Labor Day Weekend

We had a very fun, very busy, very productive Labor Day weekend. Complete with a little bit of swinging on Anastasia's end and some sewing on my end:

I made up the hat myself and used a felted wool sweater for the lining. Apparently wool hats are an old prevention method for ear-infections and colds so I am hoping there will be lots of wool-hat-wearing this fall and winter! I made one for each girl. They are more cute in person. Its really hard to photograph a 2 1/2 year old. I found this post and this tutorial for making insanely cute ruffle-sleeve shirts. I made mine with shorter sleeves and have every intention of it being more of an outer layer over long-sleeved shirts. Again, more cute in person and so cute and easy that I will be making more! Many more! I used my Folklore My Forest fabric by Licein in purple. Really amazing fabric. Anastasia made some really impressive towers:

She has taken real interest in her blocks. She has built "Chicago" and many "sand castles". I am really glad because I just HAD to have blocks for her and she ignored them for sooooo long. Saturday we had friends over for hot dogs and brats. Sunday we celebrated my dads birthday. I love cookouts!!

Monday was a very productive day for us. Nick hung drywall in the bathroom and I planted peas, transplanted broccoli and a couple herbs, and picked all of our seckel pears. Unfortunately I might have waited too long because the birds sacked a bunch of the top ones so they started to rot very quickly. But if you are looking for something to grow that tastes amazing to eat plain, I highly recommend a seckel pear tree. Pear trees are very low-maintenance and nothing (except birds and deer) really mess with them. They are very disease-resistant and oh so yummy.

Very pretty too. I spent a couple hours peeling pears to can. I made some absolutely yummy vanilla spiced pears. I will now be making these every year I have pears! I want the smell of vanilla and cloves to be what reminds my children of their childhood in autumn. Mmmm.

Is canning really worth it? It is truly a lot of work, but the flavor is to-die-for. You really can't buy anything this good. And yes it takes a long time to prepare the food, but it is a good excuse to indulge in a mom movie or listen to a podcast. It passes the time and makes it more of a treat. Pair with a cup of tea during naptime and you are good to go... and it will make your house smell sooooooo good. Now onto picking and saucing apples. I hope your weekend was great too!

(Apparently spell check doesn't like the word "sooooooo". lol)