Picking Strawberries and Making Jam!

 A couple of weeks ago we went to a strawberry patch as a family on the last day of the season.

Gonna get us some berries!

The kids got some white buckets to put their berries in and then they dumped them into our family basket.  

Noley was pretty serious about it at first...

 Got one!

 Maya had a lot of fun picking.  She just kept going and going and going! This was serious business to her!

 Nolan took a break to eat a berry he picked.  Yum!! Then he was off playing and doing other things while Maya, a.k.a. the work horse, kept on picking!

 Our berry inspector...

 We met our friends the Koshlaps at the berry patch.  They got lots of berries too!  

 We ended up with about 20 lbs of berries that day!

Since the berries were so fresh and ripe, they started to go bad quickly.  So we ate lots of fresh strawberries over the next few days, washed and froze some, mashed some up for a pancake topping (with whipped cream on top!) and the kids helped me make Strawberry Freezer Jam with the rest!

 They were great berry mashers and sugar pourers, and helped me stir up the jam too.  This jam doesn't require any cooking so it is really easy to make.  

 And after 24 hours, we had some delicious jam!  Definitely a yummy recipe that I will keep on hand for the future!