Blazer the kitten

Ok so I left on Friday for a Relief Society Retreat up at Lake of the Woods. So much fun of course. My sister Michelle is in the Stake Primary presidency and over the stake 11 year old campout. So she always plans it the same weekend and parties with us through the night. Anyway, after very little sleep I came home the next morning to see this on my couch...

So cute. He ended up bringing home this kitten from the high school football game. I guess he thought he would just keep it for the weekend and give it to someone on Monday. Yeah, Right!?? The kids and I fell in love with him. He reminds me of my cat "Prince" that I had from 6th grade to 10th grade. So I said that I wanted to keep him. So we are. He has blue eyes which I haven't ever seen on a cat before and he is tiny. He isn't even as long as my foot. Granted I wear a 9 1/2 but still. Rayah and I were trying to come up with a name and I jokingly said "Blazer" Lyle's favorite basketball team is the Portland Trailblazers. And of course our dog's name is "Dodger" for his favorite baseball team. So after all of these cute names Rayah and I came up with he ended up being named BLAZER. Here is a closeup.

So now we have three cats again and a dog. I know I really think I am a little crazy.:)

Basket-Head Mother Syndrome

My sister-in-law sent this to me today and I needed this reminder! Sometimes life feels this way.
I really enjoyed this quote by Anna Quindle.Elder M. Russell Ballard quoted her in my favorite talk"Author Anna Quindlen reminds us not to rush past the fleeting moments.{or if I could enter here-the basket-head mother syndrome} She said: "The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less"(Loud and Clear [2004], 10–11).
Starting today I am going to be better. I never had a basket-head mother, and I AM NOT GOING TO BE A BASKET-HEAD MOTHER! I am going to listen, love, communicate, cherish, enjoy, teach, preach and prepare my children. Time for everything else later.

Millions of Peaches!

So this last Thursday we went to Medford for the holiday weekend. We finally got out of Klamath about 8pm. Jake had a scrimage and Jackson had practice. (Football)
Friday we got up went and got our new(er) Suburban. Then we went and picked blackberries, all 8 of us. Then we swam at my parents. Then in the afternoon we picked apples and pears. Then Saturday morning we got up with Michelle's 2 oldest and our 2 oldest and Grandpa and Lyle and me. We went and picked peaches. The line of cars to get into the orchard was about 1/2 mile long. 25 minutes or so we were finally in the orchard. Lyle dropped us off and went to park. By the time he got to us we were almost done. We had about
5 boxes to fill. It took less than 15 minutes. The trees were totally loaded. Apparently, we got a little carried away. We thought we had 100 pounds or so. Yeah, 330 pounds later. So we went a bit over budget. :) Needless to say since we got home we have been canning peaches. Some aren't ripe yet. So we will be canning throughout this week. So much for a break with the kids back at school!! I did 4 batches of Strawberry jam from the berries I froze earlier in the summer and never got to and then did 8 batches of Blackberry -

Raspberry jam. All before I got to the peaches. Luckily, there are very few pears that we picked so at least there aren't a ton of those to do also. We will do the applesauce this weekend. UHG!! Love harvest time! :) We made cobbler for dessert tonight. I will post the recipe on the side towards the bottom. It works with berries too and any other fruit. YUM-O!

New(er) Suburban

So we just got a newer Suburban. It has about half as many miles as the one we have and is a few years newer and gets better gas mileage and has lots of bells and whistles!