Taylor and Ella's Grape Pear Jelly!

Grape Jelly? Yummm. Pear Jelly? Yummm. Pear Grape Jelly? Uh yes! So delicious! This jelly is amazing on toast, ice cream, and even yogurt! With only 5 ingredients, its easy and amazing! This jelly tastes mainly like grapes, but the little hint of pear in the background rounds the jelly out beautifully.  Without further ado....

Ella and Taylor's Grape Pear Jelly!!

Ingredients

1 1/2 lbs concord grapes

1/4 lb pears peeled and cored

1/2 cup water

3 cups sugar

3 oz Mrs. Wages Liquid Pectin

1. Fill a huge canning pot with water and put it on the stove to begin heating up to boiling.

2. Puree pears and set aside.

3. Sort and wash grapes, and remove stems. Place them into a large kettle and crush them. Add water, cover, and bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low, and simmer for 7 minutes. Then add the pears, turn to medium heat, and boil for 3 minutes.

4. Strain the juice through a double thickness of damp cheesecloth. Measure 2 cups of the juice into a large pot. Stir in the sugar. Quickly bring to a full rolling boil. Whisk in pectin making sure there are no clumps, and allow to boil hard for 1 minute. Remove the jelly from heat, and skim off foam.

5. Put the jar lids in a pan and cover with water. Put on the cover and heat to simmering. DO NOT BOIL

6. Pour the jelly into hot sterile jars, put on the hot lids and screw the tops on the jars. Then process the jars for 5 minutes in a boiling water bath. Enjoy!

Makes 5 Small Jars

Woolly Mammoths

In science we were learning about extinction. So I was explaining it to Hattie and she was said the cutest thing!
Hattie: *sad face*
Ella: "Why are you sad?" 
Hattie: *in her pitched sad voice* "There's no more cute, fluffy, baby, woolly mammoths left. We can't go to Africa to visit them anymore. They're 'xtinct. (Extinct)"
I almost became extinct laughing!

Tomato-Joy

Its snowing like mad outside! We decided to go and check out the creek behind our house... After coming in freezing cold and taking off layer after layer of winter gear this conversation transpired... I laughed so hard! 

....................................................................................

Hattie: *sees herself in the mirror and giggles*

Me:"What's so funny, little boo?"

Hattie:"I look like a tomato!" 

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 ❤Ella

Happy New Year!

Note: Haha! Before you ask, yes, I'm completely aware that it is April 13th and New Year's was ages ago. But I'm going to post this anyway as not to lose memories...
..........................................................................

Happy New Year everyone!! This year I am really going to try my hardest to post more often... I cannot believe its 2018 already! Some highlights (and low points😃) of 2017...


1. Moving! In August we packed up all of our belongings, said goodbye to our old house, and moved into the grandparents basement. Our new house is currently being built and (if everything goes well) should be finished beginning of April.

2. Florida Family Vaca! In the middle of March, we took a plane to Florida and had a blast! I think that trip has etched into me a life-long love for the Ocean.. 🌊🌊🌊

3. The Dells with the extended fam! I LOVE the dells! And this trip didn't disappoint... Swimming with your cousins, grandparents, aunts, and uncles is a blast! I am so glad I got to spend time with them all!

4. Family Camp Trip! The family camp at Whitney's was so much fun! I look forward to that trip so much every year! Thank you so much Whitney for hosting that!


Here's to 2018!
❤Ella

Skydiving!

For their birthdays, Dad and Papa got to go skydiving! Annnd not to brag or anything, but I got some really awesome pictures! 😄

Celebratory high-five ✋✋✋

 ❤Ella 

Skiing!

A couple weeks ago, I went skiing for the firat time! I had a blast, even though I fell about a million times... It sure looks alot easier when you watch it on TV....  Thanks for taking me Taylor!

  

❤Ella

Little miss weights

Hattie found Grammie's weights and decided to try them out...
Me: "Hattie what are you up to?"
Hattie: "I'm just getting my strength."
It was so cute I had to take a picture. I get out the phone and Hattie immediately puts them down. So I try to convince her and finally she relents.

Then she says "I'll make a grrr face now so the blog people know they are heavy."

After I take her picture she says "Make sure you get the 3 so they know that it weighs three pounds."

💙Ella

Friday Funnies

I am just sitting at the computer checking my email when I hear this funny conversation.




                                           *******************************
Cora: Skunks are my favorite animal!
Hattie: I don't like skunks. They stink
Cora: Dogs drool and they stink. People like them. Skunks are cool.
                                           ********************************
I burst out laughing😁... Too true Cora, too true.

💜Ella

Swimming!!

Yesterday, we decided to go swimming at the Maple Grove Community center. Hattie had to get a blood draw so we got up and left at 9:30. We went to cub to pick up our picnic lunch (juice boxes, fruit, crackers, deli meat, and cheese. Then we went swimming for the day.



On the way home Hattie was getting a little tired from all the activity so we broke out the grapes (what Lily has in her hand) and crackers (what Hattie has in her mouth). (Seriously Ben! Why does your face look like that?!?😩)

💗Ella

Hattie and I

I Can't Find My Sunglasses!

When Aaliyah was down a couple months ago, we made a music video together. We used an app called Video Star. I LOVE this app! Its soo much fun! It has a bunch of pre-downloaded songs for you to pick from. So we chose I Can't Find My Sunglasses by Parry Gripe. My cousin and I are soo silly!
Sorry for the horrible quality... When I sent the video to the blog it went all funky.



💖Ella (and Aaliyah😊)

Happy 4th!

Hey you guys! Sorry I haven't posted in forever!


Happy 4th of July!🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆🎆


❤Ella

Joy-Joy

Ahhhh!! This little bugger is sooo cute!


💚Ella

Florida Vaca!!

Florida was soooooo fun!! I'll post about it soon.... but for now here's a few pics... hey, I actually posted a picture! Woot! Woot!🎉😅

The trip was AMAZING!! Hope you liked the pictures!! 

💙Ella

I heart Florida!!!

Only two more days till Florida!!! Can you believe it?!? *Eeeeeee!!!* I'm soooo excited! We leave on Sunday!!!


I will try to take pictures I promise.. I do always try.  Somehow the camera is never in the right spot at the right time. Or it is and the picture turns out blurry and weird and someone's mouth is hanging open and looks totally goofy.   I try you guys I really do.  Just sometimes (okay fine,😩 most of the time) it doesn't turn out the way I expect want hope.

📸 *Click* 📸

💙Ella

Awana Grand Prix

Hello everyone! Today we decided to make our Grand Prix cars.. (yes, I will clarify...The cars actually don't need to be turned in in till March 22nd, and we come back from Florida, March 21st.No pressure right? 😉)  Luckily, we got help from Grammie and Papa's car construction and snack service. ;)

(The car kits)

Right away Papa and Dad went out to the garage to start cutting the cars when KABAM!! The saw broke.
Seriously. 😞 You. have. got. to. be. kidding. me.  Luckily we could return the saw because.... well I don't know why. But, we got a  new saw.

Four out of the five of us were actually making and entering cars into the race. Hattie is too little to race yet. (Next year!!😄) So we took a chunk off of Ben's block and made it into Miss Hattie Joy's masterpiece.


After the cars were cut we sanded them smooth as silk...


Painting came next...(Which is if you ask me is the BEST part..😁) I had decided to do a panda car and the painting was where it would all come together.

I think Hattie agrees that painting is the best!! 😂

The painting took quite a while to accomplish, this wasn't a small task!!

After the painting was the wheels. Remember when I said that Hattie wasn't going to be competing in the Grand Prix? She didn't have a car kit and we had to cut her a car from Ben's wood block remember? So she didn't have any wheels either (they come in the kit) and I was pretty sure Hattie was going to be upset if she didn't get to roll her masterpiece around. Grammie looked around for some wheel replacements and Voila!! she came up with some genius substitutes (after some trial and error😉 but eventually) and the grand prize winner was.... drum roll please... Wait I'll see if you can guess from the picture. 😊

Plastic Water bottle caps!!!




My panda was coming along nicely in all of this. I started off with a coat of black. Then I painted the head area and tummy white. The ears and legs were black. I added the face and toes. I put on some decals. Then that was it!!! 

And the finished product!!!

🐼 🐼 🐼 PANDA!!

Everyone's (finished) grand prix cars!!! My Panda! Cora's rainbow corvette. Lily's Flower-mobile. Ben's car. (I don't know what to call his!) Hattie's water bottle cap car.
 Sorry that no one is looking at the camera 😏 Apparently something super duper interesting is going on next to the camera instead.  

Well gotta go...



💜 Ella 

Florida!!

I cannot wait to go to Florida!!! Only thirty-three days until we go to Florida!!! I am sooo excited!!!
💜Ella


Yep, that's all I had to say today. ;) Well.. at least I posted right?!?

Crazy Hair Night!!!

At WEST this week it was crazy hair day. At AWANA this week it crazy hair day.

This day comes once a year you gotta make just gotta make the best of it even if you aren't in WEST or AWANA.

So Hattie whooped it up this year. She did the whole works.
The millions of binders.
The teasing of hair.
The random braids.
The random buns.
The random ponytails.
And you can't forget the colorful sprays.
Yep she did it all.



                                       
                                                   AND WOW WAS SHE CUTE!!!

P.S. If you could see the back it would look much more CRAZY!

Even if you couldn't get a smile out of the thing for a pic and she looked like a zombie, she was still a cutie pie!



Love her!
Bye!


💜Ella

Swan Lake!!

Last Friday we went on a field trip to swan lake. I'm sure right now you are all thinking of bunches of little ballerinas tiptoeing and spinning across stage. (No offence to ballerinas of course!) But I mean actual swans. Like the big huge bird kind of swans. Now do you get it? Good.  Swan lake in Monticello is a place where swans (the big birdies remember) go to get a bite to eat in the winter months. Jim Lawrence feeds the swans (and whatever waterfowl makes it over) 1,400 pounds of corn a day! Imagine that!!

The sun was in our eyes so no-one could look without squinting, apparently Hattie couldn't look at all. ;) Grammie planned the field trip and she took the pic!!

There were so many water birds it was crazy!! 😲 Unfortunately, it was freezing outside!!

On this pic, google photos decided it was way smarter than I was, and that I wanted the picture to have a trillion fillers on it as well as orange streaking and F 18. (don't ask me what that means)

Bye you guys!!

💜Ella

Happy Groundhogs day everyone!