Heather Homemaker Time!

Annually my ward gets the opportunity to order plums and peaches by huge boxes, like 40 lbs each for a really good price! $9 a box! So this last week my plums and peaches arrived (via Tiffany, thanks Tiff!), 1 box each and it was time to eat as much as possible and then decide what to do with the rest of them! Unfortunately, Seth and I are not able to eat 80 lbs of fruit before it goes bad! :) I decided that regular jam was not the way I wanted to go this year, since I still have jam left from 2 years ago! So I found a great recipe for PLUM PIE, so amazing and YUMMY! And that's what I did with the plums, in the pic above it shows a big one and little bit size ones I did in a mini-muffin pan! Then with the peaches my friend Marcie came to my rescue by volunteering her kitchen to a bunch of us to have a peach madness day! I made freezer jam(so yummy and fresh tasting, great on ice cream), Peach Pie Filling (freezable and then you just drop into pie crust and cook in oven) and then I canned the rest of the peaches! I wish I would have gotten another box of peaches just to can, then we could have had a good supply for food storage! Oh well, next year! Click on the items that are blue to be taken to the recipes for making! Thanks Marcie you are awesome for letting us come and destroy your kitchen! :) Here are some pics from that fun day...

Us and the destroyed kitchen! Notice the table with with the peach junk all over it!

A closer up photo, luckily not too close! We were all so sweaty and covered in peaches by this time!

Goodbye Birdsnest...

The Olympics are over and this is kind of bittersweet for me! I have really been loving it this time around cause it is all I have been really doing I think! I have really enjoyed watching Michael Phelps win his 8 golds, so exciting! I really felt like I knew him by the end, watching his mom and sisters and to see what a great relationship they have was so awesome!












I also enjoyed watching the mens and womens gymnastics, always my favorite! So crazy the things their bodies can do!



The all around competition for the women was the best! The friendly, but intense competition between Nastia and Shawn had me at the edge of my seat! When Nastia won and Shawn took silver it made me cry!

And then when they got their medals and the national anthem for the USA played minutes later, I cried again. These olympics have really been a tear jerker for me! And also made me laugh a little, there are a lot of crazy sports in the olympics! Trampolining, Speed Walking - hilarious(check out this great video if you haven't seen this wonderful sport!) , Rythmic Gymnastics - which is floor gymnastics with a hula hoop or jump rope with a single person or group, Table Tennis - which is Ping Pong People(!) and any sport that goes longer than an hour with only running, walking and bike riding - so boring! But all around these 17 days of Olympic events have been really entertaining and now that it is over I'm kinda bored and have no excuse not to get housework done! But that is probably a good thing! :) Good bye Olympics until February 2010!

Mommy & Doggy Playtime!

These are pics of us and our babies! Sarah and (huge)Echo, Emily and Dodger, Me and Harley and Jenn and Chief! We all got together for a doggy playdate last night and it was a lot of fun! Harley has had playdates with a couple of them before, but having them all (plus more, a few random dogs showed up later so at one time there was 8 dogs!) at once I'm sure was pure ecxtasy for her! They ran around, wrestled, slobbered all over each other, hopped, skipped, jumped and literally trampled me a few times! Pretty funny cause when run dog runs over you, the whole pack does! I wish we had gotten some video of that because it was pretty hilarious! Drink time was special too! Next time I will be more on top of funny video opps! For now you get this one, sorry once again for my annoying voice! Enjoy...



Running & chasing each other!

Wrestling around!

Getting ready for another chase!

The big doggy portrait, this took some effort! LOL! I love how huge Echo's tongue is! And all their eyes look spooky all shiny from the flash! LOVE IT! Cannot wait till next time!

Gotta have faith...

So I am currently working on completing my Personal Progress and receiving my medallion, hopefully before the baby comes! This is something I did not do as the young woman, but as a Young Woman Leader I am able to work on now to achieve it! I'm glad because I really do want to get this and think I need to! :) So a lot of the value experiences have you write your thoughts in your journal and this is mine, so feel free to enjoy my thoughts! I might not do this with all of them, but this seemed really appropriate to share at this time anyways! Feel free to chime in!

This value experience is on Faith and focuses on preparing to be a mother! How perfect for me at this time! I have really been focusing on faith along with my husband this year and we have really been tested on this subject as of late and I'm happy to say that having FAITH in our lives is working for us! I went over a few scriptures on Helaman's Stripling Warriers and the faith that was taught to them by their mothers and I hope that my children will be able to say that their mother has taught them how to be faithful! I also read through "The Family: A Proclamation to the World" and it spells out the responsibilties of a mother...

"Her sacred duty is to rear her children in love and righteousness, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to teach them to love and serve one another, to observe the commandments of God and to be law-abiding citizens wherever they live. Mothers will be held accountable before God for the discharge of these obligations... Mothers are primarily responsible for the nuturing of their children."

What does a woman need to be able to do this? Well for me I think I would need to be a good example of all these things. And then I would need some patience, love and understanding, willingness to learn from them and the ability to change when things aren't working so well. I have good examples of this all around me luckily and I know when this time comes that it will be so hard at times (because I was hard on my mom), but through faith, prayer and sacrifice I will be able to handle this duty! I know that faith is what has gotten me through a lot this year and I look forward to sharing these experiences with my children so they know that I have lived it and that faith is something you need daily! I'm so bleseed by this gospel and knowing that I can be with my Heavenly Father again AND be able to be with my family FOREVER! What an amazing gift and I don't even have to be perfect... I just have to be trying to be!