Sketti Sauce

I mentioned to Jared that if we had enough tomatoes, I would make and can some spaghetti sauce. Well, being Mr. Getterdone, he went around to the neighbors and gathered tomatoes! Thanks to the Foy's, the Kitchen's, and the Gibson's for supplying my moocher husband with tomatoes!

Questioning my own sanity, I decided we should let the boys help with the sauce. So, our FHE lesson was about following the prophet in the area of being prepared. They tend to question me sometimes when I come home from Smith's with 20 boxes of cereal."We have 200 boxes of cereal you won't die a slow, painful death from starving, my sweeties!" We also have a garden and we can things from the garden for the same reason we have the cereal.

With all that said (and nobody listening to me anyways), it was time to get messy!


Jake called the job of scalding the tomatoes in the boiling water after I cored them. This scared me a little at first, but he did a really good job and was really careful with the hot water.
Josh and Cam worked at the sink peeling the skins off after Jake scalded them. I got to work the blender and just to show everyone how good I am in the kitchen, I did it with my eyes closed!
Sam helped Jared put onions and bell peppers in the feeder tube for the food processor. Other than that, his main job was to stay out of trouble! (He would have succeeded, too, if it hadn't been for that meddling bag of sugar!)

We used Sister Kitchen's recipe (thanks again!) and it simmered all Monday night and most of Tuesday. The boys really had a great time and claimed this as another favorite Family Night Activity! As of today, we have 7 quarts and 1 pint of really yummy spaghetti sauce.

You know your Momma loves you when..

* you take blue marker to the chair, piano, tile, front door, and brand new dollar store baby meant for preschool
* you color the preschool stools with black marker (where in the world is his secret marker stash?!?)
* you empty a bag of pancake mix into the carpet
* you follow the pancake mix with a bowl of rice in the carpet
* you pour a glass of water out all over the table and sit in it
* you dump out the trash can - twice!

And, you do it all within a 24 hour period of time and she still thinks you're a little bit cute!

And...we're back!

So... Jared's spending a little time at home looking for a new job, which means he needs the computer to work. He worked on it this morning and conquered the virus! My knight in Shining Armor!

Lucky for me, because I can now do my really important stuff like blogging, uploading pictures, facebooking, catching up on Peoplemagazine.com, and playing FarmTown.

What!?! I guess he needs to use it to email resume's. Geez, what the heck in the world?

Well, at least I got to put a few pics on here. Enjoy!

Jake's new bike

Our cousin, Patrick, passed down this really great bike to jake. We saved it for his birthday since Cam had gotten a new bike for his birthday the month before. Jake loves it. It has all kinds of gears and it's really tall. I guess that's all you need to be a cool bike! We bought a lock for it the first week of school so he could ride it each day and surprisingly I haven't had to drive anyone to school this year!

Pirate Pizza - FINALLY OPEN!!!

We have been following Pirate Pizza's blog and waiting very impatiently for it to open since about April. While Grandma and Grandpa Louisiana were here for teh weekend, we took the whole family (minus Jared who was stil in SanFran and Rich who was working). The food was good, although the rides and games are a little pricey (in my cheap opinion). The atmosphere and servers were incredible! Everyone was dressed up and spoke 'pirate'. We all had a great time!

Our three oldest pirates donning their hats for me.

Jake, James, & Miles were all sung to by a fairly clean group of pirate for their birthdays. The pirate with her hand on Jake's shoulder was our server, she was amazing!

Grace is pretty good at that 'crazed Johnny Depp' style of pirate!

Grandpa even felt the need to wear a hat! I ownder if they gave him his senior discount?

Cam & Grace on the boat.

Jake & Sam on the slide.

Gracie and I found this treasure on teh way to the potty.

Josh & Katie on teh train.

Back to School

School started on the 20th this year. Jake os in Mr. Smith's 5th grade class and Cam is in Mrs. Gallegos 3rd grade class. I think I used all their patience up trying to get a few pictures. They were so excited to get there for that first day!

Jake and Cam on their first day - chomping at the bit to get on their way!

The new, cool backpacks.

Off on their scooters filled with excitement - hope it lasts!