Baked Apple Pork Loin Chops...

Baked Apple Pork Loin Chops

• 8, tart, crisp apples, peeled (4 roughly chopped, 4 sliced thinly)
• a little bit of water
• 1/4 tsp. pumpkin pie spice, divided in half
• 1/4 tsp. summer savory or thyme
• 1 tsp.brown sugar
• 8, 1" thick pork loin chops
• a small bit of oil for searing chops

Preheat oven to 350°

Place chopped apples and a little water (about 1/8th of a cup to start) in a small saucepan, simmer until apples soften (adding more water during cooking if necessary).  Mash apples with a potato masher and stir in half of the pumpkin pie spice and the brown sugar.  Congratulations, you just made applesauce!

Drizzle a little oil in a frying pan and sear both sides of each pork chop.

Toss the sliced apples in the savory and the remaining 1/8th teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.

Spread half of the sliced apples on the bottom of a large baking dish.  Lay the chops on top of the apples and slather each chop with a spoonful of applesauce.  Top with remaining apples.  Cover with foil and bake at 350° for one hour.  Uncover and continue to bake for another 20 minutes. 

Allow to rest for 5-10 minutes before serving.  When you serve it, be sure to top it with some of the apples that were at the bottom, too.  Yum!

Back to school!!!

Yep, it's that time of year again!  I had the joy of sending my little ladies off to their new first grade and third grade classes on Wednesday, and mister O gets to start at his pre-K class on Monday!  What am I ever going to do with myself with no kids home for half the day???  ...my hope is that I'll get more housework done...

In preparation for school,

the girls spent some time making a WHOLE BUNCH of hair accessories!

Here is my girls' debut as bloggers; a tutorial on hair accessories:

Rye: We made alooooot of crafts!

Moo: Mommy helped us with our hairbands and such...

Rye: ...and we were late for dinner....

Moo: We used barrettes and hair ties,

and for some of the hair ties, we wired beads on.

Rye: I wired beads on a headband and it is really pretty....

and we did a lot of headbands.

We also hot-glued beads and jewelry glued this really pretty headband,

and it has a matching hair tie.

Moo: I made a Hello Kitty headband, it has Hello Kitty ribbon on it.

We hot-glued the ribbon on so that it looks wavy.

We put little dots of hot glue on in different spot and we pressed the ribbon onto the glue

- and then we did it to both sides.

Rye: I made a barrette with a hot glue gun,

but I found the button yesterday...  it came off of the barrette.

I learned to not put a button on a barrette using hot glue.

I should have used a wire or jewelry glue.

Moo:  I made a purple, fuzzy headband with some trim

that you could put on lamps or on the bottoms of purses,

because Riley and I were talking about maybe doing that for our next project.

I made the headband by taking some trim and I jewelry glued it to a headband.

I had to pinch it really tight so the trim wouldn't move while it was drying.

Then, I took some of the excess trim and then I, um, took a purple hair tie (so it would match)

and I found a wire that would go with it -I like yellow, so I did a yellow wire- it was a small wire.

I wrapped the wire around the trim and then I twisted it onto the hair tie.  

Rye:  Mommy made this pretty clip.

It had gold trim on it, and ribbon flowers.

She jewelry glued it all onto a clip.  

And she made a big barrette with a button holding some feathers together,

she hot-glued them and then jewelry glued the hot-glue onto the barrette.

Moo:  I have a tip for people who use barrettes for crafts;

don't hot glue the  stuff down.

You should use jewelry glue because hot glue and metal (or plastic)

don't stick to each other.

Hot-glue the, like, feathers together and then get your barrette ready

and put some jewelry glue on it after the hot glue is dried.

Please give my girls feedback and let them know how they did!  Thanks!  <3

Going wedding crazy....

...Seriously, now.  As much as I'm looking forward to our long overdue BIG DAY, the whole thing is driving me mad.

~late night meltdowns over petty little things

~a nearly week-long mini-freak-out because (ohmygod) there's a latrine at the forest preserve we booked for our venue.  I mean, seriously, it's a forest preserve...  have you ever been to one that *did* have a flushing toilet?

~ we need HOW much tulle?!?!

~100 4 ounce jars of jam, not to mention cutting out all of the fabric and the vellum toppers I designed

~two three bouquets that I'm hand-making from ribbons, laces, muslin, etc.  ....can't forget to make one to toss!

~Is my dress going to be finished in time???

~WE STILL DON'T HAVE A MUSICIAN BOOKED!

~budget budget budget budgetbudgetbudgetbidgetbidgerbujdfer

Gaaaaahhhh....  and it's ten to two in the morning and I just finished canning some stock.

Pictures of all of this wedding madness will be up soon.

Tutorial(s) coming soon as well.

Goodnight.