Cooking and more. . .

The last 2 weeks have been a bit crazy around here. We took last week off from school so that I could do a once-a-month-cooking session, although, I really should call it a once-every-four-months-cooking session. I typically take about a week 3 times a year to stock my freezer with meals for supper, lunch, breakfast and some snacks. I usually run out of snacks and breakfasts sooner than 4 months and will sometimes do a mini-session to build my stock up again. So I pretty much cooked all last week. Unfortunately, I still have a few things to do. I would be completely done, I am sure, if I didn't have something going on in the middle of every day last week. There wasn't one day where I didn't have to stop cooking and go somewhere. So that cut into my cooking time quite a bit. However, I did manage to get 72 meals in the freezer. I also made some calzones for lunches and to send with Dan when he won't be home for supper. And I made things for snack time such as Chex mix, teddy graham mix and a few quick breads. For those mornings when I am working, I made some pancakes for the kids to just pop into the microwave. Darin doesn't mind cereal (correction: He LOVES cereal) but Ellie and Kara would much rather have something else. I still need to make some waffles and some fruit slush. However, this week has been just as busy.

I worked this past weekend and it was very busy so I worked an extra 4 hours Sunday morning. So by the time Monday morning came, I was pretty worn out. I was pretty much useless at home on Monday. Thankfully, Ellie likes to pretend she's the mommy. And she's very good at it. As a result, not much cooking or school got done. On Tuesday we got a little school done but spent the rest of the day shopping. Ugh! I really hate shopping, but it is much worse shopping with 4 kids, especially the youngest! Ellie had a concert on Tuesday evening and the dress code states that she needs a black/very dark skirt with a white shirt. Well, she had neither. Do you know how impossible it is to find those items? Especially with her long legs! Places just don't carry those types of clothes anymore and if they do have something that color, they are way too short! We finally found a navy skirt on clearance at Gap for $7 and a shirt at Children's Place. It wasn't really what Ellie wanted but after shopping for 4 hours, I was more than ready to go home.

As a stellar example of my wonderful nutritional choices, we had ice cream from ColdStone for lunch that day. It was 2-for Tuesday which means that if you buy 1 kid ice cream, you get another kid-size free. So lunch cost me roughly $3.60. At least they were happy for a few minutes after that.

Then to really top things off, when we got home, Ellie couldn't find the Children's Place bag with her shirt in it. She looked everywhere in the van but couldn't find it anywhere. We finally determined that she left it at Payless. So I made her call the store to see if it was still there. It was, but that meant that we needed to go back to the mall before her concert. This was also the night she was cooking supper so we were really short on time.

Speaking of her supper, she did a great job. I helped her with some of it since we were short on time. But I didn't get a picture of her and it wasn't as relaxed as I had envisioned it. And there were problems with the recipe so it didn't turn out exactly the way the recipe showed (okay, so not really like the recipe at all). But the jello salad she made was a huge hit. Despite the problems, Ellie is really excited about cooking again.

So that brings us to today. It is Halloween and I didn't figure out the kids' costumes till this morning which meant a trip to Wal-Mart (a store I absolutely detest), then to Ellie's piano lesson. I had a mandatory work training this afternoon so we were pretty much gone all day. Thankfully they got some schoolwork done at Emily's while I was at work.

Tomorrow we are going to the waterpark at the Holiday Inn in Owatonna to celebrate the girls' birthdays. We all need a break and are really looking forward to it.

Lydia

This past Sunday we were able to go up to John and Erika's to see their new baby Lydia. All of the kids thought she was quite precious and Natalie repeatedly wanted to hold her. When we found out that they had a girl, there was lots of celebrating at our house. She is the first girl cousin that our kids have. Here are some pics of the kids holding her.

Leaf Pictures

Here are a couple of pics I took of our tree this week. It is such a pretty tree.

Weekly Update-a week late

It has been a busy couple of weeks so I haven't been on here much to post so I'll do the best I can with what I remember (I'm not currently at home).

Math: Ellie took another test and got through a few more lessons. Kara got at least 15 lessons done.

English: Ellie did 4 more lessons and has been working on her story ending for Clubhouse Magazine. We'll get that finished up this next week I hope. Kara has been doing 2-3 lessons in OPGTR. I was doing only 1 lesson per day but it was going to take me too long to get through the book and she isn't having any problems with the material. She was reading out loud today and Dan commented, "When did Kara learn how to read?" She did great.

History: We read chapters 11 and 12 from SOTW and the girls made paper necklaces from wallpaper. We also read assorted books that corresponded.

Spelling: Ellie finished another spelling lesson. This week's lesson was a little easier and she only missed a couple on the pretest and did great on the final test. Kara is off from spelling for a few weeks until she learns how to read the words on her list.

Latin: We continued the lesson from the week before since there was some confusion about 2nd declensions. We've got that figured out now so we'll move on next week. She is doing a great job remembering all the words she has learned so far.

Science: We continued studying the earth and learned about how the tilt of the earth affects the amount of sunlight a country gets and the temperature of the seasons.

Art: We continued studying Mary Cassatt. They memorized her painting "Lydia Crocheting in the Garden at Marly." We also reviewed the other paintings they have memorized by Renoir and Bruegel. They each colored their own Cassatt paintings again. I forgot to scan them in so I don't have images of them yet (I'll do this later). Kara was in a bit of a hurry this time so she didn't pay as much attention to the detail. Ellie was frustrated with her painting since she couldn't quite get the colors to match the original. She noticed that the original of the one she was coloring was overall a grey color except for the rosy cheeks of the kids playing on the beach (Cassatt's Children on the Beach).

Music: We reviewed the hymn Holy, Holy, Holy that we had learned previously and learned the first verse of a hymn which of course, right now, I can't recall (I have Chris Tomlin's How Can I Keep From Singing in my head and can't seem to remember what hymn we started).

Periodically I'll get some beans out for the 2 younger ones to play with while we are doing school. Natalie recently has been keeping herself occupied for long periods of time with these. She absolutely loves them and frequently asks if she can play with them. And she isn't interested in sharing. Here are a couple of pics of her playing with the beans, a few of her farm animals and other miscellaneous toys.

It's official--I shop at Children's Place too much!!

Dan and I went on a date last night. We first went to Macaroni Grill (which was really, really good--though not as good as Grisantis) and then headed over to the mall (right next door). I needed to stop at Children's Place because I had a $30 coupon to use which expired at the end of the month. The coupon is part of the rewards program at Children's Place, so obviously, I've been shopping there a lot. But it is about the only place I can find clothes to fit Ellie that aren't inappropriate and are affordable. Plus, we never buy anything there unless it is at least 1/2 off. And I usually have a 15% off coupon and I also get an extra 10% off. So it's not like I am completely breaking the budget by shopping there.

Anyway, back to my story. We had been in Children's Place for a little bit when the manager came out of the back. She immediately recognized us, asked how we were, and asked where the kids were!! It was nice to be recognized, but, ummm, maybe I should cut down on my shopping there. :-)

On a positive note, the manager there is great. The last time we went there she asked me if I had my receipt from the last time I had bought stuff there. She took the receipt and adjusted it for things that were now on sale more, taking $60 off the previous bill. This time, I asked her if there was any way to extend the $30 coupon I had. I only got it a couple of days ago and it already expires Oct 31. She said no problem. They'd honor it whenever I brought it in. Yeah! They aren't currently having a good sale so I didn't want to buy something just to spend my $30. I did find Ellie a pair of jeans for next year for $3.18. So I just paid for those.

I entered a pie contest--and lost!!

Dan's work had a pie contest yesterday, and I decided to enter. There was a $5 entry fee per pie with no limit, so I made 3 pies--a caramel apple crunch, a lemon meringue and a french silk. But, alas, I didn't win. Dan was a bit ticked I didn't win (not at me) and he didn't understand why the pie that won, won. It was a strawberry pie. However, it isn't strawberry season and he said it was just strawberries with that bright red glaze. Who knows. It was still fun to make them and they had a pie social afterward. The highest I placed was 4th with my lemon meringue. Here is a pic of the pies:

Weekly update

Math: Kara got through about 10 lessons in her math this week. I have ordered the next level of math for her which she will probably start in about 6 weeks. Ellie did 4 lessons this week learning about number placement and division with a remainder.

English: Ellie finished chapter 3 on nouns and Kara continues with OPGTR. Ellie also started working on the story ending she is writing for a Focus on the Family writing contest. We still have quite a bit of work to do on that yet.

Reading: Ellie continues to read A String in the Harp and we are reading The Horse and His Boy for read-aloud. Ellie of course reads several other books per week on her own that aren't assigned.

History: We learned about ancient Africa and heard the ancient African tale of Anansi the spider. We also finished our chicken mummy project. Here are a few pics from that:

Science: We are continuing to learn about the earth and why we have seasons.

Spelling: Kara finished 2 lessons in her Spelling Workout and Ellie finished 1 lesson this week. She learned how to spell ukulele. :-)

Art: This week we started learning about Mary Cassatt. We'll be learning about her for the next 3 weeks also. We reviewed the previous artists' works we had memorized, memorized Mary Cassatt's "The Bath," and they each colored their own Mary Cassatt work.

It's a small, small world

Last night was the annual fundraiser banquet for New Life Family Services here in town. Dan and I had decided awhile back that we wanted to go but had quite a bit of difficulty finding a sitter. Just so happens that it was one of the high school's homecoming last night. But at last, the daughter of Dan's boss was able to babysit.

So we went down to the event center where the banquet was held. While we were perusing the items at the silent auction, I saw somebody that I swore I grew up with. I managed to get a glimpse of her name tag as I walked by and then knew that I had. She was busy talking with some other people so later, when she was free, I decided to go up to her and talk.

Now get this. She and her husband have been living here for about a year. I happen to work with her husband (he is a doc who works on our unit sometimes) and she mentioned that she just started homeschooling this year!! She has 3 kids and her oldest son happens to be in choir with Kara. She is an ultrasound tech and volunteers at New Life doing ultrasounds of pregnant mothers. Then she told me that her sister now lives in Winterset (mere miles from mom and dad) and her parents now live in Ankeny (also not that far from mom and dad). The other thing she said was that they had visited our church a few weeks (?) ago and she saw me there, went home, called her parents and told them that she thought she saw me.

We should be seeing each other more frequently now since our kids are in choir together so hopefully we'll be able to get together some time.

1 on 1 with Ellie

This morning Ellie and I started what I hope will be a tradition. We both got up this morning at 6 so that we could have some time together, just the 2 of us. Ellie has been asking for this for awhile in some form or another. She initially was asking if she could go out for breakfast with just me since she does this with Dan. However, that was logistically difficult since we don't really have that many free Saturday mornings and if we threw it into the rotation of Dan taking Ellie, Kara and Darin out for breakfast, then they would have less time with Dan. So we decided that instead of doing breakfast, Ellie and I would just have some alone time at home. She already usually gets up at 6 to start her schoolwork so we just decided that one morning a week, instead of doing schoolwork, she would come upstairs and we would discuss whatever was on her mind.

She has been having lots of questions lately about growing up, body changes, etc. so we are going through the book "What's the big deal? Why God cares about s*x." It is the 3rd book in a series called "God's Design for S*x" put out by Navpress. Jay and Emily gave us the set awhile back when we watched their kids while they went to a Family Life Marriage Conference.

It was a sweet time this morning and I'm glad we have finally started doing it. I hope that we will be able to continue it and that she will be a willing participant throughout her teenage years. I am also hoping it will help to avoid the tumultuous teen years I experienced. Plus, she's such a sweet girl and she really likes to spend time with her mommy. :-)

Natalie and string cheese

The kids are eating lunch right now and one of their items is string cheese. I just found Natalie over by the garbage can putting all the little strings of her cheese in the garbage. "It's falling apart!" she says. Yes, I said. It's string cheese!! :-)

Week in Review

I can't really call this our weekly report for school since we didn't get much school done this week. We did what we had planned on Monday and part of Tuesday, but Wednesday morning we left for Rock Valley, IA for Dan's grandma's funeral. We came home Thursday afternoon in time for small group. It seems like such a long time ago that it was Monday. Since I don't have the schedule in front of me, I can't even remember what we did for school.

We had a good trip to NW IA. Dan's sister Sara had flown into Minneapolis so Dan picked her up and she rode along with us. Evan and Mandy also came out from Chicago. While we were in Rock Valley, I went to a great consignment shop there. I didn't know it existed but Mom told me about it so I went shortly after we arrived. They will have been open 2 years already this coming January, but we aren't in NW IA very often. I found some great deals while I was there. I was in desperate need of some new winter clothes since I am 2 sizes smaller than last winter. So I found a pair of brown corduroy pants, a denim skirt, a pair of Nike running pants, a sweater and a long-sleeve T. I also picked up a set of 7 fiction books for Ellie and Kara that were published by Focus on the Family. And I only paid $47 for the whole lot!! I was quite happy. Later I went back with Kara and got her a pair of jeans.

After the burial on Thursday morning, we all went to Pumpkinland over by Orange City. The couple that owns it is Gar's cousin. They have a corn maze and a petting zoo. The kids had a blast and Grandpa bought them each a prize. I'll post pictures later. While we were there I saw an old friend from high school/college (Carrie (Ver Heuven) Borchers for those of you who are wondering). We were in the barn where they have the gifts, etc that they sell and I looked over at her and she waved. I said, "Carrie?" She said, "Yep." Couldn't believe it. I never expected to see someone I knew while we were there. She also has 4 kids--ages 1, 4, 6, and 9. She stays and home and runs an in-home daycare part time. They just got back 6 weeks ago from China (they adopted their youngest from there).

After that, we headed to Sioux Center to eat lunch at Pizza Ranch and then headed home. Dan brought Sara back to the airport and we went to small group.

Yesterday we did our monthly grocery shopping and running errands. I menu planned last week so I had everything ready to go. We stopped at the Indian market cuz I am finally going to make some of the things that I learned in the Indian cooking class Emily and I took together in January. We also made runs to Target, Aldi and HyVee. Ugh. I wish groceries would get cheaper, not more expensive!! I do, however, like having my menu planned for the whole month and only having to do grocery shopping once a month (except for milk).

Today we are on our way to the cities for the marathon. This is the one I was planning on running in; however, my body had other ideas. I've been plagued with knee problems (interestingly only on one side) and I can't run more than 5 miles so a marathon was pretty much out of the question since there are a whole lot more than 5 miles. :-) Before we check into our motel today, we are making a quick run to the Albertville outlet mall and Cabela's in Rogers. The Albertville mall has a Children's Place outlet (our favorite kid clothing store) and Cabela's has zip-up fleece sweatshirts on sale for $9.99. And the kids love to go to Cabela's anyway. They have lots of cool animals on display and a shooting range (not a real one) that Darin loves.

Well, that's about it for this week. Have a great week!