Mr. Snickers

Dad snapped some pics of our calf, Mr. Snickers (Laura dubbed him such, since he is brown and Snickers is Grampy's favorite candybar). He is growing fast and is loving his grain and hay - chomp, chomp! Major always has to accompany Grampy as he feeds and waters him - makes Major feel he has important duties to attend to. Dad got a flashlight for Christmas that shines so bright, it is dangerous to look at and throws a beam 500 feet - it should be helpful when doing the barn chores these dark late afternoons this winter. He also got some new warm work gloves.

Christmas Parties

Our family progressive dinner started at Gram's house with the appetizer course

Then we went to Spencer's and Ivy's for salad and a Christmas story

Then to our house for lasagna and a nap (j/k about the nap part, but Laura and Thomas do look rather seriously ready for a snooze)

Finally we ended the evening at Sue and Dade's with cream puffs and cheesecake - we had to hurry to get a picture before they were devoured!! Fun times!!




Below are a couple of pictures from the week before when we hosted part of our Branch Progressive Dinner here.

Visions of Christmas around our home . . .

Turkey Time

Saw a recipe for Turkey-Time cookies and had to give it a whirl - needed enough for Sue's family, Spencer's family, 9 for YW, the missionaries, Gram, and Dad - equals 30 - so I set to work.They didn't come out quite like pictured in the recipe - but turned out okay - colorful and fun.

Now it's time to start in on pies!!!!!!!!!!!! Happy baking, everyone!!!!!! :)

Halloween Scaries!! and Homemade Treats

Somehow I missed getting any pictures of Thomas, Ethan, James, Benny, David, or Brigham - how did I do that?? Anyway - here is what I did take.

Dover Young Women at their Halloweeniest!

note the snow on the roof - didn't last long and it's been warm ever since - yay!

Ivy and Laura

Laura - love her purple spider shirt and tights!

Underneath this ugly scary mask is Randall E. Dow :)

Alyssa as Rosie the Riveter, Isaac, and Seth

the Dow boys trying to get Daisy to cooperate for the pic

still trying

best she would do - would not allow us to put up her leopard costume hood

Logan, Abram, and Zack - Daisy made her get away :)

I decided to go with homemade treats this year - jello popcorn!! It was a fun change from all the fun size candy bars (and a whole lot cheaper too - yay! Dave Ramsey :).

Pie Pumpkins

Dad raised pie pumpkins this year, so encouraged by a recipe entitled Mrs. Sigg's Fresh Pumpkin Pie complete with instructions on how to start with a raw pumpkin instead of opening a can - I took up the challenge. I first did the complete process from start to finish - the pie was yummy - so then I attacked every pumpkin I could round up - 12 in all! I cut each in half - scooped out the seeds (roasted some of them) and then baked the hollowed out pumpkins, cut side down at 300 for 45 minutes - it smelled heavenly - really!

Then I let them cool enough to handle, slipped off the peelings, and put them through the food processor. I ended up with 52 cups of pureed pumpkin!! the equivalent of 26 cans - all in my freezer. Imagine that! I've since made

Gingerbread Pumpkin Bars, Easy Pumpkin Dessert Bars, and yesterday I made a

Pumpkin Citrus Bundt Cake - good stuff! I always love to bake in the fall and winter.

Apple Day!

Our kind neighbors, Steve and Lindsay Tudor, let us pick up drops for free - so Ivy , Daisy, Dad, and I spent about an hour and this is how many we got plus one more laundry basket full. Yummy, sweet Liberty apples! We covered them all with a quilt to keep them from freezing at night and in a few days Ivy and I started in on them - It took us 2 days to process them all.

It was a big job, but fun working together - Daisy got in on some of the action too! :)

We cooked the apples on Ivy's woodstove

then ran them through the foodmill, seasoned the hot applesauce with cinnamon, nutmeg, pure vanilla, and a pinch of salt - (these apples were so sweet, we left most of it unsweetened), put it all into hot jars and processed them on the gas range. We couldn't resist sweetening a few batches with brown sugar though. It was really a pretty efficient process once we got our system down.

We ended up with 109 jars of applesauce!! Now that should get us through the winter, don't you think??

Zack

Zack insisted on carrying these 2 buckets of tomatoes all the way - then waited for me to take the picture - they are heavy - hence the grimace. He loves to pick the garden vegetables - we do it together every other day, but he asks to do it every day! :)

Zack with Major

and with Rusty.