New Short Story

Jamin has published the first part of a 3 part short story set in AK on his blog, if you care to read.

Produce co-op, friends, phone calls, pizza, movies - Friday night.

The boys are out with friends and the youngers are watching The Big Green again. Michael's plane was delayed but he'll be in sometime tonight...

Stacia's Play School

I'm going to steal Deja's term. It goes well with my endeavor to funschool! LOL

At our MNO on Monday our speaker, Julie, shared some of my all time favorite verses (Philippians and James). It was encouraging.

She was also practical. She shared that she puts her twin 2 yos in their high chairs during school. Jared used to sit for HOURS and play in his chair while we did school. No one else has enjoyed this idea.

Julie also shared that she lets her twins make books. THIS was an idea that had real potential. I bought a pack of .39 blank index cards. I hole punched them. I put them through one of those notebook ring things. I bought the CHEAP teacher stickers at Walmart.

Sure enough - we started to do couch school and she started fussing. She wanted up, down, a bottle and was just very noisy. I grabbed her "book" and the stickers. She spent the whole time we read peeling stickers off and putting them on cards.

We moved to writing at the table and I brought out

Here's my confession of the week: years ago I banned all crayons from our home. ALL. I was tired of finding melted crayons in the car, marks on stray cushions and walls....I did buy colored pencils.....but I went and bought crayons....and Stacia had a great time playing with them while we worked on writing. There you have it - I think my transformation from school at homer to funschooler is now complete. I let Legos back into our home. I make messes quite often in school. Maybe I still need to figure out the whole salt dough thing? I'm oh so very close to being a real funschooler. PBS emailed that I'm getting "The Relaxed Homeschooler" in the mail.....

Thursdays

Continue to be our busiest day. Tonight I was once again armed with dinner in the crock pot. The boys gave the Chicken Divan in the pot a thumbs up. I don't think it was as good as my oven version, but it tasted near the same. I added crackers and cheese in the last 30 minutes....I think next time I'll leave the lid off...the crackers weren't as crunchy as typical. The boys would rather have ANY Divan than NO Divan...they certainly wouldn't have gotten Divan from the oven on a Thursday without the crock pot. LOL

Yes, I watched Miss Potter last night. I loved it. I missed having the girls here to watch with me.

My back has really been hurting a LOT since Saturday. I've not mentioned it because I'm stubborn and determined that my decrepitude is not going to take over my focus and life. By last night I could barely walk. I finally took meds and spent the night in pain with a hot pad. Today I skipped working out and continued meds. I'm sore....and praying it heals quickly. I'm guessing I'll have to skip work out again tomorrow....and sit with heat....please do pray if you think of it.

We got school done - see post above.

I took on of my gals, whose dh is deployed, to lunch. It was fun.

I ran to the store to pick up a few items for some care packages I was putting together.

We drove two boys to HoF.

The youngers and I then delivered care packages.

We came home and started rice and did a quick pick up.

We ran to pick up boys.

Back home for dinner. Josiah came home for Divan and took Jamin and Jared to work and CAP for me. YES! That is one less road trip I need to make - and I can sit with the heating pad instead. Poor Josiah worked today, had homework and a class, and went back in to help out tonight...the good thing is he'll get a nice bonus AND he can bring JAMIN home so I don't have to go get him at 10:00.

I'll go pick up Jared tonight from CAP and call it a night.

Friends - that has to be the best part of the day. Lunch with Debbie and then Brenda called. We met Brenda and her family in San Antonio when we lived down there. I'd been thinking it had been a LONG time since I heard from her. I kept emailing and then stopped and figured I'd better call....but you KNOW how calling is with me....I am still planning. I got a call today as I was driving (brief) and my emails for the past year had been caught by some spam and all delivered at once. We're going to talk tonight. Some of her young adults will be at the World View camp this week that Jamin and Jared are attending.

Ewwwww....

Does this look the face of a child capable of such GROSSNESS????

Our house MOVES on Thursdays!

I was busy getting the final touches of the Chicken Divan into the crock pot (we'll see how it works) when Stacia came running in. We'd let her play in the back yard (off the library so several students were RIGHT THERE) while I finished in the kitchen.

Stacia ran in and said, "Jared - LOOK! I have poop." And she did. In her hand. Turns out it was Beatrix' dog doo. ::ugh::, ::gag::, ::pfft::

I'd forgotten how the Nikon tends to make folks "blink"....but here's a shot of her first hair cut....yes, it's short...because she or Zander cut 1/2 the back week's ago...I waited for it to grow enough to be human and then evened the back and cut the bangs....as I said it's a work in progress to cut her and Zander but by Sunday she should look fairly spiffy!

Recipes for Linda....

Goodness, I've been lax. I think you wanted Jodi's Garlic Pull Apart Rolls, here's my version of it...I think you can switch it easily enough to normal ingredients if I put strange things in it. I can't remember. Really, the technique and the garlic are the key - you could use any bread dough. You could also do this as cinnamon and sugar rolls...but then that doesn't fit well with my new resolve to lose weight. LOL

Yvonne's Lemon Chicken
Throw the whole chicken in the crock pot. Rub a bit of butter all over it. Sprinkle paprika, parsley, thyme, and salt over the chicken. Then squeeze a lemon over all. Cook on high for an hour and then low for four or five more hours. I cooked it on low for 8- 10 hours. I think I planned 8 and it was 10 before we sat down. ::snort::

And Buttery Parmesan Rice Mix
Yvonne directed me to Hillbilly Housewife's site for this recipe. This is meant to be made into a mix for quick dinners. I used it...but plan to make the mix to keep on my pantry.

1 C long grain brown rice or white rice (I used 3 Cups for our dinner).
2 tsp vegetable or chicken flavored bouillon (I used veg)
2 T dry milk powder
1 tsp onion powder
1/4 tsp garlic powder (I used way, way more)
1/4 C grated Parmesan cheese - from a can (I used fresh)

Combine all and put in a resealable plastic container. Label and seal. Store in the fridge or freezer because of the cheese. This is enough for 1 package of mix.

To Prepare:
2 T of margarine (I used butter)
1 package of above
2 C of water

In a 2 qt saucepan combine the butter, rice mix and water. Bring the mixture to a boil. Place a lid on the pot. Reduce the heat to the lowest possible flame. Simmer, covered until done or for about 45 minutes for brown rice or 20 minutes for white rice. Serve hot.

This was YUMMY!!!! Was really good for stir fries later too. I threw it all in the rice steamer. I had to triple this to get enough for dinner and some for lunch the next day. You may find one mix is not enough for your family - or it could be that I have three teen aged sons....

For BBQ Chicken Pizza: I use either Jamin's crust or the Deep Dish crust and the sauce from this recipe. This sauce IS our BBQ - I make extra and have it on hand.

Did I miss any recipe you'd like, Linda? ::snort::

Grams' Apple Cake

Cake:
1 C Sugar
1/4 C shortening
1 Egg
1 C Flour
1 tsp Soda
1 tsp Cinnamon
1/2 tsp Nutmeg
1/2 C Nuts
1 C grated Apple

Mix all - put in a greased and floured 9 x 9 pan. Bake in 350* oven for 25-30 minutes.

Sauce:
1 T Cornstarch
1/2 C White Sugar
1/2 C Brown Sugar
1/4 C Butter
1/2 C Coffee Cream (I don't KNOW what this is - I just use cream and it's yummy)
I add vanilla - as much as I want ::snort::

Mix well. Cook until thick, serve hot over cake.

I LOVED this cake. Michael doesn't like caramel and the kids seem to follow his tastes on this one so this was a company cake. The thing is - I've not tried it with our healthier ingredients yet....now I'm going to have to...and the weight gain will be my friend, Michelle's fault! ::snort:: If any of you crunchy moms try this with things such as whole wheat, butter, honey or rapadura - do tell how it turns out and what you did. LOL I worked on the chocolate pecan pie last holiday. LOL