Apple Butter

Yesterday (and today) I made apple butter for the first time. A couple of years ago Jay's childhood neighbor got married around Thanksgiving, and on all of the tables at the reception they had the most delicious apple butter ever--all homemade by Linda!

I finally got up the nerve to try it, so here is Linda's recipe, step by step--with photos, of course!

1. Peel, core, and chop 1.5 bags of Granny Smith apples (I just used one 5 pound bag) and 3 Golden Delicious apples and fill the crock pot. Add 2 cups of apple cider, cover and simmer on low for 8 to 10 hours.

2. Add 2 cups white sugar, 1 cup brown sugar, 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon, 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves, and 1/2 teaspoon ground allspice. Cook on high for another 8 to 10 hours. (Yes, you do cook them on high. I double checked because I was sure I was either going to start a fire or end up with some kind of apple paste. But high is correct.)

3. This is what it looked like this morning after the 8 to 10 hours on high. Blend the cooked ingredients in an electric blender. (I'm not sure what other kind of blender there is, but there's a lot I don't know about cooking, so I'm just going to tell you what Linda told me.)

4. Place the blended apples in a dutch oven and cook at 350 degrees for one hour to thicken. (After some consulting with my mom, I decided this covered casserole dish would have to do, because nothing at the store was labeled "Dutch Oven"--leaving me a little unsure about this whole thing.)

5. Place the baked sauce in sterilized jars and seal.

It's Here!

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."
--Albert Camus

Airplanes

We spent this week learning about airplanes!

Jack's lapbook

Inside

Airplane vocabulary closeup--I used the book from HomeschoolShare's lapbook for The Glorious Flight and substituted our own vocabulary words

The airplane labeling page is from the same lapbook.

I made this little trifold on my own. Amazing, I know.

We made this hotdog book of people who work with airplanes. Since we made the lapbook--not Blogger--it is not rotated in real life.

I also tried my hand at making a wheel to show different types of airplanes. For my first time, I think I did okay, but if you spin the wheel it becomes clear that my circle isn't a true circle. So this time the weird look isn't all due to Blogger.

This is what Jack had to say about our field trip to the airport:

Next week: apples!

Jack's First Pampered Chef Party

For obvious reasons, Jack has not gone to any Pampered Chef parties. What young boy wants to sit quietly and listen to some middle-aged woman talking about kitchen implements? Especially after hearing his father ranting about it...Tonight Jack didn't have a choice. Jay is still gone and his nurse was having a party, so I loaded him up and took him with me.

I think he liked it.

Score one for mom.

Nature Walk: Insects

This morning we went to the museum for a nature walk. When we went to the children's room to wait for the leaders, Jack immediately grabbed the buffalo horn off the table and said, "Mom, find that other horn!" I think these are his new favorite things.

For the second time, Jack was the only kid on the walk. This kind of thing doesn't help much when I am trying to explain to him that it is not only his museum.

The focus of the walk was technically plants, but everywhere we looked we saw all kinds of bugs. This tree was covered with caterpillars that will become Monarch butterflies. Unfortunately, all of my pictures were fuzzy.

Can you spot the grasshopper?

Bees and sunflowers

After the walk, we went upstairs and Jack got to pet a baby snake. He was not too scared of the snake, but he was quite concerned about the spider puppet sitting on the side of the cart. The library has one like it and he was worried that someone had taken Ms. Susan's puppet. I am sure she'll hear about it next week.

One Last Time...

...because fall is almost here!

At the Airport

We wrapped up our week of learning about airplanes with a trip to the airport.

They had several different planes out that you could look in--and some you could even get in!

Jack liked pretending that this plane (N34) was taking us to Mars.

This is N34, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. (I read that on the handout.) It is the FAA's last DC-3 and it was built in Oklahoma in 1945--again, from the handout. It was Jack's favorite thing there.

I'm not sure if it was actually part of the event (there was yellow caution tape all around the plane), but some guy let Jack sit in this plane.

We got to go up in the control tower and listen to the air traffic controllers talk to some planes. They must be getting short on controllers because I heard one of the ladies there talking it up with several people. The man in the simulator lab told me all I would have to do was take a few courses. That's more than a little scary to me.

A cool OU plane