Memory Making

Once upon a time, our family had a tradition of picking strawberries every spring, and then making them into yummy things like freezer jam and pies and muffins. See, photographic proof!

But then, we moved to the Middle East. And added two more babies to the mix (well, OK, Owen was a few months old when we got here, but it still kind of applies…) I was pretty excited to realize that while our strawberry picking tradition is on hold for a little while, there is still a season here when the strawberries get ridiculously cheap, and with a little pectin from home ta-da : freezer jam!

At the same time, I have been struggling with feeling like I don't do enough "fun" activities with Owen and Hailey, like I used to do with Tyler and Will, so in one of my jam making sessions I included them. Owen was SUPER enthusiastic and it reminded me why it is so fun (and nerve wracking) to cook with a 2 year old :) His job was to wash strawberries.

They both took the taste testing part of the cooking quite seriously - pretty sure we could have made a whole jar of jam using the berries they "tested"in the name of quality control!

I tried to deafen them with the blender, but Hailey was too smart for me. Owen opted to lose his hearing so that he can now claim not to hear me when I'm frantically hollering things like "stop!", "no that's not food!" and "danger!"

Mix for 3 minutes. After 30 seconds, Hailey claimed her arm was broken and stuck me with the job...

Delicious!

And here it is. A cute little jar of goodness. And here is my photo documentation that one day, one time, I did something "fun" and "educational" with Owen and Hailey, and that we all survived to tell the tale :)