Wrapping Up the Last Week of January

I could REALLY get used to staying home (essentially) all week! We had threats of snow several days, and cold temperatures and we just stayed home! It was lovely!

One day this week Lexie declared that she was making applesauce! Last fall we got a bushel (I think) of apples from an orchard near my parents' house. We've been keeping them in the extra fridge, and eating them, using them in cooking, and they're still ok, but starting to get a tad soft, so Lexie decided to use most of the rest of them to make applesauce.

We peeled and chopped the big stockpot FULL of apples and started cooking. I'm guessing we ended up with around 5-6 quarts (we ate some straight from the pot, and I packaged most of the rest in ziplocks to freeze and I'm not sure how close to a quart a quart size freezer bag actually holds). Not horrible for a few hours work and YUMMY!

Lexie's already planning to make a BIG batch of applesauce next fall/winter and can it! Works for me!

In sad news, I killed our sourdough starter :( I don't know what happened, for a couple days I felt like it wasn't growing between feedings, but then the evening we were going to actually use it, it smelled REALLY weird! I wasn't about to risk that, so we fed our compost pile and will try again another time.  For now, Lexie's baking is back to non-sourdough, but she still made some yummy lentil/cabbage "pockets" for lunch on Wednesday, with the cold leftovers making a great change from sandwiches for lunch on Thursday (when we packed a lunch to eat on our way home from music lessons).

Lexie was excited to be able to say she has now played every note in her violin book at least once! She's working on learning the last song or two, and making sure she isn't rusty on any of the older songs, in preparation for having her "end of book 1" graduation/recital.

I'll wrap up this week with a close-up of Little Bit.  I was taking pictures of prices to record in my pricebook, and she thought I needed a picture of her too, so I obliged. Love those missing front teeth!