All Day Sphagetti Sauce

Ingredients
10 ripe tomatoes
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
1 onion, chopped
1 green bell pepper, chopped
2 carrots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 cup chopped fresh basil
1/4 teaspoon Italian seasoning
1/4 cup Burgundy wine
1 bay leaf
2 stalks celery
2 tablespoons tomato paste


1.Bring a pot of water to a boil. Have ready a large bowl of iced water. Plunge whole tomatoes in boiling water until skin starts to peel, 1 minute. Remove with slotted spoon and place in ice bath. Let rest until cool enough to handle, then remove peel and squeeze out seeds. Chop 8 tomatoes and puree in blender or food processor. Chop remaining two tomatoes and set aside.
2.In a large pot or Dutch oven over medium heat, cook onion, bell pepper, carrot and garlic in oil and butter until onion starts to soften, 5 minutes. Pour in pureed tomatoes. Stir in chopped tomato, basil, Italian seasoning and wine. Place bay leaf and whole celery stalks in pot. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat to low, cover and simmer 2 hours. Stir in tomato paste and simmer an additional 2 hours. Discard bay leaf and celery and serve.

When you do sauces that simmer all day they have this wonderful texture and richeness that cant be achieved by a 15 min sauce! I do an all day but not this intricate. I will post mine in a while. But I wanted to put this one because its an awesome one!

The First Day Of School

The First day of school went off without a hitch. My kids kids could not wait for school to start! It has been fun to have them both in school all day. I was able to get some stuff done. I was able to help the Librarian at the school organize some of the shelves of books. I plan on going in there weekly to help her with that. She hasnt had an assistant in forever. It was fun though! Also, I have been taking a boy to school and picking him up from school for his parents. It has been so much fun for the kids to do this. So far he is a good kid! *keeping my fingers crossed!!

Fish, Fish and More Fish

We went to SeaLife Aquarium in Tempe. It was so much fun. Even though we really didn't go far we did have a little get away from the heat. The sea life was so amazing. The sting rays were so cute and wanted to come up to you and almost want to cuddle. Many of the sharks did the same thing. They would come right up to you against the glass!

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Scrubbing Those Books Clean

This morning we got to go to Connor and Rylee's school. The reason for this was that a boy in our stake was doing his Eagle Scout project. This project included scrubbing off books and and shelves. Also some were vacuuming the shelves as well. The kids had so much fun helping scrub down the books. I think they were into it because it was their school. The librarian was having so much fun that people were in there cleaning. She hasn't had an assistant in forever. This whole project put a big smile on her face. We ran into some employees who were scrubbing the building that know us and it was fun to see them and chat. We ended up staying the whole time. We thought we would leave early but we were one of the last few to leave. I had so much fun and my arms had a wonderful work out but it was all worth it. I talked with the librarian and asked her if she needed help (volunteer help) in the morning and afternoon and she said yes she would! But she doesnt want to over work me. And I said dont worry about it cause all the kids will be in school and I have to drop them off and pick them up anyway everyday and so I can come in and help before and after school!

Messing Around With Pictures

I combined 2 pictures. One of my grandpa in the Navy and my Dad as an Airbourne in the Army. I wish my dad's pic was bigger.

Distractions

Today in relief society our President had the lesson. She talked about distractions and things that keep us from the Lord. In other words idols. You know like the internet and television and so forth. Hahah as I am blogging on the internet. But we talked about activities that are getting in the way and taking away from time with the family. The number of dinners that families actually sit and eat together have decreased as the years go by. WE ARE SO DISTRACTED. And now with the texting and facebook and things like that, we are more withdrawn and our communication skills are horrible. We need to take advantage of the little moments since we are such a busy society. My favorite was Nets. Now this is a definition that Sister Carter gave for them. Nets: Anything that entices or prevents us from following the call from Christ. And then she said one more thing that stood out. She asked, "Where are we in Lehi's vision of the tree of life?" When then were given the challenge each month to find something that keeps us in the world and come out of it. This is to help us not be distracted!