Tests and First Break...

As a result of having a break coming up, today and yesterday are being filled with tests.

 One right after another.

 I am proud to say, that so far, they are passing with flying colors!

So, as you know, we are starting our first year of year-round schooling. Our first break is coming up and I have had different people ask if we are planning our breaks or if it will be complete free time. We won't have a schedule, but we will be doing some specific things. All of our breaks will include this:

• A Field Trip
• A Elective Class (This is a class that is not necessary, but fun and a learning experience.)
• An Home Making Class (These are things having to do with being a keeper of the home.)

During our next couple week of free time, the girls will be having some cooking/baking lessons, an art class (A course by Thomas Kinkade) and a field trip. Our field trip will be going to several art museums in the area and observing different styles of art. 

Our breaks will also include:

• Sleeping in. (Yay!!!)
• Endless hours of playing outdoors.
• Fun and Games.

So while we won't have "book" work or a "school" schedule, but we will be having fun doing some extras that don't get to happen in a regular school day. As well as just simply being lazy!

Baby Plants!

Want to see an update on our seeds we planted a few days ago? Click here!

Learning Home Ec In The Home: We have baby plants!!!

After watching and watering faithfully, we are starting to see some plants!!!

Think you can recognize any of them???

\

This is the one you are guessing on! Can you tell what it is??? 

HINT: It is a flower!

Put in your guess and receive free seeds in the mail!

(It is not marigolds or  gaillardia.)

Chores:

If you have any questions about when you should start training your children on chores or how, check out my post called E is For Everyone Helps on my homeschool blog!

E is for Everyone Helps!

I have had several people ask me about what kind of chores I give my kids to do. So I thought that would be a perfect topic for our E letter in that Everyone Helps in our house.

There are a couple ways we have approached chores in our house and there is by no means a right or wrong way. Just like homeschooling, you have to find what works for your family. In a large family like ours, it is crucial that everyone helps. My husband likes to remind the kids that I am not their slave. It's nice to hear that once in a while! LOL

My hubby and I were raised differently, so when it came to chores, I put both concepts to use. My hubby was raised that as soon as you were tall enough to do something, you were old enough to train to do it. So as soon as you could reach the table, you helped with clearing the table. As soon as you could stand at the ironing board, you were trained to use it. I was raised a little bit differently. I never had set chores till I was 12. Up till that point, we had to keep our rooms clean and do whatever chores mom and dad asked, but other than that, there was no specific chores to do. Then when i was 12, my mom became bed-bound by MS for quite awhile. So dad got out a posterboard and we sat down and divided the chores. He made it so that we didn't do the same chores every day for variety. But there was a routine in how and when we did it. 

As a result, we have come up with something that works for our family. A long time ago, I ran across a website that gave a run down on what they thought were age appropriate chores. I found that very helpful to get me started in making chore lists for my kids. I cannot find that website now, but here is one that is helpful at Lots Of Kids.

I started chore lists when my oldest was about three. I know! Mean mom, right? However, kids thrive on responsibility and being able to please their parents. Yes, there is alot of training when they are learning a new task. Once they have it though, I am free to leave them to their jobs.

So for example,on different days in the week,  my 9 and 11 year olds are responsible for:

Collecting all garbage in the house and taking it out.

Collecting the recycling and taking it out to the bin.

Mopping.

Empting and loading dishwasher.

Switching laundry.

Bathroom duty.

Sweeping cobwebs.

Washing walls.

My younger two girls are responsible for:

Switching laundry.

Feeding and watering animals.

Bathroom duty.

Sweep cobwebs.

Washing walls.

They also sometimes help with unloading the dishwasher.

Everyday they are all  also responsible for:

Making their bed.

Hygiene twice a day.

Tidying the schoolroom in the afternoon.

My son, who is 3 years old, has chores too! He has to keep his room clean, he helps me tidy around the house, he feeds the animals on the day the girls are not responsible, he has to put his diapers in the garbage, and he helps clear the table right now as well as other little things.

We don't pay the kids for doing chores. It is part of being in our family. I don't think there is anything wrong with it, but we don't do it.

There are consequences for chores that are not done. This happens so rarely in our house, that I don't usually have to think about it. But they lose priviledges to do things or cannot go to friend's houses if they do not finish their chores.

Anyway, I hope this helps out those who have questions! The main thing to remember is that we want to train our kids to be responsible adults. That doesn't happen over night. They have to learn how to be responsible children first. While it will be some work at the beginning as you are training, you will reap great benefits!

Today: Bread Making and other...

Today is Applesauce Bread! Looking forward to it. Did not add walnuts as it asked for because half of us are allergic. However, I think it will turn out just fine!

I was talking to a friend earlier today. She wanted to know if it is cheaper to make my own bread. Here is what I came up with: Our family normally goes through a store bought loaf of bread in a meal, with a couple pieces left over. For the cost of a 25 pound bag of flour, I can get any where from 12 -15 loaves of bread. For that same amount of money, I can only get 4-8 loaves of store-bought bread. The other benefit is that I know exactly what is going into my family's bread. There are no additives or preservatives or fancy words that I can't pronounce. Also, these loaves of bread are bigger loaves, so they go further. I have noticed that one home-made loaf goes two or three meals. I used to spend $32-40 of my family's grocery budget on bread every month. Now I spend about $8, once a month, to buy a bag of flour. A win-win situation! Healthy and inexpensive!

On other news, I have one child who is not feeling well for some reason. So we cancelled other things that were supposed to happen today and just hanging out. I am planning on getting some little projects done that have been sitting around waiting for me to finish them! They are just little projects, none of them taking more than a few minutes, so hoping to get a bunch done.

A Low Key Day With My Son's Birth Mom

Today, was a low key day. We didn't do much besides the usual household stuff. Mainly because we were waiting for a phone call. My son's birth mom lives about 3.5-4 hours away from us and we hadn't seen her in months. We have a very open adoption and like to keep in contact. In fact, hardly a week goes by that we haven't exchanged several texts just chatting about life in general.

Around lunch time, we got the call that they were in town and ready to eat, so off to the pizza place we went. We had a lot of fun catching up with Mamalicia, as we call her, as well as Lil Mr's bio siblings. It was great fun! They are getting so big! We also got to meet up with "grandma Shari" who has been a grandma in the Mamalicia's kids lives since they were tiny.

All in all a very nice day and so much fun to catch up with family!

Question about canning...

So I have canned off and on for years. Sometimes with my grandma, other times on my own or with my hubby. We have always used the big stock pot that we have. However, I have been watching some youtube videos on canning and a majority of them use a pressure cooker. Now I know for a fact that the pressure cookers fly off the shelves during canning season, I used to work at Walmart in the housewares section. My question is:

Is one better than the other for canning? What do you use, a stock pot or a pressure cooker?

Learning Home Ec In The Home: Starting Seeds and a Science Experiment

So this afternoon we started some seeds, you can read about it here. It was a BLAST! While planting our seeds, my younger girls asked why it was so important to make sure the plants never went dry. So we decided to do an experiment:

In these two bags, we have some beans...

(The same beans from this math blog with dad!)

I told the girls that in one bag we would start with water, but then not give it water ever again. 

In the other bag, we will water it always, making sure it stays moist. Then they will be able to see within a week, why it is important for our plants in our planters, shown below, must always have water.

They also practiced their printing skills:

Six Year Old's Handiwork

Seven year old working away...

All in all, a wonderful home-school day! I am SO glad the Lord pointed us in this direction! God is goo!

TODAY: Planting Starters, Pizza Dough, a Challenge and so much more...!

We had so much fun this afternoon that I HAVE to share, complete with pictures. So enjoy!

So I admit, when we get the "bug", we get the bug. We haven't had a garden for two years for reasons out of our control. This year, we were so antsy that we decided to start our plants indoors!

Spooning the soil into containers...

Some of the plants, ironically, none of this are the ones we started. But I wasn't in charge of the camera the whole time! LOL

Ahhh....some cantaloupe and bell peppers...I can taste them already!

Jalapenos and small sweet pumpkins. 

(This variety is great for pie and canning.) 

I had lots of help...

Fancy watering pot, eh?

My Kindergartener showing off her printing skills! Not bad!

My First Grader helps as well...

First person to tell me what kind of seeds these are will get some in the mail! Put your guess below!

My hubby fixed up this lovely spot for my seedlings...

"I'm gonna watch them grow...!"

My wonderful hubby made pizzas with home-made dough for dinner!!

Yum, yum! This one is ours, can't wait to taste it!

And THAT was our afternoon in a nutshell of pictures!

Bread: Something New and Different: Pumpkin Raisin Bread

So yesterday, I experimented with not one, but two new bread recipes. The first one, which was a hit, was Cottage Cheese and Chive Bread. That received huge raves at dinner last night. After dinner I decided I wanted to make Applesauce Walnut Bread....minus the walnuts. Well, I looked in my pantry and amazingly I was out of applesauce. A rare and sad moment! (I really should can my own this year!) However, I noticed that I had a can of Pumpkin that needed to be used up. So I decided to experiment! The results: AMAZING!
If you would like to try it in your bread machine, here is my recipe:

3/4 cup pumpkin
3/8-1/4 cup warm water
3 T butter or margarine
1 large egg or 2 small eggs
1 t salt
4 cups bread flour (I use regular flour and it turned out just fine.)
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 and 1/4 t cinnamon ( I think it could use a little more cinnamon, so you might experiment with that.)
1/2 t baking soda
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
large handful (or two, depending on how much you like) of raisins

1. Measure and add liquid ingredients to the bread pan.
2. Measure and add dry ingredients (except yeast) to the bread pan.
3. Form a well with your finger to hold the yeast and put the yeast in the well.
4. Shut lid.
5. Use Sweet setting on your machine, if you can.
6. Loaf size is 1.5 pounds.
7. START 

ENJOY!!!

In the words of my 6yo, "That's a keeper recipe!"

And my 9yo, "Mom, next time you make bread, you are making more of that!"

Tonight's Menu: Homemade Chicken and Bean Soup

Yesterday I tried making a new recipe with my Crockpot chicken. I poured a can of Tomato Bisque Soup over my chicken breasts and cooked them up. They were a hit! After taking the chicken out, there was the lovely soup base leftover, so I decided to try my hand at soup. Here is what we did:

1. Took the the leftover chicken breasts, broke them up and put them in with the soup base.
2. Then put the Crockpot on low all night.
3. This morning, I took some beans leftover from making refried beans for tomorrow night's meal, they had not been mushed yet, and added that.
4. I also took the black beans I had soaking all night, boiled them on the stove and added them.
5. An hour or so before dinner, I am going to add some lentils. As well as some leftover corn and rice from last night's dinner. 

This meal is smelling good already!!! Not sure how we will last till dinner, but we will try! I figure this meal will cost us about $.50 for the whole meal, for seven people! Top that!!! I would say free as it is mostly leftovers, but we did add the lentils and beans, so it cost a little something. 

All in all, feeling happy about feeding my family in a frugal yummy way!

Amish Friendship Bread

I found a ton of recipes for this, as I assumed I would. Here is the one I am going to follow tomorrow when I start my own:

 ***Click Here***

First Picnic of Spring

So I asked my girls after our picnic at the park, "What was the first sign of Spring that you saw today?"

 They all said, "DANDELIONS!"

The fact that dandelions rate as one of my favorite flowers worked out nicely for me!

While the kids were playing, my Fred was bringing me every dandelion she could find, the results were pretty on the picnic table!

Have a blessed day!

Today: Bread Making

Good afternoon! I am trying a couple new things today. First one is a bread called Cottage Cheese and Chive Bread. It is currently baking away and I am hoping it will be a great addition to our chicken dinner tonight! The other is that I started my sourdough. I have never started sourdough before. My wonderful kitchen savvy hubby has. He has made wonderful bread from it too! So I decided it was my turn. Time will tell. Takes four days apparently. Now I am on the search for a starter recipe for Friendship Bread, sometimes called Amish Friendship Bread. I have only made it from starter from other people. So I need a starter recipe....I am assuming it starts about the same way as a sourdough starter.

Off to browse the internet!

Today: Shed

This will take several days. At this point, what I am interested in, is getting the stuff that is not ours,you can read more about that here at the end of the blog. Anyway, in order for us to actually organize, we need to have other people's stuff out. I think today, I will start getting some of it out. No cleaning, no organizing...just pulling out what isn't ours and has been abandoned.

Plus, I will get to enjoy the sun!!

Late Start

We had to have another health/safety inspection from DHS. Our son's adoption process is in no man's land at the moment. Kinda annoying. While he is designated adopted and we are his adoptive parents, we are still waiting on the state to finish going through the paper work and send it back to our attorney to sign papers. So in the meantime, he is still considered a ward of the state and they still have to do inspections....

As a result, we had a REALLY late start today. Which kinda stinks cause the sun chose this moment to come out! I am thinking we need to go for a walk/drive/picnic or something today. Get out of the house. We have been stuck here forever...And if  I am complaining, it MUST be lasting forever, cause I love the cold weather.

I think we will go to the park this afternoon. Take a picnic, take notebooks and write down or draw, for those of us who don't write yet, the spring changes we see happening! Sounds like a good homeschool project!

Was blessed today...

This morning I dropped my oldest two off at piano lessons then headed to the store. It was a store I had not been in for more than a year or two. However, I realized the other day that they probably have the things I have been looking for in their bulk food section. So off we went.

The three kiddos did great, the lil girls helped me bag and tag. Lil Mr amused himself by making boy noises. He seems to be discovering a new one every week! LOL

When we arrived at the checkout, the very kind clerk busied herself making small talk with my kids. This always makes me happy, when clerks acknowledge children instead of treating them like the plague. Anyway, we chatted away:

                           Clerk: "Oh, it's Spring break this week,
                           isn't it?
                           Me: "Yes, but not for us."
                           Clerk: "Oh, do you homeschool?"
                           Me: "Yes, we do!"
                           Clerk: "You can tell...."
                           Me: "Well, I hope that is a good thing!"
                           Clerk: "Oh YES, it is! You can tell by
                           how your children act."
                           Me: "Oh, thank you!"
                           Clerk: "You have a wonderful day,
                           you are doing a great job!"
                           Me: "Thanks so much!"

    Now I have the warm fuzzies in my heart on a very cold day!

Making Memories and Messes

So I was working on my project indoors and hubby was working on the backyard...he comes in the house and says, "Can you be ready in a hour or so and we will go cash the cans in." Now, I haven't paid attention, but I figured there were maybe 5-6 bags of cans. No...he had to take the seats out of our 8 passenger van and the back end was FULL! Where were these for the past five months? Apparently it proves that we rarely go to the side of the house where we store cans in the winter time. No, we do not drink that much soda! Alot of them are water bottles and then we have different relatives that give us their bottles and cans. It adds up...

So we figured that we were there at least 1.5 hours, but possible two. Cashing in cans is hard, nasty work. I don't know if you cash in cans, but in the winter time it is cold, miserable, dirty work. However....we made a decent amount of money in that short amount of time, I am happy to say! The kids worked hard. I didn't think ahead to how the noise in that echoing, loud room would affect Lil Mr's Sensory issues. He was having a hard time dealing with it, so the girls all took turns playing with him in the little area outside the building. The ones that weren't playing/watching Lil Mr all took turns getting cans/bottles from the van, loading the bins, taking caps off the bottles, cleaning up garbage and various other little tasks. They were troopers! I was so proud of them. Not a single one fussed till the last 15 minutes or so when they started getting hungry. It was hard work, but daddy is treating them to some of that hard earned money by picking up one of their favorite foods for lunch! Yay Daddy!

It was messy and we all have dirt shoved up under our fingernails and streaks of mud across our faces, but it was productive and we left thankful that we do not have to do that for a living as some people who were there. God is good and I am so thankful for Him in our lives!

Today: Finish Major Spring Cleaning Projects

Nothing makes a person bust into over-drive than a call from DHS saying, "It's time for your 6 months safety check." Of course, we will NOT talk about how if our son's adoption had been finished 9 months ago like it was supposed to, we wouldn't have to deal with these fun visits any more.... As I made the appointment for next Tuesday, I looked around the house and saw several Spring Cleaning missions that I have been in the middle of this week! ACK!!!!! Well, thanks to my wonderful family, today we have been tackling those last projects around the house.

My oldest girls took on my son's bedroom and they are having a blast with it. Doing a FANTASTIC job too! Our son's room had not been put back to rights from having our foster son for six months and it was time to make it his room again. So they have been re-arranging, cleaning and having a blast! I am so proud of them. I am sure I could not have done a better job...positive. They ROCK!

The little girls and Lil Mr have been going around doing little odd jobs for dad and I. Dad is cleaning out some of his stuff and I am tackling my very last major project for Spring. Indoors, that is. Outdoors has not really begun yet.

All in all, we are only half way through the day and I am feeling the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from my family having fun working together!

Have a wonderful Saturday!

Yesterday: My bathroom and cleaning chemicals

My first was-too-tired-to-blog blog! There had to be one at some time, right?

 So first off, yesterday afternoon I finally got to Spring Cleaning in my bathroom. I am pleased to say that I was able to be rid of a bag and a half (Walmart/store-sized) of old hair products, outdated things from the medicine cabinet and just some weird odds and ends. I consolidated the girls and my hair accessories into one bucket since we use the same things. I cleaned out every nook and crevice of the bathroom. Scrubbed my porcelain difficult hard to clean sink with baking soda, and that worked amazingly well! So now, the bathroom is picture perfect!

Now for my cleaning chemicals....I have been doing a little research on commercial cleaning chemicals. Reading articles, talking to people etc...we are officially switching to all natural cleaning components. You know, the ones our grandparents, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents etc used? Those cleaners didn't hurt their health and they were inexpensive. I have made my own cleaners in the past, but as with my grocery shopping and meal planning, I had stopped due to what I thought was a lack of convenience. I found some great articles on how to make sure that your ingredients work together properly and do the job you are wanting them to do. Also making sure you don't mix things improperly. Just because things are natural, doesn't mean they can be mixed together willy-nilly! Now, I could go buy all natural cleaners. But why do that when they cost the same as the commercial and I can mix my own for 100th of the price! Yep, 1/100th of the price of store bought cleaners!

I think this will benefit our whole family. Not only as a way to save money, but also for the health of our family.

Baby Laughing Hysterically at Newfoundland Dog

Had to share this! Too cute!

Grocery Shopping

Somewhere along the way in the past almost 13 years since I got married, I started taking short cuts. I am sure that part of it was having small ones under foot. For the longest time I had 4 kids under 6 years old, it seemed like I was lucky if I got a shower, much less fix a wholesome, inexpensive meal! I have always been a thrifty shopper. We have never been well off and are used to living paycheck to paycheck. However, over the past couple months, the Lord has been showing me that I can serve my husband even better by seeing exactly where I could save his hard-earned money. Since our biggest bill after paying rent is buying groceries, no small surprise having seven in our family, I knew this was a spot I could work on. So I have been working hard, looking for sales  to save on our grocery bill. Imagine my excitement when I found this book: Miserly Moms- Living Well on Less in a Tough Economy. My secret sister gave it to me months ago and for some reason, it was tucked away and never opened. Now, I am not getting paid any money to promote this book. They don't even know I exist. However, I think this book is a MUST read for families that are wanting to save money and eat healthier. In this book, one of the things the author does is give you price comparisons. For example how much a box of pancake mix is compared to making it from scratch. There are recipes for making your own NON-toxic house cleaners, recipes for yummy inexpensive meals and a section on where and how you can save money on your budget. This has been a great blessing to me and I hope you can get something from it too!

Learning Home Ec In The Home: Grocery Shopping

I could have waited till later today to write this blog entry, as I am extremely tired. (From numerous unrelated things that add up.) However, I had so much fun grocery shopping with my kiddos today that I had to share!

Most mother don't use the words/phrases "fun", "grocery shopping" and "kiddos" all in the same sentence! I don't and I rarely have problems shopping with my kids. We have a system and we use it. I pair the kids up, one of the older girls helps push the cart and off we go.

That being said, it is rarely "fun". We joke around sometimes and have interesting conversations, just not something I would do "for fun"! Today, however, was the exception. Today, my girls were having fun making price comparisons. I have been talking to them about how I am learning how to go back to the ways of cooking from scratch, not buying convenience foods, buying in bulk, etc etc....all those things I saw my parents and grandparents do.

As a result of telling the girls what I am learning (Read more about that *here*) and what I can't wait to teach them, they are getting excited also! When we were in the store today, we would see food and the girls would point at food and say, "We can make that ourselves, right mom?" It made ME excited cause I could tell that what we have chatted about is paying off! They are understanding that it saves money and is healthier to eat from scratch. (Why didn't I pay better attention when I was their age??) This excites me!

THEN.....we were going to take poor daddy some food for lunch. The poor guy was is exhausted and forgot a lunch. So, since I had a few dollars left from grocery shopping, I decided to take him Taco bell. On the way, I told my girls that we probably had enough for them to get something also. My second oldest said, "Nah." My eyebrows shot up! This is was her favorite place to eat! I asked her why she said no and she said, "Well, it would be healthier for me to fix my own lunch." She also mentioned something about saving money, but I can't remember what.

A few minutes after picking up my little girls from piano practice, the older girls were filling them in on why they decided not to get Taco Bell. One of the little girls said, "What about McDonald's?" I said, "I am sorry, I don't have money in my budget for that today." She says, "What's a budget???" So I explained a budget to her! It was so fun!

My desire is for daughters to grow up to be women that the Bible describes in Proverbs 31. Women whose husband's hearts trust in them! Lord willing, He will help me to teach them while He is teaching me!

Today: Party!!!!

This is what we are up to today: http://homeschoolinghappyhearts.blogspot.com/2011/03/happy-saint-patricks-day.html

Happy Saint Patrick's Day

Hope you all have a wonderful day today and don't get pinched too often! Here is a little history behind St Patrick's Day:

"About Saint Patrick's Day

Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated each year on March 17^th.  In Ireland, Saint Patrick’s Day is both a holy day and a national holiday. Saint Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland as he was the one who brought Christianity to the Irish. According to legend, Saint Patrick used a shamrock to explain about God.  The shamrock, which looks like clover, has three leaves on each stem.  Saint Patrick told the people that the shamrock was like the idea of the Trinity – that in the one God there are three divine beings:  the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  The shamrock was sacred to the Druids, so Saint Patrick’s use of it in explaining the trinity was very wise.Although it began in Ireland, Saint Patrick’s Day is celebrated in countries around the world.  People with Irish heritage remind themselves of the beautiful green countryside of Ireland by wearing green and taking part in the festivities.Saint Patrick’s Day is usually celebrated with a parade.  The one in Dublin, Ireland is known to some as the Irish Mardi Gras.  But the one in New York City is actually one of the biggest.  It lasts for hours.  Two Irish wolfhounds, the mascots of the New York National Guard infantry regiment the “Fighting 69^th”, always lead the parade.  More than one hundred bands and a hundred thousand marchers follow the wolfhounds in the parade.

We are Irish, I have NO idea how much or if it is even enough to warrant visiting the Blarney Stone! But my mom always made the day fun and now I love doing the same for my kids. We always have green milk, wear green, make a green lunch of some sort, do St Patty's Day crafts and LOADS more! This year, we are honored to have some homeschool friends come visit us and have a party for lunch. This morning my oldest, who just learned how to make oatmeal yesterday, asked to make green oatmeal for her siblings! It turned out GREAT! Nice and eewy looking!

Have a great day, I will post pictures later!
Heidi

Today: More Kitchen Cupboards and My Bedroom

Today I went through my small appliances cupboard. Somehow over the years we have held on to appliances that we don't use any more. Why is that? Part of it was sentimental, a couple things were given to us by family. Others, it was just too much effort to deal with it.

Today, I went through the cupboard, washed it down and put back ONLY what we use. I was able to put on Freecycle: Rice Maker, Belgium Waffle Maker and Fondue Pot. Which left my microwave rice maker, a electric grill (that my hubby loves!), a waffle maker, food processor and my crockpot.

I have a micro rice maker that I adore because it only take 5-7 minutes to make rice, rather than 40 minutes with the rice maker. So out went the rice maker. I have a wonderfully tried and true waffle maker that was my parents. It was the same one that my mom used when I was growing up. So out went the begium waffle maker that we rarely used. As far as the fondue pot, we never use it. And we don't have company enough to make me want to hang onto it for special occasions.

So those are my reasons for departing with those items. I try to ask myself: Do we use it? How often? Is it necessary? Would we miss it? If we don't use it, it goes. If we don't use it weekly, it goes. If it is not necessary (such as some fancy tool), it goes. If we forgot it was there or we won't remember next week, it goes.

That being said, I will say that there are a couple things that are seasonal that I keep even though we don't use them weekly. Mainly because WHEN it is that time of year, I use them. And before I had them, I missed them. So they are at the back of my cupboard. One is a Deviled Egg Carrier. It is not fancy at all. But I love it and use it for almost every family get together. Then I also have a couple Christmas platters that I use during the Season.

The only other thing I am doing today is going into my bedroom and making a list of the things I want to tackle there, list them by time and priority. The problem with our room is that it was a double car garage. So quite large. And it has become, over the years, the "dump" spot. It is the Craft/bedroom/workout/storage etc etc etc......My tentative goal is to get all the storage out. (Which means going through it first!) Then arranging my craft area and workout area in a way that it is restful to the eyes. Might consider getting room dividers. THAT is all in the future. Like, not till this summer. Cause in order to move out the storage, I have to have a place to  move it to! We have a storage room outside that we can use, but it needs to be gone through. We were storing things for a friend a couple years ago. She never came and got it, moved away and doesn't want it. So we need to make a HUGE trip to Goodwill or Salvation Army. That cannot happen till we have a tiny bit of sunshine!

Alright! I hope you all have a great day!

Thought you might like this:

I am starting a section of blogs called "Learning Home Ec in the Home" on my homeschooling blog. Thought you might like checking out today'spost:

http://homeschoolinghappyhearts.blogspot.com/2011/03/learning-home-ec-in-home-making-oatmeal.html

Learning Home Ec In The Home: Making Oatmeal

I am going to be starting a new section called Learning Home Ec In The Home! I am not sure yet how to put all my different posts into sections where you can read just about certain things. I am not that "blog savvy" yet! Someday I will be! In the meantime, anything that starts with this title will be about what I am teaching my daughters in our home. Things that they will take with them as they start their own homes. It will include cooking lessons, baking lessons, home care lessons etc...I have a whole list of things I want to make sure I have taught them before they leave home. For my oldest, that could be in as little as 6 years!!! Hard to believe and makes me realize how fast the past (almost) 12 years have gone. My daughters all desire to be wives and mothers, something that warms my heart. They have also said that they want to be just like me when they grow up which humbles me so much! It also makes me want to try harder to make sure I have taught them what they need to know.



Today's lesson seems so simple, and it was. It was simply the art of making oatmeal. I have wrote a blog about oatmeal on my Facebook page, it is for the letter M. I will be getting that over here soon and I will link up to it. Here is a short snippet on what I wrote about oatmeal to wet your whistle:

"So....oatmeal is my least favorite food, as my mother, can attest to. I remember one time, sitting at the table trying to eat some oatmeal and gagging. My mom, told me to go to my room cause I was apparently making a scene...on the way, I almost passed out, not really sure why."

That was one of my favorite blogs and I will get it over here as soon as I can!

Anyway, my children LOVE oatmeal!  It dawned on me last night: I need to teach them to make their favorite food! So today, I taught my older two how to make it over the stove. How to prepare the extra ingredients to go in it. Today it was apples, brown sugar, butter and milk.

The results: A+! Well, I am assuming. I, naturally, did not have any. However, their siblings gave RAVE reviews! I am happy to say, my girls not only know how to make oatmeal with flaxseed, but they also can tell you the health benefits of eating oatmeal and how flaxseed helps your body. Yay!

Cornbread in the Bread Machine Update

So the bread is delicious! However it is not the same consistency as what we are used to. I am going to keep trying different recipes until I find one that has that same consistency. In the meantime, this one is really yummy!

We had it for dinner tonight along with chili. We put the bread in the bowl and poured chili on top. Sprinkled some olives and cottage cheese on top, YUM!!!!

Cornbread in the Bread Machine

Last night I was thinking about how good cornbread and chili sounded, so I got on the internet and found a recipe for Crusty Cornbread. Mine is still baking and I will tell you how it turns out! In the meantime, here is the recipe:

Ingredients

• 1 1/3 cups warm water
• 1/4 teaspoon hot pepper sauce
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1 tablespoon white sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 3/4 cup cornmeal
• 3 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast

Directions

1. Place ingredients in the pan of the bread machine in the order recommended by the manufacturer. Select cycle; press Start.

Today: MISC Small Projects

Today is a rainy day with hardly anything to do besides schooling. Even the appointment I had tonight was cancelled as my hubby informed me that he will be working quite late. So I have this whole day spread out in front of me! This makes me very excited! Last night I came up with a prospective list of small activities that take around 10-15 minutes each, with one or two taking longer, maybe up to an hour each.

If you don't know me, you should know that nothing makes me happier than a list! I LOVE lists! When I was getting married, I had a list for everything and then a Master List. The next thing that makes me happy is crossing things off the lists!

So, here is my list for today, I will come back and mark them done at the end of the day if they got done:

1. Tupperware Cupboard. (10 minutes) DONE ( Ending with a box to give away!)
2. Small Appliance Cupboard. (10 minutes)
3. My Bookshelf. (30-45 minutes) DONE (Ended with a box of books to pass on!)
4. Living Room Bookshelf. (20 minutes) DONE (Ending with a sack of children's books to give away. This is supposed to make up for the fact that we brought the same amount into our home over the weekend!)
5. Front Closet. (30-45 minutes) DONE (Found even more to give away!)
6. Go Through Game Closet. (1 hour)
7. Finishing Clearing Out Closet In Girls Room. (15-20 minutes)
8. My Closet Shelves. (30 minutes)

Now....how do I break this down? I know for a fact, I will probably not get all of this done today. If I could work in long segments, I would probably be done in 3 hours. Maybe a little bit longer. However, despite the long day stretching out before me, it will not all get done. That's just life! So I will probably look at my list, look at the amount of time I have and pick which chore fits that space. 

On that note, I am off to clear out the Small Appliance cupboard! 

Have a great day!

New Bread Recipe for my Bread Machine

I tried a new recipe today called French Countryside Bread, it makes a 2 pound loaf. It turned out SO good, so I had to share the recipe:

1 and 3/8ths cups water (I use warm water and it seems to make the yeast work better.)
1 and 1/2 tablespoons vegetable or olive oil
1 and 1/2 teaspoons salt
4 cups bread flour
1 tablespoon sugar
2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Today: Survival

Survival for me anyway! We have been gone several days, so no deep cleaning for me today. I have been working simply on putting away traveling things, getting more bread going and shopping for fresh things.

Tomorrow, however, is going to be a great day for getting a lot of my little areas done. The only thing on my list during the day is schooling and watching a friend's daughter for a couple hours. So the list of small deep cleaning chores is long! Will update on that later!

Have a wonderful Monday!

C: Cooking!

Who loves cooking? Yes? No? Whether you enjoy cooking or not, these years at home are the perfect time to prepare your children, girls AND boys for when they leave home.

However, not only is cooking great fon independence, but awesome for  learning! According to this article: http://ezinearticles.com/?Kids-in-the-Kitchen---Educational-Cooking&id=978404, cooking is a tool for learning about senses, measurements, and safety.

My chidlren love to tinker around in the kitchen and they tend to be like their dad and experiment with recipes. Me, I tend to follow the recipe and maybe make a tiny change here and there, but I get too nervous to experiment. So I LOVE that they are willing to try new things even if it turns out that they don't like it!

Four out of Five days a week, they make lunch for the family. They take turns figuring out the menu for that meal and then preparing it. They love it and often beg for it! The older two I can now leave completly on their own to cook, the younger two still obviously need supervision.

This year, I am trying something new and I am really excited about it! We are going to sit down on Friday, our down day, and they will figure out what they want to do on their day for lunch. Then we will go through the pantry and make sure we have the ingredients, if we don't have it, it will go on the shopping list. I have alot of children's cookbooks that I will pull out so that they can go through and see if something catches their fancy.

By doing this, I am hoping to accomplish:

1) Planning ahead.

2) Following through. Which can be hard, especially if you realize that you really don't want to fix what you planned to fix for that day!

3) Experimentation. A couple of my kids don't really like to try new things..however, I have noticed that if they have a hand in fixing it, their desire to try it goes up!

4) Reading Skills.

5) Following directions.

6) Safety in the kitchen.

7) Learning measurements.

And there are probably other things they will learn along the way. Especially the younger ones who are still learning how to cook.

I realize, that it is alot easier for us moms to just do things ourselves cause there is less mess etc...but remember our Letter A, Allow Messes! Kids learn by making messes AND cleaning them up! Cooking can be messy, but if you are there to take the time to train them how to clean up as they go along, how to measure properly, use knives safely, follow directions etc...you will find that the pay off in the long run will be WELL worth the effort. And maybe, just maybe you will find yourself having to fight to cook a meal yourself because of all the little chefs in your family!

Weird Days...

Ever have those? Today was one for us. We were gone for several days, and when we got home last night, we were exhausted. We all crashed early and slept late. So it put school at a later time of day. It all works out fine though and we are getting it done! We should be back to our normal schedule tomorrow...whew...

Thankful for a clean house!

My children were less than thrilled when I told them that I wanted the house spotless before we left for the weekend. However, when we all walked in tonight to a clean house where all we have to put away is our travel stuff, everyone breathed a sigh of relief! Tomorrow will be a day for putting things away. For now, I am going to get the kiddos into bed and then head to bed myself. It was a stressful coming home as the weather was the worst I have driven in for years. But that is another story!

Pure Eagle Enjoyment!

If you go to this website about eagles you can watch the eagles in their nest! Really a great find! Thanks to my mother for sending the link on!