Photo Friday

It is Friday!

The boys learned to can this week.  They helped me do 21 quarts!

They had great fun making a volcano.

Joshua put the last bolt in!  Everyone helped put our 'new' swing set up!

Mom and Dad in Utah

Seems we never have enough time in Utah, I believe others feel the same, but non-the-less we did a great deal and had fun.

 Dinner with Grandchildren and then at the play park at City Creek.

 Finished Shelves.

 Wow, those shelves look familiar!

 Mom and her best girlfriend in High School, Pam Ivie Kent.  Actually the three of us spent a great deal of time together.  

 Part of the South Jordan contingency.  I went to Elementary, Jr. High School and High School with these three ladies.  At  one point we were in the same ward.  Desi Wardle Nelson, Me, Rayona Peterson Frehner and Joan Wheadon ...  Interestingly, my first home teaching assignment ever was to the Peterson home.  Great memories!

Rayona with Howard and Mary Schmidt.  A very small world.  Mary had just graduated from High School in Burbank CA and gone to BYU when I went on my mission.  I have fond memories of being in the Stevenson home and wonderful conversation with her father, Kay.

Two other South Jordan friends who went through all our years of school together.  Christine Mark and Jodi Graziano.

There are many others we had the opportunity to connect with and several who were not in attendance.  We are grateful we made the effort to attend.  We even won the prize for traveling the farthest.  Go figure.  

Thank you all for supporting us in this endeavor. 

Photo Friday

One of the hauls from our garden.

Ava's new trick.

Our new double stroller.

Jaime loves being the grown up helping Ava.

Chuck E Cheese for Fun Day!

Vida fell asleep during reading time.

She loves green smoothies!

Photo Friday

This has been a busy week!  We started school two weeks ago, so I have been juggling school, work, baby, and preserving the excess from our garden.  I have also tried to find new ways to eat our produce.  We tried eggplant parmesan this week, and it was amazing.  The boys were sick this week, so we enjoyed some sick days giving me some time to can which worked out nicely.

The non-sick boys and I went to the library and came home to this.  These poor guys slept all day.

So sleepy but so cute! 

While the boys slept I canned tomatoes!  I canned 25 quarts in one day.  Wow!  These tomatoes taste amazing and are going to be fabulous all winter long!

I tried my hand at canning beans this year, and I think it went pretty well.  We'll see how they turned out sometime this winter. 

We have been roasting cherry tomatoes every chance we get to freeze tomato sauce.  I think the right one wasn't quite done, but it will still taste great!

We are up to 17 of these beautiful bags of sauce.  Yum!

I finally caved and made zucchini bread.  It was fun to have!

After a busy night of working I managed to get all of the dishes done before heading to bed.  We were out of clean drying towels, so the dishes got to air dry, but the kitchen was clean.  :)

Later this week I cleaned out my baby supplies to ship the things I don't need to Marquie.  Oh, by the way, Marquie it is on its way.  :)  Enjoy!  Hyrum thought it was a great and enjoyed playing with my broken baby monitor.

For some strange reason we are getting tons of rain in August.  Go figure.  But the boys are loving watching the storms from the covered portion of the porch.  I don't understand the sweatshirts since it was almost 80 degrees, but it made them happy.  :)

And while they enjoyed the rain I rearranged the little boys room and made space for both of them.  Ahhhh!

Hyrum has a new big boy bed.  I have been avoiding this for some time, but the time is here.  Here we go!  He didn't nap today, though, we tried.  He seems to be afraid of his new bed, but he is asleep there now for the first night.  I hope it goes well. Simon will join him when I think Hyrum is ready for a little more change. 

 It has been a busy, sick week, but it has been great fun and very productive.

Photo Friday

Vida and I went on a special Mommy-Daughter date on Jaime's
first day of preschool.

What I wore to my 'going away' luncheon at work.

The first french braids I have done in a LONG time.
For Jaime's second day of preschool.

You might be able to see that she's using that knife upside down.
Cutting her breakfast banana by herself.

Happy Anniversary!

We celebrated our 14th anniversary today with some amazing food that I just had to share!

This is a delicious risotto with pork and sage on pureed butternut.  Amazing!  I had this at a nice restaurant a couple of weeks ago and I really wanted it again, so James replicated it.  Fabulous!

Chocolate brownie cheesecake with a chocolate ganache on top.  It was incredible, but so rich that it will last a few days!  

I will not be going into food photography anytime soon, but I promise that this was delicious!  

We enjoyed spending our day as a family, but James and I did take a little break together to just have some us time.  Well, Simon crashed our party, but it was still nice to relax together.  We did get to go to the temple yesterday and that is always a great way to remind us of just how special our marriage is and to be grateful to have the blessings of a temple sealing in our lives.

To All to Whom This Applies

Photo Friday

Justin's new way to clean the shower.

My new way to cool the milk fast (for yogurt).

The question is whether she will survive all the love.

Our new reading corner! We are all very excited for this.

Photo Friday from Virginia

Here is the project we did today!  I LOVE this time of year!

We used the big camp stove to do the blanching, then used the outside table to cut and bag the corn.

21 bags of fresh corn for some delicious winter meals!

And, here is why we did this all outside.  EASY CLEANUP!

INTERNET!!!

Here's a quick post to let you all know that we OFFICIALLY HAVE INTERNET IN OUR APARTMENT!!! I'm posting from our apartment. The google fiber guy JUST left. I'm SO EXCITED! OH YEAH! Google Fiber. Free. Best day.

Here is my excitement:

See! In my apartment! Blogging! Sorry I look like a mess. But not really sorry. I mean. I'm almost 38 weeks pregnant and I've been sick for 2 days. Yesterday I got ready, but it wasn't worth it today. I'm happy. Lovin my sweats. And my internet. I'm really excited! We haven't had internet in our apartment for 7 1/2 months! (The whole time we have lived here.) 2 school semesters. And now we have it for free. It is going to be such a blessing to us for the next 2 semesters with a little baby. We can do all our homework at home! Oh yay!

Now I have to go pick Patrick up from work. :)

Canning Time!

I know you all have been doing lots of this, but I have not seen any yet.  So, let me be the first....
9 quart jars, about 3 quarts frozen (for smoothies) and some left to eat.  These peaches are huge!  An 3 to 3.5 peaches per quart!  Love to can that way!

Such a beautiful photo!

Petersen's Visit

We had such a fun time last week having the Petersen clan (minus Joe) here at our home.  They sure were ready to leave and see their Dad and their dog--maybe in that order.  I did take a few pictures and Heather took a few, but I don't have hers.  So, here you go.  Hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed creating them!

Sushi!  They all ate it.  :)

Chloe's new "do".

Look at that pile of hair--all hers!

April "playing ball" with the fruit

At the "rocket" park