Busy Bees

We've been so busy lately! Just jumping around from one project to the next. There have been so many times I've thought of cute things I could blog about, but my latest thing is to try and keep my priorities straight... so when I've got little kiddos that haven't had much of my time and I want to go blog, I think to myself "What are my priorities?" and blogging usually loses. :) Oh well. So I'll just catch you up on a few things we've been up to...

Canning Chicken

Jim and I are always working on getting our year's supply of food together. We're constantly updating, improving, finding new ideas, etc. A while back I learned that we can can our own meat! So we've started with some chicken. Honestly, it's so easy (although it takes a chunk of time) and it's such a comfort to have stuff like chicken (shelf-stable) sitting in food storage. It's one thing to have it in the freezer, but if the electricity goes out... Anyway, it will last approximately 2-3 years on the shelf (and canning it yourself is a lot less expensive than buying it already canned in the store... especially if you find a good sale on chicken!), so our plan is to make 18 months worth of canned chicken, use it on a regular basis, and then every 6 months we'll can some more chicken to make up for what we've used in the last 6 months. That way we'll always have at least a year's supply of chicken on the shelf. I figure we could go through about 1 quart jar a week (one jar will make two meals for us) so that's 52 jars for a year supply and about 80 jars for a year and a half. So anyway, we got a start on it on Conference weekend. We have about 16 jars done. We're on our way. :)

I know... it doesn't look very appetizing. But I tell ya what... use it in a casserole or chicken enchiladas, etc. and it tastes great! Not to mention, it's already cooked so you just grab it off the shelf and throw it into your meal. Easy peasy! :)

Budding Photographer

Dixie has been taking note of all the times I've been photographing cakes/food and has decided that she wants in on the action...

This was her dinner one night of clam chowder soup (with tons of crackers in it) and a grilled cheese sandwich. I didn't even realize she  had taken these pictures (there were quite a few) until I downloaded the memory card to the computer. It was hilarious.

Some others that I found on the camera...

Haha! She's pretty good! I'll have to hire her to be my advertising manager for the cake business one day. :)

Grapes, Anyone?

We have some grapevines on our side fence by the garage that we planted about a year ago. We got a few grapes on them this year and Dixie just loves to go pick them off the vine and eat 'em. :)

Want one?

Cakes, Cakes, and More Cakes

I'm still working on starting up the cake business. I'm looking for any opportunity I can to make a cake so I can take pictures of it and add it to the portfolio. :) I just did one for my nephew's baptism (I did a fancy one because I needed the practice and then a fun one so that he wasn't disappointed with getting a 'grown up' looking cake)...

Do you like the lovely gym floor in the background? :) 

Oh, and the wavy ribbon on the base... that's made out of chocolate fondant. :) It's one of my favorite parts of the whole thing. :)

My nephew is into Star Wars right now, so this is what he got. I ran out of time to do any fancy decorating to the cake itself, which I was bummed about, but at least it had some light sabers and Yoda on top, right? :)

And yes, I made the Yoda (and light sabers too for that matter) out of fondant. That was a painstakingly slow process since I kept messing up his head and having to start over! But I really wanted to learn how to do some fondant figurines, so I stuck with it (until 1 AM I might add). :)

And here's just a simple but classy cake that I did for our Stake High Priests as a thank you for their serving us at the RS General Broadcast dinner (the stake RS President asked if I would).

And so anyway, that's what's been keeping me busy and why you haven't heard from us in a while. :)

Hope you're all doing well! Loves!!