Our Quiverfull - Canned the apples!

Nov. 2, 2007

Canned the apples!

Thank you to all of you who prayed for my apples. :-) Some friends came over Friday and we canned exactly 50 quarts of applesauce - 11 from their apples, 39 from mine. It worked out so well. I could provide canning equipment that they didn't have, they provided extra hands, and we only made a mess out of one kitchen! Hannah (14) and her friend Annie helped a lot and learned a lot, and Matthew (10) and his friend Andrew did lots of muscle-building work for us. We had two hand-cranked food mills and the boys especially loved pounding down the apples with a pestle and turning the crank. At the last minute we realized that the clamping mechanism for the mills wouldn't work on my table, but Matthew recently built himself a fairly large solid wood table for his Lego projects. He cleared it and brought it to the kitchen for us and it worked like a charm.

I also had two dear adult friends Shannon and Rachel with me helping, as well as Rachel's husband who is Costa Rican and doesn't speak English. I don't speak much Spanish but we all had fun trying to communicate with each other.

Noah was quite obliging and easy-natured as usual. He fell in love with Rachel and was happy to take some play breaks with her. Whenever he would get tired I would put him in my Ergo on my back and he would go to sleep right away. I must have been a sight with a sleeping baby on my back balancing out my pregnant baby belly in front LOL. He also enjoyed just sitting in his high chair in the kitchen and watching the VERY busy goings-on.

As soon as we got the kitchen cleaned up (as big a project as the canning LOL) we had to rush about and clean ourselves up. Our church hosted a Michael Card concert Friday night and we finished at home just in time to get there. The concert was truly amazing and we were very blessed to be able to spend some time speaking and visiting with Michael Card both before and after the concert. I just wish I had thought to bring my camera to get a photo of Noah with him! Noah loves music and did some pretty impressive baby dance moves and clapping to some of the songs.

Noah seems pretty stable right now. He has been fighting a yucky cold and the home nurse was a little concerned about RSV, but the cold seems to be improving so I think it was just actually a plain old cold. His new larger broviac is clearly bothering him. He has never messed around with his broviacs unless they were infected (in fact, that has been our first warning sign each time!), but he rubs this one and cries a good bit. I'm not about to take him to the ER based on "he's rubbing his broviac" but I am keeping a very close watch on it and watching for any signs of infection such as a fever. I hope that whatever is causing him so much distress will improve quickly.

We had big plans to go to a picnic with some friends from out of town on Saturday, but ended up with a plumbing problem (leak) that took up the entire morning. We were all so disappointed that we couldn't go. Jeff was working which is unusual for him on a Saturday and the dc were extra blue because Daddy wasn't around. They all had been given the gift of a little spending money and Jeff suggested that I blow their little minds and take them to Toys R Us to go shopping. Hannah is the only one who had ever been there (1 1/2 hr drive!) and that was years ago. It was so fun to see the looks on their faces when they realized that this entire store sold just toys. We spent hours in there as they agonized over their purchases. There is a fairly large mall next door to Toys R Us and Jeff had told me to go in and see if I could find some maternity tops. I have some skirts but only one long sleeve dress and only two long sleeve tops, so I really did need to find some things. Well, the big two-story mall was just as amazing to them as the toy store. Again, they had never seen anything like it before. I felt like the country mouse visiting the big city with them LOL. I found some nice tops on sale, but I do think that someone needs to open an Advanced Maternal Age Clothing Shop for those of us graying pregnant ladies who don't want to dress like we are twenty years old! I kept wondering why so many of the maternity shirts seemed a bit longer than usual until someone pointed out that they were DRESSES. Oh my. I was also able to buy a few things for Noah with a Baby Gap gift card he had been given. Cute, cute,cute. I could have spent a lot of money in there!!

Many of you have asked about the Ukrainian mission that I posted about before, and I'm sorry I didn't put up more info sooner. I got the contact info right before Noah was admitted, then didn't really think about it for a few days. The best way to get information is just to contact Noah's EI whose name is Joy. She can give you specifics on how to help. Her email address, which she gave me permission to post, is joykinard@yahoo.com . We had scheduled a blanket making day with friends but it fell during Noah's admission. We have the fleece all washed and ready to go and plan to get the blankets finished this week.

Lots of you have asked for pictures, and I do have a lot of current ones. I'm going to do my best to get some up on the blog this week.

Love,
Kate

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Comments

Nov. 4, 2007 - Happiness

Posted by your apple buddy

Hey apple friend! I am so glad all of this worked out and am glad to hear of your happy times! I just wish we'd have been apple picking, too! (Just to meet you and say Hi!) Hope you got my emails and didn't think I ignored your lovely hospitality! I got my friend's big meal made(She just had number 7 and that is why I thought I better not pick apples; it was a big meal to make, but well worth it to hold the newborn!)

Hope you got to use the apple activities on the website I sent. We always make apple prints and make cards out of them.

God bless you all and we're keeping you all in our prayers!

Julianne in Charlotte