It's that time of year again

Time to do a little canning. I love taking a few boxes of these...


And turning them into this...

I love making jam most of all. We now have enough peach jam to last a long time!

I've also started working on our long term food storage. Boy is that a chore! We really don't have that much storage space, but we'll make it work somehow. I just couldn't pass up Macey's 50lb bags of flour for $10. I think I'll work on 3 months at a time. Once we have 3 months of all the necessities I'll start building it up to 6 months. Slow and steady right?!?

I like how...

When I asked Kate to clean up these (cause they were all over the floor)...
They ended up here (in the trash can- if you can't tell)...I didn't know I needed to be so specific with a 2 year old.

I wonder what other things she's thrown away that I don't know of?!?! I'm sure that's where some of our spoons have gone. And yes, I did dig them out and wash them off. I guess I should have just cleaned them up myself to begin with.

Out with some of the old...

And in with some new. This post has 2 different stories that will tie into each other in the end.

Story #1:
There is one part of August that I really truly dislike. August is the month that our power and gas bills are adjusted. We are on the "budget" plans, which don't save you any money but do make it easier to plan your bill paying because you pay the same every month. In August they figure out if you over paid or under paid. Well folks, we under paid big time! I guessing it's because this is the first year we've had a finished basement. So we are now paying $7 more to Questar and $12 more to Rocky mountain power every month. That adds up to $228 a year! (I like math by the way)

Story #2:
I was walking around Costco the other day and saw an amazing deal on their compact fluorescent light bulbs in all shapes and sizes. I wasn't planning on buying new light bulbs that trip, but I just couldn't pass it up. I like to think that I'm a little "green" and this is just a super easy way to do it. I mean really, how hard is it to unscrew one bulb and screw another one in. I got enough for the 6 can lights in our basement playroom and for three of our bathrooms (our bathroom has a window so we really don't use the lights that often, the other 3 don't).

So now to blend the 2...
Now that I'm spending over $200 on energy that I don't want to be spending, it's time to make some changes. I hope the new bulbs live up to their claim of lasting longer and so forth. We also turned the temp up on our air conditioner so now it doesn't come on until 80 (I really wish the weather would hurry up and cool down!!). And will probably do the same with the heat for the winter (but down I guess). I've also tried to make a better effort at getting the kids (and myself) to turn lights off as they leave a room. I guess we'll see this time next year if all my hard energy saving work pays off. If anyone has any other thoughts or ideas let me know, I could use all the help I can get with this one!

Once upon a time...

there was a crib. This crib entered our lives when Ellie was born (10 years ago). When Kate started potty training (which is another post for another day!) I started counting down the days until I could finally get rid of the crib. We all know that Kate is the last, and why store a crib that I will no longer need, so it was going to take a nice little trip over to Sweet Pea (a store close by that takes used kid/baby stuff). Maybe I was a little too excited to be done with the crib, or maybe it had hurt feeling at being let go so easily and jinxed me, I really don't know. But the day I called to see if they had room for another crib they nicely let me know that they no longer take cribs. WHAT?!?
Once upon a time there was a crib re-call. Well great! I guess there was a recall on many many many cribs that have drop down sides. So Sweet Pea is no longer taking any crib just to play it safe. The crib I so desperately wanted to be done with is digging in it's heals and refusing to go.
What to do now... Well I guess I could try to sell it, but let's face it- who wants a 10 year old crib. It could go to DI and find a new home that way. Or it could get a make over!
And that's exactly what happened. I turned the old crib into a toddler bed for Kate. I searched and searched for a "before" picture but this is as close as I got...
Tyler in the upper left, Ellie in the lower right, and Kate in the big pictures. There's some rails and bars but no whole crib. And here is the after...Don't pay any attention to the white walls. Sure we've been in our house for 5 years, and you would think that we would have painted by now, but no- white walls it is. Bryan has color picking issues. I know it looks like the foot board is taller than the head board but it really isn't. I think it was just how I took the picture. They really are the same height. So, just in case you're wanting to cut apart your crib and make a bed, I'll tell you how I did it.

First: I sawed off all the legs. See how the foot (and the head) board rest right on the floor. I guess you could leave some of the leg if you want it a little taller. I also filled in most of the screw holes from before and painted it white.





Second: I took a trip to Home Depot and bought some wood. With this wood I made the supports for the mattress. They run between the head and foot boards. I actually used 2 pieces of wood, the one you see in the picture and another one that is screwed onto the bottom half of the back side (so it make a ledge- if that makes any sense).

And Third: I screwed the mattress support from the crib onto the wooded frame.



That's it- you have a little bed! (which, by the way, Sweet Pea will take!)

Hot jammies

Why she insists on wearing fleecy footsie jammies in the middle of the summer is a mystery to me. But she insisted and I've learned to pick my battles so- hot jammies (as she calls them) it is! Oh and just so you know, no she didn't wear the hat to bed.

A new favorite

I have a new favorite website. In fact, I like it so much that I made it my homepage, so every time I open our internet it pops up! It's The Pioneer Woman. I'm sure many of you have already heard of it or checked it out, but I'm slower than most so it's pretty new to me. I think I could spend all day reading her recipes if I didn't get headaches from looking at
the computer for too long. I've made her French Breakfast Puffs and they were to die for. We ate half and froze half, and the half we froze were just as good reheated in the microwave as the fresh ones. And sometime next week we may be eating her Pasta with Tomato Cream Sauce- Yummy! I might just have to buy her cookbook so I can have it always on hand! Check it out in your free time- you might be hooked too!

Double Digits!

Our little Ellie had a birthday 2 weeks ago. She's now into the double digits (and will be for the rest of her life probably)! She's the big 10! She wasn't sure what she wanted for her birthday this year so she got a day out with mom. I took her to do some shopping so that she could pick out her own presents (is that being a bad mom?). We went to lunch at Panda Express cause she loves the orange chicken, we went to toy's-r-us where she picked out a beading set, we went to Costco where she picked out a coat, we went to JCPenney's where she picked out a dress and a shirt, and finally we went to JoAnns where she picked out some fabric for a skirt to go with the Penney's shirt. I guess I don't take my kids on enough 1-on-1 outings cause she thought it was great! No friend party this year, but I did make her a strawberry topped cheesecake by her request.

Another fun bit of info about this birthday is that she was part of a family mathematical equation. On the left is my Nephew Noah who turned 6 on Aug 31st, in the middle is Ellie who turned 10 on Sept 1st and on the right is my Dad (Papa) who turned the big 60 on Sept 6th.
So you see... 6x10=60 -You don't see that every day! (Oh- and thanks Aubrey for letting me steal your photo off of your blog!)