Time Out

In November I went to AZ to go to women's event with my friend and her Mom and Sister.  I love these events and they really help me to work on some things to help me be a better wife, mother, friend and really just a better person in general.  I have written about the events before.  My friend has 7 kids, 4 of which she has adopted, so we stayed in a hotel for the weekend.  Before we left I got to spend some time with my favorite little buddies though.  An added bonus was getting to play with their pet turtle, doritos los tacos. Word to the wise about turtles, they poop and pee all over the place when you try to play with them!  I also learned the proper way to read a fortune cookie.  You need to eat the entire cookie before you look at the fortune.  It was pretty fun that way and it proved successful because every fortune I got was true...with a little creativity :0)

Barnyard?

What happens when you spend an entire Saturday cleaning out and organizing your garage?  The kids find all the stuff you bought to outfit a hamster last year for Christmas and then thought better of the idea and decided not to proceed with the gift.  When you already have a house and a playpen it's hard to argue with the boys sound logic of just needing to buy the hamster and some food and their lives would be so completely awesome for a random Saturday afternoon.  Well, what else was I going to do with all the stuff?  Sell it I guess, but that would have crushed the dream that was now in their helpful little hands just waiting for a furry little creature to make the dream complete.  So, to the pet store we went and returned home with Griphyn....which is after the spelling of character in some game they play.

I will admit that she is pretty cute for a rodent.  The boys love her and the cat has taken a liking or licking to her haha.  The funnest thing to watch is when the boys put her in her ball and she rolls around the house.  The cat finds this an especially fun little adventure as well.  On one of the first couple days we had griphyn she was cruising around the family room with Zazzles chasing and batting the hamster filled ball around.  I noticed that one of the areas on the ball wasn't as shiny as the rest and asked the boys if it were possible for the cat to get the lid off.  No sooner had I uttered the words when a hamster goes flying out of the ball at lightning speed across the room.  Screams from the boys and bodies dashing and crashing about and I thought there was no way we had any hopes of catching this tiny little creature in our big ole house with its sprinting little legs.  Well, doubting our abilities to catch the rodent was a correct assumption but the cats abilities were specifically designed for such an encounter.  It was mere seconds before the cat had her in her clutches.  Jared panicked that the hamster was going to be eaten and slapped the cat away and got ahold of the hamster.  It was a very close and very entertaining game of cat and hamster.  Needles to say, the lid is double checked for security before it is put on the floor after that.

With all of these animals it is beginning to feel like a barnyard.  Next week, goats, chickens, maybe a pony?

Art

I was able to get some tickets to the theater here in town for all the plays and musicals in a shortened version for schools.  They do this to expose the kids to theater in a more manageable dose....the same cast performs the evening full price shows.   Our first one was for the Nutcracker.  The kids seemed to enjoy themselves and it got them out of school so that was an added bonus.  Jordyn's only comment to me was that it was good, but the white tights were creepy and weird.  We laughed about that all the way home and then of course when we told Daddy about it we started making inappropriate jokes about the revealing nature of the tights and the name of the ballet.  lol  Later that night the 2 little ones had an art show at their school to show off all the projects they have done in art club. 

A couple of days ago while Jordyn had some free time in art class she drew the pic above, left.  She is calling it Elf Guitar Cowgirl.  We kept asking if she had traced a picture or copied a picture.  She just kept getting annoyed saying that she had done it all by herself.  The attention to detail is amazing.  The hair, the bow, the guitar with the fingers and the boots.  The stage lights make me giggle because they look a little inappropriate, if you know what I mean but she made sure to also include a stage curtain.  She also didn't take it well when Jared told her it looked like those big head cartoon drawings that people do on the side of the street.  She didn't look at it as a picture with the head too big.  She drew the head first that big so that she had room to do the eyes and then she realized that she wanted enough room for a guitar so she drew the body smaller.  She also loves to leave messages on white boards and I loved her fancy lettering....even though it is missing the t and her message of love. She is a cute, sweet girl with a big heart who makes me smile everyday.

Beans

Are you enjoying all of these canning posts?  Sorry, I'm a bit obsessed with canning as of late and I think everyone else should be too.  It really isn't hard and once you get the hang of it, it is really simple and you see the benefits of having all of these ready to go meals.  My friend and I set aside 3 days last week to get 75 lbs of beans canned.  We had 25lbs of each, black, pinto and northern beans.  Folks, that's a whole lotta beans.  Here's what my half looked like in jars.  12 quarts and 26 pints of pinto beans, 9 quart and 26 pints of northern, 5 quarts and 36 pints of black beans.  Each bean I ended up running my pressure canner 3 times in a day.  Each batch is around 3 hours when you add up time to steam, time for weight to rock and then you start your 75-90 minute time under pressure and then it has to cool for about an hour before you can take the lid off.  Then the process starts over again.  One thing to remember when canning beans is to NEVER add any salt.  You can only salt your beans when you go to use them.  If you salt them at anytime during the canning process your beans will not soften.  This goes for cooking them from a dry state as well.  We did add some bacon, bell pepper, onion and some garlic.  For the black beans we also added some jalapeño to some of the jars.

Here are 2 more things we learned during this process.  Everything about canning says to cook the beans for 30 - 60 minutes before canning them after soaking them all night (changing the water once) I will never do this again because the beans got a bit overcooked for my taste.  Second, I will not fill the jars as full either.  The panic of just how many jars and batches it was going to take made us overfill the jars leaving no room for expansion.  They are still good, however we got beans splitting and they don't slide out of the jar as well as your store bought canned beans do.  This really doesn't matter on the pinto because they are turning into refried beans anyway, but the black and the northern you want "pretty" beans for.  So again, lesson learned.

The pic with the northern beans has a chocolate no-bake cookie that I was holding.  I made them with my scout troop the night before and I was on my 4th one that day.  The northern was my last day of bean canning and I was beginning to feel like I had entered the 7th level of bean hell by this time.  My sanity was hanging on my consumption of cookies and I needed to be saved from myself.  Luckily because we did such large batches I would say that only every couple years we need to do it so it was well worth the time investment.  I think we figured that each jar was about 16 cents, again not including the investment of jars....which only added 50 cents to the price, so still significantly cheaper than the store and better for you.  One last piece of advice.  If you decide to buy a pressure canner, go low tech (weights not gauges) and go big.  My friend can't double stack in hers so the process really slows down when you have to do more batches.  We only used hers for quarts because it was a waste to run it with pints and mine we were able double stacked pints in.  If I could get my hands on an industrial sized one and perhaps a warehouse that would be even better :0)

Pumpkin

 Ever wonder about canning your own pumpkin?  Well, wonder no more.  We waited a bit too long for the pumpkins to go on sale so we ended up with some pie pumpkins and some carving pumpkins.  You want the pie ones because there is more flavor in them.  They are a much more dense and firm pumpkin than the carving ones.  You can also see the color variation between the 2.  Next year on the day after halloween it is time to snatch up the good deals on the left over pumpkins.  I guess the stores figure that no one is using them for their thanksgiving meals?  Lesson learned.  It still worked out just fine with the mixed variety.  It could have used a bit stronger of a flavor, but it is nothing horrible or even close to it. The hardest part about canning it is getting the skin off.  Some websites suggested steaming them in the microwave.  Well, that took just too long and the pumpkins turned to mush and remember that they still have to get cooked for 75-90 minutes in the pressure canner so it just wasn't a good idea plus it didn't make the removal any easier.  It is easier to get the skin off after you have cut it into strips.  Have a friend come over and you can suffer through getting carpal tunnel from the process together. :0)

Here are some things you can do with your pumpkin.  If you want to make pies, you need to drain off the liquid and use your handy hand blender.  1 Quart drained will make 1 pie.  This was a bit surprising to me because I figured it would only take a pint.  If you want to make pancakes, this time keep your liquid when you puree and just make your normal recipe and substitute for the liquid. My friend made cookies with the more liquid puree and they were perfect, so you will just have to experiment.  It worked out to be 20 cents or so per jar of pumpkin, not including the jars.  Hunt around thrift stores, hit up old ladies and check online for people looking to unload their canning jars.  If you have to buy them from the store, stuffmart is by far your cheapest option by dollars!  Happy canning.

Fly Challenge

So what does a kid that hardly eats anything do when a dead fly magically lands into his rice after being swatted by his grandpa?  Well, your sick twisted father offers you 50 bucks if you actually eat it.  Does Dad think he is going to loose his money?  No, because the kids hardly eats anything.  Well, on this night the money was looking like too good of a deal to pass up.  He has also been watching a few too many of those survival shows to not be extra intrigued by the idea.  I sat in stunned silence unsure if my eyes were actually seeing what I thought I was seeing, my son putting the fly into his mouth and swallowing it.  Grandma and Grandpa were there to witness the entire sick twisted scene play out.  What a kid will do for some cash....He totally gets it from his Dad who will do almost anything for a buck.

For the Love of It

Once a year we get a truck that delivers farm fresh chicken to our area.  I got another box and did my usual freeze half, can half.  The only thing I did different this year was to not do any quarts and to top off the jars with some water.  I also had a huge bag of apples sitting on my kitchen floor going bad that needed to be attended too.  I have a friend that has several apple trees and is kind enough to let me get apples.  This year her trees didn't produce much, but her sisters land had a full bounty that was just going to waste.  The day that I was supposed to go pick apples with my friend and neighbor, Kim something else had come up and I wasn't able to go.  She was kind enough to bring a bunch home for me and then they just sat there for a week.  Well, what do you do when you are babysitting chicken in the pressure canner?  You make apple butter and applesauce.  Making the apple butter is super easy, see pics below.    

All you do is throw all the ingredients into the crockpot.  Set it to high for 1 hour then turn it to low for 6 hours or so, until the apples become translucent.  Then you uncover and let cook for 1 hour more.  The recipe called for whisking at this point to get the apple butter consistency that you want, but I got nowhere with that approach so I just whipped out my handy hand blender.  The first batch I made I did it freezer style.  The second time I made it with my MIL we hot water bathed them.  I like this much better because I just hate taking up freezer space.  The applesauce is a much more time intense endeavor though.  5lbs of apples only yield about 2 1/2 pints.  I also did not have a food mill when I tried it out for the first time because I wasn't even sure I would like it.  When I discovered how yummy it was and that my family loved it and ate a pint per sitting, I was going to need a better process, so I ordered myself a food mill.  I will say that even with a food mill it is going to take some time if you do the recipe that I do where I leave on the skins.  Call me old fashion and a glutton for punishment, but I think it gives the best flavor to leave them on.  Here is my recipe....I combined a couple that I found on the internet and added my own twist.  I also double and tripled the recipe and it cooks down just fine, you will just need a big canning pot to do the job.

Quarter and core (you don't have to core if you have a food mill, but I do anyway)

measure out 5lbs

Throw into a big pot

1/2 cup sugar

1 cup good apple cider

3-4 sticks cinnamon (get a big jar from a warehouse store for much cheaper)

2 tsp lemon juice

2 tsp pure vanilla 

Let it cook down until the apples are very soft and a bit mushy

Use a slotted spoon to lift the apples out and either push through a mesh strainer or use a food mill.  The skins wont go through either method so just discard them.  Depending on how much liquid your apples produce or how much cooks off will depend on how much extra liquid you have left over.  I didn't have a bunch but I did have some liquid left in all the batches that I made....I did several more after those pictured above.  Basically get the applesauce to the consistency that you like it.  Keep another pot on the stove set to low to keep the strained apples warm for the canning process.  Getting all the apples processed will take a bit of time.  Then hot water bathe them for 20 minutes and put them on the shelf. If it's like at my house they wont be there very long.  I ended up doing mostly quarts after this because of how quickly a pint goes at my house.  Sorry I didn't think to take any pictures of that process.  I'm sure I will be making it again and there are plenty of other peoples pics to look at on the great big web world.  

Crash

Jared and I got in a car accident back in October.  It was a day the Emma was feeling sick so she had stayed home from school.  I had a million things I had to do that day so I had never made it out of my work out clothes or to a shower.  You think I would have learned my lesson from the funyun fiasco of 98 ( I got in a car accident after eating an entire bag of funyuns and was strapped on a gurney with a fireman way too close to my face and subsequently my odorous mouth, which was almost more horrifying than the accident)  Anyway.... I hastily left the house in my workout clothes, unbathed body, socks and red flip flops.  My shirt was fuchsia and my flip flops were red and yes, I was wearing socks.  I picked up Jared and was heading back home on a road famous for accidents.  The car in front of me decided to slam on their breaks and so I slammed on mine and just as I was letting out a sigh of relief that I avoided hitting them.....BAM!  The kid behind me slammed right into me.  Jared was completely confused because he knew that I stopped in time so he didn't know what happened.  I immediately got out of the car to asses the damage and the kid behind me was holding his head and asking if I was ok.  I told him I was fine and asked about his condition because he was holding his head.  He had been rocking out and slammed his head into the steering wheel.  He was a really sweet kid and just kept wanting to know if we were ok and that he was sorry.  At first I thought we escaped without much car damage because my bumper did the job it was supposed to and absorbed the impact.  His car didn't fair so well and the hood was up in the air.  This is a picture after he got his brother to come yank the engine back forward and put the hood down enough for them to drive it home.  I didn't realize that my muffler and my bumper were into the tire until I had tried to drive the car to a safe place off the road where we could fill out a report.
Here is where the story gets crazy.  This of course happened right before the election and I had a bumper sticker on the back of my car.  The fire department showed up and I talked to a very pleasant man that took an injury report from me and then one of the other firemen came up to me and asked me if I knew why I had gotten into the accident.  I just stared back at him stupefied until he added, "because of that bumper sticker on the back of your car."  I continued to stare at him with a blank look on my face hoping for some kind of punch line...is he being funny? "people are just gonna keep slamming into you until the president gets re-elected."  I thought surely now he was joking.  Like wink, wink those crazy voters.   The wink, wink never came.  The "only kidding" remark never came when I'm sure my face was now in visible shock and horror at his comments to someone already suffering from shock.  What kind of a screwed up world are we living in?  Where someone who is employed by the tax payers to serve all of the people in the community not only takes sides publicly, but feels inclined to take a shot at someone who has just been in a car accident.  This is where we are folks.  The country is being ripped apart and brother is being pitted against brother.  The people who we are supposed to trust can no longer be trusted.  In fairness he did come up to me before he left and said "in all seriousness, you CAN call us if you need anything."  That's when I said, "oh gee, thanks!"  I feel so much safer and better now that I know that you are legally obligated to assist me because I do in fact pay your salary! Our world is becoming more dangerous than ever and honestly I don't know how we are going to make it through sometimes.  People who don't want to work get to sit around and scream about fairness.  Union workers get to vilify the very people that pay their salary and demand more money from them than they make themselves.  etc, etc..Luckily I have a testimony of God and His plan otherwise all would be lost.  When the people choose wickedness the faithful have to get stronger.

Concert with MJ

Emma and I went to our first concert together back in October.  You know it's going to be a good time when you see a harp on stage.  We definitely felt out of place with the crowd that was there with us and didn't really get the memo on the fan base......There was lots of lady love happening all around us and this one couple really needed to gain some self control that was directly in front of us.  I don't want to see pda's of any kind that close to my bubble.  It is just inappropriate and it's not like we could just walk away or move.  Apparently the music just brings out the snogging in people and there was lots of drinking and drink spilling happening all around us.  Not exactly the best Mother daughter activity I have had.  I was not expecting that we had front row seats.  It was just the mosh pit between us and the stage.  It was quite the different experience than what she got at her cutsie boy band concert she went to before this one.  The music was good though and florence puts on a good show and has an amazing voice, so we enjoyed ourselves.

Redneck Goddess

I completely forgot to pictures of all the kids for halloween this year.  Sometimes I am so good at taking pictures and other times it just doesn't even enter my mind.  Especially since I haven't been lugging my big ole camera around much anymore because my neck has been bothering me too much lately.... so, I just use my crapola camera phone.  Emma used a costume we bought her a couple years ago so she was a Grecian goddess.  Jared dressed up like his favorite tv character, Sheldon. Ethan refused to wear a costume and Jordyn was "detention girl."  It was a glittered jail suit and the story she told everyone is that she got caught bedazzling a cop car so she was sent to detention. She went into much greater detail though.
I was having so much fun with my sewing machine after having made those masks that I decided that I wanted to sup up a costume that I found at the thrift store.  I bought a camouflage mens shirt so that I would have plenty of material and just cut off the sleeves and sewed them to the costume and then used the bottom of the shirt to sew a decretive hem onto the bottom of the dress.  I even used some of the material to cover a tiara that I had.  Nate is dressed like one of the characters from our favorite show about duck call makers.  He is Si and I am his redneck goddess because poor Si needs a good woman by his side.  It is the only time I have ever been able to get Nate to dress up....probably because he wasn't dressed up except for the beard.  He got into character by carrying around a tea glass and saying silly quotes all night.  It was a fun Halloween this year.

Super Mom

So, I am totally addicted to an online pinning site that lets me store all kinds of great ideas to try.  I am one of those crazy people that actually try the stuff I put on there.   This one had a pattern for super hero masks and I used my freezer paper...oh man, my mind is blank right now for what this process is called.    Ah yes, screen printing. Phew, that made my brain hurt a little.  We were going to a live musical performance of this character and so I figured that we might as well geek out and dress like fans.  So I bought some cheap craft shirts for the little ones and ended up finding an adult size (because they were out at the craft store) for MJ at stuff mart on clearance.  A little craft paint and some craft felt and a sewing machine and voila, you are a super fan.  It's times like this that a few minutes invested, because really we are talking an hour maybe 2 out of my day, gets me the awesome Mom of the day award....it's much easier to make the worst Mom award list than the awesome one so you have to cherish those moments. :0)