Oatmeal Crispies

1 C Butter
2 C Rapadura (could use 1 C honey/1 C rapadura or sucant or brown sugar)
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 1/2 C ww pastry flour (soft white if grinding)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking soda
3 C Quick Oats

Combine bake at 350* for 12 - 14 min until lightly browned. These do spread out. These are sort of plain but my kids love them.

Chocolate Chip Cookies (just for Beth - Southern Belle)

1 C rapadura (sucanat or brown sugar works fine)
1 stick butter
1 C WW pastry flour (soft white if grinding)
1 egg
1 tsp pure vanilla
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp soda
1 C rolled oats
1 C nuts (I use pecans!)
1 C Chocolate (or carob) chips

Combine. Bake at 350* for 10 - 12 minutes.

*My family really does like these. I've mailed them to the girls and they traveled well. I think you could use any whole wheat - but they'd be a bit more "heft" or "industrial" tasting. LOL

Adrienne's Oatmeal Banana Muffins

Combine:
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 C melted butter
1/3 C honey
1 egg
2 mashed bananas

Combine for 5 minutes
1 C plain yogurt (I use plain or vanilla) or Buttermilk
1 C rolled oats

Combine:
1 C whole wheat four (1:1 hard and soft white if grinding your own) I used only soft today and they didn't rise as well

1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp sea salt
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix all together and spoon into muffin pans (I use 1/3 C for normal size muffin tins). Bake at 375* for 15 - 20 min (always takes longer for me).

*I always make 5x this recipe. I bake 1 doz plain, add pecans and make two doz and then today I added blueberries and made another two doz. Usually I do 2 doz plain and 3 doz with pecans.

Margin? What Margin?

If I wasn’t convinced that simplifying life is the way to go – I am FULLY convinced after today. We survived the “Day of Seven Engagements”. I am not sure HOW that happened. I am not sure WHY everyone in this town and this homeschool community plan everything on Thursdays but I will not be manic like this again. LOL I’m too tired to share the “moment by moment” account of the day.

I’d been saying earlier in the week that a HOMEschool Mom needs to be HOME….and after today I’m more convinced of that than ever. Several of our things were educational, several were ministry related and several were fun…regardless of the motivation…..we still like being HOME best. :::snort:::

I’ll share one part of the day! Our art class this a.m. was to be at a studio. Somehow the email I got gave an incomplete address. I thought it may have been incomplete, but when I put that address into map quest it gave me a map. I headed out. We left 5 minutes before we had planned to leave. We were in the middle of downtown – looking, searching, retracing our steps and NOT finding this studio. I tried to call our organizer but she’d left for the class (duh! LOL). I called home and Cy couldn’t find the address in the phone book. I tried calling two friends but their phones were busy (hmmm…just realized they may have been talking to each other….Adrienne, Tricia???? Is this ANY way to treat a FRIEND? ::::snort:::) I was resigned to driving all over downtown inch by inch until I found the studio. Arielle and Nolan were being troopers but really wanted to attend the class. I said, “God – it would sure be nice if you would tell me where this place is.” The cell phone rang as I started the car. I picked it up. It was Charly. She immediately said, “You sound frazzled are you ok?” (OK, wouldn’t you sound frazzled if you thought God was calling you on the cell phone???) Charly is my friend who is currently visiting family in GA. I said, “I’m LOST”. I explained that we were trying to go to an art class that had started at 10:00 (it was 10:00) and that map quest had me downtown……she asked the name of the studio, I told her. She knew where it was. It is real close to my house…within 5 minutes. LOL Is that God or WHAT? I love it! She called from GA, I was supposed to encourage HER but she ENCOURAGED me big time…I hate to admit this as I know Mike is going to read this…but we talked as I hit the loop and drove back across town.

I’ll say it for you Mike, “Get off the phone and D*R*I*V*E*!” It was soooo nice to hear Charly’s voice in the middle of such a busy day. :::: sheepishly signing off:::::

Making spaghetti sauce....see the big stock pot? Anyway - a LOT of onions to cut up by hand....Jamin suggested goggles when the smell began to make all of THEIR eyes water...they were across the room....

Let's see since I'm here and this was such a hectic day, I'll quickly recap. Tomorrow will be even more hectic...I'm tired NOW thinking about it. I have 7 appointments tomorrow....WHY?

The a.m. was completely filled with school. We finished a couple of books and started some new ones. Since we had nothing 0n the calendar for the afternoon I had plans to: bake bread and buns, bake muffins, make spaghetti sauce, make granola and make salad dressings.

Jamin and Jared had been compiling a list of a few school things we needed. I KNEW if I didn't get them today we wouldn't have them until Friday. I thought I could run out and get all I needed....but I ended up having to go to three stores. The last store was a teaching store called The Learning Lane. I need to go back and spend more time there. I was looking for a lesson planner/daily log for Jamin. The one we get from NARHS didn't have enough subjects listed...I could NOT believe that no one had one of these. The Learning Lane had some for classroom use that I could adapt but then I saw a shelf of Apologia text books. I headed over and they had The Home School Planner.....The elementary one had more spots for subjects so I grabbed it for Jamin. I'm going to go online and see the "family" planner and "unit study" planner.....maybe.....I didn't get home until 5:45.....so we threw together burritoes for dinner. We didn't go on a walk. I made spaghetti sauce. Josiah got home from work, we all visited a bit and everyone but Zander and Stacia went down.

While making sauce I cut the same thumb, with the same knife, in the same spot....but not nearly as bad. That and the noxious onion fumes have finally almost convinced me to get the slicer/shredder attachment for the Bosch.

We did nothing exciting today - kept busy and do feel good about the day.

The kids plant seeds for Mike.... (ARielle took these photos - even then there was a better one but blogger won't take it. LOL )

CRUNCH....

Oh - I got a design back from geocaching nickels.....I think I'm going to like them when he is done. He's still tweaking things for me.



Now I really need to do some internet shopping and head to bed.....our Rosetta Stone disc is cracking. I guess I'll have to buy a new program. UGH

THREE WEEKS AND COUNTING

“Do we have any food coloring?” ARGH – what a question!!! Jared KNOWS our stance on artificial dyes. BUT he needed some food coloring for a science experiment. I laughed later in the day when Arielle and Nolan chose to make “candy crystals” and we need – you guessed it FOOD COLORING! Thus began our second day of schooling. Well not really – this was before I joined the kids. LOL

We began the day with working on a “family way” from “Our Family’s 24 Ways”. I LOVE this book and the approach. We’ve gone through it before but are working through it again with the younger ones….refreshing the older ones so that they can use it as a tool for training when we are not at home. Clay and Sally do a GREAT job of reaching a child’s heart with the WORD and PRINCIPLES vs. rules, rules, and rules. This is a proactive discipline tool in my opinion. I like it so well that last night I ordered 3 coloring books - they’ve updated the program since we bought the old flip chart version. This is not a homeschool only program.

We still can’t get our printer to work. My computer continues to close out of Outlook and the internet browsers with no warning. I really think it may be the wireless mouse and keyboard as it began doing this AFTER we attached those. The copy machine needs a printer toner (not a normal toner) and so I need to find the time to research a good spot to get such a thing.

School went well for all. Since we are doing 1900’s, I pulled out our American Girl Samantha craft book and cookbook and told Arielle and Nolan to pick one a week from each. I find out tomorrow what we’re doing. I KNOW we’ll be doing those candy crystal things because I agreed that was a FREE choice. I wonder if it will work with rapadura or if it HAS to be refined white sugar…..And we’ll have to make some without food color for Zander. LOL

Josiah and I went out to buy honey. I can’t believe how crippled I am without honey. I plan to bake tomorrow. We also went to the library and dropped off a bunch of books we are done with. I found a few new series that look really great to work in to this unit. I need to go back and get all the rest of the books for the unit but I can’t get the computer to print off the list. . . and I don’t want to rewrite 8 pages of Dewey numbers. :::Snort:::

We also stopped by HEB and bought some produce on sale…..I came home and got 10 lbs of strawberries into the freezer. I love them for smoothies. Though I’ve been using blueberries and they are wonderful! Thanks to Chris’ froggy, I’ve been leery of buying bagged salad but I need the convenience. I really AM visual. I’d HEARD about the risks of bagged salad but “SEEING is believing” around here. LOL I bought some more greens, chopped them all up, spun them all and then put the mixture in Ziplocs. We’ll see. I wanted to add the rest of the salad stuff but I haven’t had luck getting made up salad to last. Any suggestions? During all my kitchen time Zander came in and said, “MOM stole the cookie from the cookie jar”…this game expanded until he and I were yelling for others and the sounds were coming from all corners of the house. It doesn’t take much to amuse us.

I played croquet with Zander. He ASKED me to. Nolan and Arielle joined us for our second game.

Bible Study was tonight. Our group is really gelling. It was FUN. For any local women with base access, you are welcome to join us. Tuesday at 6:30. We try to be done with our discussion by 7:30 but some nights may go until 8:00. We are studying I John and it is RICH. Tonight we discussed life and fellowship…..both topics I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. We are “intergenerational” as we have 3 in their late 60’s and 3 in their 40’s….LOL A HOOT was when Mandy explained that whole “Hitchhiker in the galaxy” thing…..it’s an ENGLISH program. She grew up watching it. She’s from England. Their family loves it. I asked about the naked man but she’d never seen him. I told her I must have missed this program since I was in the Philippines during those years. {g}

I came home and got kids in bed. During the process I heard Zander say, “I LOOOOVE you Stacia!” Ah – great mommy moment. I need to do some more searching for a few more things I need to order…but I’m tired. I decided I’d best update the blog so my family does we are alive and well.

* Oh – the title….well you have to use some title but seriously it’s been 3 weeks since Mike has been gone. I miss you, hon. Josiah drove home today and jumped out to begin unloading. I sat there and sort of thought and then started tearing up….no one to open my door…..