Hard working Hubby = Tired Family

Another weekend when my husband was hard at work helping out our check book. Because of how we choose to prioritize our finances, we try to watch how we spend our money and make sure we're not being wasteful. One way Ryan does that is by cutting wood to burn during the winter. For a while it seemed like every free hour was spent out in the timber when it was hot and muggy. But he's been able to cut wood for free and save us some serious cash by being able to use the wood burner in the evenings.

This weekend he had another idea. While up mowing his parents lawn on Friday, he stopped at the neighbors apple orchard and gathered about a 55 gallon barrel's worth of apples. Saturday, after cutting wood all morning, he started in on the apples. He spent 5 hours making apple sauce. All the while, I was in the house cleaning and preparing for our company next weekend. He did all his work outside which limited the mess. Scott stayed outside all afternoon and had a blast playing in the water and helping his dad. Sunday afternoon was much of the same. He made quite a bit of apple sauce but its a long and laborious process for the amount of apple sauce you get.

The good thing, we have lots of organic apple sauce in the freezer that didn't cost us anything. The bad thing, I would have loved to pay for the apple sauce and have Ryan at home working on my honey-do-list.

Both nights we had company for supper. And each night things got a little crazy around 630. Saturday wasn't bad but we were hungry and had to prepare a different meal as I was missing an important ingredient. Instead of Chinese food, we had grilled chicken, mashed potatoes, broccoli and something else. Sunday afternoon at 430 I decided we should have company again since our house was still clean. I called a few friends, made a run to the nearby grocery store and made it home just before it started to rain. I was inside trying to make grape salad, do dishes and pump before our guests came when it began to pour down rain outside (where Ryan was working). Thankfully our company arrived and was able to help Ryan. Ali, who'd been over all afternoon helping, was a great help with dishes and the grape salad while I did other things. In the end, we had 7 adults, 1 HS kid, 1 Jhi kid and 5 little ones eating grilled brats, chips and salad. The 3 younger boys picnic'd on the living room floor. I was thankful that I put down a blanket for them as all 3 spilled their drinks and chips and one managed to get ketchup everywhere. After the meal the guys headed to the living room to play xbox and us ladies sat around and visited.

It was late when everyone left and I was more than ready for bed. We finished up the apple sauce labels quick and I took the kids upstairs while Ryan took apple sauce to the freezer. Gave Scott a quick bath, fed Bethany and headed to bed. It was just after 11pm. The alarm was set for 5am - I knew I'd be tired. During the night I woke up twice with Scott (Ryan got up with him the first time while I layed there) and 3 times with Bethany. Fortunately, they seemed to coordinated their awake times pretty close to each other. Today, I'm tired.