Picking, eating, Jammin

    So my sister Julie and I, have been talking about how we look forwards to going berry picking with our kiddos and Husbands! It's one thing to pick year after year for mom...lol...it's a whole different thing to watch your little man go haywire eating every berry he can find...and then picking a few here and there...but in the end eating more than he was picking :)
   Anyways, my mom got wind of this and called us up telling us, that right now was peak season, so if we wanted to go she was gonna take us, as well as teach us how to make jam!!!
   We were stoked! So I also called up my friend Jonna, and She joined us as well with her little guy Ishmael. We got to the patch, and heard it was pretty slim pickin...That, my friends, is what 5 little siblings come in handy for :) My mom brought them along to pick for us!! Doesn't get much better than that haha... We had alot of fun though. Ayden was so much fun to watch! Once we taught him to pick and put in our buckets...he decided it was more fun to take one bite out of every nice berry in your bucket, then put it back! So we gave him his own bucket, and taught him how to fill it. He actually caught on! But, once his bucket had a handful in there...him and his little friend went to town! It was a ton of fun watching them, for sure!

   So once we finished picking, we headed to my amazing mom's house :) She had three stations all neatly set up. One was for cutting the stems off (which she had the little siblings do for us older ones:) ), the other was the smashing and filling jars station, then finally the cooking...She even had purchased my sister and I our very own canning supplies! I was impressed with how simple it was to make for ourselves strawberry Jam! Here is how much I brought in...that is with the help of my little brother Gabe! Thanks Gabe!!

My loot!

Uncle Gabe teaching Ayden :)

So cute

He catches on pretty fast!

Please notice that he is eating the
WHOLE thing...leaves straw...and all!

He is now filling his own bucket :)

 Alrighty now on to making the Jam! Super easy!!

Step.1

Wash, Cut off stems then SMASH 2 cups of strawberries!!

Step 2. Ad your Sure Gel, Then boil until you can't stir out the bubbles

I made this picture HUGE to prove a point :)
This Step will make every healthy fiber in you SCREAM!
Step 3. Add 7 Cups of sugar!! Ouch

Step 4. Bring mixture to a boil, once again, until you can't stir out the bubbles.

Step 5. Funnel into clean jars

My sister Julie and our mom..Both beautiful :)

My friend Jonna, also Beautiful :)

Step 6. Wash rims, put lids on

Final Step, Drop in water bath, bring to boil, than start timer for 10 min!!


Super easy..once they are done in the pan, take them out and let them sit over night to seal!!
YUMMY...
It was so much fun to be able to tell people that I "canned Jam" today!! We all felt like real Homemakers :)
Thanks Mom for a great time!!