September Fun!

With the smoky air, harvest season, and weather changing we have been feeling the effects with some coughs and sniffly noses the past couple weeks. There were a few days where Charlotte and Jack stayed home from school. Then on the Friday before Labor Day Garrett came home from school early not feeling well, which resulted in him missing his first halftime performance for marching band. Fortunately, everyone is doing well now except I still have the sniffles a little bit. I've been staying on top of it with Sudafed but I think I need to take a break from it so I don't over use it. I'm feeling mostly good though. I think part of my sniffles probably came from overdoing it with yard work the same week that I helped that elderly lady with weeds. I had mowed our lawn on Thursday. Then I had gone back on that Friday after I saw her outside pulling her garbage bin up but by the time I got back around she was gone. I don't think she was planning on working that day, just pulling in the dumpster from having garbage day the day before. I did try to ring her doorbell but she didn't answer. I saw her car was gone so she must have gone on an errand. I noticed when pulling in and out of her dirt/gravel driveway that there were some big dips. I decided that instead of pulling weeds today I went back for some tools and decided to smooth out those dips as much as I could. I got a couple of honks (not sure who they were but hopefully they were "good honks") while doing this and a thumbs up. Then I saw my parents walking the path nearby and they came over to chat for a bit. 

This is looking at the area in front of the fence where we pulled weeds plus the road that I worked on to level out.

But even though I'm sniffling some I love the change of seasons!! Fall/Autumn is my favorite! My neighbor friend Ashlie grew a big garden this year and she shared a bunch of little pumpkins (which I think are called gourds) So one day I told Charlotte that we should paint some of these little pumpkins as a family activity. I was meaning another day when Curtis wasn't so busy preparing for a presentation for work but they wanted to paint one right away! So all 3 of the girls painted a pumpkin. I forgot to get a picture with Nikki and her finished pumpkin so I will do that later.

They used water color paints.

I have also been having fun starting to try new hairstyles with Alice's hair now that it's getting longer.

It's a little crooked because I was working over the back of the chair.

Now I'm only babysitting the twins since the older sister is back in school in person. Last year she did homeschool. The girls had fun with the rabbit the other day and wanted pictures.

We also had a fun ward BBQ on Sept 11th at our neighborhood park. The weather was perfect and everyone had a good time eating, visiting and playing games or on the playground. They had these picture booths set up so I got my little girls to get pictures, which were the only pictures I got that night.

My cute little mermaids!

Jack just told me that this was actually for throwing a football through but oh well. We got pictures!

I have been having a hard time finding pants Charlotte's size that she'll actually wear that aren't leggings. I recently found a couple pair I was hoping she would like. One of them was purple, her favorite color. Unfortunately they just didn't fit right and didn't come up high enough. The other pair was a pair of boot cut jeans. She doesn't like jeans because they feel weird to her and she wants to be able to move. I was finally able to convince her that if she wore these jeans she would look like a cow girl because that's what they wear. So she decided to dress like a cowgirl that day going to school and of course Alice wanted to do the same.

This week was also busy with making plum jelly. I wasn't sure I was going to do it this year but when Sis. Joyce Cable called me to ask if I wanted any plums this year from her tree I started to think about how I could make it work. I didn't have any canning lids and hadn't seen any in the stores so I just wasn't going to can anything this year. After her phone call I decided to look on Amazon and saw that they do have some for sale online. I found some and ordered. There were 128 in a box so I bought regular and wide mouth so I will have plenty of lids for awhile! On Wednesday Curtis and I went over and picked a bunch of plums. The next day I washed, pitted, and cooked them down and made them into a plum juice, all ready for making jelly. I still had a few boxes of sure jell leftover from last year so I went ahead and cooked up one batch that night. I wanted to test one batch first to see if the lids would be good, and they all sealed! So Friday morning I cooked up a couple more batches after taking Alice to preschool. Then I had to go to the store to get more sure jell. I was worried they wouldn't have any but they did. I bought a 6 pack so I would have plenty.

The washing and pitting station.

Then cooking them so they are nice and soft.

Once they are soft I put them through the processor on the Kitchen Aide mixer. It separates the juice from the skins and then we throw away the skins.

It made A LOT of juice!

Charlotte wanted plum popsicles so I made some, no sugar added because I knew she already liked it the way it was since she had tasted some of the frozen juice I dumped into the kitchen sink recently since it had been in the freezer for a year.

All done!

I made 30 jars this year but I also have two batches worth measured and put in the freezer for making more later. We plan on giving some away as gifts. And all of them sealed! I was worried about that because I had heard that lids you buy from Amazon were not good to use. Fortunately I found a good set.