Apple Butter Making Day!

 Last Saturday (11/10/2012) my mom and dad wanted to make some apple butter, so they decided to have some people over, have a pot luck meal, and for everyone to have a great time. My mom of course can't have anything without having everything decorated perfectly. I can't believe I didn't take pictures of all of the beautiful fall decorations she had up everywhere, but you can see how lovely everything looked from these couple of pictures that shows just a little of the work she had done.

                     

Mom and dad had some cast iron pots cooking over the fire at their outdoor cooking station going, with one huge pot of chicken and dumplings, one with beans, one with some turnips and a skillet with some fried potatoes. Mom also fixed about 6 different delicious desserts, add that to all of the other food that everyone brought and it was one incredible meal!

Fried Potatoes, Chicken n' Dumplings, Turnips, & Beans

There were plenty of other delicious food and desserts!

 

We did more than just eat, though. The kids had a blast jumping on the trampoline, shelling & grinding corn and feeding it to the chickens, riding the little cars, and rolling down the hill.

Caden, Brett, & Jackson (can you tell they were on the trampoline- notice the static in their hair)

Sweet Cousins

Here is Jackson giving a lesson on how to shell the corn: 

And here is Elsie teasing the poor chickens:

The adults enjoyed watching the kids do all of those fun things while stirring the apple butter, which we ended up with 82 pints of.

Frankie and Eric Stirring the Apple Butter

Putting the apple butter into the jars. 

The weather, the food, the company, all contributed to it being a perfect day! These smiles right here show just how wonderful the day was:

and this shows how exhausted the kids were by the end of the day:

 My only regret from this day is that it was kind of last minute planned (we were going to do it earlier, but then had to postpone because of snow) and I didn't invite many people that would have enjoyed spending the day helping out. At least there is always next year! :)