Winter Wonderland

Even though its cold I love all the fun we have together as a family in the snowy wonderland. I couldn't get all the pictures I want to download so this is it. But we built a "fort" and made snow angles and played with the sled. The bank closed and Brock got to stay home and enjoy the day with us. We love it when daddy gets to be home.

Pets

Since we have been living in an apartment we are not allowed to have pets. This is totally fine with me. My children, particularly the oldest, really wants a pet. This morning while on the phone with grandma I hear the comment. "I really want a firefly but mommy won't let me have any pets. " I love it. It was a great day to start my Sunday morning.

Two Weeks?

Two weeks. Two weeks was the deadline my friend Shanna gave me to update my blog and that was 4 or 5 months ago. I usually am great with deadlines and meet them. My deepest and truest apologies because I said I would and I did not come through. I want to blog more often, but it is getting pushed farther and farther down the list. I need about 8 more hours in a day. But here it is Shanna (assumming you still even check my blog), my girls' birthday cakes from 2010 as promised, just a little, okay, alot late.

Here is Meghan's we did a duck cake this year. She turned 2!


And here is Emily's Carousel Cake that she begged for for about 8 months.

I think they turned out alright if I do say so myself. There was so much cake leftover.

Now I am not promising anything so that my honor won't be ruined. but I will try to do a blog at least once a week. I hope that sounds fair my friend Shanna.

Family Home Evening in the Fort

Over the summer the girls participated in the Summer Reading Program at the downtown library. They earned a voucher each to the Tin Caps that gave them each a ticket to get in, a ticket for a free meal, and a ticket for a free prize (cheerleader meeaphones). Our friends the Jones' and the Hansens participated as well and we cahsed in our vouchers at the same time so we could all sit togehter. We were on the third base line. I had never been yet to a Tin Caps game. Had been when they were the Wizards at the Coliseum but not at the new park. We decided to go on a Monday for Family Home Evening. It was fun. Here are some of those memories.

Getting close to bed time and hadn't eaten yet.

Happy, however, with the ice cream cone.

A LOT of junk food at this point.

Team Jones




Team Hansen

The Five Seasons

Depending on the location of your home the number of seasons you experience varies. Utah you see about two winter and summer. In Washington you also have two rainy and rainy. The east coast you get four with winter, spring, summer and fall. Here at the Fruth household we have Five. Winter, Spring, Summer, Canning, Fall.

So far this season I have done:

60+ jars of salsa

50+ quarts of green beans

25 quarts of diced tomatoes

5 quarts and 1 pint of tomato juice

7 pints tomato sauce

2 pints nectarines

We still have so much more to go.

Here are some pictures of our most recent session last Monday (the 23rd)

Start with some tomatoes

add two cute and anxious helpers

Here the girls are washing the tomatoes

(I love Meghan's face)

Meghan is in charge of squishing the juice out of the tomatoes


she needed a little assistance...



lots of clean jars

Tomatoes in the water bath on left, green beans in the pressure canner on right back and tomato juice in the front pot plus sauce in the crock pot off to the right. It was a busy day.

This wasn't all of it but that day I canned from 7:30 in the morning until 10:30 that night with breaks for annoying things like eating having to stop to go pick up Brock from work. On days like these I understand why my mom had us eat cereal or bologna sandwiches for dinner a lot during canning season. It was crazy trying to cook too.

All in all that day we did 14 quarts of Green Beans, 7 quarts of diced tomatoes, the juice, sauce and nectarines. Monday's usually are my most productive days of the week. Besides the canning I switched Meghan's clothes from 18 months to 2T, Emily and I washed the bay window inside and out, I put away the 4 loads of laundry that had been folded and not put way last week, cleaned and vacuumed the living room, and went to the tin caps game for family home evening. I even managed to play with my kids a bit.

This salsa was from the Saturday before.

Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes.......

...Is not just a Primary Song. It is now the new modesty song in our house. I went to the "How to talk to your kids about sex" class at the Stake Relief Society Meeting last Saturday and I loved it. Even though my babies are only 3 1/2 and 1 1/2 that talk will be coming sooner than I would like to think, so I took the class. One of the sisters said with her girls they play head shoulders, knees and toes to check to see if their clothes are modest. Hands on head- does the shirt come up? Hands on shoulders- are the shoulders covered so that you could enter the temple? and can you see your bra and etc.. in your sleeve because it is too big? Knees- does the skirt cover my knees and do you see your breasts while bending over? and Toes- does your skirt cover you behind or do you see your panties while bending over as well as breasts? I love it.

We are teaching our children young that modesty is important. Brock and I decided No sleeveless shirts or sundresses, We are discussing shorts (leaning towards knee shorts only), one piece swimsuits, etc... They are young but the scriptures say to teach them while they are young. Our philosophy is the younger they learn it the easier it will be to live it as they get older. It is sinking in I must say. Emily informed her grandma that she was not modest when she came over with a sleeveless shirt on. As always we are working on why we dress modestly and that even though other people don't, we still do.

Date Night X 2

So a great friend of ours gave us a coupon for a free pizza from pizza hut, 2 super saver movie passes and provided her daughter for babysitting for Free! On Friday Brock and I went out to Pizza Hut and then we actually rented a movie. I of course have not seen it yet because I fell asleep before the opening previews were over. (Good thing we have it until Wednesday). The next day my dad came over and watched the girls for a meeting we had and Brock asked my dad if he could stick around so he could take his daughter out for a date. He did and we doubled with some friends of ours and saw Letters to Juliet. I loved it. It was cheesy, predictable, funny, and adorable. I think it will go into our personal collection and will make the "Project Movie" list.

I love date nights.