here is what we have been up to

So, I have been bad at posting lately...so here is what we have been up to.

We got to celebrate Grandma Lu's birthday. We went to dinner at Mimi's, and it was yummy. Lucy is excited for the U footbal season to start, so she dressed up for the occasion in her Utah onsie.

Lucy has started to eat more and more solids. She gets it everywhere, I am not sure how much she gets in her mouth.

Today, we went to the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house. It was very pretty.

Our apricot tree has been dropping fruit like crazy, it falls as you are picking up all the ones that have fallen on the ground. I made a double batch of apricot leather yesterday, and we still have almost a 5 gallon bucket left, plus more on the tree. IF YOU WANT APRICOTS, PLEASE FEEL FREE TO STOP BY!!! :)

Tomatoes, pumpkins, and cucumbers

Our garden is growing so fast. It changes everyday and I am getting excited for the first tomotoes. We had some of our green beans with dinner last night and we had squash last week. It is so fun to see it change and grow. The weeds are starting to take over a little now, but it is looking good.

One question...why do all the squash plants have to be so prickly? My arm sting and itch after I dig through the plants to pick and pull weeds. I guess I need to just remember to wear sleeves :)

Apricot Leather

My Grandma Moeller used to make apricot leather all the time. I have memories of the trays of leather with the netting over the top, so the bugs wouldn't get at it. Well, our apricot tree produced fruit this year (which it hasn't done in quite a while) and so I decided that I wanted to try to make some leather. The apricots have started to fall, and I hate to see them go to waste. My mom didn't have my grandma's recipe, so I looked up a few recipes online, and combined them to make my own.

Here are some of the apricots that we picked from our tree, ready to be washed and sliced.

I ended up with about 12 cups of sliced apricots.

The recipes that I found online all varied somewhat in the amount of sugar and what other ingredients to add. Some added a lot of sugar, other a little or honey. I decided to use 2/3 cups sugar and 1/3 pineapple juice for the 12 cups of apricots.

I put them on the stove and heated it up until it simmered and cooked it for about 10 minutes.

Here they are all bubbly and yummy!

My mom had my grandma's old pot that she was use to puree the apricots (all the recipes online said to just puree them, so I think that I food processor or blender would work just fine). I used my grandmother's pot, which prevents the skins from getting in the leather.

Afterwards, you end up with a pretty colored puree that looks like this.

I transferred the puree to baking sheets covered in plastic wrap and put them in the oven on the lowest setting with the door open a little. I've heard that gas ovens work well for this, because you can just use the pilot light. My grandma used to put them outside, but I didn't have any netting to keep the bugs out. In the afternoon, it warmed up outside so I moved them to Daniel's truck, where they could bake, but not get eaten by bugs. I think the car works well, because it acts like an oven, but it doesn't take any electricity and it doesn't heat your house up.

After about 6-8 hours, you end up with yummy fruit leather that you can roll up like a fruit roll-up. I am hoping to make another batch or two before all the apricots are gone. It is yummy!!

We love Lucy!

...how does your garden grow?

As I posted in the past, Daniel and I have started a vegetable garden this year and it is growing so big. We can hardly wait until we get to taste the 'veggies' of our labors. We did plant some strawberries, and we have already got to taste a few of those. In our garden, we have tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, squash, zucchini, watermelon, strawberries, carrots, cilantro, basil, oregano, pumpkins and corn. The corn has been growing so fast, which is fun to see. I am not getting my hopes up for eatting any of our corn, though, I hear it is hard to get the ears to germinate. We have lots of green tomatoes, cucumbers, some squash and zucchini already on the vines. The carrots are getting big as well. It has been fun to watch everything.

To get the yard ready to plant, Daniel (with help from his parents) did a lot of work. They pulled out bushes, weeds, trees, and dirt. While pulling everything out, we found a few 'treasures'. There were lots of old bricks, a tire full of concrete, stones, a concrete bowl of some sort and other things. Here are some of the small 'treasures' that we found as we dug and racked and tilled the yard.

My munchkin is a little munchkin

Lucy had her four month checkup at the doctor on friday and we got to find out how much she has grown. She also had to get shot, and she did really well. She only cried for a little bit. So here are her stats...

Weight - 12 lbs 6 oz (I feel like she is getting so big, but she is only in the 17th percentile for weight. The doctor wasn't concerned, though, he thinks that she is just a small baby)

Height - 24.5 in (40th percentile)

Head - 16.5 in (73rd percentile, yep that's right. She has a big head. Hopefully that means she will be very smart!!)

This is Lucy helping me make a cake for Daniel's birthday.

Lucy and Daniel on Father's Day all ready for church!

Lucy has definitely started grasping at things. The other day, I went in her room and this is what I found. Her head band was around her eyes and she had her bow in her mouth :)