kindergardens - week 18 {salsa!!}

It's salsa week at our house!

Anyone want to come over for tacos?

Kiddo helped pick the peppers (and broke a jalapeno in the process, and I, dumb mom, didn't even think about it until after he had thrown a tantrum all over the lawn while I was trying to talk to the neighbor and we got back inside - lecturing the whole way about rudeness - and he said something about his hands and his lips feeling hot, and it finally dawned on me that he had jalapeno juice ALL OVER!  No wonder he was upset).

He was going to help me pick the Roma tomatoes, too, but he got distracted by the grape tomatoes, which were much easier to pick (they weren't hiding in the depths of the plants like the Romas were), and he got to eat them right away.  I can hardly blame him.  Yum!

I must confess that salsa hasn't been as much fun this year.  Due to our lack of rain all summer, our tomatoes are tiny.  It's kind of hard to tell the difference between the grapes and Romas, the Romas are SO SMALL.  There was a lot more work involved than in the past to get them ready to go in the pot.

(yes, believe it or not, at least some of those are Roma tomatoes!)

Hubby and I chopped and chopped, and then threw everything into the pot, where it simmered all day long.  I wish I could take a pic of the smell.  Mmmm-mmmm good. 

I was disappointed that we only had enough tomatoes for a small pot, and that was after picking them for a week.  But my sister-in-law called the other day and said she had a bucket full of tomatoes that she couldn't use, so this weekend the plan is to make a BIG batch.  While I was making this batch, Kiddo told me he wanted to help (after the salsa was already simmering on the stove).  I told him he could help stir, but there wasn't much else to do right then.  "No," he said, "I don't find stirring things very exciting."  Well then.  Maybe I'll get him chopping some onions or peppers this weekend.  Chopping is more exciting than stirring, right?

Besides salsa, we have been grilling veggies, making homemade onion rings, slapping veggies on burgers, making zucchini bread/cake/muffins, and feasting on veggie pizza.  I'm going to be sad when winter rolls around.

The birds have been busy feasting this week as well - I found this buffet they had set up in the sunflowers.  Lean over the edge, grab a seed or two, then eat it right there on the back of the sunflower!

The goldfinches are also snacking on our coneflowers.

I have staked out the dining room window, trying to get a picture where I can actually see his face, but so far he and his friends have not obliged.  And of course, the one time I did find a cooperative finch, my camera was at the other end of the house. 

UPDATE:  My stalking paid off...I got him!

Today I am making stepping stones with Kiddo for his flower garden.  I can't wait to see how they turn out!

For other posts about our "kindergarden" experience this summer, feel free to check out the kindergarden archive in the sidebar.

Find out what's going on in other kindergardens over at The Inadvertent Farmer!

UPDATE #2:  Salsa Recipe

3 quarts tomatoes, peeled and chopped.  We usually use Roma - more meat, less juice and seeds - but any kind will do.  We are using regular slicing tomatoes this weekend, I will probably get rid of some of the seeds just to make it less runny.
2-3 large bell peppers, chopped
2-3 jalapeno peppers, chopped
2-3 med. onions, chopped
2 tsp garlic
1 c. white vinegar
1 tsp whole oregano
3 T. salt
cayenne pepper to taste (1 T for hot, less for milder.  We use between 1 and 1-1/2 tsp.)

Mix tomatoes and peppers in large pot (one recipe will just barely fit in a 4-qt dutch oven, which is what I used this week).  Simmer until reduced to 2 quarts (this takes a while).  Stir in remaining ingredients.  Put 1 tsp vinegar in bottom of each jar.  Fill with salsa and process 30 minutes (water bath).

Helpful hint:  to peel tomatoes quickly, cut a cross in the skin of the tomato on the bottom.  Submerge in boiling water for a few seconds, then remove and submerge in cold water.  Peel should slide off easily with finger pressure.  If it doesn't, just drop it back in the boiling water for a few more seconds.

kid pics

When you hand your camera to your 6-year-old, you're never quite sure what you are going to get...

...but it's kind of nice to have the chance to find out.

my turn

Is it just me, or do you also sometimes find that it's easier to see God working in someone else's life than it is to see the ways he is working in yours?

Maybe it's not so much that I don't see God moving in my life, because I do - in so many different ways - but that I don't see him working in one particular area of my life - that of our longing to have more children.

While I have come to terms, in many ways, with my infertility, what is frustrating to me is that we have been on this journey for over five years now, in one form or another, and I feel like God has been largely silent the whole time.  I believe he has been here, traveling this road with us, but he has been a pretty quiet traveling companion.  He hasn't been saying much (or we haven't been hearing much), no matter how many times we have asked him for wisdom and direction.

And what makes it even more frustrating is that I see him speaking so loudly and clearly to friends in similar situations.  I see him blessing friends with successful pregnancies after fertility treatments.  I see him quickly matching friends with birth families in the U.S.  I see him giving friends a heart for orphans in another country and then "moving mountains" to unite them with their adopted child(ren) - providing the finances necessary, shortening expected wait times, healing children of special needs, speaking clearly about whether or not to accept a referral.  Just this week, one friend has given birth to her second child, one friend has given birth to her fourth, I read a blog post from another friend who has been matched with her Chinese daughter (the details of this story are awesome, but too many to share here), and another blog post from a friend who is traveling to Ethiopia two months earlier than expected to bring home her son.

I love hearing those stories.  I am, and have been, excited for these friends, and I want to celebrate with them and praise God with them.  But sometimes I can't help but feel left out.  I find myself crying out, "Okay, Lord, when is it MY turn?  Can't I join in on the fun?  When do I get to tell others about the miracles you've done to bring OUR family together?  We're not getting any younger, you know..."

If you are a friend of mine, please don't take this the wrong way.  Pleasepleaseplease PLEASE keep sharing your stories with me.  I am truly interested in what is going on in your life.  I want to see pictures of your little ones and share in the joys (and challenges) of parenthood.  I may be envious, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to hear it or that I don't want to rejoice with you.  I do!!  For reals.

I just don't understand why God has been silent for so long, has made us wait for so long.  It is hard to continue to have hope when we have been disappointed so many times and when everyone else's prayers seem to be getting answered, but not ours.  Is our answer to just continue to wait?  For how long?  Or, if we are meant to adopt internationally instead of in the U.S. (where we are currently trying to adopt), why haven't we been given some sort of nudge in that direction?  Or are we meant to have just one child?

For now, I will choose to continue to believe that God knows what he is doing.  I will choose to trust that he has our best interests at heart.  I will choose to believe that he hasn't forgotten us, that he is moving, and we just can't see it yet.  Some day, we'll be drinking the lemonade that he squeezes from this lemon.

***

I was sure by now
God, You would have reached down
and wiped our tears away
stepped in and saved the day
but once again, I say "amen," and it's still raining

As the thunder rolls
I barely hear Your whisper through the rain
"I'm with you"
and as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise the God who gives
and takes away

And I'll praise You in this storm
and I will lift my hands
for you are who You are
no matter where I am
and every tear I've cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
and though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm

(from "Praise You in this Storm" by Casting Crowns)

***

P.S.  I don't want to ignore the blessing of the child that we do have.  I am so thankful for him, that I was able to experience pregnancy at least once, that I have the opportunity to parent this amazing kid.  Many women are longing for their first child, and my heart just breaks for the pain I know they are suffering.  I am thankful.  And praying for those who have not (yet) been blessed in the same ways that I have been.

when the cat's away...

...the mice will stay home and will make a royal mess of the kitchen while whipping up some baked doughnuts, and then eat them for dinner.

(Hubby is away this weekend.  Kiddo and I are breaking a few rules).

kindergardens - week 17 {playing with our food}

It's been a quiet week in the garden...the calm before the storm.  We are gearing up for SALSA!!  Hopefully we will have enough tomatoes ripe at the same time to make a batch in the next week or two.  We certainly have onions and peppers a-plenty!

This week we sacrificed some of our veggies for the sake of art, inspired by this post.  Kiddo and I went out and picked a variety of vegetables and used them as stamps.

We used a carrot, onion, tomato, gourd, baby pumpkin, bell pepper and a rhubarb stalk.  Most of them I just sliced in half.  For the onion, I left one half intact and separated the other half into individual rings.  For the carrot, we also cut the top off and used it as a paint brush: 

We also picked a sunflower, a daisy, and a mushroom we found growing in the grass nearby.

Here's what the sunflower looked like when I got some of the extra paint off:

mushroom (a little tricky, as it was so fragile):

Kiddo quickly grew tired of paper and decided to paint the grass instead.  Hooray for nontoxic, washable crayola paint!

If I were doing it again, I would have supplied paint brushes to brush the paint onto the veggies.  Instead, we dipped them into puddles of paint, and they collected so much paint that we didn't have much of the texture of the veggies showing through.  We mostly just got large round paint blobs.  I think maybe if we brushed the paint on, we could have controlled the amount of paint better.  We still had fun, though!

This week we have also been trying to enjoy our gourd vine tunnel while we still can - the vines are quickly wilting away.  Insert sad face here.  The gourds are really growing despite the vines being seriously ill - it is fun to walk through the ones dangling in the tunnel.  Kiddo likes to bat at them and make them swing back and forth.

The pole beans are climbing their way up, so there is hope we will have a tunnel for a few more weeks yet, even after the gourd vines have met their demise.

Update:  I just went out this evening to check on things, and we've got beans!!

We also have one teeny tiny purple bean, but it was too dark in that part of the yard to snap a pic.

And I'll also add a gratuitous sunflower pic, since I'm in love.  I'm thinking a whole field of these babies would be fun next year...if only I had a field to plant them in!

We have been having such a ball participating in the kindergarden contest this summer.  Thanks, Kim, for dreaming up such a marvelous idea and letting us be a part of it!

the beach

We hit the beach yesterday.

We had a blast, can't you tell?

It was Kiddo's first sight of the ocean, and his first time on a sandy beach.  He LOVED it!

I was sure he would be afraid of the water, and he would be too hot, and he wouldn't like the sand sticking to everything.  I thought maybe we'd convince him to stay an hour - boy, was I ever wrong.  He went out in the waves with Hubby almost immediately.  He got bowled over by a wave, and instead of crying, he stood up with a big grin on his face and said, "that was FUN!!  That was a doozy of a wave!  Let's do that again!!"  He took to digging in the sand with gusto.  He is too much.

We couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day.  It was warm and sunny enough that the water was refreshing, but breezy and cool enough that we weren't sweltering on the beach.

We are not a big beach family, but after having so much fun yesterday, I'm pretty sure we will be spending more time there!

peek-a-boo

This little guy was serenading me this morning...

Happy Sunday!