Canning and Babies

We've had a busy week here! I'll just separate into categories.

Lisa's mom sent us a box of peaches. It took us a week to finally get to processing them but we did it! TJ & I have been wanting to learn to can food but just had not done it yet. We got the skin off the peaches, cut them in half, got the seed out and scraped out the seed bumps. Then we made a sugar syrup, filled our jars and canned them! It was very exciting! We still had half a huge mixing bowl full of peaches, so a few days later we made peach jelly and peach pie filling, then just threw the rest into a bag in the freezer. Making the jelly (or was it jam...?) I didn't know the contents of my saucepan would expand when the sugar and peaches started boiling together! TJ came running to my rescue just as the mixture started boiling over- he got a bigger pot and I dumped it all into the bigger pot, burning him a bit in the process. As he was trying to clean up the spilled sugary mixture I kept stirring but my spoon was too short and I got burned a little too! It would have made for some great prime time entertainment I'm sure!

We got 8 pints of canned peaches...hoping they are ok, there is quite a bit of air at the top of the jar and the peaches are bobbing a bit in "air."

7 half pints of peach jam/jelly/preserves. I think it turned out! The last time I made jelly it turned into syrup, but this seems to be more solid.

Babies of course are the theme of the year it seems. Every time I turn around it seems I've found someone else having one! We watched our friend Donna's baby on Sunday so she and her husband could go to the air show. Baby Natalie is quite cute and was very easy to watch because she slept almost the whole time and never cried!

She was sound asleep and stretched up her arms - much too cute to not get a photo of!

Our friends Mark & Christie just adopted the cutest baby! They had an open house Sunday and it was so nice to get to meet the new addition to the family.

Isn't she precious!!

Baby Thumper is growing well! I had an ultrasound yesterday and the lady said baby is now about 1 lb 11 oz. Somehow she could tell this from one of the leg bones!? Since she could tell me such a magical number I asked how long the baby was and she said, "oh, I'm sure one of your pregnancy books could tell you." I guess science can't do everything. Baby is growing at the correct rate and is very active! I think the baby had been facing down and must have rolled over this weekend b/c now I'm (finally!) getting kicked at belly button line and above.

Profile Shot...I even got to see the mouth open and close!

And my favorite picture of all...the leg pushing against the wall. This must be a favorite position because that leg stays busy much of the day!