Canning!!

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So for our relief Society activity tonight I am teaching how to can Chicken in the pressure cooker. I thought I'd better how before I taught it. I have canned chicken several times with my mom but never on my own and those pressure cookers kindof make me nervous, having the potential to blow up and all. So last night I finally got around to playing with it. I did some fun experimenting with it and didn't get done till around 1:30AM. I figure if I can successfully pressure cook at that time I can teach it any time! ;) It turned out fun and I can't wait to see how it all tastes!

My experiements included:

Chicken

Italian Seasoned ground beef

Taco Seasoned ground beef

Bacon & Beans (pinto)

Nana's beans (pinto beans with chili powder, diced chilies, ground beef, garlic and tom sauce)

Stew Basics (Potatoes, carrots, corn and tomatoe sauce)

Potatoes and carrots

Pork N Beans (Pinto beans, tomatoe sauce, Karo Syrup and some bacon)

We'll see how they taste!!!!! How exciting!!!!

MamaZelle in the Hospital

MamaZelle (my mom) went to the emergency room a couple days ago because of blood loss. We were glad she went in as she had been losing so much blood the whole last week! By the time results came back they found she had lost 1/2-2/3 the amount of blood in her body, quite a scare! They hooked her up to get blood and put 4units back into her. By the time we saw her she was looking and sounding really good, after getting her 3rd unit of blood started. She's had lots of tests and an oncologist was even being called in to do tests on her Thyroid Cancer. Grandma and Grandpa Wade came on over the same time we did and Mason had some time to play doctor by putting "sticky's" on MamaZelle and Grandma both. We got to write her a little note on her dry erase door and it was cracking me up to see Grandma playing with the boys. She was helping them discover the different buttons on MamaZelles bed and see what they do "Oh what does this one do....Joyzelle we are going to move your feet up, ok push that button." It was really sweet. Porter wrote his name on the board and everyone OOOed and Ahhhed. Anyway, we are so glad Mom went into the hospital and she is being well taken care of and on her way to recover. We love you!

First Dentist Appt

The boys both went in for their very first dentist appointment this week. We went into the new office last week to make the appt and they were just so excited to go back! There was a few times they got a little nervous but for the most part couldn't wait. When we got there mom got busy signing them in and getting all the paper work done while they went and watched a movie then we read some books together.

The dental assistant called us back and Porter went in like CHAMP!! At this point Mason decided he wasn't so sure about being here. As we walked past the rooms he could hear noises and didn't like that at all. He insisted I hold him the entire time. Meanwhile Porter got right up on the chair to take xrays, kept telling Mason "It doesn't even hurt Mason!!" Then went right into the exam room sat on the big chair with the cool glasses he was given, watched the movie while she cleaned his teeth and sat perfectly opening wide for the dentist when he came in. I don't know why they even tried talking to him and give him instructions while there was a movie on the ceiling. Ha! He paid no attention. Way to go Porter!!

Mason ended up sitting on my lap and leaning back toward the dentist while he checked his teeth. He was not liking it at all but we eventually got it all checked out and he looked good. They got balloons and fun bags with a toothbrush and floss. Mission complete!

P

Odd weather = FUN times

Ok we've had some interesting weather! One day it was so Hot I finally got out the slip-n-slide for the kids and they had a great time in the water cooling off. Next day we are nice and cool playing in the rain. Puddle jumping is so fun. Day after that the boys are outside once again coming up with creative ways to cool off. Who needs a pool when you have a garbage can full of water? FUN TIMES!!

It doesn't take much...

Today was good, we had such a good day! It doesn't take much to feel like we had a good productive day. On the agenda today

1. Preschool feild trip to Fry's Grocery Store

2. Stopped by New Pediatric Dentist and made appts for both the boys

3. Pick up Porters Medicine...finally

4. Started boys on chores and worked with them for hours

5. Taught Mason how to PROPERLY put the books on the shelf....he was awesome and learned so quick.

6. Did schoolwork with both boys (Porter did additions and subtraction, Mason traced letters and designs

7. Worked out

Oh and did all the other daily things like fixing meals, cleaning house, answering millions of questions, keeping up all those things I need to do. Oh and blogged....

Roosevelt Lake

We had a great weekend at Roosevelt Lake! We invited Ammon and Nikaela and their kids and Michell and Mike to hang out with us. We had such a fun, nice relaxing weekend! Mike was nice enough to bring up his boat for us to ride. The kids especially had a BLAST! (I'll add more pics soon) Nikaela got some great pics and video of the everyone on the boat and the kids wake surfing with daddy. Brent is such a natural. He's never wake surfed before and first try got up and was a pro. 2nd time took Porter, who LOVED IT and 3rd time took Mason who was so excited to go but the cold water just took his breath away so he was crying to get back on the boat with mommy again. Dad took him anyway and just carried him. It was so funny to see mason about 3 feet about the board just dangling while daddy held tight to him and the rope. What fun!

Brent experimented once more with his Dutch oven Peach Cobbler and WOW was it AMAZING!! He really perfected it and cooked it just right! YUMM!!! Everyone agreed he made a delicious dish! Way to go Hon!
Here are my boys relaxing in the Hammock in the backyard that backs up to the lake. What a view! See what I mean by relaxing and beautiful.
On the way home we saw a ghost town and HAD to stop. Mason was asleep and I was ok staying in the car with him away from the heat. But Daddy and Porter had a blast walking around looking at all the cool stuff. Brent said P couldn't get enough and just went from thing to thing as Brent followed him around.

We also stopped by the Roosevelt Dam. What an sight! The boys really liked learning about how it keeps the water in and creates energy. These guys are so eager to learn and can't get enough!
One of the Highlights of our trip was hiking up to see the Indian ruins. We watched a movie about how the tribe lived everyday life and then how one day they just disappeared and no one knows why. Before the hike Daddy got everyone to stretch so we wouldn't get sore, I just love watching the boys jump at things daddy recommends doing! As we hiked up Mason just couldn't get over how the Indians just disappeared and kept asking if that was where they died (on the side of the trail) and then every person that walked by he asked " Are you an Indian?" It was cracking us up! It really threw them off and we explained how he's looking for the lost indians. Needless to say the view was gorgeous at the top and it was incredible to see how they lived and what they lived in. Daddy showed the boys how to grind corn and wheat the way the Indians did.

Experimenting with dutch oven

For Family Home Evening this last Monday we decided to experiement with our dutch oven we just got. Ok I'll give credit where it's deserved...BRENT decided to experiment found a recipe and cooked a peach cobbler. Porter and Mason LOVE when we have a fire in our fire pit and we had marshmallows that had to be cooked over the fire! It was a fun activity to do. I'm always so impressed with Brents ability to get a task done so efficiently and well. What a man, seriously! So it turned out a little burnt on the outside and raw in the middle but that's why you experiment right?! Next time it'll be perfect...or closer to it! I think we finally need to try the solar oven Brent made a while back.

Schoolwork and church fun

Can you tell what our last lesson was on? We learned about bodies and specifically the bones in our body. We (and by we I mean I especially had fun) had fun building our own skeleton body out of qtips. LOTS OF FUN!! The pink one is mine, blue is Porters (isn't he funny...3 legs!) and Masons is the green one (Mason was about done by the time we were finished with the ribs, oh well). I can not get the picture to go the right way...sorry

Here's what Mason did at church on mothers day and the week before. What a great job!

Food storage

AWWWWEEE (sung in a high angelic tone)

Glorious TRUCK! Tell me those buckets werent an inspiration to get! LOL

What fun I'm having gathering food storage!! I've been working on what I need and then Brent gave me a budget to work with and then the fun began! We, the boys and I, spent about 3 hours shopping for this stuff yesterday! Good thing I had Brent leave his truck! I found a place called Honeyville Farms in Chandler and had a great time sampling food and finding great stuff to add to my food storage! They had cheddar cheese I was able to try and it was DELICIOUS!! I'm so excited to have that in our food storage!

There's more to do than just eat this stuff! Here, Porter will demonstrate

Here we are at costco. I got a pretty good work out pushing this beast of a cart around!

Garden progression

Can you tell what our baby is right now? We may be a little obsessed/excited. We love having a garden!! To watch these little seeds grow into the huge plants that produce edible, delicious vegetables is such a treat!

It all started with some dirt

(and manure and compost and hard work and fertilizer and twine and tomatoe cages.....)

Next we saw some little tiny plants poking through the dirt.

The squash grew especially fast, look right in front of Mason.

I got a picture before we left on our trip to CA. Isn't it beautiful!!!

Here is 2 weeks later once we got home!

Brent made a compost for our garden yesterday, now we just need to get some more worms

I took this this morning. We've been eating carrots, squash, spinach, lettuce and sugar snap peas.

Soon we'll also enjoy green onions, tomatoes, cucumbers and, hopefully bell peppers!

Every night Brent has a HUGE bowl of ceasar salad with/for dinner! YUM!

Bye Daddy!

Mason is the only one awake by the time daddy leaves for work every morning. He usually follows daddy around the house asking millions of questions, will often eat breakfast with daddy and makes sure to see him off. This morning he hear daddy leaving and quickly opened my window and yelled "BYE DADDY!! Daddy! BYE!!" I'm so glad Brent got this picture before he left.

Busy Saturday...to say the least....

One of my callings right now is the Stake Girls Camp Certification Specialist. And it's quite the job and keeps me busy, but I'm loving it! This Saturday was a really busy day!! We had our Pre-Camp certification from 8am-1pm that I was totally in charge of. Each year at girls camp you have to certify in different things. They got to learn things like First Aid, CPR, Outdoor cooking, lots about fires and misc camping how to's. It turned out to be a great day. For our outdoor cooking certification I decided to do something I remember doing at girls camp and make dutch oven fajitas. With some great help from a few men in my ward they turned out delicious!! It was a really hot day, definitely into the 100s but since we cant have fires at LoMia we had to certify for that before we left. After all was said and done I think the girls had a great time and learned a lot.

I've never stacked dutch-ovens on top of each to cook but it worked great!

After being mostly in the sun for 5 hours I headed home to pick up our boys and my wonderful sisters who babysat for me and headed over to MamaZelle's to help Joyze get ready for Prom. I got to do hers and her best friend Stephanie's hair. Their dresses were gorgeous and they looked beautiful! Those guys taking them out sure are lucky!!! I got to spend some good quality time with my dad and mom. It was a nice day!

Aren't they beautiful!

While we were busy in town Brent was off Hiking with Eric. After their trip to the Power Plant in New Mexico fell through they were able to arrange to go backpacking together after work on Friday and come home Saturday night. He said he FROZE that night (so hard to imagine when it's so hot here) and took some great pictures of where they went hiking and was exhausted when he got home. We both went to bed about 9:30 to get some good sleep in. What a day!

Brent and Eric are wearing their new favorite things; "Shmogs" They've come in really handy in keeping cool and staying warm.