Happy Birthday Jack!

Jade’s classmate, Jack Wooten turned two this week. His parents brought chocolate cupcakes to daycare and when I went to pick up Jade, I happened upon the party. The kids LOVED the cupcakes. Usually, their snacks are fruit or animal crackers, cheese crackers, etc. Check out the pictures.

Jack Wooten

 

This is Alexa. She is Jade’s teacher’s daughter. You can tell that she LOVED her cupcake. She already dirtied her pants and just look at her shirt and face. Must have been yummy!

 

When it was time to leave I told Jade to tell her friends good bye. This her her stomping her feet, calling them, and flailing the party hat at them to get their attention.

 

This is not from the best angle, but she made sure to kiss the birthday boy and give him lots of love. Such a sweet girl!

   

This weekend has been quiet. Jenna is with Justin and we have missed her! Jeff got the yard mowed and manicured. I also(wait for it….) HAVE A CLEAN CAR! I mean that NEVER happens. I do ok with the house, but my kids are slobs in the car and basically I just surrender. Every time it gets cleaned, I vow to do better, and I do for several months, and then…..well, you know.

Tomorrow is a BIG day. Jenna will be baptized. She has been wanting to do this for a while, but the time is finally right. Watch for pictures later tomorrow.

I am contemplating doing a whole post on Jeopardy questions. Whatcha think, Todd?! LOL

Wonderful Wednesday

Today I took Jade to daycare and took Jenna on a date. I try to spend one on one time with each of the girls regularly. It is easy with Jade because Jenna goes to Justin’s and leaves Jade behind. This summer I have spent the days that I take Jade to daycare with Jenna. Today was extra fun.

(warning few to no pictures to follow)

We started out by going to one of Jenna’s FAVORITE places that i NEVER agree to stop at. Locally, it is referred to as the “Chinese Shop”. I think most towns have one. It is a store full of mostly ethnic beauty supplies, but they have lost of cute, cheap shoes, and costume jewelry. (most of which is $1). When Jenna has a couple of dollars, she likes to go there to get jewelry. I hate to go there because it is on  the town square and parking is hard. Also, It is hard to take Jade to a place like that. So, EVERYTHING has be just right for us to go. Today was the day and Jenna was SURPRISED. She got a pack of 6 toe rings for $1. She even gave one to me. :)

we then headed out to the lake and did a little window shopping. The budget says that we can do much real shopping, but that’s ok, we don’t need anything anyway. There are sure some cute shops at the lake!

We headed over to our favorite bakery to eat lunch. We love their egg salad sandwiches and rarely go to eat there. Jenna actually ate a cup of black bean and steak soup. She LOVED it.

To top off our date, we went to movies to see Ramona and Beezus. Jeff and I bought a set of movie passes over a year ago and still have several left. So, Jenna and I used a couple to go see this. It was the CUTEST movie I have seen in a LONG time. It was a WONFERFUL day with sweet Jenna.

So, for $9 we went shopping, ate lunch, and saw a movie. Not too shabby.

MeMe sent Jade and Jenna a package. This was Jade’s present. anyone wanna go to Hawaii? jade is ready! How cute is that?!

I almost forgot, Jenna is being baptized on Sunday. I am so proud of her. She has been wanting to do it for 3 years, but I made her hold off til she was a bit more mature.

Hope you had a wonderful Wednesday, too!

Airport Arrivals

Today Jenna and I went to the airport to pick up Nonni. She has spent two weeks visiting Todd, Caro, and Victoria. I know they hated to see her leave, but she has to work starting tomorrow, so she HAD to come home.

She treated us to Red Lobster on the way home. YUM! It had been a couple of years since I had eaten there.

Todd is now on Twitter. He is SO excited about this mini blog. Be sure to check him out and welcome him @gte496j. He has not updated today, but I KNOW that he will soon.

Tomorrow starts my LAST week off from work. BOO! This summer has been WAY TOO SHORT! I have enjoyed spending it at home with my family even though we did not go anywhere for vacation. I don’t know the last summer that I didn’t touch the sand. Wow!

What can I cram into this last week? I hope at least one nap falls in there somewhere.

SCARY

Am I the only one who finds the resemblance between Todd and Daddy- Mac SCARY? I wish the pictures were taken from the same angle. WOW

It’s HOT today! Yep, that says 106!

Jade got into the sunscreen! ICK! (But she tee tee’d on the potty, so I forgave her.)

Jenna is at a swimming party and Jeff and I will join her later for a cookout. It is hot here, but we are glad to be able to join some friends for dinner. Only one more week until school starts! BOOOO! (but THANKFUL for a job that I do love)

Awesome Weekend

I will have to play catch up because I am behind about 3 days with the blog. After reading this post, you will see why I haven’t had time to blog. Ready? Here we go.

Friday morning started early because Jenna and I had plans to take Walker to the Science Museum and Planetarium in Macon. This is what we gave him for his birthday. Our friends Kim and Kelsi joined us and they were like the cherry on top! We had so much fun.

They museum was featuring GIANT insects. These things even moved.

 

Jenna, Kelsi, Walker

 

Walker LOVES Science and he is SO fun to be with. He has a great inquisitive mind and a QUICK sense of humor. This was a perfect place to take him and it was more fun for the rest of us because he was there.

 

There was one room called a mini-zoo and it SMELLED horrible.

 

In the Globe Room Jenna found Zambia. Why Zambia? Well, that’s because that is where our friends Julie and Curry are right now. They are on a mission trip.

 

I enjoyed my day with Kim, too. In fact, I enjoyed it so much that we are spending tomorrow together, too.

There was an exhibit of clay sculptures that I later found out that you couldn’t photograph. I do have this one contraband photo, but Oh how I wish I had more. The girls are laughing because Walker was commentating each sculpture. I think this one he said ate too much Mexican food. I just love that boy!

We then headed to an animal show. The lady was great and showed all kinds of animals and gave an informative talk.

Like any good animal show, she pulled out a HUGE snake. I mean HUGE! She carried it around for a long time and finally she asked for a volunteer. Jenna was called and bee bopped on down there. I KNEW what she had volunteered for, but Jenna did NOT. The lady said, “You are going to hold the snake.” To which Jenna quickly replied, “No, I’m not, but that boy up there in the red shirt is gonna hold it.” Ha! That’s my girl.

 

Walker LOVES snakes. In fact, he owns his 3rd snake now. He was SOOOO happy to get the opportunity.

I know the quality of pics is bad, but we couldn’t use the flash because of the animals.

 

Official Reptile Handler

 

We then headed to the planetarium. I got in trouble AGAIN for my camera. (thus the bad pic with no flash)

Kim and I took them to eat Mexican next.

First, I interrupt this blog post to show you what Jade did the other day. She went in my closet and came out in a red cocktail dress. My!

 

While at Mexican the guys sang to Walker. He was caught WAY off guard. (His bday was a month ago, afterall)

 

Friday night Jeff and I went down to some friends house whose son was getting married on Saturday. Alex had asked Jeff to grill hamburgers for the rehearsal dinner. We had a super fun time. I did not take any pictures. :(

Saturday night Jeff and I went to the wedding. It was held just around the corner from us. The bride’s family moved the old family home from across the street and have set it up in its new home. They have plans to live here in the future. They set the house up VERY high so that there is good stand up room underneath. They have blocked the walls and it is SO nice under there. The house is NO WHERE near move in ready, but in preparation for the wedding they did some serious work. Wow, it was nice.

 

My dates for the wedding. :)

The bridal party came up on a hay ride.

The bride and her father walking down the “aisle”.

 

The wedding was on the steps of the house. Our pastor did the ceremony and he did a great job. You can not see it from the pics, but they had some old church pews and cedar made benches for seating.

 

The newlyweds coming back up the “aisle”.

This pic is under the house and was taken with my phone, so no flash. I LOVED this idea. They had a wardrobe set up and in it was the bride’s parents wedding attire complete with shoes and the bouquet. What a nice touch.

 

dinner

I took more pics, but they are on Jeff’s phone because mine died. We had a dance under the house and It was a lot of fun. They had white lights hung all underneath and they had long sheers hanging in the window openings. I can not wait to see real pics. We stayed until 11:30 pm. Yes, even Jade was happy that late.

We spoke to the groom today and he said the party busted up around 5am!! He said he and the bride left at midnight. I am so glad that we went. Jeff works with the groom, the father of groom, and the other son. Jeff and Alex are good friends and I was glad to be able to be there to celebrate with them. I wish them many years of happiness.

Today we had church, errands, more errands, and oh yea, laundry!

You see why I am behind? Busy! Great Weekend!

Blueberry Preserves

Today i tested my domestic limits and made blueberry preserves. Rest assured I have NEVER made anything like this before. Keep Reading and you will soon see what an adventure it became.

Rewind to yesterday and remember that Jenna and I went with a couple of friends and picked 10 pints of blueberries. I made a cobbler/ dump cake, shared some with the Macs, ate a BUNCH, and decided to make some preserves.

My friend Wendy’s mom, AKA Nana, made some blueberry lime preserves and she let me sample a bite. I knew right away I had to try them myself. Here is my story:

First, I had to BUY the jars. You see, from time to time I have owned a jar, but they have been from goodies BOUGHT at a farmer’s market, etc. I only saved them to create homes for insects, etc that Jenna may have brought in. I have NEVER “canned” (why is it not called jarred?) ANYTHING.

I washed the jars on HOT water. (Ok, so MAYBE I should have boiled them, but I just scalded them and then washed with soap, and scalded again.) Jenna helped me dry them.

 

I had already washed and measured the berries. 8 cups!

 

Then I smashed half the berries and added the sugar. 8 cups!!!

Added the rest of the berries- looking good!

and the step by step directions stop here. Why? Well, you see that pot of sugary berries above? Yep, that is what bubbled ALL OVER my stove. Grr! It was a Texas sized mess, I tell ya. You see, when you read the directions below, you will see that it calls for lime juice and lime zest. SO, while I was simmering the berries I thought I could gather the juice and zest. Problem: My zester has gone into neverland. When I sold Pampered Chef, I had every tool in the catalog. (including zester) I have not needed zest in a LONG time, but TODAY I went looking. NO zester. So, I Googled how to get zest in another way. I tried a grated- nope, tried a knife, nope, attempted to try a veggie peeler, but apparently it was visiting my zester in Neverland, and ended up using a grapefruit knife. The recipe calls for 2 tablespoons of zest. Didn’t happen people. I tried and did what I could. I added extra juice, but NOTHING can do what zest does for a recipe. Don’t fear, though, there is a happy ending.

So in the midst of that fiasco, the berries bubbled, and smoked up the kitchen. I had sticky berry juice EVERYWHERE. in fact, I THOUGHT it had stained my counters, but thanks to Clorox, it’s all clean. The berries made a mess, but they were not scalded or anything. Phew!

So I then added the liquid pectin, lime goodies, and simmered CAREFULLY.I then Poured into the jars. The recipe said it made 12 half pints, but I actually had about 13. I just the extra in Tupperware since I only bought 12 jars. We are eating from the Tupperware now.

Now, the final part was the HARDEST! I had to do a water bath. Sounds easy enough, but NOPE! I don’t have a pressure cooker (they scare me), I don’t have a canning kettle (why would I, I don’t have any jars remember), but I DO have a big ol stock  pot. I boiled some water and lowered a few jars in. I also don’t have tongs. (well, I had acrylic salad tongs, ha!) I made do, but it took a LONG time and I had to be VERY careful not to burn myself while bootlegging a water bath in a stock pot with acrylic tongs. I was beginning to think I would just have to give all of the jam away to be eaten soon, because I was not confident in my canning skills. BUT, in time as they cooled, I started hearing random “POP” noises. Sure enough, they sealed. Yippee!

After they had time to seal and gel, Jenna and I made some toast to sample.

 

The results: A THUMPS UP!

The mess cleaned up easily (shocked!), the preserves are YUMMY, and I would consider doing it again. The lime is fainter in mine than in Nana’s, but that’s due to the lack of zest. There was NO way I could get 2 tablespoons with a GRAPEFRUIT KNIFE!

So, I highly recommend a zester and metal canning tongs in you plan to do this. As for the stock pot, it worked fine. I read that the jars should be lifted from the bottom of the pot on a rack, but I didn’t have it and it worked.

Below is the recipe. I would use this one again. (I have to buy more jars, though) Let me know if you try this recipe and let me know what you think of it. If you don’t want to PICK blueberries, Potluck will pick them for you for $12 a gallon. This is WAY less than the grocery store.

BLUEBERRY and LIME PRESERVES
Jan: this will make your 12 half pint jars
8 cups fresh blueberries
8 cups sugar
2 pouches liquid fruit pectin
2 tablespoons lime zest
2/3 cup lime juice
Pour half of the blueberries into large Dutch oven; gently mash to just break up. Stir in sugar and remaining blueberries. Heat over low heat, stirring often, until sugar dissolves. Increase heat to high and bring to full rolling boil and boil for 1 minute. Stir in fruit pectin, lime zest and juice; return to boil for one minute.
Pour into hot sterilized 1-cup jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Cover with prepared lids; screw on bands fingertip tight. Boil in boiling water bath canner for 10 minutes, timing from when water returns to boil. Let cool on rack. Check seals.
(refrigerate any jars with lids that have not snapped downward to use within 3 weeks). Wipe jars; store in cool dark, dry place for up to 1 year.
adapted from:
http://www.chefdecuisine.com/all_fruit/blueberry/WILD_BLUEBERRY_PRESERVES.php
TIPS: mama uses cookie racks for "rack"
She suggests that you be careful with lids and do not force lids down