salsa

 Kyle is out on another call, and i cant sleep when he is gone so i am catching up my blog and watching the office!

Kyle and I have a few common hobbies,

taking pictures and learning about photography,

the outdoors/hunting, and I am proud to say i drew a elk tag this year,

Our beautiful kids

and

the garden.

Kyle has made our garden huge, 

we get about a huge zucchini and squash everyday,

I have a bag full of cherry tomatoes and I had 77 big tomatoes!

Kyle decided that we were going to use those tomatoes to jar some salsa! 

So we bought a few essential canning tools and read up on it and started today! 

 Lauren, the queen of canning, has always told me and wrote on her blog how much work canning was. I never doubted her, but holy crap-o-la, it is alot of work!

First you have to boil all the tomatoes so that the skins will peel off easy. I dont have a fancy dancy veggy steamer pot thinger, so i just dunked them in boiling water till the skins started to peel up.

Then I would toss them into cold water in my sink! 

Till they look like this...

this little process took forever.

Kyle helped me peel the tomatoes while I got Grace ready for school.

After all of that i really wanted to be done, but i had a big bowl of skinless tomatoes so i had to keep going.

Then i cut them all up into little pieces,

and threw them into the biggest pot in my home, which is not big enough when it comes to canning. After i got all the tomatoes cut up i threw some onions, peppers, cilantro, salt, and sugar in with them and blended them up.

Then started to boil it.

and after a hour or so it was still watery, so i had to get some advise from Lauren and she told me to keep boiling.

So i kept boiling for a long, 

long time, 

till Kyle told me that it looked thick enough.

Then i put them into jars,

and into the water bath.

 After 20 minutes in the boiling water the seals were still popping, so i called Lauren again, she told me to flip them over and so thats what i did!

And guess what?!

It worked!

After 6 or so hours i have 9 pints of salsa, was it worth it?

Not really.

Will I do it again, only next time make spaghetti sauce?

Yes probably, cause i have about a billion more tomatoes out on my bushes!! 

2 years old!

2 is a hard age.

I lived through Grace, but the twins are giving me a run for my money. They are into everything and have to do everything themselves, when they want something, they want it now. 

The other day they got out of the tub and decided they wanted their "nails done",  

now. 

I was busy doing thing like, 

getting diapers to cover their butts, 

getting "get ready stuff" and just turned my back for 1 second and Alaynna had painted her and sisters nails and her mouth.

This is Alaynna toes...

 Her fingers and her mouth, apparently how she opened the bottle.

And Addisons fingers and toes!!! 

Yea for 2 year olds!!!! 

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Over this long weekend the Leavitts had a family reunion, it was alot of fun!

The girls just ran and ran, there are so many little kids on the Leavitt side that it is always fun for them to run and be around more than just me and Kyle! 

We also got to eat the best dutch oven food i have ever ate. Have you ever had shepherds pie in the dutch oven,
really the best thing i have ever ate.

I am probably going to have to call and get the recipe,
or make Penn call for me!

On our way home the twins fell asleep, after getting home for a minute Kyle and I fell asleep and didnt wake up till the phone rang at 5:30!!!! We all slept for 3 hours, except Grace who was watching the Disney channel, how bad of parenting is that?!?

But that little nap was just what the doctor ordered for all of us,

that was till the twins wouldnt fall asleep till 9:30!!

We had a really great weekend, we had to stay home cause Kyle was on call, but we kept busy outside cause the weather was wonderful.

  When was the last time that you could have the windows opened at the end of May?!

 I found a picture the other day where the sun looked so pretty on this little girls face and i have wanted to learn how to do it, so i asked Grace to be my model!! 

To say she was excited was a understatement, she went and got her "dress up" clothes on and asked to wear one of my necklaces!

She kept on doing these crazy "Americas next top model" poses, and saying 

Do you like this pose?

How about if i do my model walk? 

What should i do with my face?

i didnt quite get the sun how i wanted it, but it was sure fun to shoot my little model!!! 

She did this pose all by herself and thought that it was her favorite picture!!! 

The girls really like to copy everything Grace does, so they had to get some "model"pictures done to! 

 

This is kinda what i was going for, i like it when you can see the sun, any photographers out there know what i mean and could give me some pointer, it would be much appreciated!!! 

Horny Toad

When Kyle got home yesterday he told the girls he had some candy on his cooler. So they all ran out and Grace opened it up to find a horny toad!!!!!

She thought he was pretty cool and held him for awhile. Alaynna looked but wouldnt touch him and Addison just wanted the Cheetos and couldnt care less about the ugly thing!

Grace let him go in the honeysuckle so I am sure we will be seeing more of him than we want to!

Since we were already outside we decided to go see what was in the garden. 

Kyle picked the huge zucchini and the squash and Alaynna thought she was pretty cool holding them!

We were trying to get a picture of her with them, but she had to keep putting them down cause that zucchini was as big as her and she kept dropping it!

Kyle was watering the squash garden and the girls think it is alot of fun to play in it, so they spent alot of time in there going through the bushes and getting muddy! 

Addison doesnt really like to get dirty so her and Josie found different ways to get out of the sunflowers! She thought it was pretty fun and just kept running in circles!! 

Alaynna loves to play in the water and get all dirty and she for sure did yesterday! 

Dont you love her crazy hair and dirty face?

Our tomato bushes have gotten a little out of hand, they are taking over the squash. They are so huge and thick that we have to go dig around in them to see if any of the tomatoes have turned red, and we pull a few red ones out every day!

Especially the cherry tomatoes, holy cow we are going to have a million of them, anyone have any good ideas on how to use them?! 

Spring Recital

Graces dance recital was last night!
She looked so pretty and she did so good!

When she was younger she would line things up in rows, as she has gotten older her obsessiveness and her need to be the best has only gotten worst!
She looked at Mrs. Amanda the whole time making sure she was doing the right thing at the right time!
And thats ok, I just think her perfectionist issues might become a problem for us when she is older!

She kinda looks scary in this one, but i think in a cute way!!

I have been so excited to see her dance, and she has been so excited to dance for all of us!
I havent been feeling to good so on Friday before her dance rehearsal i laid down for a little bit. When I came out to get her ready and get the girls out the door she was dressed in her dance clothes, shoes on, ready to go!!

We have had alot of fun this year in dance class with Mrs. Amanda, Grace really loves her and has learned alot from her! Grace has also really enjoyed all of her Dance Class friends!

Lauren and I with our big cameras had to get a few of the girls together! I think this one is a really cute!!

We sure do love Mrs Amanda and hope she has a fun summer and a healthy happy baby so she can teach again sometime soon!

My dad, Nancy, Penn, and Kaden all got to come and see Grace dance and she thought that was cool!
I appreciate that all of our family trys to be to all the things we are involved in and supports us so much, and when they cant make it they feel bad and ask for lots of pictures, so thats why i always have a ton of pictures and try to keep my blog updated!

Dance class is over for the summer and there is only a few weeks left of school and I am so excited to have a break for a little bit!! these girls of mine keep me going and I am afraid the older they get and the more involved, the more I am just going to run!!!