Kitchen fun

Yesterday, Heather and the kids came over to help with canning for the first time. I had the salsa I wanted to preserve and had never used the pressure cookery before. I had managed to get Oma's cooker a while back and I am glad I did. That thing is a Cadillac! We have it figured out now and feel we can do anything now. We were so sad when we had nothing else to can. I am waiting for some tomatoes to ripen on the sill to can again. Think it will just be stewed tomatoes this time. Wish my peach tree hadnt been pilfered by the birds. I also was thinking about making pickled peppers and pickles. Next year the garden will be much bigger and with more fruit trees. Liesl will eat anything that is grown in our garden. She seriously has a fun factor involved in eating something we grew especially since she witnessed it growing from seed. She loves to look for cucumbers and just goes to town on them. She and I have relocated our wild lawn strawberries into pots and she gets to harvest a few every day. She especially loved the bell pepper from the garden and gobbled it up. Hopefully my watermelon and pumpkin will take better next year. We also made our own yogurt last night which turned out amazing. Liesl also ate that for lunch without prompting. She appreciates food more that she sees work being put into.

Liesl has been a great help to me lately. She loves to do chores. Her favorite being emptying and filling the dishwasher to the extent that she has gotten upset when I didn't ask her to help before I started to do dishes. Thank god....not my favorite job. She knows where everything goes. She also loves grocery shopping and also hates when I don't ask her to go. She rides in the cart very well for me. She especially likes when I have bottles to take back and helps feed them into the machine. Another chore she loves is putting away her clothes thanks to her new furniture. Speaking of furniture, she actually chooses to go to bed because of her super cool princess canopy. She decided to not spend the night somewhere she says because she missed her princess canopy. She has been doing very well with picking out her clothes every day because she knows where everything is. Brushing her teeth has become so much more frequent. She helps me out with Jeannie so readily. She loves sissy so much. she always talks about what she is going to do with her, includes her in her stories, Jeannie is about three times as big as Liesl in her drawings showing how important she is to her. Liesl has been drawing a lot lately, it has been her major pastime daily. She has started to make some stick figures of a sort, a very cute sort and has me label them for her. Her new favorite to draw with is markers. Thank you Aly for showing her the smelly markers.

Friday Melisa, Heather and Jeannie and I went to get our feet done and to dinner for Heather's birthday. It was a super fun and much needed girls night. Thank you ladies! We must do it again soon. Saturday we had an adult dinner for Heather's birthday with the Perrys, Statons and Neelys at Sherzad YUM. Thank you Perrys! Dessert Oasis was also amazing. Loved the cayenne mocha. I had to slightly abort mission to pick up the girls from Veronika's because Jeannie couldn't calm down.

Happy anniversary to my wonderful husband of 6 years. Baby I love you and all the gifts you have given me.