Stewed

We're leaving this afternoon. I've been cleaning and packing and organizing and listing and cleaning and washing and folding and cleaning and washing for more than a week to get ready. We're all so excited. (Also thankful for sweet friends and neighbors that are willing to keep an eye on our house and animals while we're away. :)

I got up early this morning to complete all the little things that need to get done before we can leave our house for a week. One of those things is to can the tomatoes sitting in my fridge and garden. I've slaved over these babies all. summer. long. And if I don't get them put up before we leave, what's ripe now will be spoiled by the time we get back. I've worked too hard for that to happen. So regardless of other things that need to get done, I'm just going to have to slow down and spend some time in the kitchen this morning, canning and then cleaning up tomato seeds. :)

So as soon as it was light outside I grabbed Lilie and Violet (the two who like to be awake before the sun comes fully up) and headed out with a bucket to the garden to gather up all my little ripe gems. They're so beautiful and cold and it's lovely to walk through my garden and see the fruits of my labors.

In we came to wash, blanch, peel, cut. Into the jars. Red and lovely - with spatterings of yellow from the random yellow tomato plant that somehow showed up in my garden. Beautiful.

Into the canner, just waiting on the last jar.

Then.

A faint, brief cracking sound. {{Dread}}

I gently pick up the jar that I thought the sound came from, inspecting it for cracks. Nope. Looks lovely and sound.

Hmp. Whatever.

Pick up the other jar, just to give it a look-over for good measure.



Then the bottom of that jar breaks off and spills an entire quart of my hard earned tomatoes and precious pre-vacation time into a simmer pot of water.

@#$@!  #@#$#%!

{{{sigh}}}


{{{sigh, again}}}



Tomorrow I'm gonna be sitting on the beach. Watching the Pacific waves crash against the white sandy beaches of San Diego. Tomorrow I'll be at the beach. Tomorrow I'll be at the beach . . .

A Real World View of our Summertime

Things I {Don't} Love about Summer


#1 --- The never-ending stream of MESS that seems to seep into the whole house.

It seems that as soon as I clean it up, I'll leave the room to feed Violet, come back, and it's magically materialized again.

Either I'm loosing my mind . . . .

 . . . . the kids drop things wherever they're standing . . . 

. . . . or I'm just getting really tired of cleaning the same things over and over and over and over and over and over again.

Nonetheless. I DO keep cleaning the same things over again. And eventually we will conquer the STUFF that seems to be overtaking my world. 

#2 --- With the sun setting later, dinnertime seems to creep out of nowhere and I'm never ready for it. Last night after (avoiding the cleaning by) taking pictures (instead), I really didn't want to make dinner. I needed to finish making a cherry pie out of the cherries sitting in the fridge and while I contemplated just having that for dinner, I decided to instead also make a pot pie. Note to self: don't start making pies at 7:30 in the evening. It's too late. Just get pizza (for the third time this week). We finally ate at about 9:15. :)

#3 --- Watering and watering and watering. In my next life :) I'm going to have a sprinkler system.

Things I {LOVE} about Summer

#1--- My flowers 

#2 --- Canning

Aren't they beautiful!?
Call me crazy, but I really do love it.

#3 --- Summer Thunderstorms

As a kid, I loved sitting on the hot afternoon porch in the summer, watching it storm. I love rain and thunder and lightning. I wish we had a better place to watch it at our house now. 

#4 --- Late afternoon naps in your undies - after playing at the lake all day. :)

#5 --- Riding bikes all day.

#6 --- Tan Lines.

In your undies.

#7 --- Lazy days spent laughing at Pink Panther.

#8 --- Getting to spend the afternoon forgetting about the house and enjoying my girls.

Cut her first two teeth in the last two days!

The Cure

Oh what do you do in the summertime?
When the sun and my kids stay up so late?
So do I.



That didn't make any sense.



What I meant to say was - I have a problem going to sleep. I always have.

I once thought that I was a night owl. That I didn't like mornings. However the truth I have learned since having children is that I DO, in fact, love morning time. I would love it if it were possible to burn both ends of the candle (and still function with any sort of coherency). What I have learned since college and had reiterated to me over and over again throughout adulthood is that I do not like being jabbered at in the morning - when I've just woken up. BUT I DO like QUIET and beautiful mornings.

What did any of that have to do with my reason for posting? Absolutely nothing.



So today, in preparation for our upcoming vacation, I finished weeding our garden. It was fairly overgrown, being as how this is the first weeding of the season. It took some time, but Violet was asleep and I was alone. It was nice.

Yesterday morning I enlisted my two oldest to help me with this undertaking. They were each given a row that was their responsibility to clean. I had taken the hoe to the pathways between the rows. They needed to clean up the chopped off weeds and pull out the ones growing around the plants.

In true form, Hazel began, enthusiastic. That lasted all of two minutes, but she continued to trudge along. Complaining occasionally and doing a lot of staring, but not seeing, but working nonetheless and making steady progress. Singing along with me, "Tick, tock, tick, tock, goes the big clock. And to me it seems to say, 'Hurry child get your work done, then you'll have more time to play.'" :) In her typical fashion, Lilie immediately sat down and declared the job too hard and proceeded to sit on her rear drawing in the dirt - waiting for someone to come "help" (i.e. do the job for her while she pretended she was working). :) After about 15 minutes, she finally became convinced of the inevitability of the work and Lilie started to randomly pluck at the weeds. It wasn't until I whispered in her ear that if she worked quick, she might be able to beat Hazel, that she really picked it up. :)

It took more time that it needed to, but they eventually each completed their rows. There was a lot of "this is too hard" "I'm hot" "this isn't any fun" and so on, but they did it. And I became more determined than ever that this probably needed to become a regular responsibility.

As I worked my way through the rest of the garden today, on my own, I at first thought, I should go grab my iPod so I have something to listen to. But as I pulled and pulled I decided not to. It was quiet and I was working.

And I came to a conclusion.

I think many of the great ills in this world could be solved by more people bowing down on their hands and knees in a garden - pulling weeds. Nothing to listen to, nothing to watch. Just there in the dirt, by themselves --- or maybe with a sister. :)

We don't have enough quiet time in our lives. There is always something jabbering at us or something entertaining. Something to do. Somewhere to go. Turning on the radio, the iPod, the tv. Noise. Noise. Noise.

Sometimes it's just time to

BE STILL.

To think and to listen.

To just be with yourself and your own thoughts. And if you're working? All the better.

Maybe sometimes people don't like themselves because they haven't spent enough time with themselves. You know?

Maybe we repeatedly make the same mistakes because we don't spend enough time thinking quietly about the choices we want to or have made. Thinking about the things we have or need to or do NOT need to say.


Maybe we all need a little more time spent weeding our brains.



So there you have it.

I've got a cure. Or at least a start.

And I'm going to start with teaching my children.

Friday's Fabulous Five

It's been a while, but this is a good exercise for me.

1. My tomatoes are still alive! It's a flippin' miracle. Seriously. I think I prayed them to life. "Cry unto him over the crops of your fields . . . " Yeah. It was so cool and rainy and cloudy. My tomatoes were looking so sickly. But I prayed that they would live and THEY DID! They actually look like they are doing really well. I'm so happy about it. (Unlike my beans which have many of the tops nipped off of them from some horrible pest that I'm sure will . . . oh fine. I won't condemn whatever ate them, but I hope they got a bad stomach ache --- or died.)


2. My hollyhocks are about to bloom. I'm so excited. They're tall and lovely and right outside my bedroom window.

I'll post a picture once they come out. 

They're one of my very, very favorite flowers!

3. Nels' parents came and stayed with us last night as they were driving through town. I love them so much and always love having them come visit. My mother-in-law is truly one of the happiest, funnest (I know, not a word) people that I know. She is so willing to laugh and play with the kids. She doesn't take life too seriously and never minds if my house is a mess. :) My father-in-law is so wonderful and teaches me a lot by the gentle and quiet way that he goes about life. They are truly two of my favorite people on the whole planet. I'm pretty sure that they like me too. That means a lot to me. :)


We also got to see another set of some of our favorite people today. Mike and Hayley Siddoway, along with their two adorable children Paige and Reid. I honestly wish that I could hang out with Mike and Hayley every single day. I love them so much. Mike was Nels's roommate in college and he married one of the greatest gals ever. Do you have some people that when you're with them, all feels right in the world? I feel that way (and I know that Nels would agree) with these two wonderful friends. They are soon moving to CHINA! and then to the Middle East for a few years. We'll miss them, but we're so excited for them as well. Good luck guys! We love you!


4. We get to celebrate the birth of our nation this weekend and our wonderful liberty. I'm so thankful to be an American. I'm so thankful for the sacrifices and integrity of many who have given me this great gift. I hope that we can all do whatever is required of us to preserve the Constitution and the beautiful freedoms so graciously bestowed upon us by a loving Heavenly Father. I hope that I have a chance to sing a few of my favorite songs. I always get choked up singing our Anthem and about my love for our precious country, but I love it nonetheless.


5. My house has remained in a state of "almost clean" for two full days now. It's another miracle in my life. I don't think this has happened since Violet was born. Ah. Happy day. Hopefully over the next few weeks, we've finally reached a place where we can start having a bit more of a schedule again. You know, like where laundry gets done and floors get vacuumed - maybe even MOPPED! *gasp* These are important parts of my self-esteem, believe it or not.

Birthdays and Harvesting

Finally getting around to posting the girls birthday pictures! hooray! :)

We has a great week with our birthday girls this year. Grandma Moon was able to come the week before and spoil them with her beautiful presence and presents :) as well as carrot cake. Yum! Good food is always in abundance when Grandma is around! :) It was a gorgeous week (except for Hazel's birthday, on which I believe it snowed) and that weekend, Grandma and Grandpa Chick and Great-Grandma and Grandpa Larson were able to come visit on their way to Utah. It was so wonderful to see them and the girls loved going to out to breakfast with them Saturday morning.

Hazel's cake this year turned out . . . lovely. She told me that she wanted a pink cake with a purple octopus on it. (???) Too bad spiders and octopi have to look so similar! :)

Her special birthday heart hair :) and her fuzzy new robe.

After eating most of two cakes by the time we got to Elsie's birthday, I was just all caked out. So instead we made birthday brownies. :)

If you should try this at YOUR house, please be sure to cool the brownies before you put the was candles into them . . .

October started off beautiful, but then let us know (full force) that she is a FALL month. We picked the remainder of our garden October first and it froze every single night for the next two weeks! :) We got LOTS of pumpkins this year (which was nice after last years sad attempts). I had no idea what to expect from a pumpkin plant . . . just an fyi for future pumpkin growers, pumpkin plants get HUGE!! It took over at least 1/3 of our fairly large garden with its beautiful orange fruit and bright green leaves (not to mention part of our neighbor's backyard), but if nothing else, it made my garden look really full and abundant! :)

Not only did our garden produce --- produce this year, it also turned up baby kitties! :) Which my children have been loving and loving and loving into docility.

They are absolutely adorable and it's been fun to have them around, but truth to tell, I'm really glad that they're not mine. - They're strays. - I'm glad that they've started eating solid food this week and are now ready to find someone else to love them.

Perfect - how many times can I use it?

Don't you love it when your cable for connecting your camera to your computer is all the way downstairs . . . . :) You finally go get it only to realize that you've picked up the firewire cable (raise your hand if you know what firewire is) instead of the USB.

I hope that's not the kind of day today is destined to be,

because in my opinion, today is meant to be a beautiful, relaxing, PERFECT Fall day; filled with cut grass, planted mums, riding my bike to get Hazel from school, and going to the zoo (don't think too hard about whether or not I used that semicolon correctly).

---- Yep. I've made up my mind. It's going to be perfect . . . regardless.

I just read the most perfect post about the first trimester of pregnancy here. What a strange phase that is. Glad it's over.

I love Fall. I have been aching for Fall for months. SO glad that it's here. Idaho Falls has beautiful Falls . . . usually . . . for a few days. :) Yesterday was a perfect day. With a simple dinner of mac 'n' cheese followed by lounging on the trampoline and hammock wrapped up in blankets and pillows, reading books, and eating homegrown (neighbor's) apples with my Hazel and Lilie.

Does it get more perfect?

Apparently not. As Lilie asked in her prayers for her mommy "tomorrow to be happy like today." :S --- I'm going to look in the bright side of that sweet prayer . . . . . . . . . . and do my best to fulfill it.

Do you ever get a late night craving for fresh, perfect tomatoes (straight from your garden) sliced thick and generously sprinkled with salt and pepper, set between two pieces of buttered, homemade focaccia bread?

Mmmmmmm . . . I mean, who would? Seriously. (((sigh)))

Isn't this what all children should do on a 75 degree afternoon? Sit on the trampoline dividing the goods from your friend's candy sack?

And finally, my little butterfly. She needed both sets of wings to fly (skip-bounce) all around the family room singing, "Mommy, I fwying, fwying, fwying!" And calling herself Peent-o-bew.

I'm a lucky mom. I'm so thankful that I can be at home with my girls! --- Even if I just realized that I don't get to go pick up Hazel on my bike because I have carpool today. I guess now I get to take a shower instead! :)

Swimming in the Dirt

For Mother's Day Nels rototilled our garden. This poor garden had been neglected for at least 8 years and was over grown with weeds, grass, and yard crud. We spent Saturday & Monday getting it all ready to be planted and the girls and I have now finished (mostly)! We are so excited to finally have a garden!!!

Monday gardening was "Family Home Evening". --- I'm sure this will be the first of many nights spent as a family in the garden. Nels did such a wonderful job talking to the girls about our garden and the FIRST garden. Talking about Adam and Eve. It was a wonderful little lesson as we slaved away. The funniest part was trying to keep the girls from walking across the newly mounded rows (that's funny???) and Nels telling the girls about how when Adam and Eve disobeyed, they were thrown out of the garden. At about that time (for the millionth time) the girls walked down another row and "got locked out of the garden" for disobeying. Good object lesson, no?

Saturday was a glorious day and the girls, of course, needed to play in the sprinkler. --- Hence the swimsuits and the dirt-digging. :)

Beautiful, cheesy girl!!! So happy on the swing set!

Pledging allegiance to her mother!! :)

This past weekend has been yet another affirmation of the fact that Elsie is the most wonderful baby ever born! :) While we cleaned the garden, she sat in this little swing for AT LEAST 2 hours! She then took a nap and came back out later, sitting in her exersaucer for another hour or so. She would just sit there, happy, watching --- occasionally one of the girls would push the swing for her --- and every time someone would turn in her direction, she'd just smile from ear to ear and laugh. We love her so much!!! She is so happy and so sweet! She loves to laugh and play! She's so fun!