What We've Been Up To

I've had some trouble posting pics on blogger, but I think maybe I've figured out what was wrong.
Here are some recent pics of what we've been up to lately.


And blog posts are much more fun with pictures and writing! Don't you agree?

                                                             We planted a small garden.

Everyone helped plant.

We spent a week in the beautiful Smoky Mountains. 

We hiked to a waterfall.

It was so nice and none of us wanted to come home. 

Freezer Cooking This Week

I've been busy this week!  I have been inspired by several other bloggers to do some cooking for my freezer.  I usually do some things along, like cooking up ground chuck or making up a meatloaf. 

Well, this week I was determined to do some more things to help free up some time this summer. 

This is what I've done so far this week.  Yes, for me it's been all week and not just one day. 

3 bags of ground chuck, cooked with onion
6 bags of shredded chicken (approx. 1 1/2 cups each)
3 containers of chicken broth
1 meatloaf (not cooked)
3 bags of pinto beans
3 bags of chick peas
8-9 dozen chocolate chip cookie balls

Today I'm planning to make 2-3 lasagnas and maybe freeze some of the pulled pork that I'm cooking in the crockpot for supper. 

Pinterest has also inspired me to check out some new recipes for the freezer.  (I just love Pinterest!)
I think I'll try to make a few casseroles next week, but after today I'm done until next week.  I'm tired!

What freezer recipes do you make? 

Our Medieval Studies and Castle

In January we studied about Medieval times in our Rome to the Reformation study. If you are new here and haven't read my post on our 2011-2012 Curriculum, we use My Father's World multi-age cycle.

The read-aloud book for this time period was The Door in the Wall. It is a Newberry Medal book that I highly reccommend. It is such a great book that my children begged me to read more each day. I tried to stay with one chapter a day, but sometimes I gave in and read two.

The castle kit Make This Model Medieval Castle was included in the deluxe package for Rome to the Reformation. We just followed the instructions (I did a lot of the cutting, because it's very important to have straight lines.) :) We (9, 8, 5, and 4 year olds) all worked together to build it. It was difficult for the little ones so they mainly just helped with some of the gluing.


Here is a picture of our castle (can't figure out why it is sideways):

Is November really almost over?

Time sure is flying by. It seems like I turned around and it was November and now it's about to be December.

We enjoyed our Thanksgiving so much. We spend Thanksgiving with my parents and family every year. My oldest daughter, 9, loves to help Nana make fruit salad.

This year she showed her little sisters how to make it and they basically made it by themselves with just a little assistance from Nana. They were so proud!

I made Crystal's wonderful butterhorn rolls. They were a big hit with my family. Very delicious!

I think the next time I make them- probably at Christmas- I will make smaller rolls since these were so large. The picture shows them before they doubled in size. And yes, I forgot to take a picture after they were cooked :(

"Homemade" Doughnuts

When I was a child my mom used to make these for my brothers and I. I have great memories of trying to put as much powdered sugar on them as I could get :)

Now I will tell you upfront that these are not healthy, but I guess doughnuts couldn't possibly be healthy anyway.

***First, you take a can of whop 'em biscuit dough (any brand will do I suppose). I've used name brand and store brand.

***Next, you whop 'em on the counter to open, ha ha!!

***Then, you heat some oil in a skillet. I use canola oil in a small skillet- probably about 1 inch of oil. I don't measure this!

***Take the biscuits apart and flatten them.

***Then use a small biscuit cutter or you could use some kind of small bottle top to make a whole in the flattened biscuit. This will be your doughnut hole.

***When the oil is hot, you're ready to go. Place several biscuits in the hot oil.

***Do not walk away!!! These cook quickly! Turn when brown and wait a minute or so. Take those out and place on a plate with several layers of paper towels to soak up some of the grease.

***Add some more biscuits to the oil. Continue until all are cooked.

***Sprinkle some(or lots if you're like me) powdered sugar on them and put them on the table and watch them disappear!

Our Week in Review

What a last few weeks it has been!

Let me just say we've been busy around here. I don't remember having such a hard time getting all of our school work done before. Well, maybe it's because my children are getting older and there's more activities. Or maybe it's because I'm schooling 3 children now. Or maybe we just need to stay home more. Hmmmm....

I think the last one is the right answer. I was determined to do that this week, but then the unexpected grocery store trip and doctor visit creeped in and messed my plan up. Oh well, that's just life and the best I can do is just roll with it.

I'm trying to evaluate our school schedule. It just seems to be so much reading for History and Bible that we're getting off track. Well, I guess if those two subjects were all that we did it'd be fine. When you throw in Spelling, Grammar, Reading, Science, Math and all the other stuff we try to do it just doesn't fit.

So this week we took a detour just to catch up a little bit. I told them we were not doing anything but History, Bible and Science until we caught up- well at least for this week anyway. It worked well, except for the detours I mentioned above.

We finished up week 13 of History and Bible (My Father's World- Rome to the Reformation). We even completed 3 days of Week 14, too.
Science is another story since we're another week behind there.

I did want to mention one Science book that we're really enjoying.

Each week we're studying a different part of the body. You actually make a hands-on model of that body part. You make copies for each child (Grades 3-6, but I'm having my 2nd grader do it, too). Then, you follow the steps to make the model. There is a good bit of cutting involved and I have to read each step carefully to make sure we don't glue or cut the wrong part, but it has been such a great part of our study of the human body.

Don't Let Bread Take a Bite Out of Your Budget

Whether you have a large, medium or small family, you know that bread is expensive.

We eat a lot of bread around here: sandwiches, garlic bread, toast, rolls.

You name it we probably eat it.

I do whatever I can to lower the expense of bread. I own a bread machine, but haven't really used it much in several years. Well, except for making dough- mainly pizza dough. It's just nice to let the machine do it for me- lazy, I know.

We eat whole wheat bread as much as possible and well it's just not cheap. I am determined not to buy the sliced white stuff even though I'm so tempted when I see the cheaper prices.

**I used to always buy our favorite whole wheat bread when our local grocery store ran it 10/$10. I would buy 10-12 loaves and put it in the freezer. (It still tastes good even though it's not quite as good as fresh.) Then, when the sales would cycle back around I'd buy whatever I needed.

It worked great because I never had to spend much on bread. Well, I haven't seen those prices in a couple of years.

**Now I go to the bread store where they sell bread that is close to the expiration date. I freeze that, too. It's gone up in price though and it's over a dollar a loaf. It's still much cheaper than buying it at regular price.

**I frequent the deli clearance racks for marked down French and Italian loaves. Those also go in the freezer for future meals.

Buying bread without breaking the budget is possible with a little time and thought.