years old now. That's halfway to 50! That a quarter of the way to 100! I don't feel older so much as I do wiser. 24 is still basically 20, and I was still just a young kid. But now I'm 25. I have a house and 2 kids. I feel so grown up.

My birthday was a quiet day, but after the busy holidays, it was nice to have a quiet day. I worked hard cleaning the day before so I could just enjoy the day. A friend of mine came over in the morning to visit. Her son and Dallin love playing together and Dallin was happy to show off his new Christmas toys. We had a hard time enforcing the "one kid on the trampoline at a time" rule.

I got a birthday package in the mail. Dallin was so excited to find out what was in it, so he tried to open it himself...

...using a Christmas ornament.

I got to try out a few new recipes for my birthday, which is always really fun for me. For dinner, we had Southwest Egg Rolls with Avocado dipping sauce.

(I kind of mixed and matched parts from both recipes, but the Egg Roll recipe was mostly here and dipping sauce here.)

Then it was time for cake.

Dallin thought the candles were the coolest thing ever.

(Cake recipe here)

I got some good presents. I got some movies, including Lord of the Rings: Two Towers Extended edition on DVD. We already have the Return of the King Extended, and we're working our way backwards through the trilogy, apparently. I also got a gift card to Jo-Anns so I can buy and make craft-y things, and a Kindle! I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to use it, (I was searching all through the box it came in for an instruction manual, then I realized, "Duh! It's an eReader. The instruction manual will be on the device itself." Silly me.) but I'm pretty excited about it.

Connor and Dallin gave me the best kinds of presents. They were good, well-behaved boys and Connor took really good naps all day. He also gave me some really good smiles.

How to lose weight...

If you are trying to lose weight or eat less, I have a solution for you: trade places with me.

I feel like every time I make myself something and sit down to eat it, either Mckay or Dallin will come up and want to have a bite (or 5) of my delicious food. It's mostly Dallin that does this, but I can't tell you how many times I've warned Mckay not to take food from a hungry pregnant lady.

It's not like I don't make food for them too. There is plenty of food around and tons of snacks ready to grab and eat, but it seems like Dallin always prefers what I have to eat. Today, I made him lunch. And not just a peanut butter sandwich or something, he got the leftovers from last night's dinner.

A delicious Vegetable Bolognese, except I added some hot Italian sausage.

I could have claimed this gem of a meal for myself, but Dallin is picky and I knew he would eat this. While he stuffed his face with pasta, I scrounged enough scraps of food to put together a pretty decent breakfast/lunch burrito of sorts. Finally, Dallin was full of pasta and would not eat another bite. I freed him from the high chair, and sat myself down on the couch to enjoy my meal and moment of peace while I caught up on blog reading.

And then, somehow, Dallin is beside me, begging for food. (Who taught him how to get up on the couch by himself?!?) I offered him a bite of burrito, thinking he wouldn't actually eat any, but he did! I had to hurry to eat the burrito myself between bites for Dallin so that I could actually consume more of it than he did.

I feel like I always have to fight Dallin off to get the food down my throat. And let's not forget that what finally makes it into my body has to be shared with my other son-in-utero. I tell you what, between these 3 boys, it's a miracle I get enough to eat at all!

(Note to reader: Don't be worried, I am not actually losing any weight, as would not be healthy for a pregnant woman of my size. I am gaining weight very steadily and normally. But if a person were trying to lose weight, I know a little boy who could help out by eating all the food before said person has a chance to.)

Likes and Dislikes

I dislike having Dallin's therapists come over Monday morning, requiring me to get up early and clean.

But I like that he will be starting speech therapy soon.

And I like having a clean kitchen after therapy.

I like that people will put all kinds of cartoons and Disney movies on YouTube, and that Dallin enjoys watching them so much.

I dislike that Dallin enjoys watching them so much, and I dislike feeling guilty about it, even if it's just for a few minutes of my sanity.

I dislike the grumpy, moody funk Dallin has been in since we got back from Colorado. I don't know why he thinks that throwing tantrums and crying all day will get him his way.

But I like that I get occasional glimpses of the cute sweetheart he is.

(...as he's trying rip the camera from my hands...)

I like the plate of fresh peppers, peaches and potatoes in my kitchen that we got at the Farmer's Market on Saturday.

Two big beautiful peppers already sacrificed themselves for our dinner last night: Chile Rellenos.

I like having a bouquet of Queen Anne's Lace flowers on my table, fresh from the field by our house.

What happened to Thanksgiving?

I went grocery shopping the day before Halloween and I was surprised to see Christmas candy. That's right, they were already putting away the Halloween candy, the decorations and costumes were already marked down 50%, and Christmas candy was loaded onto the shelves. All the yellows and oranges were being replaced by reds and greens. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Christmas. It's my favorite holiday and my favorite time of year. I'm not even really big on Halloween, but I look forward to it every year because it means that Christmas is that much closer. It wasn't the presence of Christmas merriment that bothered me, but the lack of celebrating another holiday: Thanksgiving. What happened to Thanksgiving?

My reasons for being distressed about the disappearance of Thanksgiving are two-fold. First, Thanksgiving is not just another minor holiday like Flag day or Columbus day; commemorating an important event or piece of history, but barely noticed by most people. Thanksgiving is a big holiday in the United States. It's a federal holiday. Public schools get a 5 day weekend for Thanksgiving and most people get the day off work. There's the Macy's Parade, the football games, the pie and the turkey. Then there's the actual significance of the holiday itself. The first Thanksgiving was celebrated to give thanks to God and the native americans for helping the pilgrims survive the winter. Most people celebrating the holiday today realize this significance and also show gratitude for their blessings and abundance. I personally love this holiday because I get to spend a few days relaxing and being with my wonderful family, one of the things I am most grateful for. And all the delicious food we eat is an added bonus. I understand that a big reason many companies have for selling Christmas paraphernalia so early is that they hope to make more money from a longer display time. Why not capitalize on Thanksgiving more? Sell turkey shaped chocolates! Pumpkin pie cups! (similar to a peanut butter cup. I just thought it up, but it sounds delicious!)

My second reason for annoyance at the early Christmas celebration is that it's just too soon! I love celebrating Christmas, and seeing all these Christmas-y things is getting me in the Christmas mood. I want to play Christmas music, wear Christmas sweaters, buy Christmas presents, and decorate my house with a tree and lights. It's just not time to do those things yet! There are still orange and yellow leaves all over the ground, not snow. I have to wait until after Thanksgiving to do those things. If I start playing Rudolph and White Christmas now, I'll be sick of them before December. And yet, my Christmas glee is hard to suppress.

Remember Thanksgiving! Don't be in a hurry to skip over it. We still have 3 weeks to appreciate the Thanksgiving season and express gratitude. There will still be time to fully acknowledge Christmas. In the mean time, I put this on display to appease my Christmas yearning: