Puppy Pictures

My family was on our way to Indianapolis to hang out with family for Father's Day.

Here's Mollie trying to be comfortable in the back seat.

That's better!

Here are all the family dogs. Hehehe!

We're all dog people...if you couldn't tell...

Apple Butter

My parents went out of town this weekend, Andy went to a conference, and Mollie and I were left all alone...so we went on a little trip to our new family's house!

My wedding is in September and I've finally pinned down the theme. Elegant Fall Festival. For the wedding favors, I wanted to have jars of apple butter sitting on the tables along with the center pieces. Luckily, my in-laws-to-be both grew up on farms and canned for a living! So we spent all weekend making apple butter and jarring it:)

Look at all our jars! We first cut up two bushels of apples and cooked them on the stove till they were mushy.

We used a ricer to separate the good stuff from the skin. Being the curious person I am, I had to know why the ricer got that name. Andy's dad looked it up and apparently the holes of a ricer are not much bigger than a grain of rice. Interesting!

I then added tons of brown sugar and cinnamon. Unfortunately I cannot tell you how much exactly. We just kept tasting until it tasted right. With a different spoon each time, of course!

We poured the apple butter into jars, placed the lids on top, and put them all in a pressure cooker. It took about 5 rounds of this until we had all the jars finished. Here's how the pressure cooker worked: The jars sat in a bit of water under a lid until the pressure gauge showed 5 pounds. Then we removed a pressure cap and let it sit for five minutes. This sealed the flat part of the lid to the jars. Once the jars cooled, the flat part popped in. So when you hear the pop of a jar when opening it, that's the pressure being released. If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can place the lids in boiling water and then place them on top of the jars. However, the experienced canners felt that the pressure cooker would better ensure the freshness of the apple butter.


I cut out a bunch of circles on adorable fabric that I felt was perfect for the apple butter jars. The lid can screw off since the flat part of the lid is sealed. See, you may have figured that out already, but I went into this knowing absolutely nothing about jars and canning!

And here's our final product!

I think the jars are so cute! And I can't wait to share them with the people at my wedding:)

I love my wedding theme. It gives me an excuse to start fall crafting early:)