First Day of School……


Today was the first day of school for my children.  Quinn is entering middle school, 6th grade.  Tuesday is entering her last year of middle school, 8th grade….so they are in the same school together and riding the bus together.  Which is very nice..to have them both at the same school, at least for one year!

Hopefully soon, I can get a post together about the little babies entering the world…I just haven’t had much time!!

Happy Tuesday!!

Embrace the Camera…..

So Tuesday took some photos of us..then Quinn took some photos of us..then River took some photos of us…..I figured there would be at least a couple of good ones…..Not too long from now…and this won’t be “all” my children……about two more weeks……(wow!)

Happy Thursday and go embrace the camera…….

Ramune Soda…..

Finally, I got around to having Tuesday and Quinn try some Ramune soda…..I’ve been wanting them to try it forever….and Christopher found it in Chinatown in Philly.  So, this afternoon……I broke them out.

I had to go on YouTube and look at a couple of videos to see how you open them….it was a lot of fun.  River wanted to try some soda for the first time…..umm..she didn’t like it!

Fourth of July……

I got a new phone over the weekend…..a Samsung Epic 4G….and it has a great little camera on it..  Over the weekend, instead of using my regular camera, I decided I would just use my phone camera.  I love how some of the photos turned out.  We had a great Fourth of July weekend..filled with fireworks and parades…

There is nothing like the look on a child’s face while they are watching fireworks..priceless…..

Strawberry Jam…take two….

Did I tell you that all the jam we made with my mother-in-law didn’t turn out….it turned into syrup….I guess too many cooks in the kitchen does spoil the brew..or something like that.  Anyway, after our strawberry picking, I knew we had to give the strawberry jam another chance.

It really is incredibly simple.  We went out and bought 2 cases of jelly jars, Certo premium liquid fruit pectin, lemon juice, and sugar.  That’s all you need….except for the fruit!  The whole process only takes about 1/2 hour..but my mother-in-law warned me to never double or triple the recipe.  She said it never comes out…so, to make things quicker, I made a batch, Quinn made a batch, and Tuesday made a batch…all at the same time!

The recipe is inside the Certo box.  First, you have to wash and rinse the strawberries and de-stem them.  Once that is done you measure out 4 cups and start mushing them up.  We realized that putting them in the food processor is much easier and quicker!

Then you add the sugar, all 4 cups!!  That is a lot of sugar!!  Maybe next time I’ll try to cut down on the sugar..but who knows…I guess you don’t mess with a good thing!  After you add the sugar, you start to stir it and let it stand for 10 minutes, stirring every now and then.

Then, you stir the packet of pectin into 2 tablespoons of lemon juice and pour it into the prepared fruit.  Once you do this…you have to stir the bowl constantly for 3 minutes.

Then you are done..except for putting all the fruit into your jelly jars.  You let it sit at room temperature for 24 hours…and if everything went well, it should gelify (not sure if that is a word).  Then you store it in the freezer for up to a year!

So, we made 24 jars of jelly (I made another batch on my own!) for about $30..not bad!!  Hopefully, that will last us until next Strawberry season!