Apple Butter

Thats right! Apples! The only thing better than fresh homemade apple butter... is well anything pumpkin, but apples are a close second :)

Here is the recipe that I used. Really it is more of a guideline. I made mine in the crockpot it took 8 hours. I slowly added the sugar and the cinnamon, that way I could adjust it to taste. I left out the clove because I dont like it.

I had no issues with it burning. This same recipe can be used on the stove but I have read several recipes that caution burning. Once it burns ALL of it tastes burnt.

Next came the canning. I was super worried about this part. I have NEVER canned ( I have assisted when I was younger) and I dont have a canner. I knew you could do it without one though and then I found this wonderful blog. Follow her directions exactly and you will have no problems!

13 Nights of Halloween

Halloween has got to be one of my favorite times of the year, probably only falling second to Christmas. What is one of my favorite things to do on Halloween? - besides decorating and candy... ABC Family 13 nights of Halloween! They always have wonderful age appropriate Halloween movies. It is a great way for us to celebrate and spend time together.

You can view the schedule here.

Some of the shows this year are:

• The Addams Family
• Tim Burton Marathon
• Hocus Pocus
• Scooby-Doo

Breakfast

We have been in a school almost a month now and we are struggling with one and one thing only... breakfast.

None of us are breakfast eaters its just not our thing. We have a very short list of stuff bug will eat. I have however learned a few things...

1. Breakfast does not have to mean breakfast food
2. As long as they are eating something - shut up and dont worry about it
3. Cookie cutters are your friend!

Now the last one may seem odd... LOL! The bug does not like crust. So I bought a dinosaur sandwich cutter. Best $2 I ever spent. It quickly removes the crust, little to no waste, and she gets 2 dinos.

                             
Sandwiches for breakfast? Yes. You know why? See Rule #2... I dont care. Usually it is either Nutella or PB&J. YAY! Happy breakfast.

Sometimes it is just easier to take the road of least resistance. I dont see how a PB&J is any different than if she had toast with peanut butter. So who cares.

I am happy to say this is really the only issue we have had with school starting. :)

Barbie Mariposa & the Fairy Princess

I am not a Barbie fan. There I said it. Just not. Nothing against it really just not thrilled. A lot of what Barbie stands for in my mind is just super girly all the time blah blah shopping blah blah. HOWEVER... I will be the first to admit that I was wrong. The new Barbie movie, Barbie Mariposa & the Fairy Princess is a great movie. It has a good lesson, the girls are smart, and its funny.

Sure it still is about fairies and butterflies and they both get a healthy dose of sparkles before going to the ball. I am not against the girly stuff. I am just against teaching my daughter that is all there is to being a little girl. Both Mariposa and the Princess love to read. They are both intelligent and strong. In the end they work together and are able to save Shimmervale.

They both have little furry flying pet friends. They speak in broken English and gibberish. They are hilarious. Just look at how animated they can be! I would highly recommend this movie to anyone that likes stories about strong girls or barbie or fairies or love or sparkles LOL

                           

Sock Doughnut

What do you do with all of those mis-matched socks?

Well... you make doughnuts of course!

This is the tutorial I used. Follow her instructions and you should not have one bit of trouble.

I just recently went through all the socks in the house. We had WAY too many and they need to be scaled down and dealt with. I ended up with a whole pile of socks. Granted you don't want to make 20 doughnuts but this will at least get rid of some of them. The ones we made have been added to the play food in the tea set.

This is a great project for a beginner sewer. I let my 5 yr old sew on the beads. :)

Soccer

We are playing soccer this year through our local rec. center. Those of you that have towns fortunate enough to have rec. sports should give them a shot. Our rec. sports are free to play you just have to buy equipment and purchase a $10 tshirt for uniforms.

Zoey at her first practice!

These are some cool soccer themed crafts I found floating around the web. 

This one would be awesome for a team party or a soccer themed bday party

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Simply add cut outs to a paper lantern. Tutorial here

These are washer necklaces that was done by this crafty mom here. 

She has easy to follow instructions up. 

This mom threw together an awesome soccer bookmark you can see her post here

Who knows... maybe I will get around to making something soccer themed myself. :)

Farscape

I just finished watching this show a couple of months ago, but I have struggled with what to rate it. The show ran for 4 seasons and ended up getting a movie to help wrap up the story lines. I REALLY enjoyed the story line and almost all of the characters. However there were moments though that the show just fell flat. There were episodes that were obviously "filler" episodes. Meaning they didn't progress the story or having anything to do with developing the characters. A few of them would not have been bad but there were a lot. Too many for me not to knock the show for it.

I loved watching John and Aeryn's relationship play out. Dargo was hilarious and sarcastic. If you enjoy sci-fi I would give the show a shot.