No pictures for now

Today is Sunday and I am supposed to update at least once a week but I don't have a camera right now. Darren gave it to Jon while he was fishing and then forgot and now it's in Jackson with Jon. So I can probably use Darren's big one but I don't have access to that right now. I was going to take a picture of our clematis. All summer it has grown really big and bushy but has produced no flowers. Now that it's already frozen once or twice and everthing else in the yard is dying, the clematis has tons of buds on it and some are opening up to small white flowers. I hope it holds up until more bloom. Maybe next year we'll get more.

My silly kid

While I was posting my last entry Jake started crying. I looked up and he was stuck under this little chair and crawling around trying to get it off him. It was pretty funny. He looked like a little hermit crab trying to get his shell off. So of course I wanted to take a picture but by the time I got the camera ready he had freed himself. So I put the chair back on him so I could take the picture. He didn't like that very much. He was much happier when I took it off.
















Then when I was putting the previous picture on this blog he climbed into this plastic container. Ethan tried to climb in afterwards but he didn't quite fit.

Puppets!

The other day at the library Ethan got a backpack about puppets. It had some toy puppets in it and some books about puppets. A couple of those books told you how to make puppets. Ethan wasn't too interested in making them but I knew as soon as Kevin saw the books he would want to make a puppet. So that's what we did for a Sunday afternoon activity. Ethan wanted a spider, Kevin a dragon, and I made a girl puppet. Kevin likes to make his dragon eat my girl. Sounds just like a boy.

A couple of random things

Today for Sunday dinner we had meatballs with BBQ sauce. Jake loved them as you can tell and I just had to take this picture because he is so messy. He looked even oranger in real life.















The heating element in our oven has been out for about a month now. My friend, Kristi, knew this and she also knew I usually make a treat on Sundays (which almost always requires an oven). I mentioned yesterday that I missed homemade cookies. Today she showed up on our doorstep with a big ziploc bag full of snickerdoodles for us, still warm from the oven. So we got our Sunday treat, thanks to her. And they are delicious, too. Isn't she great?!

Eastern Idaho State Fair

After the potty party was over we put Ethan back in a diaper and headed for the Eastern Idaho State Fair. I thought it was interesting when I first moved to Idaho that they didn't just have one Idaho state fair but fairs for different sides of the state. Anyway we walked around, ate a little fair food, petted some animals. Tracie walked around with us for a little while before she met up with some friends to watch "Idaho Idol". Darren and I decided that the fair would have been more fun with more cash and less kids. Next time we go will be in about three years when kids are a little older and you don't have to worry about them wandering off and getting lost in a big crowd of people. I also found it very interesting how the fair brings out many odd sort of people that I never see anyway else in these parts. But it was a fun time together and I'm glad we went.

Potty Party

Today we had a potty party. What's a potty party, you say? Well it's just what it sounds like. You wear underwear and go potty all morning. It was Ethan's introduction to wearing underwear from now on. It took some coaxing to get them on him. He is very comfortable in his diapers and has not been open to change. But I feel we had a successful day today and we'll see how tomorrow goes.

Canning salsa

I canned salsa this weekend. I found a recipe on a website called the National Center forHome Food Preservation. They had very good information on what types of ingredients have to be in a canned salsa versus a fresh salsa to make it safe for no microorganisms. Anyway, it turned out pretty well. It's more like a taco sauce than a salsa but it will be good on our foods this year. Here's the recipe and website if anyone is interested. And a few pictures, too. Blog posts aren't very fun without those. I wanted to take a picture of what my stove looked like after I was done but Darren had the camera with him hoping to photograph the big fish he caught so no
messy picture.














My beautiful bottles of salsa!





















Tracie came and got all of our huge zucchinis so her classes could make zucchini bread.




















Ethan helping Tracie. He has to be my most photogenic child.

Tomato/Tomato Paste Salsa

• 3 quarts peeled, cored, chopped slicing tomatoes
• 3 cups chopped onions
• 6 jalapeño peppers, seeded, finely chopped
• 4 long green chiles, seeded, chopped
• 4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
• 2 12-ounce cans tomato paste
• 2 cups bottled lemon or lime juice
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon ground cumin (optional)
• 2 tablespoons oregano leaves (optional)
• 1 teaspoon black pepper

Yield: About 7 to 9 pints

Procedure:

Caution: Wear plastic or rubber gloves and do not touch your face while handling or cutting hot peppers. If you do not wear gloves, wash hands thoroughly with soap and water before touching your face or eyes.

Preparing Peppers: The jalapeño peppers do not need to be peeled. The skin of long green chiles may be tough and can be removed by heating the peppers. Usually when peppers are finely chopped, they do not need to be peeled. If you choose to peel chiles, slit each pepper along the side to allow steam to escape. Peel using one of these two methods:

• Oven or broiler method to blister skins - Place chiles in a hot oven (400°F) or broiler for 6 to 8 minutes until skins blister.
• Range-top method to blister skins - Cover hot burner (either gas or electric) with heavy wire mesh. Place peppers on burner for several minutes until skins blister.
• To peel, after blistering skins, place peppers in a pan and cover with a damp cloth. (This will make peeling the peppers easier.) Cool several minutes; slip off skins. Discard seeds and chop.

Hot Pack: Combine all ingredients in a large saucepan and heat, stirring frequently, until mixture boils. Reduce heat and simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Ladle hot into clean, hot pint jars, leaving ½-inch headspace. Remove air bubbles and adjust headspace if needed. Wipe rims of jars with a dampened, clean paper towel; apply two-piece metal canning lids. Process in a boiling water canner according to the recommendations in Table 1.

Table 1. Recommended process time for Tomato/Tomato Paste Salsa in a boiling-water canner.
		Process Time at Altitudes of
Style of Pack	Jar Size	0 - 1,000 ft	1,001 - 6,000 ft	Above 6,000 ft
Hot	Pints	15 min	20	25

IMPORTANT:
The only change you can safely make in this salsa recipe is to change the amount of spices and herbs. Do not alter the proportions of vegetables to acid and tomatoes because it might make the salsa unsafe. Do not substitute vinegar for the lemon juice.

http://www.uga.edu/nchfp/how/can_salsa/tomato_tomato_paste_salsa.html