Cherry Jam?

I had a bag of cherries sitting in the fridge that needed to be used. I looked up some recipes and decided to make cherry jam. Abby surprisingly helped me a lot more than I thought she would. It not only kept her busy, she enjoyed it, and it tired her out-- thank goodness! AND the jam turned out better than I thought it would as well. I will definitely be making more cherry jam in the future. I will also be putting Abby to work more too!


Here's some pictures of Abby helping.



I'm becoming more and more in the mood to bottle. Any one with left over veggies can pass them on to me. :) A family from church had too much zucchini, so last week I made a couple of pints of zucchini relish as well-- that turned out delicious too! I made several pints and gave some relish back to them.

Weekend travels

We made it up to the Orton family reunion this weekend. Andrew was able to take time off of work to go up for a few days (his boss didn't understand why he had to go up to see family. He thought Andrew should just send a check instead of going). We enjoyed seeing family that we haven't seen in a long time. We all went up to the Black hawk Campground up Payson Canyon, UT and camped out for a few days. Andrew and I realized how much we missed camping and I think we're going to be doing it more often.

Thanks to Emily and Jeff who put it together and made it work. We really appreciate it and we had fun!

Here's some pictures of the reunion and of our trip back to AZ.

At the reunion we saw the sites:


Ride back to AZ, near Page AZ:


If you want see a bigger size just click on the picture and it'll take you to my web album.

Update

This is how I've been feeling lately, the lyrics to "Living on A Prayer" by Bon Jovi, :
"We've got to hold on ready or not. You live for the fight when its all that you've got."

But with that being said, we're doing great! I thought I'd update that CPS never came, but I heard that CPS gets called often here in Maricopa. I also heard that CPS makes appointments to meet with the family several weeks after CPS has been notified of a suspicious problem. So... they still might come, but I'm not worried about it, and if they do, they'll make an appointment and not just show up (which differs to what the officer told me). And I also heard that the police department here in Maricopa have a LOT of issues with race and other things, so I'm not the only one frustrated with them! We ended up giving Abby a father's blessing to try and help prevent her from running away. I have felt between your prayers and the father's blessing that she is starting to understand and the issue is being resolved-- we hope, I'm still none the less paranoid about the door being locked! Abby is choosing to stay inside instead of being in the front yard with me now tho.

We're going to a family reunion this week up in Payson Canyong in Utah-- I'm excited to be camping and letting abby get dirty. I'm also really excited to see my friend, Clara, this friday who just came back from her mission in Taiwan this last month! yay! and I'm also glad I'll get to see a good high school friend, Tristan! It will be good... pictures to come.

My phone stopped working on me a week ago-- I got a blue screen of death and then it wouldn't power on. No one can figure out what happened or what's wrong so AT&T gave me a new phone since it was under warrenty. Thus-- I have lost all my numbers with the phone exchange-- having your home and cell numbers again would be great! Send them to me in an email or txt me 435-881-8252.

I'm starting to really enjoy our ward-- I know i've said it before, but it keeps getting better and better. I'm excited to get know them more. One lady sells ward members fresh turquoise eggs! I feel like the bishopric is trying very hard to make sure that we're a close friendly ward which is great!

Andrew and I also got callings for family history (i don't know the official name of the calling). The bishopric said, they don't know anything about FH. They also said that our stake does not have a family history building or computers, so we'll be going into member's homes and teaching them at their home on their computers. They're trying to do it so that they can print out the names and have it ready so that they can just go to the temple and do the work. They're really pushing for temple attendance and hoping that by doing family history it will make it more meaningful. Our wards been pushing temple attendance greatly in everything from lessons to activities, and they want Andrew and I hard at work trying to help with it. Bishop's hoping to get 1,000 names in per month? or something like that. The problem is, we don't know anything about Family History and neither do they. So any one out there that can help with the programs and has anything out there to suggest or tell me about, that would be great so that we can pursue our calling.

I've been biking, doing water aerobics and regular aerobics, roller blading , running around playing soccer with abby, swimming, circuits and pilates for the last few weeks. So far it's been feeling great but I haven't lost an inch or a lb. -- so depressing, but enjoyable at the same time.

Last weekend for the 4th Abby and I had the stomach flu so we did nothing but the Friday before the 4th we were able to go up into the mountains and enjoy the cool weather. We managed to hit 3 storms which made it so we couldn't hike (that's ok tho, I LOVE rain). We also got a flat tire from falling rocks off the mountains but it was none the less enjoyable and great to be in the green mountains vs the desert, with Andrew and Abby. I think anything could have gone wrong and I still would have liked the trip. Abby too, she loves being outside and seeing the big trees and picking the flowers-- she's such a flower/nature girl. I did give Andrew a hard time about running over a cute squirrel tho...

And last, Abby has become quite the muscian. She's been saying some words but not as many as she should be.... Her language skills are behind but her music is not. She has some how managed to make straws into whistles-- don't ask me how, i don't know, but now she walks around the house blowing a whistle. She also likes to pound on andrew's drum set and is getting good at keeping a beat. She picked it up from Andrew trying to teach her. Andrew the other day, caught her pounding on the baby grand, so he tried to teach her how to play scales. We both thought she wasn't paying attention and just wanted to pound on the keys. However, the following morning I woke up to Abby playing the scales on the piano! one finger at a time but none the less! And the best part is, i KNOW where she is at all times because she's always making noise/music! And lately if there's not a noise maker, she's singing. Thank goodness for a big house! The music gets muffled. :)

A good dessert

Today we went to a member's house for family home evening. I made the treat and it turned out well. I was actually surprised. So i thought i'd share. I kind of got it from two sites, but mainly kraft.com

anyway, I baked sugar cookie dough in a pie pan like it was the crust (and did it for 20 min vs. the 13 min the package suggests). then I mixed cream cheese, some strawberry kool-aid, 1/3 cup sugar and a table spoon of powdered sugar. and then folded in a container of cool whip. put that ontop of the cookie in the pie pan and then placed strawberries on top of it. looked good, tasted good. you should try it.

there's the pic of it half eaten. delic.

a second nightmare

I need to sit down and write my thoughts before everything gets carried away. I'm writing them on my blog as proof and also so that others know what happened and rumors don't spread.

Abby ran away... again... this evening. This afternoon we were moving boxes from our garage into our front room. When we finished we failed to notice that we didn't lock the front door as we were carrying boxes in and out. Later, I was up in my room trying to do chores and clean up, etc. when I heard the phone ring so I went to answer it and then shortly after I heard a door open but was not sure which door (whether it be a bedroom door or the garage door or the front door-- I didn't know). So I dropped what I was doing, and went down stairs to find the front door open and the dogs about to escape. Then the phone rang again and I didn't answer so that i could grab Abby before she ran off too far. Well... I was too late. Abby ran off with our cordless phone and someone saw her by herself and stopped the car. They tried to call us, (but I didn't answer) and as I got to the two ladies, who had her, they were hanging up with the police. They said they tried to call but I didn't answer so they called the police with OUR phone. They said the policed tracked our address from the phone and knew where Abby lived and would be over shortly. I took Abby, said I appreciate the concern and walked back home and they drove off.

The police showed up to our door about 20 minutes later. And lo and behold, one of the two cops was the same officer that was with Abby the first time she ran away. I had Andrew answer the door, as I don't do well with authority and I was shaken up from the experience. And they talked to him about two minutes and then only wanted to talk to me. Andrew sent me out while he changed Abby's diaper (Abby was in time out for running away... and screaming/bawling her head off... which of course never looks good to the police).

The police officer then disrespectfully yelled at me. Told me I was a bad mother, said that the child ran three blocks away (where I then corrected her and told her it was two houses away, when I caught up to her running. as they weren't there to know the facts and I didn't want it to look worse than it was... it's bad enough already). The officer said that I needed to look up sex offenders in our area as she claimed there are a lot and that Abby would likely be taken by one (Andrew and I looked into it this evening, there are 10 in our town and none near us from what we could find on the internet without having to pay money). She said that I should have a dead bold high on the door (which I DO, and we found out that, no, she can NOT open it). She told me that I was irresponsible for not having a dead bold to keep Abby safe, as we were standing RIGHT in front of the door to prove that i DO, in fact, have a dead bolt! She remembered Abby as being half naked last time and told me that I should not be taking care of my child. She looked at our house and asked my age, and told me I was too young to be a mother. I would like to note that she was talking to me as if she was a drill Sergeant. She said that last time she was with Abby for 20 minutes before we showed up to find her, which was false and I politely let her know that. And she said that she could prove it by looking into the log records and I told her to go ahead because it was not true. So the second police officer who was in and out of the conversation looked into it and they didn't have any log records of it. The Police officer told me that I was not listening to her and not understanding how serious this is that she has run away twice in a month (even though, I told her several times that I know it's serious and that I do not let her run out in the streets and do not want her running away. And I told her that I try to do everything in my power to make sure she doesn't). She told me that she "believed my act before, but now she's not going to fall for it" and accused me of lying.

When Andrew finished changing the diaper and brought her out, because they wanted to look at her, she then told Andrew that he was a bad parent for sleeping during the day and not being able to watch her responsibly (even though he works night shifts-- and yes, we did let her know that). I told her that I felt she was being rude, disrespectful and not professional. She replied with a, "I'm not listening to her" and then said she was going to file a form for child protective services. She also stated that she was going to do everything in her power to make sure that Abby did not live with us any more. I shrugged my shoulders like, go ahead, we're great parents and we do what we can, they won't be able to find anything on us because we aren't bad parents! (I wake up all the time in the middle of the night, in fear the door is unlocked and she'll get out, and it's, of course, always locked, but I always check. I'm pretty paranoid and was shaken up about the first situation so I check ALL the time) -- which of course made her more mad. They then took two pictures of Abby for child services, then left.

And that's about the gist of it, more or less.

I guess we'll go from there. I will be going in to the police department to file a claim against officer Aragon, for false accusations, intimidation, disrespect and not accurately finding facts or looking into things before accusing me. Any other suggestions of what to file against her or how to do file a claim would be helpful.

We wish she wouldn't try and run away to the park. She was just at the park for an hour or so this morning... so it's not like she doesn't ever get to go.

Anyway, I'm sad, brokenhearted, hurt, sick--like throwing up sick, by things said and done. Prayers for us would be great. Hopefully they won't take Abby away, as we love her very much.

The Orton Family!: Shelf Reliance Give away

The Orton Family!: Shelf Reliance Give away

Shelf Reliance Give away

Shelf Reliance is going to start giving away the Harvest 72″ (below) twice a month. It's perfect for year-supply of food storage. Go to their blog to find out more information on how you can try and win one.

http://www.shelfreliance.com/blog/

Racking up points with the police....

The police came to our door today. This morning Abby opened the door that goes from the garage to the backdoor and then managed to open the garage door by stealing mommy's purse and playing with the garage door opener and opened the garage door with out any of us knowing (So no... Abby didn't run away this time, thank goodness). The dogs, Maddie and Shelby, seeing the opportunity to go through the side door into the garage and outside through the garage door, took it.

It took me a while (not too long) to realize what had happened, but when I went out side, the dogs were by our driveway running to come inside. I let them in and two hours later animal control and a police officer show up at our door. Some one called and said that our house had dogs that were savagely running after people. Now our dogs wouldn't bite anyone unless they're trying to attack me or my family. They have accidentally nipped a few people trying to release a ball that's down their throat from catching it in the air, while someone's trying to pull the ball out of their mouth, to play catch. Which hasn't bothered anyone because it's their fault they put their hand in the dogs mouth to get the ball. Otherwise, our dogs are too scared to go after people.

So... the definition of savage to dog control means to tear flesh, the people who called had no flesh torn, so their complaint was false. When I looked it up, it's to assault and maul by biting, rending, goring, etc.; tear at or mutilate... which I'm positive they wouldn't do unless someone tried to hit them with say... a baseball bat-- which may have happened, I don't know. I didn't see anyone around when I let them in.

Anyway, they saw Shelby, our black lab and realized that this dog can do no harm. And that it's not in a black labs nature to do anything of that sort. So we all came to the conclusion that our neighbor's are stupid and left.

My question is, if they knew what house the dogs belonged to why 1, did they not let me know that they were out??? and 2, why didn't they come talk to me instead of calling the police?!?!

Welcome to the neighborhood!! :D

We'll call this, potty training gone VERY VERY BAD.

This afternoon after doing some painting, I looked over and realized Andrew and Abby were sleeping in front of the TV, and I wanted sleep too. So I went to take a little nap upstairs, I'm almost positive when I went upstairs, that the door was LOCKED.

I woke up to Andrew saying, "Liz, do you know where Abby is?? The front door is wide open!" We searched all around the house, the dogs and Abby were missing. I went looking on foot Andrew went looking by car. And down the street around the corner and almost to the next street I walked into two police cars.

Police officer walks up to me, and I tell him I'm missing my two year old daughter (which always ALWAYS sounds worse saying it out loud to a police officer than in your head). He acts like he hasn't seen her, takes my information down, sees my husband drive by and THEN realizing Andrew's stopping to come with me to talk to him, says he has her. (I know it's bad to lose your baby, but honestly, do you really have to act like you don't have her when you do?! And why stop the act when your husband comes? It was mean, it's hard enough knowing she's missing! Why play games with the wife and not the husband?)

This is where the potty training gone bad is....

Anyway, she was heading to the park and was at a house that looks exactly like ours and stopping to pick flowers with our two dogs with her. Abby startled and mad that she needed to use the bathroom and mom wasn't around peed in the bushes. Trying to figure out what to do, she started knocking on the door to say she peed in the bushes. The lady worried, was trying to keep her dogs from our dogs and find out where Abby's parents were-- and surprise! we weren't there, because we didn't know she was gone and we were sleeping!

When the lady's husband drove up his driveway he tried to get a hold of the dogs who were mauling her to death from peeing AND not staying near home. Unfortunately, the dogs went running away from him and left Abby, with no diaper or underwear on, at their house. Not seeing any parents, they called the police.

Side note: Our collie is good at telling on Abby when Abby's doing something wrong/getting into trouble. Maddie comes and licks me and wimpers and then points with her nose to where Abby's getting in trouble. As soon as I notice and get up, Maddie takes me, by making sure I follower her, to Abby only to find out that Abby's in trouble. Maddie then goes and lays down and lets me handle the rest. Maddie is also typically good at making sure Abby stays close by. When Abby starts to wonder Maddie licks her face until she starts walking in the right direction-- to me or home. This time Abby just ignored the mauling and licking and kept walking.

Anyway, she was found diaperless because we're trying to potty train her. If we put a diaper on her she'll NEVER tell us when she needs to use the bathroom and just use a diaper. If we put underwear on her, she'll use them like a diaper, which means cleaning up after a lot of pee and her not getting the point (we tried this for a couple of months). But if she doesn't have anything on at all, she won't go until she lets me know that she needs to go and we do something about it-- thus when we're at home with no visitors, she's diaper less to try and potty train her. Which of COURSE, with my luck, is how she ran away-- diaperless. And she was caught peeing in the bush, which is where the potty training went very bad.

The police took Andrew's license number and gave us Abby. Well first they wanted Abby to have some kind of reaction to me to make sure I'm the mom. Which OF COURSE she didn't... she didn't say MOM!!! or anything. She did her usually, hand motion of I want to be held by that person, which presumably the police don't know or understand. But when she saw Andrew drive by in the car I heard her say (while I was talking to the police officer)"DADDY!!!!" in a very happy excited, I know him voice. And she did it again, when they gave her to us, so they trusted that he was the dad. They then repremended us, telling us, that this could have gone very bad had we been in a different neighborhood, but because it's a quiet nice neighborhood it didn't. (DUH, we knew that, that's why we MOVED here! Not that we were planning on her running away but because the last house we were in WAS that bad neighborhood that could have gone wrong).

I think normally they would have filed a report and done more had Andrew not handed the officer his license AND his military ID. The officer said "you're military? and andrew said yes" and then the officer didn't do anything more after that or write down any more.

We returned home to find the dogs trying to get into the house to tell us about Abby. When they saw that Abby was with us they stopped and just wanted to get inside to get a drink of water!

So, thank fully she was safe and we found her and we live in a good neighborhood. And we know that the dogs will stay with her until someone tries to catch them-- good dogs (although I wish they would have stayed with her the entire time-- but for not training them for this kind of situation they did well). And thankfully we got written off because of our military ID and didn't have further problems.

We have many blessings to thank our Heavenly Father for tonight. AND I guess a lesson on "we do not leave the house with out mom and dad's permission and presense, ESPECIALLY to the park" is probably appropriate. AND we need to make sure the she can't open the dead lock and that it's locked!

You're suppose to wake up FROM night mares not INTO nightmares. But thank goodness my baby is HOME!!

Andrew's no longer being deployed.

Great news! Andrew does NOT have to go to Iraq anymore in the fall for a year. We found out yesterday for sure. There is a stop loss rule which states that so many days before a unit deploys everyone listed in the unit MUST go (even if their contract with the army ends during/before deployment, or even if they're too fat and going to be kicked out, they won't be until after the deployment)-- if that makes sense. Anyway, they stopped this rule in the National Guard. Andrew's contract ends in November, a month before they leave to go overseas, so he doesn't have to stay in for the tour, he can get out-- and plans to (well planned to yesterday). However....

He did however talk to a recruiter TODAY about why he was getting out (i.e. not getting all the GI Bill that he's entitled to, schooling going wrong because of army not paying tuition like promised, Iraq, and only having 1 year left of school which puts him off ANOTHER year before he can graduate if he goes to iraq, leaving family etc, etc, etc, )

The recruiter figured out why he wasn't getting all the GI Bill he was entitled to (which has been a mystery for 3 years now). He told him that he could make a deal, if he stayed in, to move him to another unit to get out of Iraq so that he can finish school. Plus get all the money he was supposed to get from the GI Bill for the last 3 years (over $6,000) and continue to get the money he should be getting from it, as well as making sure paper work is correct so that they pay for his tuition. and then we'll still have health care with the army (so that any babies to come in the future will only cost us $25-- no not an announcement, but a relief). But it does require re-upping.

We have until Tuesday to think about it. I fasted about it today. And not surprisingly, the day I fast is that day that things miraculously start to fall into place from talking to the recruiter today.

We'll see how it goes, but for sure, Andrew will not be returning to Iraq in the fall for a year. Soldiers and their families who go through these deployments have my greatest respect and prayers. The thought of us going through it was tough, but we would have made it through. I'm glad we don't have to though.