fall nesting

I don't know what it is about this time of year, getting ready for winter I suppose, that makes me just want to stay home, organize stuff, make things and do boring things like clean up my family notebook.

But that is what I have been doing lately. Staying home alot, making food, and reorganizing things. And I don't really feel like doing much else.

It has been cold, snowy in some parts of town, which makes me just want to stay home even more. We've had our fireplace on and we've been doing a ton of snuggling the past few days!

I have been doing some canning the past few days and I don't think I am very good at it. You have to really be organized, which I normally am.. but I seem to be having things boiling at all the wrong times and stuff all over the place! My kitchen is a serious mess. And, hubby is home from work with a whacked out back, so his turn to do the dishes I don't think is happening. Bad timing on his part to hurt himself, doesn't he know that all those dishes piled up are waiting for him?

Anyway, we have some yummy peach jam, zucchini salsa, apple butter and jalapeno jelly waiting to be gobbled down in the future. I think that is all I can handle this year. Sometimes, I have silly farm girl dreams of canning a whole ton of food every year, but I don't think that is ever really going to happen. I'm not a farm girl, ya know?
Enrique has been busy in the kitchen as well. There is a whole new independence streak happening with him right now. He does not want help with ANYTHING!

His new trick is to go into the kitchen to make something "all by myself." The other day I wandered in to discover him making peach and apple muffins "all by myself." He had used a real knife to (sort of) chop up the peach and an apple. Then he poured a TON of baking soda on top, a little sugar, and some salt. "I got all the ingredients all by myself!" When I came in, he was up on a stool putting the muffin tin into the oven, trying to figure out the timer.

Yeah, he can eat these all by himself!
(But oh, how cuted out am I seeing him becoming his own little person!)