Some of MY "firsts"

These past few weeks have been busy but a lot of fun. I've been trying to do something new at least once or twice a week.
Strawberries were only $.88/lb at the Sunflower market so I bought a bunch and canned some jummy jam. Don't be fooled by the recipes, you do NOT have to have a nice canning pot. I used what I had in my kitchen. So here it is, my first homemade jam and it is YUMMY!
This is our raised garden bed John made. Didn't he do a great job!? The plants you see are concord grapes, tomatoes and corn. The other vegetables I planted are barely starting to pop up so you can't see them. I planted beans, carrots, zucchini, squash, watermelon and pumpkin. Obviously, the big things I didn't plant here. I planted them around my yard so we'll see if they even grow. We've had a lot of rain and even hail (which put holes in my tomato leaves) so i hope my seeds didn't get washed away. It caused a mud slide which you can see in the front of the garden so I'm glad we made this raised one. Am I becoming domestic or what!?
My sister and I took our kids to the Sweets candy factory near the airport. They give you a free tour of their factory and show you how they make their candy. They make taffy, chocolate covered cinnamon bears, jelly beans, etc. The tour finishes by giving each person a bag of taffy! When we arrived we were informed that everyone had to wear a hair net and KEEP IT ON. I thought for sure we wouldn't make it through the 40 minute tour with the babies and Anabell. But, they proved me wrong. We gave the babies a piece of wrapped candy to hold in each of their hands and it was a great distraction. I am still shocked at how well they did. It was a lot of fun.

I heard about Payson Lakes two years ago and finally decided to go there. It is a beautiful drive. John's mom gave Ethan a styrofoam plane so we thought we'd try it out in the mountains. This picture was taken as we were getting ready to go home. Our trip didn't turn out as ideal as I had planned. Due to my keen sense of direction, it took us over 2 hours to get to the lakes. When we arrived it was raining and then started hailing! The kids were hungry so I continued driving up the canyon until I found a spot we could stop. It stopped raining so I pulled over at this Utah Lake scenic area. So after being rained on, eating lunch on a wet blanket under an umbrella, breaking the wing off our plane after the umpteenth time of trying to launch it the furthest through the trees, getting muddy from playing baseball and tripping over a hundred roots and being strapped in a carseat longer than I could even handle, my cute kids and I were still able to laugh and have a good time together. I seriously love my kids!

John and I were finally able to go to the new Draper Temple.

I told you it's been a busy few weeks. And it's only going to get busier!