Thursday, September 30, 2010

Our Newest Family Members

Sadly, I waited too long to post this one...

We got a couple of 1 year old bunnies for free off CL a couple of months ago.

The black one (Blackjack) for Joshua.

The white one (Snowball) for Liz.

They have absolutely adored their bunnies.

Corey built them a "bunny run" that they could move around in the yard so the bunnies could have room to run around during the day.

Yesterday, Joshua went to get his bunny and move him back into his hutch for the night but found that he had laid down and died.

He is devastated.

And I am heartbroken to see him so.

RIP Blackjack.

Even though you were small, Joshua is hurting big.

You will be missed.

Sunday, September 26, 2010

We gotter done!

Processing all that fruit and all those ears of corn just about did me in.

It took me an entire week to recover.

Ugh.

The kids are already plowing through the food too, much to my dismay.

But, since they all begrudgingly helped, I guess I'll let them.

Remember last year when I went to pick up the small mountain of veggies that we had ordered and I discovered that the employees there had nicknamed me "the crazy lady"?

And employees came out of the back room to see what I looked like?

Well, this year because I'm no dummy I sent Corey in there to order 1000 ears of corn.

He seemed shocked when he came back home and reported that they had laughed at him.

Because they thought he was joking.

I laughed gleefully when he couldn't see me because I was glad that it was him and not me knew how he felt.

Then we figured out the battle plan got organized for C Day (corn day).

As truly painful as it is to have kids helping put all this food up, we knew that the lesson was more important then our comfort.

After all, they are the ones that eat most of this food.

The day Corey went and picked up all the corn, we set up a "corn station" outside and went to work.

Even the four year olds shucked corn for several hours.

Hannah was such a good worker.
We set up the double burner camp stove outside and boiled the corn.
We then put it in the kids swimming pool to cool.

Hey that rhymes!  snicker...snicker...

After it had cooled, we used an electric knife to cut the corn off the cob.

Joshua's job was to put 2 pounds of corn into a bag and put it in the freezer.

Quality control found that the bags contained 3 and 4 pounds so that had to be remedied.

Thankfully we are not consuming that much...

Yet.
Lily was the official taste tester.
She took her job very seriously.

I had already made a mental note to have Corey change her diapers for the next few days...
The kids loaded up the husks in the trailer and hauled them back to the compost pile.
The tractor rides were their favorite part.
It took us 10 straight hours but it is done.

Can I hear a hallelujah?


Moving right along...

We also canned the peaches and pears.

We filled every.last.jar.that you see here.

I had kids peeling, cutting, complaining...you name it...they did it.
Also worth mentioning are the 220 pounds of green beans that we processed.

I had two groups of helpers on this project.

The littles.

And the bigs.

One group threw green beans at each other, spilled beans on the floor and one kid thought that he was a genius for discovering a new way to take the ends off.

Sorry, but biting off each end until you have a mouthful of ends (think like a chipmunk) and then spitting them machine gun style into a bowl just doesn't work for me.

Guess which group worked the best?

If you guessed the littles...

Then you are right.


I'll let you guess how this all ended...

Scenario #1

Everyone got along
Everyone worked without complaining
All the beans got done

Scenario #2

The kids complained and complained
Gray hairs started popping out all over in mom's hair
Mom finally lost her cool and screamed loud enough for the neighbors to hear at them to allgotoyourroomsifyouknowwhatisgoodforyou.
Mom finished the beans in blessed quiet, but all by herself.

The answer.

I'm so not tellin'...

Wednesday, September 8, 2010

Gulp!

Call me optimistic, industrious, in denial or totally and completely crazy...

But...

I just went and picked up 200 pounds of peaches today.

Only to come home and have Corey tell me that my 300 pounds of pears are ready to can.

Did I mention that we are picking up 1000 ears of corn this weekend?

AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!

Excuse me while I go and hyperventilate...

Anyone have a spare paper bag?

Monday, September 6, 2010

School kiddos

This year I will have eight kids attending four different schools.

The six oldest have started already and the two preschoolers will start at the end of the month.

You would probably think that getting all these kiddos ready for school would be a total nightmare.

Not so...pinky promise.

After I had received the current school supplies lists, I pulled out my tub of school supplies to see what I already had.

Seems like the school supplies lists just keep getting longer and longer.

When the prices are so good in the fall, I stock up.

I had a bunch of stuff left over and I just figured out what I still needed.

I asked the kids to tell me if they needed new backpacks or binders.

Thankfully, my frugal, practical children only reported needing one new binder.

I asked them how their clothes were holding up and if they needed anything.

I buy clothes all year long, at Goodwill, so there is no big "school clothes" shopping trip.

My only exception was Joshua, who has been growing, who needed an entire new wardrobe.

So I went out to the mall, bought him all new clothes and spent hundreds of dollars.

Psyche!!!

Of course I didn't.

Joshua and I went up to the third level where I have the clothes sorted by size, in tubs and hanging up.

We found him a new wardrobe, of name brand clothes, in less then 30 minutes.

He said that clothes shopping this way "was really fun".

I spent about $50 total, on school supplies, and all the kids were ready to go.

Here is my big first grader, Matthew, with his new teacher.
Here are my middle school kiddos, Elizabeth and Joshua.

Joshua is so excited that summer is over, can't you tell?
My three high schoolers, Timothy (frosh), Michael and Joseph (soph).
We are in for a great year...

I'm sure of it!

Sunday, September 5, 2010

The Trek

My four oldest boys had an opportunity to go on a pioneer reenactment with their church.

I'll admit that I wasn't truly on board, only because I really wasn't in the mood to come up with a pioneer wardrobe for four boys.

Thankfully, Goodwill came to the rescue, even if we did wait till the last minute to shop.

Joseph did not want to go. I wasn't going to make him go until he told me that it was going to "waste his time."

Now, a lot of adults have spent a lot of time and effort into making this memorable.

People took time off of work to go.

A waste of my 15 year old son's time?

I think not.

Much to his dismay (and he was a HUGE grump about it) we made him go.

Here are the hand carts that they had to pull.

Each kids was assigned a "family" that they had to live with for the weekend.

This is Josh's family.
Pretty sure that pioneers didn't have sunglasses.

That's Tim for ya.
The twins pulling a hand cart.
Sleeping out in the open
Thanks to our ward family for making this possible!
And my grumpy, ungrateful 15 year old?
He had an amazing time...
And he is very glad that he went.
In fact he said, "Mom you were right."
Which was the best part of it all to me.

Saturday, September 4, 2010

Utah Trip

Remember when I mentioned that I was close to going postal stayed home while my family ran away from me went to Utah?

Even though my previous post may have seemed otherwise, I do realize that it wasn't all about me unfortunately.

They had a ton of fun and didn't want to come home.

My little ones are still asking when they can go back.

We have an enclosed trailer and it was packed totally full of clothes, bedding, bikes and misc items that needed to be hauled back to Utah.

Showing off our true redneck selves, I filled up a full-sized freezer full of dinners and Corey loaded it up in the trailer and took it too.

We just didn't want to burden anyone with our large fam and eating out is something that we only do once or twice a year.

Corey took the kids and did some really fun things.

They got to go on bike rides...
Cousin Kristina and Hannah
Lily Pad and Levi
They played on the playground...
Lily went to jail...
Oops, my bad,
She's just on the playground.
Cousin Allison and Liz
Cousin Emily?
I think this is Emily.
Zip it...it's not like we see them that much and there are lots of kids, K?
One of the twins.
Don't ask me which one.
Cuz I don't have  clue.
Here are the twin cousins, Reagan and Ashley.
I can't tell them apart so I just call them Rashley or Agan.
That way they will both answer.
Lily Pad
Hannah Banana
The kids played in the back yard...

We so need to work on Levi's "say cheese" face...
Matthew
The kids loved the little blow up pool.
And LP (Lily Pad) couldn't get enough of the zip line.
The twins got to go to a pro soccer game.

Thanks for the tickets Uncle Casey!
They went hiking...
And had snacks...
Joshua
So beautiful!

Almost makes me want to move there.

Except my in-laws are there.

So, almost not.

Kidding people...
Corey and the kids that went hiking
Corey's brother, Jamie and his family
All the excitement wore out lil LP.
They got to hang out with family that they rarely get to see...
Michael with Corey's mom and Corey's brother, Casey (my fav BIL)
Matthew with Corey's stepmom
Corey with his dad and five of his siblings
20 of the 21 (and counting) grandkids
That is a whole lotta Walkers...

Just sayin...