Homemade Applesauce

So I know this isn't exactly a new idea, and most people probably know how to do this, but I thought I'd share anyway!  I first tried making homemade applesauce last fall and it was a big hit with Ellie.  Back then, she ate oatmeal and applesauce for breakfast pretty much every day, so when apple-picking season came around we got a bunch of apples and I tried out this "recipe."  We haven't gone apple picking yet this year, but we had some apples in the fridge that were looking a little sad and I don't think anyone wanted to eat them in that state, so I made applesauce.  It really doesn't get much easier than this!

First, wash and peel the apples.  I have one of these handy dandy apple peeler-corer-slicer gadgets that makes this task so much easier.

Peeling the apples...

An apple slinky!  Not really...but it does look cute.

Shelley really appreciates when I make applesauce because she gets the cores.  Look at that vicious beast.

Throw your apple rings in the Crock Pot.  Since this was only about 6 small apples and it only filled the Crock Pot halfway, I added about 1/2 cup of water.  You could also add cinnamon, but I didn't this time since I'm intending for this applesauce to be eaten by Piper.  It's definitely yummy with cinnamon, though.

 Cover and cook on low for a few hours until the apples are soft.

In the past I've used a potato masher to mash the apples into a chunky sauce, but since this is for Piper I dumped it in the blender and pureed it on low.

 Lovely, smooth applesauce.

I filled an ice cube tray with the applesauce so that I would have easy baby food portions in the freezer. You can also dump the applesauce in an airtight container or ziplock bag to freeze.  Once my applesauce cubes are frozen, I plan on just throwing them in a freezer bag and pulling out a cube as needed.

And that's it!  Super easy.  My little muncher is getting so big, she had 1/4 of a mashed banana today for lunch and gobbled it up.  I plan on trying to stock up a little on baby food now that she's starting to get into solids.  I think this week I'll try to buy some sweet potatoes so I can make that into a puree.  I'm looking for the most cost effective options to feed my baby, so I'll probably do a combination of homemade baby food from produce that's in season as well as baby food jars that are on sale.  Has anyone out there had a lot of success with making homemade baby food?  I'd love to know more about how other people do it!

Now that I Know, What Do I Do?

I'll just start this post by getting this off my chest: I am tired of the way I am currently living my life.  Please know that this has nothing to do with my family or my status as a stay-at-home mom.  I LOVE this season of life as a wife and mother and wouldn't change that for anything.  Yes, it's hard, and no, it's certainly not perfect, but that part of my life is awesome and not what I'm talking about here.  I guess I'm referring to the eternal significance of what I'm doing right now.  I know I can be doing more for the kingdom of God, but I just don't know where to start.

I feel like that first paragraph doesn't make a lot of sense, so let me back up.  Lately, I've been reading some pretty amazing books (which is probably why I haven't updated this blog lately!) that have really challenged me to step outside of my zone of comfort.  I first read Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God by Francis Chan.  If you haven't read this book, you seriously need to get on that.  This book really made me wake up and realize that my life isn't supposed to be about comfort and what makes me happy.  I think sometimes it's so easy for Christians (including me!) to think that God desires for all of our needs and wants to be met and that He wants us to live perfect, happy little lives.  We think that God is going to give us "the American dream": a nice house, a car, a spouse, a couple of kids, a good job, and that everything is going to be all neat and tidy because God wants the best for us. This book, however, challenged me to think that maybe God's best for me isn't necessarily what I think is best.  Because in my mind, "the best" would be all the nice little comfortable things mentioned above.  But read this: James 1:27 says, "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world."  Another passage that really changed my mind was John 21.  Jesus asks Peter, "Do you love me?" three separate times, and every time Peter says yes.  Jesus' response?  Feed and take care of my sheep.  So if I really want to live out God's best, I need to be taking care of other people, not myself.  That is so contradictory to my nature...I want to take care of myself and my family first.  But God tells me to put others' needs above my own.  There is so much more about this book that really made me think, but I think this is the core of it.  I want to take care of the poor and needy, and I feel like God is asking me to do that right now.

Another book I read recently is Mary Beth Chapman's Choosing to SEE: A Journey of Struggle and Hope.  If you're familiar with the Christian singer Steven Curtis Chapman, this is his wife's story of losing their 5-year-old daughter they adopted from China.  Definitely a heart-wrenching story and it really made me want to cherish my precious children more.  Actually, one night I stayed up really late reading (it was like 2 am) and I got out of bed and snuck into Ellie's room and just laid my hand on her little head and prayed over her while she slept.  This book didn't have the same sort of mind-blowing and radical ideas as Crazy Love, but it still challenged my ideas about adoption and child sponsorship.  This family adopted three daughters from China and began a non-profit organization that helps orphans overseas as well as provides some monetary support to families who are trying to adopt.

I'm currently reading Kisses from Katie: A Story of Relentless Love and Redemption by Katie Davis.  This is the story of a girl who moves from her luxury and comfort in the U.S. to Uganda after graduating high school.  She intends to just work as a Kindergarten teacher in an orphanage for a year, but ends up adopting 14 orphaned girls and creates a non-profit organization to help Ugandan children have the resources needed to go to school.  Her book is full of what she's learning from the Lord and how her life is completely different from what she imagined it would be.  I've only read about a third of the book, but it is really affecting me spiritually.  I just read this from her book today:

"The truth is that the 143 million orphaned children and the 11 million who starve to death or die from preventable diseases and the 8.5 million who work as child slaves, prostitutes, or under other horrific conditions and the 2.3 million who live with HIV add up to 164.8 million needy children.  And though at first glance that looks like a big number, 2.1 billion people on this earth proclaim to be Christians.  

The truth is that if only 8% of the Christians would care for one more child, there would not be any statistics left. 

This is the Truth.  I have the freedom to believe it.  The freedom, the opportunity to do something about it.  The truth is that He loves these children just as much as He loves me and now that I know, I am responsible."

That seriously hit me hard.  What am I doing with my life if I'm not helping the poor and needy of this world?  Sure, I make excuses....I'm a busy mom, I have two little ones of my own to care for, we don't have a lot of money, we're trying to pay off our school loans, etc.  But I don't think God would ask me to do something if it wasn't possible.  So what am I supposed to do, now that I know?

I've been praying over this a lot recently.  I don't think I'm any closer to finding an answer, but I do feel like I'm becoming more spiritually aware of the condition of this world, and with that I am more and more dissatisfied with what I'm doing.  I keep asking God to give me an opportunity to do something.  My mind goes from one extreme to another.  Is God asking us to move across the country to an unchurched city?  Is He asking us to move overseas and become missionaries?  Is He wanting us to stay in Harrisonburg and find the needs in our own city?  Is God telling me to start sponsoring a child in a third world country?  I really don't know yet.  What I do know is that I don't want to live this comfortable, easy life for my own pleasure and then get to heaven and God ask, "So what did you do in My name?"  I'm not saying there's anything wrong with material comfort, but when that becomes my goal in life I know I'm not pleasing God.

So all of that to say, I have a zillion questions and very few answers.  But will you pray with me about what we, as Christians, can do?