backtracking

I'm so behind on things and since this is my journal, I need to include a few items. Last Tuesday mom came up to help me can vegetable soup. She was such a huge help and I couldn't have accomplished what I did w/out her help. We managed to can 21 bottles and only one didn't seal. HOORAY!! Mom came at around 10:30 and didn't leave until about 7:30, thanks so much mom! This is really such an easy recipe but just takes a lot of time to chop everything up to put in the bottles. I had everything in my garden to put in it besides the celery so I just couldn't afford not to do it. It's a super easy dinner when you've had a busy day so if anyone is interested in the recipe, here it is.
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. boullion
1 T. parsley
1/2 tsp. accent
pepper to taste
1/2 c. onion
1/3 c. celery
1 T. rice or barley
carrots
potatoes
Pressure cook (15 lbs pressure) for 45 minutes.

I'm happy to report that we didn't blow up the garage. I'm seriously afraid of the pressure cooker so I breath a sigh of relief when the last batch comes out. Oh, if anyone is selling, getting rid of, or sees a pressure cooker at a garage sale, let me know. I really need to get my hands on one but don't want to pay the $150 for a new one if I don't have to.

One other thing about my mom, every holiday she send the cutest care package for the kids full of goodies to cook, crafts to make, fun things for the kids to play with, etc. For Halloween, she sent everything to make cupcakes, the cutest mold for jello jigglers w/ jello pkgs, rub-on transfers for crafts. The kids had such a fun time but unfortunetly, my camera battery died in the midst of it all so I just took 1 picture. We've yet to do the jello making project so I'll post some pictures when we do it. Thanks mom and dad for the Holiday treats. I drove the kids around to some of the widows in our ward and they too took cupcakes to the door and practiced singing their primary program songs to them. They seemed to enjoy it!

Nothing short of a miracle!

My new babysitter (beggers can't be choosy)

This is what Kaleb thinks of canning!

The first batch of peaches, not the most beautiful but pretty tasty!

"Have I bit off more than I can chew?" "Probably"

I can't believe it, I actually have all 4 kids down for naps at the same time! (a miracle) Please, give me a hand while reading this because I think I deserve it!!! I know there are a million and one things that I should be doing right now but I need to record a few things before they leave my VERY SHORT term memory.

Yesterday I spent the morning canning peaches....I came upon a great deal on fruit through a lady that I serve with on the Stake Primary Board. She has a daughter who lives in Nampa...she goes to visit her this time of year to pick up fruit for a bunch of family members. Okay, so I'm not family but she was nice enough to pick me some up. Peaches were $12.50 per half bushel, pears were $9.00/half bushel! Great price and beautiful fruit. I only got one box of peaches because I still have a bunch in storage but I got 4 boxes of pears....I'm waiting for them to ripen and hoping that they don't all ripen at once! YIKES!!! Anyway, I got started at around 8:30 and finally cleaned up at 12:30 and I only canned 10 quarts. Well, we ate a lot while in the process, that's half the fun and we had to throw a few rotten ones out along the way, and I stuffed the bottles full so as to conserve bottles for all the pears I will be doing. You might be wondering if it was worth all the work, my answer is YES! My kitchen was a complete disaster, kids were still in pajamas at 1:00, I was a messy disaster but I canned from start to finish by myself which is a major accomplishment for me and we have 10 more bottles on the shelf of yummy fruit. The best part of the day was that Kamryn slept all morning, woke up just as I was cleaning up and then Porter slept all afternoon, I feel fortunate if I only have to deal with one. Porter was so cooperative while I ran in and out of the house, he just sat in his bouncy chair smiling and talking to me... I can't say the same about Kaleb, he was only happy when his mouth was full of peaches, and he was a royal pain in the behind for about an hour and then I guess he finally decided that I wasn't going to stop what I was doing so he better get over it. Little does he know, the canning adventures have only just begun...pears will be most likely be ready Wednesday!

A VERY late night!

DJ and I pulled a very late night canning corn last night! We figured we're already sleep deprived staying up with babies so when some free corn came our way we didn't hesitate to turn it down. Our good friends, the Andrus's, of Andrus Trucking came over with corn last night that had apparently been rejected by Walmart due to a palet tipping over while unloading. It was beautiful corn, can't believe they turned it down because of that but we were happy to be the recipients. DJ got home from Bishopric meetings and visits at about 9:30 and after settling babies down, we got started at around 10:30.....78 ears of corn and 16 quarts of corn later, we finally crawled in to bed at 2 a.m! Yikes!! I wish we would've taken pictures of one another, we were literally zombies, but it is definetly worth it with the price of groceries these days. Our own corn should be on in another week so we'll be at it again soon.