Photo A Day August 3-11, 2013

My photo a day's have been taking a little bit of a different turn, at least in my mind, since I have started Project Life.  Each photo I am choosing for the day isn't always the "best" one I have taken that day, but rather is the thing that I want to remember most from the day.  Instead of just the picture that I am capturing, I am also thinking about the journaling that will go along with the picture.  It is a shift that I am ok with and am looking forward to where it might lead.

We have had a bit of an eventful week so here are the pictures...

aug 3, 2013
I bought some cherries to make cherry jelly (Joe's favorite) and completely overestimated
how much I needed.  I had to contract out some of the work.  She drove a hard bargain
 and when it got to the middle of the job, she decided she needed more money.  

aug 4, 2013
my two zucchini plants are going crazy

aug 5, 2013
waiting for daddy to get home...you see, there
was a ball and she was planning on waltzing

aug 6, 2013
it was a rough day...an unplanned blood drawing at the dr caused a
cancelled trip to Nana's house and a bit of car clearing for me.
then we spent the rest of the day watching movies.

aug 7, 2013
pinkies up!
a tea party at a local dessert place 

aug 8, 2013
so desperately wants a ballerina bun

aug 9, 2013
she loves her sleeping bag and
 got to use it on our trip to Seattle

aug 10, 2013
at Woodland Park in Seattle
 <3

aug 11, 2013
we went on a duck boat tour and
 had a wonderfully obnoxious time

A to Z: Summer 2012 (and I figured out how to do a Shutterfly book!)

I have been working on a little project all summer long as a way to chronicle all of our wonderful adventures.  I didn't go anywhere without some kind of camera, my goal being to make an alphabet book for Taelin (since she is getting to that age where that will be useful) and be able to check off  #95 on my list which is was an A-Z theme photography challenge.

In addition to finally sorting through and organizing all of the photos from the summer, I ended up using Shutterfly to make the book.  I have been playing with the idea of doing more of my scrapbooking in a digital way, not that I don't still love all of my paper, ribbon and other beautiful supplies, but right now it just makes sense because of time and space.  I won't get rid of my scrapbooking things, they will just be saved for other smaller projects (like December Daily albums), card making, and gift tags.

I am really happy with how the A to Z photo challenge turned out and am SO excited to get the printed book to give to Taelin.  Below you can take a look at how it turned out!

Click here to view this photo book larger

Start your own Shutterfly Photo Book today.

Freezer Jam...was is always this easy?

We got our first CSA box this week and along with some lettuce, swiss chard and kale, we also got 4 pints of very ripe strawberries.  There was no way that we were going to be able to eat them before they got over ripe and for some reason I wanted to do more than just freeze them for smoothies.  I thought about what else I might do and making jam (#80 on the list) came to mind immediately.

I have never made jam before, but remember my mom and both grandmothers making it when I was young.  I don't eat a lot of jam/jelly myself, but Taelin is a kid and of course likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  Joe puts an obscene (his term, not mine) amount of jelly on his sandwiches and his favorite is cherry, which if you don't know is the most bloody expensive kind there is.  So, I thought I would give it a try in the hopes that maybe I could have some on hand for Taelin and maybe even venture into making cherry jam if this turned out.

I looked up some recipes but came to the conclusion that I should just use the recipe on the box of pectin.  Interestingly, someone submitted a recipe to Allrecipes that is the exact recipe on the box...so if you are interested, here is the link.  You can't really make it without buying the box of pectin so if you want to make it yourself, you should probably just go buy the box and go from there.


There are only 4 ingredients: 2 pints of strawberries, 4 cups of sugar (yikes!), a box of pectin, and 3/4 cup of water.  There are several easy-to-follow steps and there were quite a few things that Taelin could help me with. Really, only the boiling water/pectin step and the pouring it into the containers step were not really kid friendly.

I remembered to have the camera nearby!  

So juicy!

Smashing the berries...her 2nd favorite part.

That is a whole lot of sugar....

Serious business

They had to set for 24 hours at room temperature before we could eat it...
easily the hardest part of the whole thing! 

Finally ready!

And...her most favorite part!

It was really good jam...I mean really good. It was super sweet so a little went a long way. It made about 5 cups total, but I divided it up into 6 one cup containers to allow for freezer expansion.  One didn't make the freezer and is sitting in our frig with a few tablespoons missing.  Taelin really want to take one over to our neighbors, so we did, and the other four were labeled and headed to the freezer.  I want to wait and see how the jam tastes after it has been frozen before I make anymore, but I have a feeling that this isn't my last batch of freezer jam!