Better Later Than Never

I know for most of you experienced canners it's pretty ridiculous that I had never canned anything until a couple of weeks ago, but that unfortunately is the case. I am determined to learn! I decided to start small with strawberry freezer jam. I've made two batches so far and love it! They are so delicious! They're also inexpensive and give me a product I can be proud to claim as my own. I tried different recipes each time, but the one I liked best was inside the Ball No-Sugar Neede Fruit Pectin. I still added some sugar, but not even half of what is needed for original pectin. I'm definitely going to make freezer jam out of raspberries, peaches and a few other fruits this year. I'm also going to try my hand at genuine canning as well. If you, like me, had never attempted make jam, this I would definitely recommend it!

This year for gifts to give for Mother's day, Parker made some necklaces and door hangers out of some cinnamon dough. He was able to do nearly everything himself except roll out the dough evenly and bake them.

We have a flat top range in our house. I like it, but no matter how much I cleaned it, it always looked kind of dirty. Well, thanks to my cousin Mel, I learned that a razor will scrape off those cooked smuges while not scraping your stove top. Well, it's true. I bought a razor holder and blades at Wal-mart for $2 and now our stove looks new!While I was cleaning, Parker and I were playing a spelling game with Scrabble. I would name a simple word and he would spell it out himself. After a while he wanted to make it harder and suggested words like "lemon" and "robot". This kid never ceases to amaze me! He is incredibly motivated and naturally smart. He did every single one of these words without any assistance from me, with the exception of "claps". That one threw him for a loop. He spelled caps, but since he can't prounce the /l/ sound, the "l" was pretty tricky.

The other day when I was emptying the dryer, Jason climbed in. We've had to buy a both a new dishwasher and dryer this year- not cool. The size of this dryer is pretty cool though, Jason can nearly stand up straight inside. Don't worry; it also has a lock.