Happy 12th Birthday, Malachi!

Today my oldest turns 12!
**Yikes teenager fast approaching...
Man how time has flown by!

We're so proud of the young man you're becoming.
You have such a compassionate heart and a great love for Jesus.
Happy Birthday, Malachi
We love you!

Sign Up Saturday...

Welcome to Sign-Up Saturday!
If you are having a giveaway on your blog, link up below!!
Link directly to your giveaway page. Please make sure it's family friendly!
***
Also if you've found a good deal or a freebie

link up for that too. That way we don't miss any great deals!!

Have a Great Weekend!!

Making a club with pallets!

Hubby rounded up some free pallets from the area
and the kids dreamed up a club.

I'll post new pictures in a few weeks. The clubs have
already expanded. They've worked really hard and
gotten LOTS of poison ivy. YUCK!!

But the work is paying off and
they're spending a lot of time in their cool clubs!

Canning Tomato Sauce - The EASY way!!!

I read how Heavenly Homemakers did her tomato sauce
and I adopted it!!! Be sure to read her post here.

This works so great. I've done it about 6 times so far
and have about 32 Quarts of tomato sauce and 35 pints.

I'm over 1/2 done but, I'd like about 15 more quarts
and maybe 20 more pints. Then I'd also like
some salsa and tomato soup.
Come on tomatoes keep turning red!!!

Start with tons of tomatoes! Simply wash them and take off the tops.
Some I take off the bottoms and some I take out bad spots. Take out
the core if it's big. My tomatoes are Roma so most of the cores are tiny.

Cut them in half or fourths.
Leave the peel on and leave in the seeds.
(how easy is that!)

Next take your tomatoes and put them in your blender.
Smash them down a little with a big spoon.
Start it up and it should look like a big smoothie!

You can even add in some zucchini. Just cut it up and
blend it with the tomatoes. I peeled mine so that
there weren't green pieces in the sauce.
I added 1 zucchini per huge bowl of tomatoes.

Heat it on high until it starts to really cook. At that point I turn
it down to a strong med. It will begin to froth up so if your
pan is too full it will run over. I sometimes prevent this by
dipping out some of the froth before it goes overboard!

When the froth is gone you have tomato juice. I let it cook
about an hour longer and I have tomato sauce.
Total cook time is around 2 hours give or take!

After that, dip it out and put it into your jars.
Make sure and sanitize your jars, lids, and rings.

I water bath my sauce. Be sure to follow your water bath
or canning instructions. I did mine for around 40 minutes.

Pull them out and you're done!!!
Add them to your stash after 24 hours.

I use tomato sauce for all my
pasta's, pizza, and chili.
I just add different spices when I pull it out!

Anyone else use this simple method for tomato sauce?

Winner of Rubbermaid Mop

Hi everyone!!! So sorry I've been gone so much lately.
The garden is hogging all my free time, but I'm loving it!
My pantry and freezer are FILLING up with wonderful produce
from our garden!! More on that soon (I hope)!!

For now the winner of the Rubbermaid giveaway is
#30
Tina!!
Congratulations!!!!

Here are your random integers, generated with replacement:

30 

Timestamp: 2010-08-15 22:03:39 UTC

I sent you an email, if you didn't receive it please contact me!

Have a great week, I'm going to try to post an update this week! We leave Friday for a week of camping so this week is going to be CRAZY!!!

Sign Up Saturday...

Welcome to Sign-Up Saturday!
If you are having a giveaway on your blog, link up below!!
Link directly to your giveaway page. Please make sure it's family friendly!
***
Also if you've found a good deal or a freebie

link up for that too. That way we don't miss any great deals!!

Have a Great Weekend!!

Sign Up Saturday...

Welcome to Sign-Up Saturday!
If you are having a giveaway on your blog, link up below!!
Link directly to your giveaway page. Please make sure it's family friendly!
***
Also if you've found a good deal or a freebie

link up for that too. That way we don't miss any great deals!!

Don't forget to enter my
Rubbermaid Reveal Mop Giveaway -- Ends 6/13

Have a Great Weekend!!

Wordless Wednesday -- DUNK TANK!!!

The Kids in the dunk tank!!

A few weekends ago we had a big family reunion know as
"Christmas in July". This year they rented a dunk tank
and the kids had a blast with it!

Yes they did talk me into trying it too! Sorry
no pictures though. I have to admit it was
pretty fun even though the water was REALLY MURKY!!

Anyone else ever sat in a dunk tank???

If you're wondering... YES we threw balls and dunked
our children... and YES they had fun dunking me too!

Rubbermaid Reveal Mop Review and Giveaway

I don't have an actual mop. My mop involves my
daughter to take a bucket of water and get
down on her hands and knees and scrub away.
I know, how mean am I!?!?!?

I've owned mops before, but thought they were
worthless and messy plus before this house I
didn't have much hard surface.

Well we were BOTH overjoyed when Rubbermaid
contacted me and wanted me to review their brand
new Rubbermaid Reveal Spray Mop!!

(picture not me! It's from their site)

We love it! I'm sold!! If it broke, I'd go buy another one!
Things I like...
1. REUSABLE PADS! Just throw them in the washer
and they last around 100 washes each!

2. You can use whatever kind of cleaner in the bottle.
Just pull the knob and it sprays out in front of you.

3. Works on all type of floors.

4. The pads just velcro on to the bottom and stick hard.

5.. Nothing more to buy...
Just keep refilling the cleaner bottle and washing the pads!

What took my daughter about 10-15 minutes
took me about 3 with the mop!

This picture is the bottom of the mop
and how the pads velcro on!

(Sorry it's hard to see)

Would you like to win a mop kit?!!?!
Rubbermaid is generously giving away 1 mop kit
to 1 of my wonderful readers!!
If you don't want to wait and see if you
win, you can go here and buy today!

This giveaway is open to US and Canada Entries.

To Enter do one or all
of the following.
(leave separate comments for each)

1. Tell us how much hard surface you have in your house.
2. Blog about the giveaway
3. Follow my blog (or tell me you do)
4. Twitter about giveaway (daily if you'd like!)
5. Subscribe to my blog (or tell me you do)

Remember to leave one comment for each item you do --
up to 5 comments (or more if you Twitter daily).
Also please don't forget to leave me your email!

This giveaway will end August 13th at 8pm
One winner will be chosen using Random.org!
Good Luck!!!

Disclaimer -- Rubbermaid provided me a new
Reveal Mop Kit to try out free of charge!
Thanks Rubbermaid!

Sign Up Saturday...

Welcome to Sign-Up Saturday!
If you are having a giveaway on your blog, link up below!!
Link directly to your giveaway page. Please make sure it's family friendly!
***
Also if you've found a good deal or a freebie

link up for that too. That way we don't miss any great deals!!

Kids at Camp!

We dropped our 2 oldest babies off at
Church Camp on Monday!

They went last year and had such a blast!

Halee on left, cousin Brie on the Right

Malachi wasn't alone!
2 of his cousins are in his cabin too!!!
(sorry I didn't get their pic, they were on the other side)

It's only Wednesday and it feels like
they've been gone FOREVER!!

Sign Up Saturday...

Welcome to Sign-Up Saturday!
If you are having a giveaway on your blog, link up below!!
Link directly to your giveaway page. Please make sure it's family friendly!
***
Also if you've found a good deal or a freebie

link up for that too. That way we don't miss any great deals!!

We're having fun camping this weekend!!
Hope you have a great weekend too!

Summer Sleepover!!

Note -- I know you are about to fall over in shock...
that's 3 whole posts in 3 days from me.
I guess I'm an overachiever this week!!! ha or something like that!
ANYWAY....
My daughter (in the red and blue dress)
had 3 of her cousins over for a night!

They had a blast (or at least it looked like they did!)

Art projects!

Pizza for dinner (of course)
Complete with goblets of root beer!

Dress up and
makeovers!

Lots of swimming!

And of course Ice cream SUNDAES!!

Next week, boy sleepover.....
Do you think it will be LOUDER!!