Bottled Fruit

Today I have sitting on my counter 14 quarts of peaches and 13 quarts of pears. There is just something about seeing your finished product. In a couple days I'll have the kids put them downstairs in our storage room, but for now I'm just going to leave them there so we can look at it and know that all the hard work was worth it.
Jacob and I had a pretty good system with the pears. He was pealing them and I pitted and sliced and put them into the jars. I did break one jar thus the reason for only 13 quarts instead of 14, but I think that is the first time I've ever done that. I bought my own water bath caner this year. Kind of nice.
We still have quite a few peaches left and a few pears, but the kids are enjoying fresh fruit for now. Also this is the first year that our peach tree was loaded, which isn't enough to bottle, but maybe next year I'll be able to save $30 and just use our home grown ones. And they are delicious!
One of my favorite treats is peaches and cream. I've had this since I was little. Canned milk poured over sliced peaches with a little sugar on top. Yummy!!

Cake Sale

It that time of year again. . . no I'm not talking about bottled fruit or dried cornstalks, or even pumpkins sitting on the porch, I'm talking about the Scout Auction. Every year our local scout group puts together a friends of scouting auction to raise money. As is tradition, each scout bakes a cake with his dad to donate. This year we had two cakes to bake so . . . Dennis and I went with divide and conquer. The boys picked their theme and we did out best to make it happen. This is what we came up with. The boys were happy. . . mission accomplished.

Family Vacation

standing: Khora, Jacob, Luke, Isaac
sitting: Afton, Sariah, Karley, Walker

(Khora with her favorite rocks.)

We were finally able to take a little family vacation last weekend. We took 4 days off and went camping up our favorite canyon. We had a trailer, 4 wheelers and good friends. We had so much fun. The kids played so well together and the time went by so quickly. We went hiking, fishing, 4 wheeling, and on a fun drive to look for elk. So nice! We loved every minute of it. It was a little hard to come back home and get back into the routine though.

Four Months Old

*UPDATE: Bonnie now weighs 14lbs 2oz and is 25 inches long, and is a healthy and happy baby. The other day the kids timed her and she sat on her own for 12 seconds.

Bonnie rolled over last week. She has also been trying to grab everything she can reach and then of course everything goes in the mouth. She's gearing up for baby food soon. She's not quite sitting on her own though so it might be another month before we try anything. She loves it when we give her pony rides on our knee and her favorite book is about baby faces. She just gets so excited when she looks at all those cute babies! She still loves talking to us and lets herself be heard but she's always quick with the smiles! She has a Dr appointment in a couple weeks so we'll learn her stats then.