The Big Rat (and Salsa Estimate)

 Last night we took Julia and Elijah to Chuck E. Cheese while everyone else attended the first night of VBS - they haven't been in two years and we had promised them a trip for their birthdays. We had a good time in spite of my back really acting up and Elijah being scared enough of "the big rat" that he didn't want off of JD's lap for the first 30 minutes. 

I finally have a final salsa price comparison if there is anyone out there that really is interested. I only paid 50 cents a pound for the tomatoes and 88 cents a pound for the green peppers. With those prices, it ended up costing $1.64 a quart. It's definitely cheaper than any you can buy and tastes way better - it's just a lot of work! Since I made about 75 quarts, I still put a lot of money into salsa this year, so I'm going to try and grow green peppers next year and make salsa as I have tomatoes. I have been straight canning my tomatoes all year, so I also have lots of cans for chili or soup bases put up also. 

A Small Peak of the Craziness

If I am going to be honest, I have so many packed full, crazy days that I have to shake my head in wonder at how I am going to cram Selah and Bella into them. The reality is that we are not just taking about adding a two and four year old to the mix, but a two and four year old that don't understand, or speak, any English and have never lived in a family environment. To help that sink in, just think that my girls have NEVER been to church, a store, a restaurant or owned anything! That means that we have tons to catch up with that would have happened naturally if they had been with us since birth. I have no doubt that they will catch up, it just is going to be an exhausting (but exciting) process to walk them through so many firsts. 

In the meantime, I honesty think that we have had more things break this adoption round than ever before. We have had every car require extensive work, both tractors break, two ACs go out and a rental house garage burn down. At the moment, we have some extensive, and expensive, Geothermal issues to deal with. Our under-ground tubes are leaking - the very tubes that they assured us never, ever leak when we spent the big bucks putting them in the ground. We have to make a decision if they are worth trying to repair or if we are going to have to put in a whole new well to run the Geothermal. Neither option are very reasonable with our current adoption expenses, but our AC is costing more to run right now than it would if it were running efficiently.

Here's the swamp in our side yard that is from the leaking lines. 

It's obviously a huge waste of water also (which is one of my biggest pet peeves in life, just ask my kids...); it's the equivalent of having a running hose all the time.

I decided to can peppers yesterday and sent a certain young man out to pick all the plants. Since there are only six, like the two pictured below, it should have only taken about five minutes to pick them clean. 

When I headed outside, after canning, these are the peppers left on the plants. I should have checked the work, as I will now be canning green peppers again tomorrow. 

The kids and I finally planted the two pear trees that have lived in their pots for at last two months. I have some really great helpers, but I have one "sulker"; he tends to be rather lazy and pouts while he works. I'm not sure if I should ignore it or discipline for it. 

Elijah and Julia were great help playing with the water. It was all good until a fight broke out over a pair of scissors and I sent them both in crying. 

Elijah found his last year's Christmas outfit and has worn it the better part of two days; corduroys and a sweater are just perfect for this time of year. I have flat out refused to take him to VBS tonight unless he wears summer-wear. 

After I took the above picture, I found this year's Christmas outfit in use as well. I know they look almost identical, but I got this year's on the 90% off rack at Kohl's, so I don't mind. 

I have called an end to the salsa and am just straight canning the remainder of the tomatoes and peppers. I'm going to post the salsa recipe below for those interested. 

"Dave's Salsa"

6 lbs. peeled and coarsely chopped tomatoes

2 lbs. seeded and chopped green peppers

1/4 - 1 lb. hot peppers, depending on taste

2 lbs. chopped white or yellow onions

2 T. chopped cilantro

1 T. salt

1/2 T. sugar

3 cloves minced garlic

1 1/2 c. white vinegar

1 small can tomato paste

Combine all ingredients, EXCEPT tomato paste, in a large pot and simmer for about an hour. If juice collects on top, skim off. Right before you are ready to can, add the tomato paste and stir thoroughly. Spoon salsa into hot, sterilized jars and process in hot water canner for 15-20 mins. 

My Littlest Liberian

I am just so impressed with myself that I up-loaded a video that I can't wait to finish what was going to be the rest of the blog before I post it! I realize this is not a big deal to many people, but it's a whole new frontier for me. (This means that I can post videos of Selah and Bella next!) 

Here's Julia, who just turned six last week, swimming a 25 free-style yesterday at the swim meet finals. It's so amazing to see what good swimmers my Liberian are when they came from a country that doesn't swim. When we were at the beach in Liberia in June of 2008, trying to get a break from the 160 degree heat, I asked one of the "guards" who was tasked to stand under an umbrella and watch the white people swim why they didn't get in the water to cool off? He replied, "it's the rainy season; everyone knows you will die if you get wet in the rainy season." I told him that we were going to take our chances and thankfully, we all lived to tell the tale!

So, maybe in 10 years, my Liberians can form the first Liberian Olympic swim team. 

Salsa Day One

 Yesterday was salsa day one. I picked up 100 pounds of tomatoes I ordered from the farm, then went to the Commissary and bought 32 pounds of green peppers, 16 pounds of hot peppers, 32 pounds of white onions and a few bunches of cilantro. My goal was enough salsa for our family until this time next summer, when I can repeat the whole process. 


I made the dining room table the staging area. 

We then washed and chopped the veggies. James, Ben and Tori did most of the rough chopping, then we ran the tomatoes through the Vitamix and the other veggies through the food processor. (Moriah and Alyssa got the fun of lots of dish washing.)

When we got to the onions, we all wore goggles or sun-glasses. Goggles actually work well, but I think they are incredibly uncomfortable. My swimmers feel right at home in them. 

After the veggies were chopped and weighed, we staged batches for cooking on the kitchen table.

Yesterday I did three double batches and today we did two; I think we will finish up tomorrow with two more. The kitchen is always an absolute wreck by the end of the canning session.

Here are yesterday's 36 jars along with tomorrow's tomatoes. Today's are canning and cooling. It's a lot of work, but I really love canning - there is something rewarding about it. Tomorrow I am going to add up the actual cost and have an idea of how much it cost per quart. I'll let you know.

Finally

 I have had some serious computer problems for over a week. The last few blogs, it worked long enough to download my pictures and then blog from the lap-top, but yesterday it wouldn't do anything. JD spend last night scanning and deleting things and once he cleared the cookies attached to Internet explorer, it seems to be working fine. I hope so...we have dealt with a constant stream of broken things that are fairly new that shouldn't be breaking!


We held our cook-out, swim party on Sunday for Julia, Elijah and Elijah's little friend, Kole. The kids had a great time and the weather was wonderful for it. 


Kole and Elijah - 

With my demanding weekend, I don't know why I agreed to decorating a cake for each of them...but I did. Julia wanted a watermelon cake and it was pretty easy. 

Elijah saw a dinosaur cake in a kid's cook book that he wanted. I figured if I kid could do it, so could I. WRONG - you would have to have a boy genius to make that cake. First of all, they tell you to cut the round cake into eight pieces to form the legs, etc, but don't really lay out how to. Secondly, it just doesn't work to frost butchered cakes - that's why they sell the cake pans in shapes (Duh, I knew this but blindly followed the book that is on its way to the thrift store). 


Once I frosted the mess of a dinosaur and the cake was flaking up into the frosting, Elijah said, "but I didn't want it speckled with chocolate." Neither did I, Buddy, but that is the reality we are looking at for your 4th birthday cake. 


It doesn't look too terrible from this angle - 

But, now, you can see it's face. It resembles something that was hit by a car. Nothing like a road-kill dino to ring in your 5th year of life. 

We sang, we ate, and everyone had a good time. 

This picture is tacked on because Elijah ran to me yesterday yelling, "Mom, come see, get your camera, come on, it's going to be so exciting." The great excitement is that he can sit on the scooter that we were just given without falling, thanks to the kick stand he discovered. Now I need to look into buying a battery for it so it can move as well as sit. 

My 100 pounds of tomatoes are coming in this morning, so I will be busy making salsa today and tomorrow! 

 

Double Birthday

Honestly, I think it's a great idea for large families to have two kid's birthdays on the same day. Since Julia and Elijah are close in age, we can make both of them quite happy with the same celebration. Although we are having the official birthday cook-out tomorrow, we had plenty of birthday fun yesterday also. Aunt Deb came the night before to be here for birthday morning. 

I hosted a non-birthday Norwex party, but kids came with their moms to play and we concluded with awesome cup-cakes that Alei's friend made them. Elijah's were Despicable Me and they were the hit of the day.

Julia's were very pretty, girly flowers.

I had to take Moriah to a Dr, appointment in the late afternoon, so we had the idea of getting Chinese food for dinner. I have never, ever gotten take-out Chinese for our entire family, so I picked a spot and headed in for negotiations on some large platters.  


Let's just say that the two men there did not speak English much better than I speak Mandarin. It was a comical game of charades, writing prices and counting with my fingers. A lady in line told me that there is usually a woman who speaks English, but she must have been out sick that day. Honestly, when they told me "sit, sit," I really had no idea what we were eating for dinner; I only knew I was paying $60 for it. It was one of those times that I could barely keep it together and finally lost it when I realized Moriah kept turning around to laugh. Once I started laughing, the cook started laughing also and we all three stood there laughing while the "cashier" kept rambling at me in Chinese, with large hand motions. I had no idea what he was trying to communicate to me. 


In the end, it was quite a lot of food for the money and we all enjoyed the unusual birthday dinner. Dinner was followed by presents and although it was getting to be bed-time, they were thrilled beyond measure. 

We got Julia a Leap-Pad; I'm excited about it for her.

Elijah got a new wagon; we are thinking it will be fun for him, Selah and Bella to pull each other and stuff around the yard.

We concluded with a round of Happy Birthday and one candle. We are going to have real cake and the correct number of candles at the cook out tomorrow night. (It may be an exaggeration to call Elijah's dinosaur cake "real cake"; it is my last attempt at cake decorating unless I take a class or something - it's an embarrassing mess of a cake.)

Lazy Days?

These are supposed to be the lazy days of summer, but my days are anything but that. We have a busy weekend planned to follow my "much more than average" stressful week. JD was up in PA with his Mom, who was in the hospital, the early part of this week, while I played the role of Mom and Dad. My dual role, coupled with our summer colds and coughs, my strained back (remember my storage room clean out?) and a few bad attitudes have created a pretty long week. 


Tomorrow is Julia and Elijah's birthdays! I have a large group coming to my house Friday and Sunday for different events and we are heading out of town for the day on Saturday. There is much cleaning to be done today, but first I had to can a few rounds of tomatoes. 


Our "salsa weekend" this year is going to be salsa Monday and Tuesday, because life has been to busy to devote a weekend to salsa. I'm going it alone, however, since salsa is JD's primary love language. 

Those orange tomatoes are Golden Boys and are delicious; they are, however, giving my tomato sauce a much more orange than red appearance. 

The Hair Post - LOCS

I actually finally finished Julia's locs on Saturday. I spent about 1.5 hours a day on them for around 20 days straight. Her locs are tiny micro-braids - there are somewhere around 500-600 of them! The idea of locs is that they are permanent and will stay indefinitely. In her case, they are so small that it really just looks like free hair. 

When the locs are wet, they are down to her shoulder in some places; when they are dry, they really shrink up.

We are going to be able to just style her hair with head-bands or bows or put it in pig-tails or bigger braids, much like you would curly, white hair.

Wendy is whipping up some little bands with flowers on them that will be so cute when we pull back just the fronts of her hair.

When I asked her to turn to the side, she did, then as soon as the camera snapped, she flipped to the other side like a mug shot. Poor kid, she has logged way too many hours of hair time in her six young years.

I'm so thankful to be done! Tori is ready for a new do (and no, I'm not locing her hair - it's a different kind of hair and I don't think it would work well.)

How Do I Tell You This, Girls?

 Here are some pictures of the day that I sat Selah and Bella down in Ethiopia and broke it to them that they were not going to be the only two children. I say this jokingly because I can not speak their language, nor do they have any concept of parents, siblings or family. They understood we were "mommy" and "daddy", but after over two years in the orphanage, neither of them can have any understanding of what that really means. I'm sure they don't understand brother or sister either, but we went over the family picture several times showing them their "heits" and "wendems".

I went over the kids' names many times and they would proudly show me "mommy" and "daddy" in the picture.  

(The only reason they sat still for so long was the suckers!)

Here's my sweet baby #11 - that means she will have a ton of doting brothers and sisters. That is not going to be a bad place to be! 

Selah and Elijah are numbers 9 and 10 - it just isn't in yet who will be what number. Elijah is voting for Selah to be his little sister, like Bella. We will see...once the bone scan returns.