Happy Birthday Nan!!

Fairview

Jackson, MS 2004

Vicksburg, MS 2/2005

Nan and Halle, Jackson MS  2/2005

Nan, Summer, Kelli (and Cole)  August 2005

Nan and BK 8/2007

Nan & Summer 10/2008

Maui 2009

Summer & Nan, flight to the Big Island

Nan at the beach.  Big Island. 1/2011

Happy Veteran's Day

1/11/2004

I'm a hermit

We ventured out to the big city (that would be PROVO) on Saturday.  We saw a movie...Puss in Boots.  It was good.  Good enough.  Good enough that I almost didn't fall asleep.  Ran some errands.  got some gas.     Then we ended up at Sam's Club.  We needed milk.  And vegetables.  And samples.  Oh, the people.  People everywhere.  Traffic everywhere.  I came home.  Took some ibuprofen.  And checked my Amazon Prime Account.  I discovered that my account was to expire that very day.  So, I renewed my Amazon Prime Membership and vowed to never leave the house again until some time in January.  Maybe February if the weather is bad.
I'm serious about the Amazon Prime thing.

Here is the Scoop...it costs like $79 ish.

I do all of my shopping on Amazon.  Mostly.  In the past year I have bought such things as books, emergency kit thermal sleeping bags, flax seed, zone bars, 1 gallon of Elmer's glue for $7.00, bakers twine, and the list goes on.

If I purchase something that is "Prime" then I get free 2-day shipping with most products and no minimum purchase.

Every time I go to make a purchase, I always "Price Check" against Amazon.  9 times out 10, Amazon is the better deal.

And I can preorder new releases and they will arrive on my door step the very day that they come out.    And they will charge the lowest price available from the time I preorder until the time it ships.  I got a .01 credit for the last book I preordered because the price dropped a penny from when I placed my order.  So totally worth it.

Rick bought my Christmas present last year from Amazon.  (Camera).  The lens cover wasn't opening very well and with time, it kept getting worse.  I went to the amazon page, printed a copy of my receipt, a copy of the warranty, and a shipping label.  I took my camera to the Post Office and a couple of weeks later my camera came back.  All fixed and good as new.  All I had to pay was the $9 postage.

I'm pretty sure that I got my money's worth in the past 12 months for the Amazon Prime membership.  Although I'm sure some people purchase way more than I did and really take advantage of that 2-day shipping.  You can sign up for automatic shipments (diaper delivery) and all sorts of fun stuff.

So, if you are not sure about doing the amazon thing, ask me.  I'll convince you.  Or you can try it for 30 days for free.  Just don't forget to cancel, that's how they get ya!

And if you do shop on Amazon, could you do me a favor and click through from the Mapleton Elementary School Website.  The PTA will get 4 to 7 % of all of the sales that click through from their page.  Awesome.  Thanks.

Here is the link to the Mapleton Elementary PTA.  Then just look for the Amazon arrow...

At least I'm not begging you all to buy stupid wrapping paper, right?

So, no Black Friday shopping for me.  I will be in my PJ's.  Eating pumpkin pie leftovers.  Or whatever.  But, I will not be at a mall.  or Walmart.  or anywhere crazy.  thanks amazon.

staples and a competition

 Cole loves his tools.

Last week he found my little multitool pocket knife thing that I took to girls camp.

I let him poke holes in my big black x-ray machine costume all afternoon.

Rick was at work and I texted him that we would probably be visiting him something during his shift because I was letting Cole play with a pocketknife.  

It turned out OK.  No blood at all.

Another "tool" that Cole loves is this:

He stapled together all of my note cards, scrap paper, grocery lists, bills, book covers, newspaper ads, and any other paper item he could find in the house.  

He gave Rick and I our own stack of stapled notecards and told us they were books for us to draw pictures in.

In other news...

We are in the thick of the "box tops" war at school.

Cole's teacher won last year for having his class collect the most box tops.

Nothing like healthy competition because Cole has caught the fever and thinks that every meal should include something that came from a box with a "box top".

So, if you have any of these guys sitting on your shelves,

Send them to Cole!!

Halloween 2011

This is Summer LAST week dressed as Taylor Swift.

I must confess we got that skirt at DI about 5 months ago.  

It was $6.  Which I thought was too much considering the fact that it was too "big" and too "glittery" to actually wear in public.

But it did make for a nice costume.  She only had to wear her hair in curlers for 48 hours to get the look.

This was Halloween evening.

Sadie and I dressed up as 1950's housewives.

I asked Summer to take pictures of everyone and everything since Sadie and I were busy making homemade donuts for the neighborhood.

Awesome.

Summer took 3 photos.

Didn't even get one of her siblings.  or the homemade donuts.

I might have to dress them up in their costumes and make-up tonight so that somewhere down the road a few years when the kids want to look back on pictures of 2011, they will actually believe me that I let them dress up and beg the neighbors for candy.

Rick participated in the festivities by dressing up  adjusting the temperature of the hot chocolate.

And speaking of temperature, we couldn't have asked for better weather.

When the evening started, we should have been serving ice water instead of hot chocolate.

But, as the evening wore on, more and more ghosts, goblins, witches, etc. appreciated a nice, warm cup of hot chocolate.

Here is a picture of the flyer that we passed out to the neighbors...

Apparently not everyone gets my sense of humor.

I really confused a lot of people with the "costume check".

So much so, that most of them didn't even keep reading to the funny parts.

oh well.

This morning I was getting Cole some breakfast. 

(Cereal, which is really just code for a bowl of sugar, but we were running late since we were up all night eating...sugar)

Cole asked me to wait before I poured the milk on his sugar cereal.

I asked why, and he said that he needed to finish his chocolate bar and he didn't want the cereal to get soggy.

His poor Kindergarten teacher...

Time to take down the decorations and move on to Christmas Thanksgiving.

Happy Halloween 2011

I can't find my keys...

I must have mistaken them for a kit kat.

tomato...jam

It's time for a change...
Brandi was not impressed with my Pressure Cooking adventures and Summer said she is sick of looking at my blog and having jars of chicken looking back at her.
So, I will tell you about my latest kitchen adventure:

It kills me to wait all winter, spring, and summer long to get those yummy ripe tomatoes.

Oh how I love a fresh garden tomato.

I can make an entire meal of tomatoes for days and days.

So, when the threat of frost and winter sets in, it makes me sad to see all of those poor green tomatoes.

So, I heard of making jam out of green tomatoes.

Sign me up!!

I just googled "green tomato jam recipe" and I had dozens of choices.

This is what I did...

Made 4 cups of green tomato puree by throwing the prettiest green tomatoes in the blender.

Added 4 cups of blackberries and raspberries that were lurking in the freezer.

Add 4 cups of sugar.

Boil 10 minutes.

 

Add a 3 oz box of Jell-O.

And 1 tsp. lemon juice.

I had blackberry fusion on hand.  Not sure why, but it was a great combination.

Simmered for 20 minutes.

Put in small jars and put it in the freezer.

It was so darn yummy that I ran downstairs and found a box of berry blue Jell-O.

And I had plenty more green tomatoes.

And I threw in the last few raspberries and found about 2 cups of blueberries.

The second batch ended up much thicker than the first , not sure why.

So, by the end of the day I had used up all of the random berries lurking in the freezer, 

used the end of the tomato crop, 

and barely made a dent in my food storage sugar supply.

There were tons of recipes on the internet.

Some were freezer jam.  Some you could process and leave on the shelf.

Lots of options.

I totally recommend this cheaper version of berry jam.

And, if the tiny nut in the raspberries or blackberries bother you,

You can make this entirely with the tomatoes and the Jell-O.

If the tomato seeds bother you, you can strain them out.

But, if you leave them in, they just seem like seeds from the berries.

It's like camouflage. 

PS.  I went to a class last week sponsored by the "other" stake.

Topic:  Pressure Cooking.  (not canning like I did, cooking, as in, cooking dinner.  every night.  in the pressure cooker.  fast.)

Between the crock pot and the pressure cooker,  I don't know why I even have an oven.

Oh yeah. to bake bread so I can eat my yummy freezer jam.

pressure canning

For the past year or more I have been contemplating the purchase of a pressure canner.

I have mostly gotten the hang of canning things in a water bath.

But, I realized how much more I could grow and can if I could pressure cook.

So, after much price comparison shopping and reading reviews,

I purchased the silver pressure canner pictured below on the left.

I was quite intimidated by its massiveness and its buttons, knobs, and gauges.

But, it came upon conversation a few weeks ago with a friend of mind that we needed to learn how to use a pressure cooker.  

And, wouldn't you know it...chicken was on sale for $1.39/pound at Ream's with the purchase of 40 pounds.

Perfect.

 I'll spare you the disgusting details but this is what it looks like when you get the chicken into the bottles and ready to can.

Still quite intimidated by the knobs, buttons, and gauges, my friend and I called the neighbor across the street to come walk us through the process. 

I was afraid I would do something wrong and blow something up and end up in an ambulance on the way to the hospital like Cliff Bingham who lived next door to me growing up. 

They were pressure cooking beans, as I recall.  And I have been freaked out by the thought of pressure cooking ever since.

Here is the chicken just after coming out of the pressure canner 90 minutes later.

The quart bottles were on the bottom and you can see the white film on them from all of the minerals and whatnot that is in our water.

All but one of the bottles sealed.

It looks quite gross and my house smelled like chicken for a day or two.

But, it felt like a great accomplishment to can my own chicken.

So much so that I decided to make chili a few days later.

I was at Sam's Club and I found a big package of extra lean ground beef that was marked down for quick sale.

I used that along with the 3 bottles of canned tomatoes that were in my fridge.

I had canned tomatoes a few weeks ago and I had 3 bottles that didn't seal, so I used those.

I also used the peppers from my garden.

And chili powder from the pantry.

I thought that turned out to be a pretty cheap project for food storage.

All of the bottles that I canned did seal.  That was good.

I had one bottle worth that I didn't can, I just added more tomatoes and a can of beans from my food storage.  The kids thought it was the best chili they had ever tasted.

It turned out to be more like a chili concentrate where you add more cans of whatever you have to make a meal.  So, even thought it was only 8 pints.  

I'm sure we could count it as at least 8 meals depending on who is eating and how much we add to it.

And then...

we had some potatoes that needed to be used that had come with our vegetable co-op thingy.

I had the carrots, celery, onions, and stew meat on hand, as well, and the next thing you know...we have lots and lots and lots of vegetable beef stew on the storage room shelves.  

I'm pretty happy about that because these are things that Cole will eat and he is definitely the picky eater at this house.

I was worried that my investment in a pressure canner might have been pretty steep. 

But, I can see now how easy (relatively speaking) it is to use a pressure canner.

And I love to grow things in my garden all summer and see them lined up on my shelves all winter long.

As this growing season is winding down (and I failed miserably as a gardener this year), I find myself already planning all of the things I want to grow...and can...for next year.

Done!! Again!!

I thought I was done with all of these vintage photos, but then I realized that I didn't include any of my Grandma Ethel or her Mother, Esther May Smith...

so here you go.

Esther May Smith Norton

This photo hung in my Grandma Ethel's bedroom for as long as I can remember.

I'm not sure when any of these photos were taken.

That is the next project.

All together I scanned 140 photos.

Done!!!

I saved the best for last...
I think I spent about 12 to 14 hours scanning photos the last week. 
These turned out so cute.
I can't tell if Sierra looks more like my mom or if Halle looks more like my mom.
I'll do a comparison one of these days.

Another one...

Nan is definitely the one on the left.

Showing off her legs.

or her tights.

Cole just asked me why all of these pictures are "WHITE".

some questions for mom

I've been scanning again.

My fingers hurt from typing and pushing the scanner buttons.

Serious.

My kids are in the kitchen emptying the dishwasher and making dinner.

It could be interesting...

 Mom, is this you?

Maybe you didn't want your picture taken?

More to come.

I'm saving the best for last.

Surprise!!

surprise MOM.

I have been scanning pictures this week.  

Look how cute you are.  were.

This is the ONLY picture I have of anything Dalton.  at all.

Raymond, Sylva, Morgon Leon, & Dolores

And I will need help with this one...

I assume it was taken in Parawon.

I can make a guess on 2 of them, maybe 3.

I will certainly need the help of you and Dolores one of these days.

I'm about half way done scanning photos.

I may have to stop soon and cook. and do laundry.  and shower.

But, I am on a roll......

Dr. Hooker Retirement Dinner at Sundance

 Whenever they have group dinners or anything for Rick's work, he usually lucks out and is working.

We've missed out on things like Carrabas and Chef's Table.

But, not this time BABY.  Dinner at Sundance.

 This was a wedding reception that was happening.

Rick told me not to take pictures of the reception because the girls might see them and get their hearts set on something that he isn't willing to "pick up some extra shifts for".

I just wanted to pretend that we were guests of Art & Rebecca so we could see how the other half lives.

But, our event was across the water in the Redford Room...

 So, this dinner was a retirement party for Keith Hooker.  This was as close as I got to a picture of Dr. Hooker.  The funny thing about it is that I still don't view Dr. Hooker as one of Rick's partners.

Dr. Hooker started in Provo in 1972.  He pretty much started the entire program there.

He took care of almost any kid in the Valley at one time or another when I was growing up.

He had daughters that we close in age to me.  

They went to a different school, but they danced and I danced.  I knew who they were.

So, it's just weird to me still that Rick and Keith are partners.

 The dessert bar.  Not a great picture.  But, I love how they just threw out some boards and some big flat rocks from the River just out the door and plopped some cheesecake on them.  Looks great.  Tasted better.

Here are Cameron and Kim.  Cam and Rick went to school together in Kirksville.  They went to MI to do rotations when we did and we were next door neighbors.  

I couldn't decide which pictures to use.

Cameron kept trying to pose crazy and the poor Sundance lady didn't know how to react.

Brandi helped me pick the outfit.

Good times.  Good food.  I gained 2 pounds.