Oops overdun it again!

I overdid it this last week. I don't know what my problem is always thinking I have to be supermom, but this summer I really thought we'd toned it down with running the kids from activity to activity (like we usually do in the summer), I did lots of canning and fruit picking, but maybe the problem was I never did take any breaks and I ran myself into the ground every night with housecleaning and taking care of kids and all that. So, I was really sore yesterday, but I just chalked it up to a big Friday workout. Today at church I was really uncomfortable and nauseous & couldn't walk without pain, somehow I made it through the morning. I'll have to cancel workout tomorrow & take more time to recoup because I barely have the energy to clean up Kalani's messes let alone chase kids around the house! Crossing my fingers that I feel better tomorrow after some more rest!

My beautiful monster batch of Jam!!

And I have no pictures because I can't find my camera!! Today I made a humungous monster sized batch of mixed-berry preserves!! I used 11 cups each of strawberries, blueberries & raspberries (all freshly picked from the farm, most of it I picked myself!) It took 42 cups of sugar & 6 packets of pectin. This is my all-time favorite kind of jam & it tastes SOOOO GOOOD! I ended up getting a total of 29 pints, Yum! Yum!

On a side-note, I'm also getting ready to can apricots. I've got 1 1/2 boxes in my food storage room waiting. Can't do it yet because I used up every ounce of sugar we had on the jam.

Budding Harpist

Here is Keanu at Grandma Grimmers house. She has 3 harps. Small, medium & huge. On this kid sized harp the boys like to sit and plink out melodies & sing to me. In this picture he's singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. He also sang and plinked Popcorn Popping, I'm a Little Teapot, and a couple other songs for me. How sweet and musical my little boy is!

cherry picking this week!

Oh I LOVE it when the fruit finally gets ripe & you can go picking!! A few weeks ago we picked mulberries & made mulberry-rubarb jam. Last week we picked up strawberries (at a strawberry farm in Yelm) & I'm saving them for jam. THIS week it was cherries & blueberries! We got the best deal on U-pick cherries & have been picking them ourselves. I canned 24 quarts of Raniers, 18 quarts of Bings, & made a triple batch of jam from Bings. We also got an amazing deal on U-pick blueberries, and these we're freezing. If I can go out to pick more I might make blueberry syrup or jam too. So here are some pictures of us cherry-picking together. The trees were plentiful & We had lots of fun!

Trying to just keep up with life - Good luck!

Um, do you EVER feel like you'd be lucky just to gather the kids to the table and make it into the kitchen to make something, but you don't even THINK of dinner until 4:30 or 5:00?? Oh it's dinner time already, quick! find something to feed the kids before they freak out! Today I took the kids to the free kids BBQ at the park & I left it up to Jeff to go pick something up. I'll find out what I'm eating when he gets back, and it's 7:30pm. Oh, bedtime already? Where did the time go? For some reason now that summer is here I'm having a harder & harder time getting into a routine & the swing of things. Everything is out of whack! I sure hope I can get it together soon!