homemade goodness

My mom gave me a year's worth of coupons for doing things with her or her doing things for me each month as a Christmas gift last year. One of the things was a cooking day. I had never made jam before and wanted to learn, so she spent the morning teaching me to make strawberry jam (from strawberries locally grown right down the road from her) and peach jam (from Missouri peaches the boys and I picked at an orchard the other day). We had so much fun (or at least I did) and I'm so excited to have some goodies to taste or to share.

It was doubly good for me cause she took me out to lunch that day too. It's been a long time since it was just my mom and I out for the day. It was really good to just sit and talk and enjoy being with each other. Thanks Mom - you're wonderful and I love you!!

Some treasures unearthed.....

Taking a break from tagging all my photos from 2001 until 2009....I'm working backwards and have made it back to November of 2007 in the past 2 days. I was supposed to be done by now. Hmmmm........

BUT the good thing about going thru every picture is you find some you didn't even realize were on your computer, like this one:

{That's my sister, Amber, and our friend, Erin, at the Illinois State Fair last year!}

and this one:

{can't say I know anything about this, but it makes me want to go to the fair and I'm fairly sure JF found this and I would have LOVED to have heard what was said about it}

and this one:

{if you're from Illinois you probably recognize this....the Butter Cow....I only remember seeing one cow when I was growing up so it appears the exhibit has expanded}

and you have to be excited to find a photo like this:

{I'm pretty sure that's a confused look, but Brian disagrees and says I'm about to light into someone. Guess who he says I look like?}

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY ELI!!!!

{one year ago}

{one month ago}

4th of July

Fun time at my parents for the 4th! More of the weekend to come in later posts....

quote of the day {by elliott}

After bringing a plastic container in a few minutes ago that had been turned into a frog's new home, Elliott says this:

"It's a baby girl! I need to find a boy so that they can get married and have lots and lots of babies to fill this thing up!!"

Please pray that there are no boy frogs anywhere near our house!!!!

eight legged friend

This morning on the deck I caught a glimpse of this....

daredevils

at least there were helmets involved. Enough said.