FRIDAY – FRESH PRODUCE

Today was Produce Day – yippee. This is our co-op’s second order and we have twice the minimum order needed for the company in San Antonio to send the truck to OUR TOWN. Cool. The truck arrived 2 ½ hours later than we were expecting…..it was an early a.m. for no reason…but it was FUN to visit with other moms who were waiting for the truck to arrive. I met one lady whose dh is the director of our town’s nature center. She offered a personalized tour – her 6 yo will show us around. She also said that her husband could give us a class to teach us how to “hook a snake” – I think that is what she said. This is supposed to give me confidence to keep geocaching in the summer. We’ll see.

Jamin went with me to produce pick up and was a great help unloading the truck, carrying ladies boxes and baskets to their cars etc.

The day was complete when our family went over to Kwame and Adrienne’s home for dinner. The kids had a wonderful time. The adults had just as good a time. Have I mentioned that there is a chance that this family will be moving to ALASKA???? Good grief! We’ll just keep praying for the best for all involved…God’s will. It’s hard to pray that way because the friendships with this family have helped us all to put “roots” down in Texas…..


The white baskets and sack are some of our produce...we also got 1/2 a case of baby red potatoes, a case of tangelos, a case of apples and another box full....gotta get those 5 servings a day. {G}

STACIA DANCES

Still pictures don’t do this justice but I had to try. This is Stacia “dancing” to Cy’s “KJ52”. We now have a respectable stereo system. Josiah like’s to crank the music….and Stacia LOVES it. She squeals, laughs, smiles….she gets up on her hands and knees and sways side to side, rocks her head, lays on her tummy, rolls etc. She had a new move today…on her tummy….legs kicked out to the side and cycled around in circles in time to the music. She’s the best entertainment since moving pictures!

Dizzying Pace

This week seems to be rushing by at a dizzying pace. I spent a lot of time this a.m. on the phone…not sure why! {G}

Nolan and I left the house at 11:00. I had a PAC meet at the chapel and we leave from there to go directly to speech. Nolan had a WONDERFUL day at speech. I’m so very happy at the way things are working out the last two weeks.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Adrienne and her kids dropped by and picked up the kids left here – along with Zander. This was big. He has been doing so well that I thought he’d be o.k. Josiah went with them “just in case”. They went through the Pizza Hut drive thru and got their Book-it pizzas to take to the park.

Eventually Nolan and I made it to the park as well. Josiah took the van and left for work. Adrienne and her kids brought us home a couple of hours later. It was another fun day getting to know other homeschool moms. I’m really enjoying the fellowship and the kids love the chance to RUN and to be with friends. The 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month are official homeschool park days….but there are always lots of homeschoolers there every week.

Tomorrow is produce co-op day. I’m so excited. Heather made arrangements with River City Produce to send their truck right to our town. No one has to drive 45 miles away to pick it up and we will be the FIRST stop on his route for the day. That means that Jamin and I will be leaving early to go meet a produce truck…just like old times. Well NOT REALLY! I don’t have to be in charge…I can just relax and enjoy the yummy produce.

Best Kind of Day

This was the best sort of day. We got school done and we PLAYED! After lunch we headed to Kids Kingdom to meet Tricia and her children and Adrienne and her children. We laughed as we remembered that we’d met 2 months ago “by chance” at this very park. Josiah and Andrew both had the day off and it was fun to have them there again. Zander fell in love with JaNae – Adrienne’s 2 yo daughter – and was thoroughly entertained playing with and chasing her around. I took a bit of good-natured teasing about how the two of them had “invaded my privacy” two months ago. Yeah – I know – I’m an uptight person. {G}

Mike had to work late and the big boys wanted to take the radio control airplane and jeep to the park when we got back. So…..they headed out. I decided waffles from freshly ground wheat were the way to go. Yum. Zander and Arielle both ate LOTS of them…which made me feel good. Now I need to figure out how to make them fall in love with honey or maple syrup.
I baked a sweet potato for Stacia. She loved it…but I couldn’t get it all the lumps whipped out in the blender. I think I’m going to buy a food processor attachment for my Bosch. I thought I’d mash up a banana – no special tools needed. I was sure she would love it. Here you can see her SITTING straight up in her reclining chair as she anticipates her dinner. I was totally surprised when she didn’t like the bananas. She spit them all over me, blew raspberries and made general disapproving sounds. I guess she’s a vegetarian. Maybe the Smoothie I gave her on Sunday spoiled fruit for her. I guess I’ll keep steaming, roasting and baking veggies for her. I can’t argue with THAT.

February Recap

Wow – 1st of March already! OK time for a run down on those goals…..I’m still power-walking through the Word, I’m still loosing weight (only 2 lbs this month – but hey 7 last months so let’s average for a more respectable total {g}), we’re still making new friends and we are still on track to finish school ahead of schedule.

{Side note} Its 95* here today!!!! Can you BELIEVE that????

I’m thrilled to have found both a produce co-op and a co-op for buying things like grain and almond butter. {G} We’re seriously trying to switch Zander’s diet to the Feingold program; this will work better if we are all on it. It will be healthy for all of us. I don’t plan on legalism here….just progress. I think if we get rid of the artificial colors, flavors and preservatives at home that Zander will be able to handle the occasional overdose. The others will be able to eat whatever when we aren’t home….now there are these things called salicylites (will have to check the spelling) that will be tough to eliminate.

I’m slowly making changes. Zander was not fooled by honey instead of syrup. I’m going to have to try maple syrup. Monday is always really hard for Zander. His attitude is crazy and he has many, many melt-downs. I’m a bit slow…but after refreshing my memory on the program I put a few things together. Treat at Sunday School, little treat to bring home (which he usually eats on the walk between class and sanctuary), Donuts after church, fast food for lunch and then Sunday night is our ONE ice cream day of the week…..hmm…. Adrienne and Heather did share some of their yummy ice cream. It’s made with fresh raw milk (but I won’t use that) and honey and it was GREAT!

Books I’ve read this month:
Third culture kids - David C. Pollock and Ruth E. Van Reken
Just Plain Pickled to Death – Tamar Myers
Laura’s Album – A remembrance Scrapbook of Laura Ingalls Wilder - Anderson
Between a Wok and a Hard Place – Tamar Myers - didn't like this one
Courageous Christians – Joyce V.Brown
The Children’s Blizzard – David Laskin

KITCHEN GARDEN

Arielle and Nolan wanted to share a picture with you of our Kitchen Garden. The directions said it would take 10 – 14 days for the seeds to germinate. We planted these last Friday and are already seeing lots of sprouts 2 pots, some in 2 more and none yet in one of them. We’ve been watering, watering, watering. Can’t wait for fresh herbs! {G}

Tuesday – 28 February

School – as always school took up the major part of the morning. I find that I can often finish with Arielle and Nolan before lunch. The older three boys continue to work in the afternoon. Hmmm…come to think of it, some days Arielle comes to speech if she still has work for me to help her with, otherwise she has 30 minutes of reading to do after lunch.

Speech – Stacia, Zander and I accompanied Nolan to speech. Zander had a BLAST in the waiting room. He wasn’t sure why HE couldn’t go back with Nolan to play but filled his time quite well with the Lego table and the other little boys who showed up in the waiting room. “Grandma” was smitten with him. “Grandma” is the title given to an elderly lady who brings her granddaughter to speech twice a week. She loves Nolan to call her Grandma. I felt so sorry for her yesterday because her 4 year old mini-van’s transmission went out. Of course, it is no longer under warranty. She watches her grandchildren, taxis them to school, therapy appointments etc. I’m seeing a growing trend in this direction.

Shopping – The youngest 3 and I headed for the stores after speech. We had a birthday party to attend and hoped to find the perfect gift at Toys R Us. Our Toys R Us is going out of business. All the water toys were 50% off. This party was for Adrienne’s 4 year old. We decided that some great water guns would be the best bet. We bought two for him, and then in the hopes of some awesome water wars at the lake this summer, we bought the rest of the stock as well.{G} We had a few other items to pick up so visited a couple of other stores and then headed home.

Mike – meanwhile Mike had been out getting estimates on repairing the van door. UGH. A window would have been about $100 but the door will be $400 to fix…..Mike called the “father from the park”. He faxed the estimates to him. The poor man is in shock. He asked to make payments. We agreed. Then he said, “I see you are a pastor at the base. I’m an Assembly of God pastor working with Teen Challenge out here”. Now, I really am torn. But his son did shoot our door and this is reality discipline. If the van wasn’t less than a year old we’d probably not fix it. Who wants rust setting in this early? Moral of this story: if you are going to shoot something…shoot the window not the frame of a 15 passenger van AND watch out for those pastor’s kids. :::snort:::

Park – Birthday party at the park. Adrienne does parties so well. This time it was a “wild” theme and she had wild animals strung around the park, great rhino games, plates, bags and forks with wild animals and little wild animals in goody bags. Mike stayed for the entire party with our 5 youngest children and I headed out early to make it to:

Ladies Bible Study - I continue to enjoy working through Beth Moore’s study “Breaking Free” again.

Shopping – Left Bible study and ran to wal-mart for a few more items. Then Mike met me at the mall’s parking lot. We left the Honda there for Josiah to drive home from work. He’s closed the last couple of nights.

That’s it – just the facts….