Canning Tomatoes

So my mom has always canned tomato juice as long as I can remember. Well, this week she is on vacation and told me to use her tomatoes, plus my tomatoes and can some juice if I wanted. So that is exactly what I did yesterday. For the first time I canned (by myself) tomato juice!!!!! Here they are all cut up and simmering away on the stove top. The larger pot I did twice.

The jars in the oven on the lowest setting getting warm for canning. Such an easy way to do it.Juice is ready to hit the stove again and bring to a boil. Got the spices in and it tasted wonderful!!
The finished result: 14 jars of my very own tomato juice. I started the whole process of picking my mom's tomatoes at 10:30 and by 3:30 I was finished!! They were all sealed too by the time it was dinner:). SUCCESS!!!

Labor Day Camping!

What a wonderful labor day weekend we had. It was extremely hot on Friday when we arrived. Saturday was beautiful out so we hit the beach and several (actually everyone at some point) went boating. The morning the adults took turns since the water was smooth and people wanted to ski. The afternoon was reserved for the beach and the kids tubing. Liam sure enjoyed the beach area. His diaper was FILLED to the rim with sand. YUCK!!

Us ladies had a nice time sitting in the sun while the men took out the older kids on the boat.

Saturday night we had a very intense lightning storm. Needless to say Liam was terrified of it. Soon though he fell asleep in this chair and I was able to tend to the other kids with s'mores. Thankful the storm went right around us and we barely got much of a sprinkle that night.

We went camping with four families. Westfall's, Gutwein's, and Leman's. We unfortunently were the ONLY couple with a tent. So here is our site! Gutwein's were right beside us and Leman's and Westfall's were across from us.

Sunday night the kids put on a skit for us. Can you guess what the skit was about?? It was pretty cute!

We were packing up and the entire weekend if liam wanted his blanket he had to stay in the tent with it. So while we were packing this is how I found liam....precious!!!

This is the kids...minus Laney. What a great group of friends these children are...and to think...soon they will be teenagers...oh how I hope their friendship lasts a life time!!

Looking forward to next year!!!!

Calling all green bean lovers.....

So if you are like me...you love green beans!! These are both from my garden and let me explain why. My dear mother gave me some green beans to plant and they are called Bush Green Beans. These are what are pictured on the left side of the picture. On the right side are what I was told to plant because they are nice and long green beans. However the seeds were two years old so I didn't get as many come up this year, but the ones that did...wow...check out that difference!! They are delish! Straight, long, sweet and crisp. Just the way a green bean should be! So if you plant a garden and you plant green beans, let me HIGHLY recommend Jade Green Beans!! And just so you can see exactly how long those green beans are...take a look at the next picture:)

Thats right folks....it is more than half the length of my forearm!!

So I realize that this is probably a boring post for most people(except those few garden lovers).....so I thought I would post a very funny picture. Caden came down for church on sunday determined to wear a tie. He came down with this outfit on and he was SERIOUS!! He didn't understand how we could chuckle at his outfit?? Cracks me up how he has his tie attatched to an unbuttoned collard shirt. That plaid stuff about makes me go cross eyed. So thankful he was happy to change his clothes for us.

Its time.....

...to return to school!! Elijah was way more excited than Caden was. I don't think Caden enjoys school nearly as much. Elijah has a brain alot like Nick...and can remember things so easily and is a smart boy! Im so proud of him and all he has accomplished with testing 6th grade level in reading and 5th grade math. Way to go!! My sweet Caden...you remind me alot of myself. You do your best, and you do so well at all you do buddy. I understand how hard it can be but you too are also smart. Not testing higher than your grade level, but thats exactly how I was. School never came easy for me and I can see that in Caden.
Nick stays home later on the "first school day" to make the boys breakfast and walk them to the end of the lane. They requested waffles for breakfast.

Elijah all ready...hair done and dressed...waiting for bus! I smile, because he is really becoming his own little man. He has requested that we not cut his hair(although I told him if it gets to his ear lobes...it will be cut). He asked for some gel, hair spray, a pick, deoderant, and some mouth wash for the new school year....oh how you are growing up. Im excited for this year and to watch you continue to grow!!

And my sweet little Caden....all ready...as ready as he can be....for his first day. He not long ago got his hair cut, but after watching Elijah's grow out...he has now requested that his hair grow long too!! Nick and I just smile at each other, cause he really does try to be like Elijah in certain things. He doesn't know it yet, but we aren't letting him grow out his hair to much....at least not as long as Elijah's is. It is long for him right now, and he is happy to style it each morning, but as soon as he starts complaining about doing his hair...we are going to recommend cutting it.

Walking down the lane....you will notice our "new pet" in the picture. This cat's name is Shadow. Our dog is no more....lead poisoning as nick called it:).

Bus is here....have a wonderful day! As I always tell my kids each morning after I give them each a kiss.... Have a good day. Obey your teachers the FIRST time, be a good example, and HAVE FUN!!!

I love you boys!!

Busy Busy Busy!!

So our busy busy time started on July 30th when the waibel family drove down to Tennessee for a mini vacation. We stayed at Wilderness of the Smokies and had a fun time in the sun and pool. This post is long, so I'll just highlight a few points as the pictures go on. This first picture is of the boys who got themselves ready to go ride a Monster Truck with Uncle Nate. They decided mohawks would be cool. We told them that was fine, but that we won't be wearing our hair like this for other times.
Nate and the boys on the truck!! It was empty that day so the guy took them around the track 8 times instead of 4 times and then sold us a cd of ALL SORTS of PICTURES for 25$. Great deal. Nate was able to pose the boys however he wanted.

Caden pretending to be run over!

Elijah pretending to be run over!

They each got to take turns sitting in the drivers seat for a picture too. Here is Elijah in the drivers seat. That truck is BIG!! Nate is a tall guy and he just barely is above the tires.

The next two pictures are nick and I's bathroom and bedroom at the condo. It was a suite with four bedrooms and 4 bathrooms. Mom and Dad and Kelli and Nate got the rooms with bathrooms joined and the kids and nick and I got the bedrooms that had double beds and bathrooms across the hall. (Nick and Kelli played rock, paper, scissors for the rooms...kind of funny).

WHen we got there they were having a little craft area out back of our building so the kids got face paintings, decorated pet rocks, had snacks and drinks and got balloons. A storm blew in(with tiny amounts of rain, so it all got packed up and put away pretty quickly), but still the boys had fun.

So you ask what we did all day for 4 days??? We sat in the sun and we swam till we turned into prunes. They had 3 different water parks here at the site. Two of which were outdoors and one was indoors. We spent the majority of the time outdoors until we had all had enough sun for the day but still wanted to swim...then we moved indoors. It really was relaxing just sitting by the water with your feet in it to keep cool, and watching the kids play and catch waves(in the wave pools).

We would come back each day for lunch at the condo and while we got lunch ready this is where you could ALWAYS find the kids....sitting on the couch watching tv.

At first liam was a bit scared, but after a couple times down the water slides with nick he was saying "gin" over and over. He really did love it!!

The indoor park had this surf pool so Elijah, Avery, Caden and Nick all took a shot at it. I only have a picture of Caden and Nick....Elijah fell right away(and lost his britches) so no picture for him.

Liam loved the small kiddie pools with slides too. He was brave. He even would lay on his back head first and go down them. Silly boy!!

Nick standing and surfing. He actually had to sign a waiver/release form to do this(incase he would get hurt). It took him two trys and he got it!! Good job babe!

We returned from vacation on Wednesday evening. I basically had time to get things put away and laundry washed, and then it was time to think about our next event in the family. Nicks brother Austin got married on Saturday to an amazing girl named Karis!! Yeah....its nice having another sister on the waibel side!

Rehersal practice on Friday night. Don't they just look adorable in their coordinating outfits. Karis's dad is the pastor at Faith Baptist so he actually had the service for them on saturday.

Rehersal dinner...it was good food!!

The big day and these kids were so excited. Elijah and Avery passed out programs at the door and then Avery ushered in Great Grandpa and Grandma Wyss and Elijah ushered in Grandpa and Grandma Waibel. Caden and Alivia were ring bearer and flower girl. To cute!!!

Our family with Austin and Karis...its nice the kids finally get to call her "aunt Karis" now.

The very beautiful couple!! We are so glad to have you as part of the family Karis and we wish you and Austin a beautiful, happy life together as one!!

Garden Progress!

Well, its July and we are finally getting produce from our slow starting garden. We lost our tomato plants a couple times to deer, but after using Liquid Fence we never saw another plant uprooted or eaten down to the soil. Our tomato plants are just now getting tomatoes on them, but we are sure enjoying some of the other items. Our broccoli never did anything thus it was uprooted and we planted another 2 1/2 rows of beets so those are just coming out of the ground(I planted them on June 28th). Figure it will be nice to have a second harvest of those. We have almost eaten all the khalarbi (we have two left) and boy have they been good. We had our first pick of green beans last night and those were put on our lettuce salads and our shrimp packets on the grill. We also picked a zucchini which there will be plenty more of those coming soon!!! We have harvested lettuce(which was a last minute plant cause my mother had left over seeds) and we have cut it twice now. We have all eaten at least one a piece of the banana peppers and Im thinking I might get to pickle them if they keep coming like they are. We also ate one green pepper in our shrimp packets last night....yummm!!! Our rhubarb did NOTHING!!! Didn't even come out of the ground!! Guess I'll replant rhubarb next year. Our 4 cucumbers we planted we thought died and so I replanted 12 seeds and out of those 12 seeds 2 came up!!! REDICULOUS!! Well, those 2 new plants just died again last week, but to our shocking surprise the original plants are still alive and so we have 2 VERY LATE cucumber plants. In fact we have one little tiny cucumber coming and about 4 flowers...so we might be lucky to get a cucumber this fall:). Well, thats my update on the garden front. Here is a picture of our garden as of today:)
(starting at right is where khalarbi was, then its green peppers, green beans, 3.5 rows of beets, banana peppers, okra, lettuce, yellow and green zucchini, tomatoes and cucumbers)

I just simply love this!!!