Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy Boy?

Are you wondering what I did with my 30 pounds of cherries? Well, we still have some left, but I've been busily pitting and cooking the last few days, and we're down to the last 2 or 3 pounds. A special thanks goes out to Echo who came out and spent the day with me on Thursday to get jam and pies made, despite the fact that she has a month-old baby and three other munchkins. And thanks to Russ for rearranging his schedule to make it possible.

I had never had cherry jam, but this jam turned out especially good. Maybe it's because our cherries are sweet and not sour cherries. I just used the directions that come with the pectin packet, except that I added extra pectin (about a quarter packet for every packet it called for). Echo and I made 7 half-pints and 4 pints of jam (I think) and two pies. She did awesome with the crust, it having been her first time, especially. It was so light and flaky. And it really helped to have her extra experience with the jam because I am pretty flaky.

Here's the pie recipe (sorry, no pics, it got gobbled up too fast). The filling comes from Southern Food, and the crust is Delores Pendleton's recipe (of Grandma Tobler's Bakery). Mmm . . . I think I'll go cut myself another piece.

Cherry Pie

Filling: 4 cups pitted cherries

1 cup water

1 cup sugar

1/4 cup cornstarch

Crust: 2 cups flour

1 tsp salt

1 cup shortening

1 egg

1 tbsp vinegar

1/4 cup cold water

In a saucepan, cook cherries in water 10 minutes. Mix together sugar and cornstarch in a bowl; add to cherries. Cook cherry mixture until thickened. Remove from heat and set aside to cool before filling pie shell.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Mix flour and salt; cut in shortening. In a separate bowl, beat egg and add liquids. Stir liquids into flour mixture until moistened. Form a ball and divide dough in half; roll out halves separately. Place bottom crust into pie pan, then pour cherry filling into shell. Cut vent in top crust. Moisten edge of bottom crust with water; place top crust on pie and press edges to seal. Trim excess with knife.

Bake at 425 degrees for 10-15 minutes, then at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes. Cool completely before cutting.

Then Friday and Saturday I made 5 dozen cherry muffins to freeze. I was a little nervous when I finished mixing the batter because it was so thick, so I added extra milk. The texture turned out great, kind of a cornbread texture. Adam doesn't love it, but I think it's a matter of preference. They were a little bland, so I doubled the sugar in the second batch. Here's the recipe, with my adjustments:

Cherry Muffins
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup pitted cherries, halved
1 egg
1 cup milk
1/4 cup melted butter

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Sift together dry ingredients; add cherries and stir gently to blend. In a separate bowl, beat egg until thick and light in color; stir in milk and melted butter. Quickly stir wet mixture into dry mixture. Grease 12 muffin cups. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin(s). Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes, 15-20 if making mini muffins.

Saturday I also made a batch of freezer jam--5 half-pints. I haven't tasted it yet, but it seemed a fairly good texture. Freezer jam is so quick and easy, it makes me happy. In my experience, it doesn't taste as sweet or set up as well as cooked jam, but it seems a bit fresher. At least with strawberries, we'll see with cherries.

A few more fun hairstyles

The instructions for this one can be found at Jess's blog here.

This one is a fun 'do for swimming (but you'll need stronger rubber bands than what I had, they broke, and the 'do came undone).

I parted the hair into four horizontal sections, all from ear to ear. The front row I divided into 5 sections, alternating rubber band colors. Then I divided the next row into four sections. I divided the front sections in half and added them into the second row's sections as I went. Again, I alternated rubber band colors.

I clipped up the third row and divided the bottom row into three sections. I divided the third row into two sections, and then came the tricky part. I divided the second row's sections in half, crossing over the middle two, and divided the center bottom section in half, adding all the sections into the third row's two pigtails.

It sounds a lot more complicated than it really was. But it did take a little while. The hope is to keep it in for more than one day, which you can do with the right rubber bands.

Summer Fun

Do you remember the anticipation for summer? I loved school as a kid, but there was nothing like that last week of school, the anticipation of long, empty, warm days. Days filled with sleeping in, swimming, barbeques, popsicles, sprinklers, and projects. The possibilities were limitless.

We've been out of school for one week already! So far, we've mostly relaxed and treated our time like a long weekend. But this morning the summer fun really began:

I was hoping to post some of the really fun summer project ideas that have captured my imagination, but they are in my current issue of FamilyFun, and I guess they aren't online yet. So you'll just have to wait and see if we get around to doing them.

Here's one fun project I found via Pumpkin Petunia, fabric scrap necklaces, by cakies:

Happy summer, everyone!

A writer in the making

Isaiah is very creative, as you've probably seen here before. But recently he's really taken off with his writing, and it's exciting to see what he comes up with next. Here are a couple of examples.

Yes, we are all loving the new house, but it is a lot bigger and therefore takes more effort to keep clean. So, for family home evening we made a chore chart and got the kids involved in helping keep it clean. Isaiah and Katie both got chores, but I guess that wasn't enough for Isaiah. As I checked the chart one afternoon, I found additions at the bottom for Max:

(You can click on the picture to enlarge, but in case you still can't read Isaiah's phonetic spelling burp, spit, sleep, eat, sit, nothing, learn, and play are Max's chores.) The older kids have had a hard time with their chores, but Max has done his chores every day so far!

A great Mother's Day gift

So, I have the best mom ever. Really! Did your mom give you a Mother's Day gift? Okay, even if she did, I'll bet she didn't tell you that you could give her the same thing. And then invite your mother-in-law to have it, too, essentially letting you off the hook for everyone you were gifting for Mother's Day. Yeah, I have the best mom.

Here's our Mother's Day gift for each other and my sweet mom-in-law:

And then she used her own gift card to take us all out for lunch at Texas Roadhouse. They even line danced for us because we asked :)

Millions of cherries

Yesterday we harvested about 30 pounds of cherries off our cherry tree at the old house (no, it hasn't sold yet, but we have our fingers crossed!). Thirty pounds. That's a lot of cherries.

Today we've given away about the equivalent of 3 gallon-sized bags full, and I've pitted about 12 cups worth (another gallon-sized bag full--enough for two pies and a batch of jam). That's probably half the cherries. I'll pit some more tonight and tomorrow for more jam and baking, then freeze some with the pits for snacking or whatever later. But if you live in the St. George area and want some cherries, call me or come by in the next 24 hours and you can have some. I noticed they were $3 a pound at Frei's Fruit Market, so you'd be getting a great deal (and ours look yummier anyway)!

Max - 7 months

7 months

approx. 20 lbs

red hair

blue eyes

Loves: drinking from a cup, playing with Isaiah and Katie, being thrown in the air, bouncing, banging things together to make noise, emptying and scattering baskets full of toys, splashing

Hates: coughing, being ignored, taking naps, messy diapers, waiting to eat

Milestones: rolling front to back, eating crackers and cheerios, signing "all done," bouncing in the johnny jumper, sleeping without being swaddled

Max, you are entertaining yourself more and more as you can get around a little by rolling and turning on your stomach. You're so big! But you're also so strong, and you know what you want. You love to watch Katie and Isaiah, and they love to have you as an audience. They are so proud of you, and I think they'll be your biggest protectors and teachers as you get bigger.

Since you have teeth now, I thought it might be fun to have you try cheerios and soft crackers occasionally. Boy, you love them! You inhale crackers and vanilla cookies so I'm too nervous to give them to you very often, but cheerios are much harder for you to pick up or choke on so we have those frequently. While cleaning out the garage we found the johnny jumper, and Dad hung it up for you to try out. It's now one of your favorite things! Neither of your siblings liked it, but you are a bouncing baby boy for sure. When I need you to play for a few minutes, I know the best way to occupy you is to give you a basket full of toys. It only takes you seconds to empty it and scatter its contents, and then you start banging with a toy on the basket or another toy.

I love spending time with you because most everything delights you. You are a happy baby, full of dimpled smiles, and even as young as you are you hug me every time I pick you up in the morning or after a nap. You love to "give me kisses" (wide-mouth, drooly kisses, but kisses notheless), and I don't know that I've ever willingly submitted to being grabbed and slimed so much by any baby, ever. I have sung "You Are My Sunshine" to all my kids, but you truly are my sunshine.