Freezer Jam

I finally decided to take advantage of all the delicious strawberries available right now and tried my hand at freezer jam. I may be making a lot of freezer jam this summer. I'm not supposed to do traditional canning on my new stove. Bummer. 

Anyway, here are all my pretty berries, washed and quartered.

You need four cups of mashed strawberries. The mashing takes a little while. And if you want to skip your arm workout that day, I say go ahead. This part is grueling!

Instant pectin for freezer jam. I used two of these packets.

Voila! Six jars of lovely jam. My canning urge is satisfied...for now. I may be borrowing somebody's stove for pickled okra this year.

Strawberry Freezer Jam:

Makes six 8-ounce jars

4 cups mashed strawberries

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 0.5-ounce packets instant pectin

1. Mash strawberries.

2. Mix pectin and sugar together in a bowl. Add mashed berries and stir for three minutes.

3. Ladle into clean jars, leaving 1/2 inch head room. Put the lids on, and let them sit for 30 minutes. Store in freezer until ready to use. Jam is good in the freezer for 1 year.

Preschool Rocks!

Aidan's preschool graduation was this morning. *sniff* Actually, I did really well. I only teared up a few times, and no all-out boo-hooing ensued. Thank goodness. They had a really cute program where they sang a few songs and passed out diplomas. I even managed to video parts of it. Neely was really well-behaved...for Neely.

I apologize for the poorly focused videos. I used the video function on my DSLR, and I think it was having trouble focusing with the lighting dark where I was and bright up on stage. 

Oh, and seeing so many of my t-shirts all in one place? Crazy. Plain crazy. Here's my little graduate. I'm so proud of you, sweet boy.

As Promised

I know you're all dying to know what has kept me away from my blog and sharing darling pictures of my children and of my new house with all of you. So what was it? Work! The last couple of months, I have been flooded with orders, the biggest of which was to embroider 30 t-shirts for all the four-year-olds participating in preschool graduation with Aidan at our church. No easy task with two little ones running around the house. I am now finished! I still have other orders in line, so there's no need to worry about me getting bored any time soon. I am definitely glad to have these out of the line-up, though.

Breakfast Room

This is the only room in my house that I'm completely satisfied with so far. Everywhere else is almost there, but I'm still tweaking things. Anyway, here is our breakfast area. Right after we moved in, I posted photos of the kids' silhouettes on the wall. I've now got something hanging above my sideboard, my nicknacks just how I want them, and the spare chair at least looks like it's doing an important job.

I didn't want to use my old soda crates to store thread anymore. As small as my sewing area is now, I was afraid I'd constantly be knocking them off the wall. I like them in the kitchen, though. 

My big, red sideboard that I love. This was one of the major deal-breakers on whether or not we offered on this house. I had to measure to be certain that it would fit on this wall. Other furniture? Disposable. ;) Not this piece. 

Here are some closer shots of what I've collected on big red. A sugar mold, a ceiling tin, the angel Aidan gave me for my birthday, a Yankee Candle that I got for my birthday, some pictures...

...birds, of course, a hobnail milk glass pitcher, a cake stand, and some adorable pear-shaped candles that I found at Lulu on Main Street in Franklin. I love it. I've had this sideboard for several years now, and this is the first time that I haven't felt like it wasn't quite right. Hooray! I'll keep tweaking, and I'll share more rooms as I start to like them better. :)

A Little Mother's Day Fun

I have most definitely been neglecting the blog lately. I'll share more about the reason why later on, but for now, here's a little bit of how we celebrated Mother's Day. Really, we just went to church and then hung out at home. Neely made up a song for me before we left for church. It was probably the sweetest gift ever, especially since she doesn't really know or give a rip that it was Mother's Day.

Here are the two goofy little reasons that I get to celebrate. They're in swimming gear, because we set up the pool and hung out in the yard all afternoon.

Lycie likes it.

All three babies together. Okay, so they're not all babies anymore, but still. They have fun together. I think Lycie's going to be giving Aidan and Neely a run for their money soon.