A post in which I didn't blow up my kitchen

It was an eventful morning, I had four extra kiddos at the house and decided since it seemed so calm and relaxing with seven kids in the house (Morgan is at a friends house) that I should try pressure canning tomatoes. It turned out to be so easy, thanks to a fairly simple to use pressure cooker that I borrowed. I ended up with four pints which came from six huge tomatoes. My garden is still overflowing with green tomatoes so as they ripen I will can some more. There is such a feeling of accomplishment being able to "put up" food for my family, this winter should be full of lost of fruit and veggies, hurray! We will begin our apple picking, canning, dehydrating adventure in the next week or so. I borrowed an extra crock pot so the applesauce making will go much faster than last year. I hope to do two to three times as much as I did last year so it will last until next fall. In saying that it makes me think I better get a tally of what I already have in the pantry and post it on here, not that I'd be bragging or anything;)
**UPDATE**
7 pints tomatoes
2 qts applesauce
4 pints pears
23 qts peaches
8 qts, 20 pints boysenberries
25 qts, 9 pints blueberries
4 pints peach jelly
3 pints strawberry jam
6 pints boysenberry jam
We have used quite a few jars of peaches and blueberries already but it's a good start!

Another weekly update!

This past week has been somewhat busy, I guess, no excuses for no blogs though. The 13th was my birthday, we didn't do anything on it except go play at a park since Don was gone. We finished our second full week of homeschool and are getting into more difficult things so it has become challenging, I have to remember my patience occasionally and that this is all worth it, which it is for sure! Don finally came home from Louisiana after two weeks and we kind of hibernated for the weekend, it was so nice to have another adult in the house to talk to, help with parenting, and of course make some meals! He had the kids make me a birthday cake which turned out cute, and the OMG stands for "Oh my goodness" of course since we don't say the other words at our house!!!! I'm going to have to do a slide show with the cake because there are a plethora of photos and I'd hate to leave any of them out!

Hi Mom

We are alive, I will post some updates on Tuesday!

Is this not the most beautiful little girl?

Rollerblading/skating fun

The kids all now have a pair of either roller skates or roller blades. I got them all suited up and loaded them in the car tonight and headed to a local park. They had a great time, I am constantly reminded how thankful I am for wrist pads! It was funny to see them trying to play on the equipment with their stuff on though, goofballs!

Summer goodness

A good friend of mine called on Saturday and gave me the number to her dad who in turn invited us out to his property so we could pick corn, apples, and pears. I ended up with a ton of corn and apples and about half a basket of pears. I canned 6 pints of pears, 3 quarts of applesauce, then dehydrated apples and pears. Last I blanched the corn and cut if off the cob to put in the freezer, I think I ended up with seven bags of corn, each bag I'm figuring with be the equivalent of 8 cans of corn from the store. Tomorrow I plan on making my famous apple cake! Yummy, it was such a blessing to have been given all that produce, apple season is upon us so we have many more bushels of apples to pick and can in our future.

Nothing new and exciting to report here. The kids and I had an impromptu photo session last night. We got a couple cute ones, I don't make it into the pictures often so it was fun. Our first week of school went well, no major hiccups or temper tantrums =)

First Day of school

Today was our first official day of homeschool! It went awesome. We got up had breakfast and started right off. We got done quickly and without any meltdowns which was awesome. I think after the review period in math is over that story may change =) I was so proud of them, their reward was heading out on a little walk to the library before our daycare kids showed up. I got a shot of the older two reading once we got back. Today is one of those days where I can truly say I love my life, I have great kids!

Okay I will try and quit the once a week posts now but no guarantees. Don's sister and her husband came for a visit this weekend and I was bad and got next to no pictures of them, they had their camera out so much it didn't even cross my mind. We made a trip to the carousel building place and then Don made Ty's real birthday cake, it turned out so cute and he loved it!