Strawberry Syrup and Jam

My first experience of canning, WITHOUT my mom! And it went really well!

We picked 20 lbs of strawberries at a local farm, we lucked out this year, we just found out that they will not be reopeningnext spring.

Then I made jam, from 20 lbs I sent 5lbs to a neighbor and 3lbs to a home teacher, and the rest ended up in 24 jars!

We've enjoyed having the fresh jam its SO much better than store bought. We look forward to making peach and blueberry jam later in the summer!

Ehre's new Dress

Grandma and Grandpa Maas picked out this one for her its so cute. She wore it to church two weeks ago and got a lot of compliments on it. Thank You! (PS this picture was taken just after she woke up from her nap...hence the messy hair)

With a name like Jeff, it has to be good!

Ooooh if there were only a few clones of my Hubie, the world would be a perfect place! No one would be unhappy, everyone would feel loved. Jeff I love you so much, if it were Mothers Day this weekend and you had been asked to go work on flooded homes, I would be moping around. Bummed out that you weren't here by my side, yet its Fathers Day, and you are currently on a 2 hour ride home from 48 hours of long manual labor. You're just wonderful. Here are a few more reasons whey I think your the absolute best:
1. When we had Ehre your first comment was "One down, 11 more to go" with an attitude like that you'll be the world's greatest father! And you are!
2. When something goes wrong your first question is "Honey, what can I do?"
3. When I call you and tell you that we're having a Tornado and you're in Utah, you say " Looks like I'm missing all the fun!" Optimism is just what I need and you give it to me!
4. You make personal phone calls during the day to talk with Ehre, she loves these!
5. You love visiting family with me, when ever I want to go you're willing, even if my frequent urges are not quite what you grew up with! :)
6. You went on the "Grass Diet" just because you know I want to lose weight. You're even willing to change the name to the "Word of Wisdom Diet" now that you've read the book, and you're changing your eating style willingly and happily.
7. When you were called to be in the Sunday School presidency, you didn't think about the time it would require you said "Great, this time I'll have more time to do it right!" (Last ward he was only in the SS for a few months before they gave him a different calling...but not because he was doing a bad job!)
8. You love planning things with me, and always giving us something to look forward to.
9. When I'm bummed about not having something immediately, you look on the bright side and let me know that God is always granting miracles!
10. You smile and kiss me every morning before you leave for school, even if I didn't wake up with you, you never miss a morning!

Jeff I love you and so do your kids! Happy Fathers Day!

Happy Fathers Day...Doing what Dads do Best

Well, we were planning on a Family day for Fathers Day but our Stake has been called to provide Emergency Relief and Service in Terre Haute. So Jeff and others in the EQ will be leaving early tomorrow morning to help out. They will work on recovery/safety all day Saturday and stay with members for the night. Then Sunday morning the Stake President has granted permission for them to show up to church in their work clothes have a special sacrament meeting and then continue working till later into the evening.

So what are all these Dads doing on Fathers day? Doing what they do best, serving others. I will help pack snacks and water today and get things ready. Ehre and I will make Cheesecake for Jeff tomorrow for him to enjoy when he returns late Sunday night!

Jeff, I love you so much thanks for helping out, even when its on "your day".

xoxoxo

Image is of the actual conditions in Terre Haute last weekend when they had all the flooding. :(

Happy Fathers Day...Doing what Dads do Best

Well, we were planning on a Family day for Fathers Day but our Stake has been called to provide Emergency Reliefe and Service in Terre Haute. So Jeff and others in the EQ will be leaving early tomorrow morning to help out. They will work on recovery/safety all day Saturday and stay with members for the night. Then Sunday morning the Stake President has granted permission for them to show up to church in their work clothes have a special sacrament meeting and then continue working till later into the evening.

So what are all these Dads doing on Fathers day? Doing what they do best, serving others. I will help pack snacks and water today and get things ready. Ehre and I will make Cheesecake for Jeff tomorrow for him to enjoy when he returns late Sunday night!

Jeff, I love you so much thanks for helping out, even when its on "your day".

xoxoxo

Whats new?

(Happy Hallow Pool)

Well we're now on 3 consistent day of working out daily and eating healthy...doesn't sound like much but it sure feels like it. 40 minutes of exercise/day with kids, including a 5 mile bike ride, allows me to sleep really well at night. :)

Today's workout went well, sweat still dripped, and the kids really though it would be fun to "help" mommy exercise! All goes well till I get on the floor to do that portion of the workout and then they come running! I had a good experience today, Ehre and Ben have amazing pediatricians. They are a husband/wife combo that work with Medicaid. I love them because they are so nice and have kids of their own. Anyways their daughter is in Ehre's swim lesson so I see Mrs. Dr. Livermore at the pool each day. She See's me biking up the hill everyday to lessons, and its motivating her and her family to get more active! And she's the Dr!!! It was great motivation to hear this!

Jeff and I are preparing to get back on the "word of wisdom" diet.... normally known as Eat to Live. We are going to start by just making it our dinner meal. Its actually difficult to eat lots of veggies when your so used to eating carbs all the time (even healthy carbs) so we'll start there and hopefully by Aug we'll be on the track eating healthy all the time. We are really encouraging anyone to do this with us especially both of our parents. So hopefully we won't be the only ones doing this! Eating Healthy never "killed" anyone! :)Well happy work outs to all, and have a great day!

SO that's it nothing really new, we want to "try" camping again this weekend but tomorrow its supposed to rain.... so plans are still "up in the air". Hopefully we can at least go hiking on Saturday.

Miss you all!
Ann

First Camping Trip of the Season!

Jeff emailed me from work Friday, saying that he wanted to go camping TONIGHT! So we packed our bags and headed out. I checked the weather prior to us leaving only a 40% chance of rain, but here in IN, it always is raining so no big deal.

We drove to Shades State Park, a few miles north of Turkey Run State Park (a favorite of ours)..deciding to try something new. The weather was nice and we were excited for tomorrows planned day of hiking and swimming.

When we were paying for our campsite, the ranger let us know that the forecast was for some heavy showers.... but while we were setting up camp they let us know that we had moved into a Tornado Warning....just our luck.

So we set up camp in the van, and prepared dinner. I was standing outside of the van when almost instantly it went dark.. (its only 5:30 pm/ felt like 9).... and then the rain came. IT CAME!!! Branches were falling all around the van, we were safe inside and still we were amazed at the power of the storm. When it calmed into JUST pouring rain (lighting/thunder ceased) Jeff braved it and cooked our hamburgers under the trusty umbrella.

By then we had all put swimsuits under our clothes since we knew that anytime we left the van we'd get soaking wet. The kids loved the puddles, and then the storm picked up again. Dessert was cooked, from the back of the van as well... this time we sat inside and had a long stick to reach the stove and cook our marshmallow....didn't really work too well. :(

Anyways, we watched movies in the car and didn't sleep much, it rained and thundered the whole night. Everyone was up by 7:30 thanks to Ben, and we quickly decided that if the rain wasn't going to leave, we should.

Scratch breakfast, we'd find something in Crawfordsville on our way out. While leaving we saw lots of trees that had broken in 1/2 or lost major branches in the storm. 3 times we had to cross water covered roads.... which lead to our next adventure.

The water was soo deep that it flooded our spare tire cover and bent it... we could hear something driving, and when we pulled over saw the mangled plastic. A trip to a tire shop, lead us to some wonderful mechanics willing to help us out. Walmart provided doughnuts for breakfast and we finally made it home at 11:30.

So there you go our first camping trip. It wasn't the best we've had, but it was interesting. Too bad Ben was afraid of the thunder!

Attitude..... we didn't teach that!

Funny moment:

Ehre and I planned an afternoon with Tamri and Elsie Allen, we decided to go to Columbia Park Zoo. While driving there Tamri made a wrong turn. I had to laugh when Ehre pipped in from the backseat. "Tamri, can my mom drive, she knows the way.".....ummmm what attitude. We didn't teach her that, sorry Tamri.

"In West Lafayette, where a funnel cloud was seen hovering over the Country Villa Estates apartment complex off Yeager Road, the storms caused widespread power outages."

http://jconline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080531/NEWS/805310344&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSELL

Well it was a LONG night, around 7 the sirens started, and they were on/off for an hour, but the warnings and watches continued till 11pm. We received over 3" of rain during this storm in 1 hour.

Ehre and I saw this funnel cloud, it was seen right over our friends roof! It was moving so fast, it was incredible and scary! Its just our luck to have something like this happen when Jeff is out of the town!...oh well, we are fine, may take naps today to make up for lost sleep.

"X" Dinner

Well, I don't have a name for this meal, sorry. But its really good and you can adjust it to fit your family!

Brown:

X amount of Hamburger (For our family I use 1/2 Lb)

X amount of Onions (1/2 c. chopped)

Add:

X amount chopped Carrots (1 c)

X amount chopped Cellery (1/2c c)

1 Lg can of Tomato Juice

Salt and Pepper

1-2 tsp Chilli Pepper

Bring to a simmer and cover for 20 minutes, stir occasionally

Add:

2 c Rice

Cook till Rice is tender, then serve.

Yummy! Enjoy! This is a great dish as a left over or prepared ahead of time and heats up well.

Memorial Day Weekend

What a fun weekend, here is a list of the activities that we fit in...

Friday-

Jason's Family Arrives

(Ben in Pj's waiting for family to arrive)

Saturday-


Indy 500 Museum ( Big race was the next day so we saw a lot of cool new things)

(Ann, Nicho and Benjamin waiting for everyone to get out of the Museum movie)

White River State Park, we took a surrey out and rode (yes all 9 of us fit on one) around the park.

(Maas' Family new vehicle)

Jeff and Jason go see the new Indiana Jones movie





Sunday-


Church Activities

(Nicho sleeping...soooo cute)

Monday-


Movies

(Sophie, Lydia, Nicho, Marcella, and Jason Maas)

Happy Hallow Park, we took the trail walk in.

(Jason and Nicho)

Grilled Hamburgers

(Lydia Marcella's Mother, Marcella and Nicho)

Jason's family left...

(Ehre showing off her attitude)

another hair cut...

Is there a practical use for hair clippings? At the rate Jeff's hair grows I should use it to stuff pillows! Jeff and I had an agreement that he couldn't cut his hair until I trimmed mine....well that didn't work. TO many family members thought Jeff's hair was unkept and too long...it really wasn't that bad when he fixed it! I love his curls so when I cut his hair I tried to keep some of them...the hair cut looks good even though I didn't take pics. But here is all the hair that we got rid of! (you'll see his haircut in future posts)

Newest Member of the Family

....that didn't stay long. :) The kids and I were in the back yard, cutting the grass when this big clump of dirt started moving! Holy cow it was a frog! Pretty cute little guy, we showed him to all our friends, but in the end threw him over the fence and back into the pond...we're just not a pet family!

Trip to Michigan

Well, we survived watching 5 extra kids for two days. ..... survived is the wrong word. It was a pleasure watching the kids, each one was so helpful and happy. Jeff made his famous Bales, and we added a few new flavors. Dutch-Apple, Cinnamon-Sugar, and Blueberry (my favorite). We multiplied the batch by 6 and yet all of them were still gone by lunch!

Individuals that you may not recognize in the following pictures: Peterson Clan, Alice, Brad, Emily, Laura, Katrina, Rachel, James, Hannah and Chrsity.

This is Benjamin's favorite way to drink his bottle in the morning! Go figure.
Ehre was creatively playing with her blanket in the car...up until she fell asleep.

A cute goose family!
Beautiful Barn that we found!
Little Christy and a baby alligator!
..... 10 tries, and this was the best shot of all the kids "sitting" on the bench...see ya Ben!

It appears that this building has a problem with bees!
Getting ready to find a place to have lunch, but first we want to hike around a bit.
Our picnic spot!
What a silly little boy!
We DO NOT encourage this behavior, but lately Ben loves going down the slides all by himself, head first!
Hannah and Ehre creeping closer and closer to the big goose.

Everyone had SO much fun jumping on the trap with Jeff, after school each day they would all head out and wouldn't come back in for atleast an hour.

Sometimes this is just the best place to put Benjamin, he loves the water and he holds still.
Hanna, Ehre's new favorite cousin in the Peterson family. They did everything together!

Happy Birthday to ME !

I've made this pie for Mothers Day, and then I realized that this is deffinitly what I wanted for my Birthday as well! There is no better way to celebrate 1/4 of a century old, than with a delicious Bannanna Cream Pie.



Recipe:

3 Packages Vanilla Pudding

2 Cups Milk

16 oz. Sour Cream

Sliced Bananna's (as many as you want)



2 Baked Pie Shells



Make filling place in cooled pie shells top heavly with whip cream! Chill for 2 hours.

YUMMY!