New Year- Fresh start

 New Year's day we spent the day switching the Pantry with the "Office". I don't have any before pictures to show- I am awful at rememering to take pictures before I start a project. The small bedroom had become really cluttered and the pantry area behind the living room was making me crazy because the kids were constantly getting into the food.

I have already liked the move- it's great to be able to close the door and keep the kids out of hte pantry, and it has given us a place to move the hamper so it doesn't block the hallway.

The Sewing machine was in the family room already because I needed to be with the kids while I worked on projects. So now I can work and have access to all my supplies without running back and forth.

This is still a mess, Adam moved everything for me, so it's going to take a while to organize it into a working system. I am excited to have the sewing machines next to each other again- it's nice when I want to switch between them.

It will look better and eventually we might even get to finishing the basement.

Boys, Boys, Boys

This year for carpool, I am driving Xander and two other boys. Can I just say: WOW boys are so much different!

Last year I picked up two girls and it took so long just to get them to start talking, and they were always pretty quiet. With three boys, on the first day they were having loud animated discussions, by the second week, they spent one drive making fart noises and another day they took turns coming  up with gross food combinations. They have discussed transformers, movies, and video games.

Last year we had Xander in 2nd grade, Tay in 3rd, and Clo in 5th.  We listened to five of the Harry Potter books during the rides to and from school. This year with two first graders and one third grader, I haven't come up with a great book to listen to yet. Plus it is a lot of fun to listen to three boys.   

Fall Canning

The total so far-
Peaches 32 Quarts
Pears 32 Quarts
Tomatos Whole 1 pint - I picked every tomato in my garden and this is all I got!! :(

Tomato Sauce 13 pints - I picked the ripe tomatoes from my Mom's garden and got all this. (about 20 lbs)

I still have a tree full of apples, I am planning on making applesauce, and I might be able to get a few more tomatoes out of my garden. I have a few tomatillos growing- so I might be able to make something with them.

Update- Grandma gave me a bunch of tomatoes and I made them into sauce. So, I have another 7 1/2 quarts of sauce.  Our apple tree dropped most of the apples, we picked too late. So we got enough to make a small batch of applesauce, a crisp and amazing apple dumplings.

Gardening

We planted most of our garden Saturday, but we started with Adam trimming the apple tree

Here is the before of the garden:

Halfway finished:

The result in the front yard:

(still a lot of work to get done here, and i plan on putting some tomatoes in here as soon as we add some topsoil to fill in the holes)

The garden in the back:

(this brick used to live in the front yard, but we didn't like the shaped garden so we moved the bricks and luckily had the perfect amount to line the back garden)

We have broccoli, chocolate peppers, red peppers, purple potatoes, and two kinds of watermelon.

In the front I will put in Roma tomatoes and Pumpkins.

We also have a few hanging planters (DIY topsy turvy) for tomatoes and peppers.

Why I usually don't shop at Albertsons

I have been to Albertsons twice recently, and both times I saved a HUGE amount, 77.43 on the first trip (spent 17.ish) on the second trip I saved 70.07 (spent 38.45). Which makes me realize that my three little bags of groceries without any of the clearance savings would have cost me over $202.00!! When I looked at what I had purchased, no way would I "waste " that much money. ( I mean, who will spend 5.00 for a little bunny shaped aluminum pan??)

I feel totally stocked up on pans for freezer meals, and I have Adam stocked up on drink mixes for work.

Now I'm off to use the clearance splurge; mini muffin pans. Now I can go make some fun muffins for the kid's breakfast. I'm thinking apple-oatmeal-cinnamon.

Apple Oatmeal Muffins

1 pkg white or yellow cake mix

1-2 c quick cooking oats

2 t ground cinnamon

1/2 t baking powder

3 eggs

1 3/4 c chopped peeled apples (I don't add these, I tried them the first time and the kids spent the whole time trying to pick out all the apples)

1 1/3 c milk

1/4 c melted butter

1/4 c applesauce (if using apples, delete applesauce and increase butter to 1/2 cup)

Mix all the dry ingredients in a bowl. In a well in the center mix all the wet ingredients and then incorporate the wet into the dry.

Spoon into prepared muffin tins

Bake at 350

20-25 min regular muffins

9-11 min for mini muffins

By the way: If you double the recipe and make mini muffins, be prepared for slightly less than six million muffins!