Thursday, February 26, 2009
This morning we found out a little girl that we carpool with in our neighborhood had tubes put in her ears today. I told Lexa after her dance class that we would go to the store and get her some balloons and ice cream to make her feel better. I told her that her friend was sad she couldnt go to school today and her ears might be hurting. Lexa told me that she wished it was her that had the tubes instead. I asked her why she said that (thinking it was because she is always begging me for a balloon at the store). Her answer was that Mykaela was her friend and she didnt want her friend to hurt. Lexa would rather take the hurt than have her friend be in pain! I'm still crying thinking about it. If only we could all be so selfless for our friends and family. We can learn so much from our kids!
Monday, February 16, 2009
Today was President's Day. For some odd reason the school district Lexa is in has decided to buck the norm and be different. They did not have Martin Luther King, Jr Day off and they did not have Presidents Day off. But because Nolan actually gets those days off, I have taken Lexa out of school anyways! I remembered to call the school this time, but forgot to call the mom I recently started carpooling with! Oops. At lease I didnt forget to drive her daughter, we just werent home when she came by. We spent another night playing games on Sunday with the Pippins. We all have been learning to play a game called Puerto Rico. I know that I am not the best person in the world at games, but I usually fare pretty well and even win once in a while. Well, Puerto Rico is not my game. I come in far and dead last every single time! And we have all played the exact same number of times. So, I went to my good friends in Texas and begged them for secret strategies. I would be happy just to not be last!! Well, I tried the advice I was given and came in second by one point! I almost won!! It was fun.
Alan really wanted to go swimming today. They usually go to Epic in Fort Collins, but we had heard great things about the Greeley Family Fun center. We found out that they have some odd hours for swimming. So we talked them into going to Longmont Rec Center. They have a great indoor pool, slides and a lazy river. It was a little more busy than usual (just Lexa and I in the whole pool) but we still all had a fun time. Nolan was holding Clara and floating in the lazy river. He said that she closed her eyes and was falling asleep. She loved playing in the water and recently discovered that she can put her face down and carefully drink from the bathtub or pool. It is hillarious and quite impressive that she does not get a snout full of water.
The Pippins headed home after a great lunch at Carls Jr and we went to my parents house. We hung out and napped until my dad got home from work. We had pizza and hung out some more. At one point Clara was trying to put a ball in my hand. She had to reach out and I had to reach to her, so I tried to get her to come to me. She walked like no problem, about 8 steps. Then she did it again for Nolan and again for Lexa. It was very cute and I am glad she did it before her first birthday!! Yay Clara!
Alan really wanted to go swimming today. They usually go to Epic in Fort Collins, but we had heard great things about the Greeley Family Fun center. We found out that they have some odd hours for swimming. So we talked them into going to Longmont Rec Center. They have a great indoor pool, slides and a lazy river. It was a little more busy than usual (just Lexa and I in the whole pool) but we still all had a fun time. Nolan was holding Clara and floating in the lazy river. He said that she closed her eyes and was falling asleep. She loved playing in the water and recently discovered that she can put her face down and carefully drink from the bathtub or pool. It is hillarious and quite impressive that she does not get a snout full of water.
The Pippins headed home after a great lunch at Carls Jr and we went to my parents house. We hung out and napped until my dad got home from work. We had pizza and hung out some more. At one point Clara was trying to put a ball in my hand. She had to reach out and I had to reach to her, so I tried to get her to come to me. She walked like no problem, about 8 steps. Then she did it again for Nolan and again for Lexa. It was very cute and I am glad she did it before her first birthday!! Yay Clara!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Strawberries were $.99 per pound at the grocery store last week so I decided I would try to make jam. After doing some research and calling some people, I tackled the challenge.
Jam isnt the hardest thing in the world to make, but you cant double the recipe because the pectin is finicky and wont set right if you do. So about two containers, or 2 lbs of strawberries makes 4 cups of crushed berries. Then it mixes with 7 cups of sugar. Once that is boiling, you mix in one packet of pectin and boil for 1 min. Then the water boiler takes about 20 min (10 min extra for our high altitude). One batch went pretty fast, but I had16 lbs!! I finally decided to make a couple of batches of freezer jam. That was nice because it didnt have to be boiled and canned. But it only used 1 lb of strawberries per batch. In the end, it took about 5-6 hours, we decided to eat 2 boxes of strawberries so we only used 14 boxes, 50 cups of sugar, and 8 packets of pectin. It made about 24 jars of varying size. One sad note, I dropped a qt size jar on the garage floor.
It was a long day but I hope it was very worth it. Nolan was super daddy. He played with Clara all day, he and Lexa washed their bikes (one motorcycle, one bicycle), and took them on a really long bike ride. He helped me set up the water-boiler. We use our gas camping stove outside. Seems to keep a steady boil better than our electric stove in our house.
Jam isnt the hardest thing in the world to make, but you cant double the recipe because the pectin is finicky and wont set right if you do. So about two containers, or 2 lbs of strawberries makes 4 cups of crushed berries. Then it mixes with 7 cups of sugar. Once that is boiling, you mix in one packet of pectin and boil for 1 min. Then the water boiler takes about 20 min (10 min extra for our high altitude). One batch went pretty fast, but I had16 lbs!! I finally decided to make a couple of batches of freezer jam. That was nice because it didnt have to be boiled and canned. But it only used 1 lb of strawberries per batch. In the end, it took about 5-6 hours, we decided to eat 2 boxes of strawberries so we only used 14 boxes, 50 cups of sugar, and 8 packets of pectin. It made about 24 jars of varying size. One sad note, I dropped a qt size jar on the garage floor.
It was a long day but I hope it was very worth it. Nolan was super daddy. He played with Clara all day, he and Lexa washed their bikes (one motorcycle, one bicycle), and took them on a really long bike ride. He helped me set up the water-boiler. We use our gas camping stove outside. Seems to keep a steady boil better than our electric stove in our house.
