Category Archives: ramblings

Tomatoes. 150ish pounds of ’em.

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So Shannon went to Utah to help Mom out post hip replacement. (This was during the first week of school.) While she was there she found out that this food rescue place just got in an unexpected shipment of organic on the vine tomatoes. $11 for 66lbs. HELLO! So I went and got some. Unfortunately it was one order per household. However when Shannon got back into town they still had some so she ran over and got an order. At that point they were REALLY wanting to unload them before they all rotted, and asked Shannon if she wanted two orders. She almost got two orders, but then thought better of it.

So between the two orders and what she brought back with her from the garden (Jon's Dad has an AMAZING garden!) we were swimming in tomatoes. And if we didn't have to worry about taking and picking up kids from school we would have been done much faster, and probably would have grabbed that third order. Because we are completely crazy like that!

 

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I didn't want the tomatoes I picked up on Saturday morning to spoil any faster than they already were, so I took out some shelving from the bevi fridge and crammed them in to wait for Monday and Shannon.

 

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Every single tomato had a sticker. EVERY.SINGLE.ONE! I found this annoying and excessive. I kept reminding myself of the sweet deal we got on them as I de-stickered and de-vined them for washing,

 

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This is a picture of most of the tomatoes washed and ready to go. I lined the boxes with paper towels and stacked them up to conserve space in my little kitchen.

 

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This is where we lived for the next several days between kids and school. For the several hundreds of tomatoes we had we only tossed around 20 due to rot. I was thrilled with how well the organic tomatoes held up.

 

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Our treasures from Utah. This whole tomato/Utah garden deal softened the blow of our garden failure this year.

 

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We processed 28 quarts of diced tomatoes, 8 quarts of spaghetti sauce, 19 pint and a half jars (24 oz jars) of spaghetti sauce, 35 pints of salsa, and 5 quarts of pickles.

 

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It took us four days, but we got it all done. Just in time for weekend fun. Thanks for being crazy with me Shanny!

A giant ruler

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A long, long time ago I dreamed of having a growth chart that we could move around with. I shared this dream with Jon. And then nothing. I saw all these cute kid growth charts that you could buy, but they only went up to five feet tall. Now if the children take after me that's not an issue, but Jon is six two. I really wanted to have a chart that went up to 6.5 feet. And only heaven knows what height genetics our future children may have. I decided that we would have to make our own.

So the years passed, and I never found anything that I LOVED design wise to make/buy. Plus it was all so pricey. Fast forward 7 years. We now have a kindergartner, and I have been taking a daily photo of her. Day two of school Jon laments that we don't have anything to visually note her growth in the photos. I remind him of my growth chart dream, and we promptly get online and look up some options. Low and behold we found something that we BOTH love. For the right price even! (Go here. So easy and so fast!)

We bought our supplies and then waited a few days for Jon to have a "good" day so he could help with this project.  This is something I totally could have done myself, but it was SO much fun doing it together.

026We could have done this project much more frugally, by painting the ruler marks on, however for ease, speed, and convince we paid extra for precut vinyl. It was SO very worth the ten bucks.

027 031 032 Anyhow we've been chatting about how this thing is going to get filled up with our children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren's measurements. Happiness.

School uniforms

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We ordered some school uniforms for Kaylee a few days ago. She and I have been epically excited about their arrival. Well the UPS truck pulled up to our house today with a box for little miss. “Hold on Mom. I’ll go get the scissors.”
school clothes 001“Hold on Kaylee I’ll get the camera.”

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school clothes 004Man her happy dance was fantastic. This kid has been begging to go to Kindergarten for the last couple years. And everyday since her enrollment screening she asks if it’s time to go to kindergarten. I think she and I will make a countdown chain.

school clothes 008I imagine that if I ever had a pile of money to swim in, I’d act like Kaylee did swimming through her uniforms! She was thrilled!

school clothes 009She was trying to decide what to try on first.

school clothes 011I got her 6 shirts, 4 pants, 2 scooters, 4 shorts, and a lightweight sweater to wear if she gets chilly in class.

school clothes 012We aren’t really a tuck in your shirt family. Unless it’s Sunday. So when I was tucking in her shirt she started laughing. “Mom, I look like Emilio!” Emilio wears onesis and pants.

school clothes 013I got her one size too big. She has plenty of room to grow. She is likely going to be wearing most of this stuff for first grade as well.

school clothes 014Scooters are the skirt with the built in shorts. I had to explain the difference between skort and scooter to Jon. So if you wondered, now you know.

school clothes 016The shorts and pants come with the button hole elastic. Which is a life saver when you have skinny kids. I was able to find and order slim cut pants and shorts, but still had to tighten the waist a whole lot.

Sadly the scooters don’t have an adjustable waist. I’m gonna have to do some sewing. “Kaylee lean against the couch and don’t move for this picture. I don’t want your skirt to fall down.”

“Great idea Mom!”

I’m probably going to get a few more things, but that will be this winter. Thick leggings, and stuff like that.

We are narrowing down on a backpack. Good grief I know I’m going to be sad her first day of school when she walks away from me, but right now her excitement is way TOO contagious!

I am so happy Kaylee got into this charter school. Best part is siblings automatically get a seat at the school. So Regan will be going there without having to add his name to the lottery! YEA!