Our first family flight!

              " Flight destination Austin Texas"  We got to the air port 2 hours early to get through security. Security was a breeze, leaving us 1.5 hours to wait for our flight. We waited an hour and then we were told our plane had mechanical problems and would not be going anywhere. We were able to get rerouted onto a different flight that landed in Houston and then on to Austin, but we were left with another 2 hours of waiting. I do have to mention my kids were being so good. On any other day sitting in an airport with 6 kids I would say "you are crazy, I would rather walk"  they were so good.  So we finally land in Houston rush across the airport to make it to our next flight. We make it with an hour to spare but then a huge storm hits. Apparently they have not seen it rain like this in 3 months. DELAYED AGAIN! We waited an extra hour for the storm to pass. After a really long day we arrive at our destination. We are all so exhausted and ready for bed. my 4 hours of sleep the night before had caught up with me. We wait for our luggage to come around in baggage claim. ( we only checked  Matt's bag) when the planes got switched we ended up on this tiny plane and they had to put my carry on and two others under the plane. So every ones luggage shows up except for mine.
I was so tired and proud of my kids I could not even cry at this point.  The airline said someone took it and they were calling her to tell her to bring it back. This other bag was left behind so she must have mistakenly picked up mine.
So long story short...I got my luggage back around 1pm the next day. So other than our bad luck we made it through 2 flights and 3 huge air ports without losing any of the kids. No one threw up or cried and no one was injured. I would say we did pretty good!  Crossing my fingers that our flight home goes a little smoother though.

Kids comments Tallon "are we flying yet"?  "when are we going to fly"?   Response "we are already flying"
      Avri "lets do this again" She loved flying

Abby looking out the window says "there is a storm ahead"!  Belle...She puts her stuff away as fast as she can and grabs my hand and braces herself.  I say "there is not a storm ahead we already flew through the patch of clouds".  Belle gets her book and crayons back out.   Abby "there is a big storm ahead" Belle puts all her stuff away again, grabs my hand and braces herself.  Me "Belle ...we are flying around the storm, you are fine"  Belle gets her stuff back out!
We did go through a storm on the smaller plane before Abby began to forcast. I thought I was going to get my arms squeased off between Abby and Belle.

Tallon " we are so high, are we going to get to see Jesus?"

My tomato plants have me stumped!

            It has become an obsession! Seriously, I look for pictures and descriptions and walk out and look at them a few times a day. I do not see anything anywhere like what is going on with most of my tomatoes. They look like they are wilted but are firm to touch. The leaves and stems are almost fern like and they are all curled and growing down instead of out and up. I did find little black bugs that look like ants or fruit flies on them so I  sprayed a pesticide. The pesticide did not seem to do anything, so last night I blended up  3 garlic cloves in 2 cups of water then added about a TBL of oil, a few drops of natural lemon oil and eucalyptus oil. I put a 1/4 cup of the mix with about a 1/2 tsp dish soap in a 64 ounce sprayer. The plants actually looked a touch better today. I did not see as many living bugs on them. I did put a small cup of oil by one of the plants and the black nat things seem to be attracted to it and drown.  

My Utah Garden 2011

This is my second post today for my garden. I felt like the good and bad could not be on the same post.
So besides the nightmare. I am crossing my fingers we don't lose anything. I have done everything beside sing to it to help it along.

I planted 25 tomato plants, 13 peppers plants, 1 egg plant, 8 cucumbers, 1 watermelon, 1 cantaloupe, small row of Swiss chard, 3 small rows of corn, 3 small rows of beats, 4 pole beans, 2 zucchini, 1 yellow squash, 4x4 box of peas, 2x4 box of carrots and a 4x4 box of white onions.  I also have 2 4x4 boxes of  established raspberries, 1 4x4 box that has asparagus growing in it (this will be year 3).  I also have two 4x4 boxes of strawberries. That is all in my back yard. I have a huge rhubarb plant, a huge bed of strawberries and 7 fruit trees in my front yard.  I also have random herbs planted all over the place. 

Matt finished my new raised bed. The tall supports down the center are for my grapes and blackberries.

My peas are looking good! My kids favorite.

 

All my pepper plants look really good. I planted 3 yolo wonder green bells ( 2 out of the three have peppers on them already), I also planted two banana peppers , 6 jalapeno (I want to can them this year) and 2 red bell peppers.

This is one of my banana peppers. I have never had peppers this early.

This is the average size of my tomato plants. I have a few that are much bigger, but not as healthy.

  

My front bed is so full of strawberries. They look better this year than they ever have. I thinned them out so much last year I was worried I would not get much. It made them thicker and bigger.  I hear Strawberries are really hard to grow in Utah, but I tried to kill these before I decided to baby them.

Picture before I removed my covers.

I bought most all my plants about 7 weeks ago. I have kept them in my wagon in my garage and pulled them in and out everyday if the weather permitted. I got all excited and planted them almost 2 weeks ago. I was so glad I missed the big hail storm but then it got all rainy and cold. That first night I could not sleep and worried all my work and money was outside freezing. So the next night I came up with 33...Yes 33 buckets, flower pots and garbage cans. I even used my kids Easter buckets.  I have gone out and covered everything without a cage or support most every night since. I go back out in the morning and uncover them.  I covered my caged supports with a big furniture cover. I read that the tender plants will survive in the cooler temperatures but anything below 50 they put all their energy into just staying alive. In other words they won't grow much.  I am hoping I will have a record produce garden this year. A big come back from not growing one last year.
     

My Garden nightmare.

I think my yard would be a pathologists dream of bacteria, viruses and who knows what else. One of the managers at IFA said that all this wet cool weather has all kinds of stuff growing that normally is not a problem here in Utah.

                                              My Blackberries

I dug them up two days ago to look at the roots.  I had some white ones so their is a tiny hope. The water table is so high where they are planted. The roots where just in a slosh pool of water, so I raised them up . I  picked up a  Ferti-lome fire blight spray that that I have started to treat them with.

This tomato was very purple. It looks a little droopy but it is not as purple as it was.   I know that the cold  temperatures can cause plants to turn purple through the veins because they can't absorb the phosphorus.  I bought some  bone meal and sprinkled it around the base of all my tomatoes.

I could not get a good picture of the purple on my tomatoes so I took one of my marigold.   These leaves are not crispy. It just looks like the leaves are suppose to be this color.  I have found a few things that this could be. One is fire blight.  One is the lack of phosphorus.   A new disease that popped up in 2006 called TPLD.  

This Tomatillo split and looks like shoulders. It is growing out instead of up. Weird! 

This tomatillo is still tiny and not growing ...yet it is covered in as many blossoms as possible. I am trying to decide  if  I should pinch the blossoms off so the plant can grow bigger first.

                 Now on to my trees! This is making me sick!

We started off infested with aphids. This leaf is after being sprayed twice! 

Then came all the rusty colored leaves on my  apple tree. This tree looks horrible. It has fire blight and a bacterial issue.  I am thinking we will have to cut this one down. 

My pear tree looks like some one took a magnifying glass and burnt all the tips of my leaves. This tree also has fire blight and some other kind of bacteria.

I took cuts of both trees to IFA and that is where I got my information. I have also researched on line and found the same thing I was told by the IFA manager. He recommended a ferti-lome fire blight spray and also a ferti-lome broad spectrum fungicide.
I was also told to cut 6 inches below and infected branch but that would be my entire tree. I have applied the spray 2 times at this point. My tomatoes look better. I think the rest may as well. It is hard to tell ...as they still look good as dead.    

Stuffed Rolls!

                     This is one of my family's favorite meals.

Stuffed Rolls!

Start by making your favorite roll recipe! 

I use my roll mix!

While the dough rises I make the stuffing.  I usually make a couple different  stuffing's at a time. 

This is just pepperoni cut up. A small amount of my own canned pizza sauce, and a small amount of  mozzarella cheese.
You don't want to add to much sauce or cheese because it tends to leak out if you do.

This one is a qrt of my canned chicken, half a cube of cream cheese, about half a cup of sour cream, dryed basil (I would use fresh if I had it) diced up garlic (I like a lot) about a cup of mozzarella cheese, pepper and a pinch of salt. 

This is a new one. It is about a half qrt of canned chicken, a pint of my canned pineapple (drained) and about a half cup of our favorite bbq sauce and some diced garlic. I did cook this one to get some of the juices out from the pineapple. After it cooled down I added about 3/4 cup of mozzarella cheese.

Now I know this may seem like a lot of work or prep, but all the ingredients are already prepared. It is a matter of opening jars and pouring. The dough is all ready except for the wet ingredients. I do not own a mixer, so I make mine by hand.

I take a glob of dough and roll it out, then cut it with my pizza cutter. You can do these any size you want. I have done them small enough that they are just bite size and big enough that one could be an entire meal.

I put a little cheese on the bottom, add a spoon full of stuffing, then a little more cheese.  Then you are going to pick up one end and roll and tuck. Roll forward and tuck in the sides as you go. You want to get the best seal possible so all your yummy stuff stays inside. 

Here is a pan ready to go in the oven. I have them arranged on the pan in different sizes and shapes so I know which ones are which, and so I have a variety for my kids to choose from. 

I bake them on 350 for 20 minutes. I did butter the tops this time around. I usually don't and it did not make a difference to me. Like I said you can take as much time as you want to make them pretty, or just throw it all together. I am not so much into making my food pretty and perfect before it disappears into mouths. I am into the fastest prep, and my husband and kids love these.

So I told you just to add a small amount of pizza sauce to the pepperoni stuffing! I dump a Qrt jar of sauce into a pan, put what I need in the pepperoni stuffing and heat the rest up, then you have a dipping sauce for those who like it extra saucy.  

Add a salad and or fruit for the perfect meal!

Candy hair clips!

Result...tons of cute hair clips!

             I promised the twins something fun when they got home from school today  . A friend of mine gave me the idea except she had seen them as pins.  We went to Family Dollar and got a bag of gum balls, and a bag of assorted hard candies. Then we went to Sally's and picked up a box of metal hair clips. (I will just mention for anyone who has girls with hair, Sally's has the best clear small rubber bands and they are the cheapest too)

1. cut small strips of ribbon to put in between the clip so you don't glue the clip shut.
2. glue on your gum or what ever hard candy you choose. (I painted some flowers on the plain hard candies with just cheap craft paint)
3. take outside and spray with clear glaze. This gives it the glass like finish (and hopefully will keep the      kids from eating there clips for a snack.
4. I did find that if you turn the clip upside-down the flat candies look better.
5. I also hot glued a few of the candies to some bobby pins.

All in all the kids had fun, and you can say Ooh that's so cute, or you can say "Hun you have a piece of candy stuck in your hair!"

Moms memories for mothers day!

             These are some of my kids funny moments...


Avri...(she was about 4)I use to do all my shopping at Albertson's.  Avri was my little side kick. I was having a bad day and had been venting to my dad earlier (avri must have been on the defense).  So Avri and I go to Albertsons. I get my groceries and at the check out the lady says "do you have your albertsons card?" I hand her my keys (the card is on my key ring)  Avri says... to the cashier All puffed up hands on the hips "I just don't understand why you think you can keep charging my mom for her own key's over and over every time we come in here!" 


Hattie...(she was 3) She use to love the book "There was an old lady who swallowed a fly" She was sitting on the couch reading it one day.. "There was an ol lady who swallowed a sly, I don't know why she swallowed the sly, she swallowed a spider, a cat,a dog, a goat, a cow... (she looks up so confused hands in the air) mom how she do that?" 


Belle...(she was 7)She came home from school and said she was starving because she threw her hamburger in the garbage at lunch time. Me "why?" Belle..."ummm... because they said they made the Patti out of a cow." ME.."where did you think hamburger came from? "  Belle "the store" 


Abby... (she was 7) We are driving up and over a canyon pass. The elevation was at about 10,000 feet. Abby says she is to scared to look up because we are so high.  We stopped to take a picture and Abby asked me how much higher we had to go.  I say "we are at the top" She looks up at the sky and says "Wow the sky is much higher than I thought it was" 


Kyle...(he was 7) we are remodeling our kitchen and Kyle is sitting at the table eating lunch out of the blue he says "Dad don't you wish you had a Canadian?"  Matt laughs and says "what does that mean?"  Kyle " they work for free so you don't have to, heard it on the TV"


Tallon...(he was 4) Me "tell me 3 reasons why you love me" Tallon " Because Jesus says to love every one " Me that's 1 Tallon " because you said its not nice to tell people I don't like them" me k that's 2  Tallon " because you are my mom"