canning

i haven't done much in food preservation this year. i did a little freezer jam and i've got some raspberries frozen in my freezer that i am going to eventually make into jam, but other than that, i haven't done anything. we still have some peaches and pears from last year, and i just don't have the energy to do those this year. plus, i'm really missing allred's orchards and haven't found any peaches that measure up here.

i knew that i wanted to do marinara sauce again though. it really is a staple in our house and our jars from last year are dwindling down. my pathetic attempt at growing tomatoes has not produced anything of note, so i knew i needed to buy some tomatoes but kept putting it off. i kept thinking that i had plenty of time and that it's still summer (the weather has been gorgeous the last few weeks), but last week i noticed that the leaves are starting to change and decided that i couldn't put it off any longer. 

a few weeks ago, i went to a food preservation activity at our church, figuring that i was mostly going for the social aspect because i already kind of know my way around a canning pot. i should have known better. i learned a couple of great things: 1. when blanching fruit (including tomatoes), just put a couple of layers in a clean and plugged sink and dump a big pot of boiling water on it, wait a few minutes, pull the plug and drain the sink, and then plug again and pour in ice water. you can do a ton of fruit at once and it makes clean up so easy. 2. in the northwest, you have to remove the rims from the cans after they seal or else they rust on. i've never canned in washington before and would have had no idea. i would have been really sad come next spring. it also explains why a friend gave us a jar of jam with no rim on it, which i just thought was odd at the time.

now that i've thoroughly bored you all, here are the rest of my pictures of the process. i got twenty-six pints done and plan on doing one more round next week. then there's the applesauce...

visitors

my parents came to town last weekend. i've been looking forward to this for months and it finally arrived. the weekend was so wonderful. we ate really good food and hung out together. i feel bad because we really didn't do anything too exciting for them, but we all got to relax around the house with great company and the girls loved having a new audience for all of their antics. 
 

you will probably notice a food emphasis in the pictures from here on out. my parents lived here for over twenty years, so we had to make sure that they got to eat some of their favorite food while they were here. we didn't mind eating it with them either.

on the way home from the airport, we stopped at top pot donuts. they were huge. the apple fritter and the boston creme filled were pretty amazing.

on thursday night, my aunt, cheryl, came over and watched all three kids so that my parents, randy, and i could go out to dinner together. we went to a restaurant in bellevue called tosoni's. my dad discovered it years ago and it is in a little strip mall, but it is some of the best food that i have ever had. i would put it in my top ten meals of my life up to this point. one of those meals where you savor every bite. my parents were the perfect people to share it with. 

i had the mahi mahi, which was one of the specials for the day. so good.

my mom had the veal piccata. 

my dad had the cioppino. he called the night before to make reservations and the owner answered. he remembered my dad and my dad asked if he would make cioppino for him. and he did.

randy got some shrimp risotto that was also amazing. apparently i was too busy eating to take a picture of his. 

for dessert, we got the chocolate decadence and a black forest cake. the cake was good, but the chocolate decadence was divine.

the weather was beautiful for most of the weekend, so we did spend some time outside. madeleine showed off her bike skills and we also all went to st. edward's for a picnic and playing on the playground. 

my mom and dad helped me hang some pictures around the house that i've been meaning to hang since we moved in. it's always nice to have someone else to help give that push and get projects done. 

on the other end of the spectrum from tosoni's is king charley's. but oh so delicious in its own way. it took forever to get our meal and my dad and i solved all of their inefficiency problems while we stood and waited for the food to come, but when it did finally come, it was fantastic. also, they had fresh blackberry shakes that were amazing.
 

on sunday, we went to sand point to go on a drive and walk around a little, but when we got out of the car, it was extremely windy. we weren't really prepared for how cold it was, so it was a short lived visit. 

 the weekend was over far too quickly, but was wonderful while it lasted. come back soon!

blue blankie

jonathan was having a hard time falling asleep tonight, so i was rocking him to calm him down and he was just starting to get heavy when i heard madeleine crying in her room (i had already put them to bed). i could tell that it was her "i'm being dramatically emotional about something," cry, so i continued rocking jonathan for a minute to seal the deal, hoping that she wouldn't come into my room and undo what i had just done. fortunately, she only opened her door to make sure that i heard the crying (confirming my cry diagnosis) but didn't come out.

after putting jonathan down, i went in to check out what was going on. she was clutching her pink blanket and when i asked what was wrong, she held out the corner of her blanket and showed me a hole. now, you may think that i have been a little callous during this episode up to this point, but i will have you know that instead of saying, "i told you that if you keep chewing on your blanket, you would put a hole in it," i took her in my arms and carried her to the computer and found this picture:

my blue blankie. the blanket that i had growing up, slept with until i went to college, and finally got rid of last year (i'm just not that sentimental, okay?). but before i got rid of it, i did take a few pictures. and i'm really glad that i took this one. because tonight, i held madeleine in my arms and showed her the picture of my blanket and told her that i also used to chew on my blanket (it's hereditary) and i had holes in three of my four corners. i told her about how i used to stick my fingers through the corners and carry it around and how, even though there were holes, i still loved my blankie and it was still soft and i could still snuggle with it.

and that seemed to do the trick.

johnny jump up, silly girls, and swings

the girls love it when jonathan is in the johnny jump up and i am constantly telling them to back up. but this time, madeleine just sat down with a stack of books and started "reading" them to jonathan. he loved it and just watched her for several books.

this was jonathan's first time in a swing. he's still too little to really do much, but he loved his brief stint in it.

flying a plane with dad.

this is a blurry picture, but it shows diane's latest trick. if i tell her she can't do something, she quickly throws her hands in front of her eyes and goes silent. i often wish i could do the same thing and pretend that my children can't see me. unfortunately, it doesn't really work.

i thought that jonathan was over his cold, but it seemed to rear its ugly head again during the second half of this week. he was really fussy (hard when he is usually SO happy) and spent a lot of time in his wrap. don't get me started on how bad his night time sleep was. last night was a little better, so hopefully we're on the up and up (again).

and this is a video that randy and i took, just because we think it's adorable when this one says "blueberries."

banana, who?

our conversation at dinner tonight:

madeleine: mom, do you want to play knock knock?
me: sure.
madeleine: okay, your turn.

me: knock knock.
madeleine: who's there?
me: banana.
madeleine: banana, who?
me: knock knock.
madeleine: pauses and looks at me strangely. that's not how you do it.
randy: that's the most classic knock knock joke there is, madeleine.
me: fine, your turn, madeleine.

madeleine: knock knock.
me: who's there?
madeleine: orangie.
me: orangie, who?
madeleine: michael!
the girls erupt in laughter.

me: knock knock.
madeleine: who's there?
me: henrietta, the rude interrupting cow. 
madeleine: pauses and looks at me strangely. that's not a name.
me: fine, your turn again.

madeleine: knock knock.
me: who's there?
madeleine: um, cup (i was holding a cup. this girl doesn't go far for her inspiration).
me: cup, who?
madeleine: stringy!
more uncontrollable laughter from the girls.

social media

recently, i've read several articles and studies (here's one, but there are a bunch out there) about the benefits of blogging for stay-at-home moms. it helps them feel more connected to the outside world and their families, among other benefits. i generally agree with them. during this phase of my life, where i just moved to a new place and it's hard to get out with three small children that are on three different schedules, being able to both read other people's blogs and write my own blog makes me feel like i still know what is going on with people that i care about and with the world in general.

i realize that there are drawbacks to it as well - a false sense of keeping in touch with people without actually knowing more about what's going on than what they put on their blog, the danger of comparing your worst to other people's well-edited best, materialism from seeing so many amazing things posted about, and the slight neglect that may come from spending too much time on my phone/computer (this is the worst one for me, and i always feel better about life when i try to confine it to a few set times a day when the kids are asleep). but when i don't have the opportunity for real face time, when my phone reception is terrible and even if i can make a call, my children don't tolerate it for long, and when it gives me a little sanity while staying home with three small children, i think that the pros outweigh the cons. 

then there's facebook. i fought facebook for a long time. i refused to get an account and rarely checked it once i did. i'm not going to lie, there are still a lot of things that i hate about facebook. i hate the interface for so many reasons and hate a lot of the ways people use it (oh, the horrible grammar that lives on facebook...). but, i've learned to embrace some aspects of it and i get on there a couple of times a day to check in. i think i've posted a total of two times on it, but i comment every once in a while and i use it a lot as a news source for my family and friends. after google reader, it is my second social media intake source.

i got a twitter account (@debrapeck) a few years ago because my friend was having a baby and they were updating people on the birth, etc. via twitter. i just checked and it looks like i have 8 tweets on my account since it was created. i follow six people and get on there every few days to check things out. randy tweets quite a bit, so it is a good way for me to see what he's tweeting about.

i should tweet more. it fits well with my sense of humor. i make jokes in my head in little snippets and love the idea of hashtags for furthering a joke, too. i just haven't really gotten into tweeting and don't have much of an audience, so i often feel like there's no point.

maybe i'll start tweeting more. because i don't have enough going on in my life right now. but once again, i am looking for ways to communicate with the outside world and this would probably be fulfilling for me.

oh, google+, i had such high hopes for you. it had the promise of being a facebook-like space without being facebook. facebook with a google interface? yes, please. i wanted everyone to jump over there and leave facebook in the dust. but it didn't really happen. facebook may have a terrible product, but it was first to market with a great concept and no one wants to risk being left behind by switching to google+. that's the problem - everyone might switch if they knew that their friends would switch too, but nobody wants to take the first step. and so, it sits, stagnant.

i go on google+ once a month.

finally, there's instagram (debbypeck). i downloaded the instagram app when i first got my iphone and then promptly forgot about it until we went to mccall a few weeks ago and randy's aunt and cousin were talking about how their family is all on instagram. a few days ago, i opened up the app and started messing around with it a little bit.

here's why i like instagram: it is like speed blogging. if i take a picture with my phone and don't have time to sit down and do a whole post about it, i can still throw it up on instagram. or, if i take a picture of something that's not really blog worthy, but would still be fun to post, i can do it on instagram. plus, there are some friends on there that really don't blog, but post frequently on instagram and it's a fun way to keep up with them.

we'll see how it goes, but i think that i'll stick with it for a while and see how i like it. i don't want it to take away from blogging because i know there are people that won't check instagram, but do look forward to pictures, etc. on my blog. plus, i like being able to write a little more sometimes, and instagram only allows for a small caption (with hashtags!). it fits a social media niche that i didn't have before though.

now, if i could just get these all together in one place... (google+!)

a few thoughts on the common cold

summer colds are for the birds. no one ever wants to feel like this, but certainly not when the sun is shining.

being a responsible citizen with a cold puts a damper on your social life. i missed four social events last week in an attempt to be considerate of others. four. i'm pretty sure i haven't had four things to go to in the last three months put together and of course they all happen on the week that my family has an infectious disease. but, i decided that if i am going to try to make friends here, it's best not to start out by getting my targeted social audience sick first.

when do kids get better at controlling their germs? after any of our children has a cold, i always feel like i need to completely disinfect the house. how can they make contact with so many surfaces so quickly? madeleine actually started licking the handle to our bedroom door at the height of her cold last week. licking it. she doesn't usually do this. is she trying to get randy sick?

being a mom with a cold is the pits. especially when your kids also have colds. because no matter how good your husband is to you, the world just doesn't stop for mom. all i wanted to do was crawl into bed for three days straight and all that my children wanted was my constant attention. including at 2:00am and 4:00am and 4:30am and...

i'd rather deal with the flu than a cold. the flu may be messier, but it strikes fast and then it's gone. colds seem to hang around forever. plus, it seems easier to contain flu germs because the flu renders its victims more lethargic. my kids obviously don't feel well when they have colds, but they still go about touching everything (see comments above) and living life fairly normally. with the flu, i can usually keep them quarantined in front of the TV and hopefully keep their siblings from getting sick. i don't even try with colds. plus, my kids seem to give me more sympathy when they see me vomiting than when i just have a cold (see comments above).


but the saddest thing about the common cold is when infants get it. because there is so little you can do for them. i swear, you can't buy cold medicine for children under the age of thirteen (that may be a slight exaggeration, but only slight). so, i put saline drops in my little boy's tiny nostrils and listen to him scream as i suck his brains out with a small, blue, rubber torture device. i watch him drown as he tries to nurse while only being able to breathe out of his mouth. i try to calm him down as he fights sleep, despite extreme exhaustion. and i pray that he will get better quickly so that my usually cherubic boy will come back to me.