Last weekend Jared went with the bishopbric from our ward on a trip. They hiked the Subway at Zions. Jared came home and told me it was a pretty tough hike. They started at 8:00 in the morning and ended at 4:00. WHAT A HIKE!! You have to do some repelling and I didn't think I would like that at all. But then I saw these pictures and now I want to go!! Look at how beautiful!
Miss Emily is just getting bigger and bigger. Lately, she has been getting up on her knees. She really wants to crawl. I got some video. It isn't the best. The first video, she doesn't scootch, but she is just so cute in the video.
Here is a cute video of her scootching. Kylee seems to think she has to help! What a big sis!
I have been into canning lately. Last week, my mom came down to my house and we canned some apple pie filling. I got this recipe from Jared's grandma. She gave me some of hers last year. It is so nice. You just take the quart of pie filling, place it in your pie shell, put some butter on it and into the oven it goes. Such an easy idea! I loved it! So, this year, I talked my mom into doing some! We did 18 quarts! Yummo.
Here is the recipe
Canned Apple Pie Filling
4 ½ cups sugar
1 cups cornstarch
2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
10 cups water
3 tbsp lemon juice
Cook sugar, cornstarch, cinnamon, nutmeg, and water until bubbly and clears a bit then add the lemon juice. Peel and slice apples. Pack apples into 1 qt jars, leaving 1 inch of head space. Pour syrup over apples and seal. Process in boiling water bath for 30 minutes. To make pie, place 1 qt filling in 9 inch pie crust. Dot pie with butter and seal.
Yesterday, we went up to my mom's house and did peaches. I LOVE canned peaches. I had found a recipe for some canned peach pie filling and thought it would be lovely too. You can do peach pie, cobbler, crisp, whatever your heart desires.
Canned Peach Pie Filling
25 cups sliced peaches
2 tsp almond extract
2 tsp yellow food coloring
7 tbsp lemon juice
3 cups water
1 tsp salt
1 ½ cup instant clear jel (1 cup cornstarch)
5 cups sugar
Combine peaches and almond extract. Mix together yellow food coloring and lemon juice and add to peaches. Add water. Mix together salt, instant clear jel, and sugar and add to peaches. Put in jars; cold pack 15 minutes. Makes 7 quarts.
Thanks mom for helping me and be willing to make a mess of your house! (Between the kids toys and the sticky peaches)!
So, most of you who know me very close know that I am a very list oriented person. I love to make lists of things to do for the day. I would probably drive a lot of you NUTS!!! I am sure that it would drive Jared nuts if he knew really what I was doing. He just knows that we have things to do! Anyway, on to my lists. I have all of my household chores split up throughout the week. I hate spending a lot of time cleaning my house, but I love a clean house. So, for all of you who are interested, this is how my household chores go
Monday - water plants, dust, wash back window, mop, 1 load of laundry
Tuesday - vacuum house, clean kitchen, 1 load of laundry, clean stove
Wednesday - change bedsheets, 1 load of laundry, iron, cut out coupons
Thursday - clean bathroom, vacuum house, clean kitchen, 1 load of laundry
Friday - 1 load of laundry, weed
Saturday - vacuum house, clean kitchen, 1 load of laundry
I do 1 load of laundry a day because I hate to have lots and lots and lots of folding to do. Honestly, I barely get through the 1 load a day!!!
I have found a new list!!! Simple Mom has a fun post about menu planning. I have always wanted to do this, but just have never been able to stick with it!! I finally found a plan that I might be able to stick with. Simple Mom has this suggestion for menus
Monday - Mexican
Tuesday - Pasta
Wednesday - Asian
Thursday - Crock pot
Friday - Pizza and salad (Jared will LOVE this!)
She does something for Saturday and Sunday and I will see if I will. I have not been very good about cooking on the weekend. Last Saturday, I actually sat down and planned out our meals for 2 weeks and went and bought the ingredients! It has been so nice to have it planned that when 5:00 rolls around I don't find myself saying "What is for dinner? I haven't pulled out any meat yet?" And then there is the energy it takes to try and think of something and then pull of a great dinner! This is what I have been up to lately. MAKING LISTS!!!
I am getting so excited! I am sure Jared is also. Lately, he will take his church binder down into the basement and shut the door so that the people he has to call don't hear our kids screaming! I think we are crowding him out!! Anyway, Jared has been working so hard on our basement and I want to give you an update of his hard work. He has been working on the drywall. A neighbor has been over to help. They usually will start around 8:30 or 9:00 at night. They are pretty noisy, but the girls sleep through it and that is all that matters!! Here are some pictures.
This is a picture of the "man cave." I am standing where the kitchen area will be and you can see the stairs going upstairs on the left.
This is a pictures of the kitchen area. I am standing near the bottom of the stairs.
Here I am also standing at the bottom stairs. The kitchen area is on the far left, the linen closet is in the middle and then you can see the doorway to the bathroom. There is a door on the right of the bathroom leading to a bedroom.
Here is a lovely picture of our bathroom. We had to tweak our designs for the bathroom. Well, I guess I helped Jared see the light. We have 3 girls and when they get to be teenagers, we are going to need a bigger bathroom than the one upstairs. We tweaked the designs of the bathroom here so that we could fit in a bigger counter top area and Jared even put in one more outlet so that they will have enough for all the blow dryers, curling irons, flat irons, whatever they just might need!!
Here is a picture of the doorway to the bedroom that is next to the bathroom.
Here is another picture of the family room, this time from at the bottom of the stairs. This is where Jared will spend his free time!! Watching his BIG TV!
This is the doorway by the TV room. Straight ahead will be a bedroom and the doorway on the right will be for our exercise/craft room. Just a small room, but how much room do you really need to exercise?
I am getting so excited to get this done. Next project, finish the office room. I want to put some french doors on that room so that Jared can shut the door and have some peace and quiet when he has to make church calls or is running late for work and has to do a conference call from home! Hopefully we have the main room done for Jayce and Kylee's birthday party!
I love Labor Day in Payson!! Payson celebrates Onion Days over Labor Day weekend and have some fun activities. Friday afternoon, the girls and I headed down to the carnival. Kylee was a little apprehensive about riding some of the rides and I was hesitant to put her on when Jared wasn't with us. I have put her on some rides before because she has said she wants to go, but once she gets on, OH NO!!! GET ME OFF!!! So, we just walked around, enjoyed the atmosphere of a carnival and ate some ice cream from the ice cream man. Both Kylee and Jayce got those rocket popsicles. They only had them in sour and it was nasty. The girls ate them all gone, but I sure didn't like it. I got a coconut type thing. It was Delish!!!
Friday night we had both families over for a BBQ to end the summer. It was so fun! Friday night, Payson does fireworks as part of the Onion Days celebrations. They are some fantastic fireworks and we can sit on our front lawn or back lawn and enjoy them. Jayce fell asleep during the fireworks and Emily was already sleeping and slept right through them. How lovely for me to enjoy the evening!! Thanks family for coming and celebrating with us.
On Monday, there was a parade. Jared and I have never been to the parade because we are usually always gone on Labor Day. We headed over. The weather had been kind of stormy and the sky was dark, but they were still doing the parade so we headed over. My parents drove down to come with us. We saw maybe 45 minutes to 1 hour of the parade and then the rains came. Oh, what a day. The girls and I came home, put on dry clothes, made some yummy popcorn, and watched Sound of Music! Kylee loved the show. Jared said it was good he had to work in the basement because he wasn't so into that show! I need to take some pictures of the basement. He is almost done putting up the drywall. It looks so different!
We hope you all had a wonderful Labor Day weekend!!
Last night we had Young Womens. It was combined and we took some blankets to the nursery at the hospital. They were so grateful. They said they were running low and loved them. It was such a great feeling to know that we helped and were able to give them some things that they needed. We then headed to a park and had a summer snowball fight. Boy was that fun! We had filled some nylons with flour and then threw them at each other. It left a big mess. The nylons didn't break, but left flour imprints all over everyone.
Tonight, my sister and her kids, my mom, the girls and I headed to the pool one last time before they close. It was really nice, wasn't too crowded. Jayce actually got in the pool and enjoyed it. The last time we went, she just stayed by the chairs and screamed! Such fun!! Emily even got in the water. She was fine until we went in the lazy river and she got a little wet in the face. Then she was done! It was a great nice day! Summer is coming to and end and I don't know yet if I am happy or sad!
I have found these fun songs from the Muppets! Aren't they great.
Here is Beaker singing Yellow by Coldplay!
Feist singing 1234
REM singing Furry Happy Monsters
And my all time favorite! Mahna Mahna!!
Okay, so I got some pictures from the triathlon. This morning I got up and Jared and I checked out the race times. I was happy on Saturday, but then I saw what my times were and I was even more happy with myself. I have had a smile on all morning long! Such a great feeling of accomplishment. I am so very glad that I did this!! So, here are my times! I did the swim in 11:50, the bike in 44:05, and the run in 36:13! My overall time was 1:36:09. Not too bad for a first timer!!!
Megan and I getting excited to start!! It was so nice and cool in the morning. Notice the numbers on Megan's leg. We had our numbers on our left leg, right thigh, and left arm! What fun stuff!
Kevin trying to talk some trash!!!
A picture of me swimming!! Love it don't ya!! I wore a swimcap and goggles like I was some kind of pro!
Transitioning between the bike and the run! This was weird to go from biking to running. You feel like you are hopping for the first little bit!
Here comes the end!!
GO LES GO!! YOU ARE ALMOST DONE!
Kevin, me and Megan at the finish line! AWESOME!!!
I know it has been awhile since it was my birthday, but my parents took me (and my family) out to dinner last night. It was a great time!!! I love going out and especially with family! Thanks mom and dad! You are real gems!!! We went to dinner at TGIFridays! It has been ages since I have been here and it was some yummy food!! They sang Happy Birthday to me and gave me some ice cream. Jared had taken the girls out for a walk, so my mom and I downed the ice cream! :) Some good stuff!!
Kylee and I have been working on her letters. I do about a letter a week. We practice writing the letters and then do some fun craft for the letter. It has been really fun. Here is a link where I get my ideas. For the letter A, we made some apples that we hung in the window. For the letter B, we did some sheep and glued cotton balls on them. It was really fun to see Kylee using the glue. She really liked it too. For the letter C, we did Hickory Dickory Dock and made a mouse climbing up a clock. The letter D was a puppet dog. Matthew and Addi were over and did that with us too. It was great to keep them busy for a little bit! Yesterday we did the letter E and made a train. They have a rhyme that goes along that we try and learn. Kylee won't go to Kindergarten for 2 more years. I just thought it would be fun to work on our letters! She has done really well.
Last night I had Enrichment Night. We went up the canyon and had dinner and then a short testimony meeting. It was so much fun!! Our ward is really great and I love all the people in our ward. When we got up there, we ate dessert first. (My dad would have LOVED this). The RS President made some homemade ice cream (blackberry, boy was it good!) and we had to eat it before it melted. Delish! Then we had dinner and visited and then had a short testimony meeting. It was starting to get dark and they didn't want us out too late! I came home and Jared said he was great with the kids. He did have a bit of a problem with Jayce. You see, they went outside to play and then it was time to come in. Take a look at what happened when Jayce came in!
I saw this on some random blog and thought it was interesting. I thought it was even more interesting when I found out what my name means. I thought it did a pretty good job of describing who I am and what I am about.
What Leslie Means |
 You are relaxed, chill, and very likely to go with the flow. You are light hearted and accepting. You don't get worked up easily. Well adjusted and incredibly happy, many people wonder what your secret to life is. You are friendly, charming, and warm. You get along with almost everyone. You work hard not to rock the boat. Your easy going attitude brings people together. At times, you can be a little flaky and irresponsible. But for the important things, you pull it together. You are the total package - suave, sexy, smart, and strong. You have the whole world under your spell, and you can influence almost everyone you know. You don't always resist your urges to crush the weak. Just remember, they don't have as much going for them as you do. You tend to be pretty tightly wound. It's easy to get you excited... which can be a good or bad thing. You have a lot of enthusiasm, but it fades rather quickly. You don't stick with any one thing for very long. You have the drive to accomplish a lot in a short amount of time. Your biggest problem is making sure you finish the projects you start. |
So, I haven't posted in awhile because Jared was gone, and therefore I was gone too!! Jared left last Saturday for Alaska to do some serious fishing. Jared has ALWAYS wanted to go to Alaska. My grandpa decided to take the boys of the Jeffs' family on a big fishing trip to Alaska. Jared was soooo excited. Take a look at these pictures!
This is the hotel they stayed at when they first flew in Juneau. They flew to Juneau, stayed one night there and then took a float plane out to the floating lodge they stayed at.
Here is the float plane they took out to the lodge.
This is the halibut Jared caught. It was like 50 lbs. Jim caught the largest weighing in at 106 lbs. Can you imagine that!!
This is the view from the lodge, actually taken right outside their door on the deck of the lodge.
Another from the lodge. Isn't it just goregous! I think it is just beautiful!
This is Jared's bed. How did he do when he used to a King bed!!
Jared's THING!
Bald eagles everywhere!
Another view from the lodge, sunset.
Out fishing the ocean. Doesn't Ty look like a pro!
Good ol Gramps!! Thanks for a great trip for the guys!
Nice picture!
This is the boat they took out into the ocean to fish for the big stuff
The guys went and got some craps from the commercial fisherman's boat and had the chef cook them up that night. Fresh fish! Yummo!
GQ pose!
Jared's Yellow Eye! What the crap is that? Weird looking fish!
This is the bat they would use to whack the fish over the head. Yucky!
The guys also did some stream fishing! How beautiful is this.
Jared said the water was so clear you really couldn't tell how deep it was. He actually fell in (so did Paul) and maybe ruined our camera (so did Paul)! What a great trip!
Jared is ready to head back up. I wondered if I was going to get a call saying, "I'm not coming home, you better pack up and head up this way!"
I can't wait to go see this beautiful place with Jar!!
Well, I am back! And I didn't even go anywhere. I had a week of strikeness! I didn't want to do any blogging at all, but now I am back! We have just been having a grand time. This last Tuesday, my cousin got married. I was able to go. Jared stayed at home with the kids and then Megan watched them while we went to the luncheon. Look at how beautiful my cousin is!!
