COURAGEOUS

If any of you possibly can,

go see this movie!

It will only be out for a few

days in the theater.

This is probably the best movie

I've seen.  It makes a person

really think about what it means

to be a parent and to do an

excellent job in the sight of 

God Almighty.

Here's a preview:

I so hope you will make time for this.

It is more than worth the price

of admission (and I never think

that with today's trumped up prices).

Fireworks and Apricots

Today we had a great and productive family day!

We had the fun of firing off fireworks together.

Then we finally started to harvest the apricots.

As you can see they are small,
but there are a lot of them!

After washing them, we started to cut them up.

But given how many apricots we have,
I knew that was going to take forever,
so I decided to use my chopper to
speed things up a bit.

The older boys helped with the pitting process.

8cups apricots (pitted and de-stringed)
1/4cup lemon juice
5cups sugar

Bring to a rolling boil and boil for 30 minutes,
stirring FREQUENTLY.

Apricot jam bubbling; water-bath coming to a boil.

Almost ready!

Time to fill the jam jars:

Now for 10 minutes in the water bath.

That's beautiful!  :)

One of my readers asked what I was going to do
with my apricots.  Well, this is the first step.
We're going to try drying some as well,
as well as get another batch of jam going.

Plus, we're just going to eat some
of them FRESH, of course!!!

My Family

The cat and I are the only females at our house.  My husband and I have 4 boys who are eating A LOT and growing fast.  I take care of a little boy for a friend and even the dog is, you guessed it, a boy!  A friend once told me that I was woman enough for this household.  I'm not quite certain that sounds entirely like a compliment, but I choose to take it that way!  :)

I've been wanting to share the family with you a little bit, and like Lucy at Attic24, I think it best to be discreet for safety reasons.  So here are some glimpses.



Here the 3 youngest are watching popcorn pop in an oil popcorn popper for our End-of-School Party last week.  (We homeschool.)  You would have thought it was the Comedy Hour.  There was much excitement and giggling and screaming as the kernels popped.

Here is my second born pretending to be the Hulk.  (He took these pictures from here on down himself, except for the last one.)

Here is the dog.

And here is the other 'woman-of-the-house':

With my oldest petting her.

I saved the BEST for last.

The D.H.: