Strawberry Jam

Well, this year my children ate ALL the jam I had made!

Strawberry, Raspberry AND Apricot.

SO

This year I KNEW I had to make LOTS!!!

I also decided I was going to enlist the help of my children to help out with this job!  As a mom I feel it is so important for our family to work together as a family.  There are many, many jobs to do around the house AND we all need to work TOGETHER to get things done.  My goal is more than just getting each job done -- it is learning to get the job done TOGETHER!

JM, My Darling and our friend DB hauled all of the strawberries for us!!

AND

They LOVED doing it!!!  YEAH -- I'm so glad because guess what????

I hate that part!

They did an awesome job!

Unfortunately,  we could not do the jam immediately after that because when I opened the cabinet, I realize I did not have any pectin.  YIKES!!!

SO -- after I went to the store the girls and I MADE the jam.  The boys went with their dad to pick-up some parts for my van.

The girls had a blast smashing berries! 

My Darling using her MUSCLES!!  

Even Elizabeth did some smashing!

They did LOTS of stirring!

They had to stir for 3 minutes.  

Finally, after 4 batches of jam completed, they got to have a yummy sample!

 Toast and fresh strawberry jam -- yummy!  
AND all 4 batches of freezer jam right behind them.

 BaJabs taking the first bite.

 Great!

Elizabeth LOVES toast and jam -- she's the culprit of why we go through SO much!

The next day we headed to my moms and we made 4 batches of apricot jam as well!  Now, we have to wait for the raspberries to ripe.

The work we did will taste SO good this winter!