Apples, apples and more apples

Many of you know, we have two VERY large apple trees in our yard. Luckily they produce only every other year, and this year was a producer. The second summer we lived in our home they produced, but we had no clue what was going on, and so a lot of the apples went to waste, which we felt badly about. This year we determined to be better.
So, besides making 14 quarts of applesauce, and giving about 15 boxes just like the ones below away to friends and neighbors, it came down to the last box....apple pie filling and apple butter. Granted, I think we were a little too ambitious this year, we did the 14 quarts on a Tuesday night after I got home from work and Collin was none too happy about it. The same week, Thursday night, we did things a little differently. We learned our lesson and with the apple pie filling, we brought in a box for him to play with.
For about an hour, he was pretty happy, playing in the box, throwing out the apples. So, I decided to make apple butter (long story that probably won't get posted, but involved some pennies that just barely got unstuck from our pan) that I still have yet to eat a lot of....anyways, back to the canning.

Oh, mom is it okay if I eat some of these? Don't you love the guilty look on his face?

Oh, I can eat away? Thanks mom, already was!

Uh oh! I have decided enough of this box mom! I'm going for gymnastics instead.

This is the totally insane nasty kitchen while we were making the "apple concoctions". So, for two nights in the same week (granted, I know a lot of people this is a regularity at their house!) we had a totally out of control kitchen, late into the evening.

More apple nastiness. And how silly am I that I didn't even take a picture of all my apple goodness? Oh well...it is still sitting on my counter not put away, so maybe if I get ambitious before putting it away, I'll take one and post it. Nah, probably not.

However, tonight we had apple crisp for dessert, and YUM!