A few miscellaneous pics

Here is Dan licking out the bowl after I made some almond bars:


Here are a few from Christmas.


Here is Darin clutching his new fleece footie jammies.


Here he is opening more track to go with his Thomas train set.


Here are the girls opening their MP3 players.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

It's been awhile since I've posted. I've been working quite a bit lately and blogging hasn't exactly been top priority. School has been continuing as normal. We had 2 days of school this week and we'll do three days of school next week before taking a few more days off.

Dan's parents came down to our house on Wednesday and we did Christmas with them Friday after I'd slept for a little while (I'd work the previous two nights--Christmas was my holiday to work this year). The kids were quite happy with their gifts. Ellie and Kara got MP3 players that Dan got on sale on Black Friday. Darin got some Thomas train tracks and Natalie got some clothes and a new blanket for her bed. She was most excited about just opening presents but it took her a little while to warm up to it. She was a little shy at first about opening presents because she knew everyone was watching her. But after the first couple of presents that she got from Ellie and Kara she kept asking when it would be her turn again.

Dan got me an interesting stocking stuffer this year. He bought me one of these. It is the "That was easy" button from Staples. You press the button and that is what is says. Now there is a story behind this gift and Dan thought it would be perfect for when I am working with Ellie. Ellie is so literal and concrete that often she makes things much harder than they are. So Dan thought it would be great for me to have and I could press the button once the light bulb went on and Ellie figured out what she was supposed to be learning! Sometimes it is pretty funny how literal Ellie can be. You can tell her a joke and she will just not get it. And then you can try to explain it to her and she just has this blank look on her face. It can be quite amusing.

While Dan's parents were here Dan's mom did my laundry!! She washed and folded all of it. It was wonderful. I absolutely hate doing laundry and she loves it so I don't mind it at all. Now my laundry is caught up again for awhile--although the pile is starting to accumulate since Kara has discovered several dirty clothes on her shelves. She vacillates between two extremes--either she throws all of her clothes in the laundry because she doesn't want to fold them or she puts them all on her shelves without bothering to check if they are dirty or not. Then when it comes time to look nice she has nothing to wear because she hasn't put anything in the laundry for awhile. We discovered this Friday night when they were packing to go to Chicago (for Dan's niece's baptism).

Turkey Barley Soup

This recipe comes from the cookbook Simply in Season. I chose the recipe because it looked delicious, but it is also incredibly cheap. I can get a pound of ground turkey at Aldi for just over $1.00 and the rest of the ingredients I usually have on hand or are very inexpensive. The soup isn't that visually appealing (it doesn't look bad, just isn't very pretty) but the flavor definitely makes up for it. All the kids liked it--even Darin (that says something).

Turkey Barley Soup
4 cups water
4 cups chicken or turkey broth (I didn't have any on hand so I just made broth with bouillon cubes)
1 1/2 cups diced carrots
1 cup diced celery
1/2 cup barley
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 teaspoon salt (may need less if you use low sodium broth)
1/2 teaspoon each poultry seasoning, pepper, ground sage
Combine in large soup pot. Cover and simmer 1 hour.

1 pound ground turkey (can substitute cooked chopped chicken or turkey)
2 Tablespoons ketchup
1 Tablespoon soy sauce
1/8 teaspoon each ground nutmeg, dried sage, dried thyme
Brown together in saucepan. Add to soup and serve.

Slow cooker instructions: Brown meat with seasonings as instructed. Place in slow cooker with other ingredients (use boiling water) and cook on low for 6-7 hours.

Ellie is hilarious.

I made a big batch of buns yesterday and one of Ellie's favorite things to eat is bread/buns just out of the oven. And she likes to just have butter on them. Well Monday night I had made Chicken Noodle Soup for supper--also one of her favorite meals. So here is how our conversation went yesterday:

Ellie: What's for lunch mom?
Me: Fresh buns.
Ellie: Yum!
Natalie: Can I have something with my bun?
Me: Sure. You can have some Chicken Noodle Soup.
Ellie: Aaahhh!!! (exasperated sounding) I love them both! What do I have?!?!

After some time Ellie decided she would save the soup for lunch the next day.

Ellie (after having made her decision): Ahhhhhhh! (sounding satisfied) I LOVE my taste buds!!!!

Weekly update

I started this post last week but with working and sleeping I never got around to finishing it so this will be for the last two weeks.

Here is the summary of what we did these past two weeks:

Math: Ellie and Kara are continuing to work through their mathbooks. I've since gotten Kara some reusable math fact practice placemats and she is working on those for addition at this point.

English: Ellie is working on identifying past participles. It hasn't been too difficult for her yet. I think one of the reasons English hasn't been a problem for her is that we (Dan and I) are constantly correcting our kids' grammar in everyday conversations. Ellie will even correct me when I say something incorrectly. One of the reasons for this is that one of my majors in college was English and my sister is incredibly anal about using -ly endings appropriately so I think that it has rubbed off on me too. Kara is learning about helping verbs. Darin is reading and is incredibly cute when doing so. And he LOVES to do schoolwork. He still begs to do more and is quite sad when I tell him it is time to put it away. He does his little happy dance whenever it is time for reading.

Ellie took her chapter four test and will start chapter five next week.

Latin: Ellie continues with LCII. She is still doing review from LCI and will start new content next week. This week she had a friend over (from Schaeffer) and they were talking about Latin. Her friend loves Latin and will began extra Latin lessons this week from her Latin teacher and Ellie was commenting how she didn't like Latin. It was kind of funny to hear their different points of view. Ellie says she doesn't really mind the memorization of the Latin words and forms but she doesn't like the application part--you know, the part where she actually has to think.

History: Last week we studied Christopher Columbus. Ellie wrote a one page compare/contrast paper about Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. Kara wrote a paragraph about Christopher Columbus. This week Ellie continued to learn about different explorers. She's not been happy about the volume of schoolwork this week so we've been working on not getting overwhelmed with the amount of work, but instead just plugging away at it so that it gets done, little by little. We also read about latitude, longitude and how to read a map.

Science: We read another couple pages in our One Small Square book about ponds. The kids learned about how the male sunfish is the one that protects the eggs at the bottom of the pond. He fans the water over the eggs to keep them clean and to deliver oxygen to them. They also learned that lily stems have air spaces in them to help them stay up in the water.

Art: We learned three more elements of design (we learned three last week). We then looked at different works of art and described them using the six elements of design. We also learned about the five principles of design.

Overheard at our house. . . .

Natalie, after spinning with me says, "Mommy, after the house stops being dizzy, can we do that again?"

There once was a mouse. . .

We recently had a little critter visitor in our house. We discovered him a few weeks ago when we had tacos planned for supper. I had everything set out on the counter--ready for taco assembly--except the tortillas. I opened the pantry door, pulled out the package of tortillas and set them on the counter. That was when I noticed the small hole in the middle of the package and what looked like a chunk of tortilla missing. I first asked the kids if they had been messing with the tortilla package.

Then I opened the package.

Something had eaten a three-inch-wide circle through about six tortillas. And there were little teeth marks all the way around the circle. That's when I knew it wasn't the kids. And I promptly through the whole package of tortillas in the garbage.

Upon further inspection of the pantry I found little mouse droppings on pretty much every shelf. So I set out a mouse trap in the pantry but it didn't catch him the first night. I sent Dan out to Target to pick up some more traps since the only trap we had was from when we lived in Lincoln and had a couple of mice in our apartment. See, our house is only 7 years old so we really don't have any holes for the mouse to get in to the house (our best guess is he snuck in the garage door) so we were not prepared for any critters. Dan picked up a package of old-fashioned mouse traps (that was what some other guy in the aisle said worked best) and a package of the sticky traps (my mom has had success with those). I set them out on both levels of the house since I had also found evidence of the mouse in the laundry room and my food pantry downstairs.

The next morning there was nothing. So I picked up the sticky traps and put them away for the day so that no children would accidentally step on them. That night I put them out again.

Sunday morning I woke up and groggily walked to the bathroom. I couldn't really see much because I didn't have my glasses on but when I looked in the spot where I had left one of the sticky traps, I couldn't see it.

That's when I heard it. A flopping on the kitchen floor and a periodic whimpering. I put my glasses on and discovered our critter visitor!! Yeah!! He had gotten stuck on the sticky trap and had been desperately trying to free himself. In the process he had managed to drag himself and the trap about six feet. He had also lost quite a bit of hair attempting to remove himself from the trap.

I grabbed a plastic bag, scooped him up and sent him to his grave outside in the bitter cold in our garbage can.

Since I was pretty sure we no longer had any mice, I cleaned out the pantry and threw away pretty much everything that wasn't in a Tupperware container. I discovered that he had partially eaten through a caramel, a bag of chocolate chips, a bag of brown sugar and a package of hot chocolate. I also took all of the linens that were in that closet and promptly threw them in the laundry.

Since I've gotten rid of all the evidence the mouse left, I haven't seen any more. So I am hopeful that he didn't have any friends come to stay and that it will be at least another seven years before I see another one.

Yep. I'm still here.

So the three of you who actually read my blog may have been wondering where I've been or if I ever planned to return to the blogging world. Well, let it be known--I am still here!!! And Kori--I hope this staves off any withdrawal symptoms you may be experiencing. :-)

Not a whole lot has been happening around here. After a two week break from school we started back up again only to have Thanksgiving come around and interrupt our schedule again. The Monday before Thanksgiving I had an all day training so the kids went out to a friend's house. Tuesday we did school and I worked that night so Wednesday was fairly unproductive concerning school. We packed and I napped. Dan left with the kids Wednesday after work and went to his parents' house for the weekend. Then I worked part of Wednesday night and all of Thursday, Friday and Saturday. By the time Sunday rolled around I was more than ready for them to come home. One of the things I really missed was having good food. Since it was just me, I didn't do any cooking. I pretty much subsisted on a few leftovers, toast and cereal. I was so desperate to make something that I made some bars and took them to work on Saturday. They were all appreciative, but Dan and the kids weren't too happy when they saw how few I had left at home. But I knew that if I didn't take them to work I would eat way, way too many. I thought about taking a picture of the bars so I could post the recipe later, but, alas, Dan had the camera with him. I may have to make them again just so I can take a picture. :-)

Sunday afternoon after I got up I went to the library. All by myself!!! It was wonderful. Now lest you think I hate taking the kids with me, I don't. It's just that when I take the kids I have to make sure that Darin and Natalie aren't disappearing and Natalie usually picks that time to behave like she hasn't been taught how to act in public. So I usually just pick up books for the kids and make my visit as short as possible. If I want any books I just reserve them online and then send Ellie in to pick them up for me while I wait in the van with the rest of the kids. This time I was actually able to do a little browsing and picked up a few non-fiction books and a few cookbooks.

The drive home for Dan and the kids was uneventful (save for a few tiffs between Darin and Natalie) until somewhere around Cannon Falls. Then the roads turned to ice and he didn't top 20 mph. There were several cars in the ditch and a few accidents too. It took him a lot longer to get home than he had planned so by the time they got home they were all very hungry. And the two younger ones really had to go to the bathroom!!! Thankfully Darin and Natalie managed to hold it and I didn't have to wash any carseat covers.

In other news Ellie has decided that she wants to be in the Scripps Spelling Bee so she has been studying words this week. The spelling bee isn't until January so she'll be studying for quite awhile. The spelling bee is open to 5th-8th graders so she will be one of the younger ones but she's not intimidated by that. This will be a regional spelling bee and those that win will advance to the state spelling bee, etc (I think anyway). A little known fact--I went to the state spelling bee when I was in junior high.

Weekly Update (of sorts)

We only sort of did school this week. Last week Ellie and Kara spent the week at Grandpa and Grandma's (see pics here) and it was our planned week off after finishing Unit 1 of Tapestry of Grace. We had planned to restart school this week, but I was nowhere near prepared come Monday morning. While the girls were gone I was going to get their history notebooks ready (I make them a notebook for each unit that includes all reading assignments, questions, maps, etc). I think I thought I had more time. Problem was I worked the previous weekend so I didn't do much on Monday. Not sure what I did on Tuesday, but on Wednesday I made a bunch of applesauce (thanks Tami for coming and keeping me company). I started on Kara's on Thursday but didn't get it done. And then on Friday I went to meet my mom to pick up the girls and had a conference on Friday night and all day Saturday. Plus Sundays are our day of rest so I wasn't about to spend my whole Sunday afternoon working on the notebooks when I also had to prepare the food for our unit celebration. All this to say I was sorely prepared for Monday morning.

This week was also very busy with the older three having choir dress rehearsal Monday evening, church Wednesday evening, long choir practice Thursday afternoon and choir concerts on Thursday and Friday evenings. So we took it easy this week as well. Ellie did some math lessons and worked on her math facts. Kara did some handwriting and spelling and Darin learned how to read a few words, write a couple of numbers and the letter A, and did some other pages in another workbook he has. He did the most this week-mostly because he is always begging me to "do school." He hates it when I tell him it is time to put it away.

I did work on the notebooks and I've got them all done. I just need to make the labels for the maps but that isn't urgent. I'm working this weekend so that will get done at some point next week.

Hominy with Shredded Chicken and Peppers

This recipe was adapted from Whole Grains Every Day, Every Way. It is the first time I've ever used or even eaten hominy and we all liked it. I'd like to find dried hominy somewhere, but so far I've been unsuccessful in finding it here.

Hominy with Shredded Chicken and Peppers

2 Tbls olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 large green bell pepper, seeded and sliced
1 large red bed pepper, seeded and sliced
1/4 t salt, plus more to taste
1 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
2 large cloves garlic, minced
2 t dried oregano
1/2 teaspoon whole cumin seeds
2 (15-19 oz) cans hominy, drained (I used 1 can yellow hominy and 1 can white hominy)
1-2 cups chicken broth
1 (15 oz) can chopped tomatoes, drained
2 cups (about) shredded or chopped roast chicken
Chopped fresh cilantro, for garnish
2 limes, cut into wedges

Heat the oil in a large pan over medium-high heat. Add the onion, bell peppers and salt. Cook for about 3 minutes. Add in the garlic, jalapeno, oregano and cumin and continue to cook until the peppers begin to soften.

Stir in the hominy. Add the chicken broth and tomatoes. Bring to a boil. Simmer for about 5 minutes. Then stir in the chicken and cook till heated through. Taste to see if it needs more salt. Ladle into bowls and top with cilantro and a squirt of lime juice.

Medieval Unit Celebration

We recently finished Unit 1 of Year 2 for Tapestry of Grace--our history curriculum. To mark the end of studying the Middle Ages, we had a celebration. I made some costumes for the kids--none for us however. I bought the material to make them for Dan and I, but it never got done. I should have known.

Anyway, we had a good time. Some history for those of you who haven't recently studied the Middle Ages:

• Food was served on stale bread called trenchers--they didn't have plates back then. Plus then you could just eat the bread when your main course was done if you wanted.
• They only had spoons and the knives they used for hunting--no forks. Spoons were used for soup but not really for anything else.
  
• When eating with your fingers, you were only supposed to use your thumb and first two fingers. And absolutely no licking of the fingers!! There were bowls of rose water at the table to clean your hands in (I forgot to buy the roses so we just had water).
• Often there was only one bowl of soup for every two people so they just shared.

Here is what we had for our menu:
Butternut squash soup
Roast chicken with orange sauce
Everyday tart (a tart with farmer's cheese, cream cheese, raisin and eggs)
Fruit patties (basically pie crust with a filling of walnuts, figs, apples and raisins which was then fried and rolled in sugar)

Here are some pics of our celebration:

This is one of my favorites. I'm not sure the look they were going for here--I think mean (except for Darin). It made me laugh out loud.
I think Darin was trying to look mean here.
Kara demonstrating which fingers to use to eat.
Kara caught licking her fingers.

Darin eating his trencher.
Ellie and Kara treated us to a dance after supper.

Widower

Here is Ellie's definition of a widower--someone who kills someone so the other person can be a widow. :-)

Review of Dan's Menu Planning

If you've been reading my blog for the last few months you know that I challenged Dan to menu plan and grocery shop for the month of October to see if he could do a better job than me. He was convinced that he could do it cheaper; I wasn't so sure. Well, October is over and how did he do? He did better than I thought, but I'm not planning on letting him do it again anytime soon. When I asked him what he thought of his menu-planning month, he said, "I didn't like it." Yep. That's it. I had thought he would have more to say on the subject but I was sorely mistaken.

As for my assessment? I didn't like it either. At the beginning of the month I was pretty hard core about not going to the grocery store and not adding anything to the menu. But Dan didn't really think ahead and so many nights we wouldn't eat supper until late because he had to go to the grocery store to get the ingredients that were needed for supper. The kids and I quickly grew tired of this. Another thing is that he would plan a main dish but no sides. That didn't go over too well either.

As the month went on, the kids and I got pretty sick of waiting on him so I went to the grocery store a few times (otherwise we'd still be out of milk) and I rounded out a few meals. He did do it slightly cheaper than I do but I missed the fresh fruits, vegetables and whole grains that we are used to. He didn't completely eliminate fruits and vegetables, but we did have them quite a bit less. He also wasn't as concerned with healthy snacks for the kids, mostly I think because he isn't around during snack time. So out of sight, out of mind.

One thing that was reiterated during the month is that Dan is more concerned with the monetary aspect of eating while I am more concerned with how healthy things are. So I guess we balance each other out.

Now it is November and I'm back to menu planning. Hallelujah!

Wisconsin Dells Trip

Last week we took the kids to WI Dells for Ellie and Kara's birthdays. We've taken them to a waterpark hotel for the past 5-6 years in lieu of birthday parties and presents. In years past we have taken them to the Holiday Inn in Owatonna, but last year when we were there we noticed that the hotel was getting run down (they are supposed to be remodeling it this fall) and the older girls are outgrowing their waterpark. So this year we decided to take them to a hotel at the Dells. One of the benefits of going to Owatonna was that it was only 45 minutes away, but the Dells are only just over two hours from our house--not bad.

We booked a 2 bedroom condo at Glacier Canyon Lodge and got a great deal on the room since we went during the week. The whole complex has three indoor waterparks and they are going to be building another one starting next spring. The room that we booked also had a full kitchen so we brought food along so we wouldn't have to eat out every meal. The whole complex was wonderful. The room was nice and the waterparks were great. Our favorite was the Wild Waterdome where the roof of the waterpark is solar panels and actually lets you tan year round. It was almost like being outside in the summer--the sun felt so good!!! And at that waterpark they have a wave pool which Ellie and Kara just loved. When the elephant sounded to let everyone know that the waves were about to start, Darin and Natalie would run out of the water and sit on the edge. They'd eventually move back in a little bit but not very far.

Here are some pics I took while we were there:

Here Natalie is watching a large bucket tip over and dump water on the people below.

Here is the beauty of having a telephoto lens. I caught Darin and Natalie fighting and they didn't even know I was watching.

Here are Ellie and Dan riding the waves:

Here is Natalie rolling her eyes and being goofy:

Weekly review

I originally started this post last weekend but with me working, it never got done. So this review will be for the last two weeks.

Math: Not much new here again. I did buy Ellie a couple of wipe-off mats to help her with her math facts. I've been hearing horror stories of the Everyday Math that they are teaching in the public schools around here and I'm very thankful that my kids are not subjected to that. I feel for those kids who are being taught this as they are mostly confused as to how to do basic addition problems, etc and how math will continue to be a struggle for them as they grow older. For those of you who don't know what this is, it is basically relativism in the classroom--i.e. there are several different ways you can solve this math problem (most of which are painfully confusing) and you (generally speaking here) as the parent shouldn't inflict the way you learned how to add on your children. Sad, really.

English: Ellie finished up her chapter on diagramming compound sentences, identifying comma splices, and identifying run-on sentences. She has also learned about appositives (yeah, I didn't know what they were either) and the proper comma usage with them. Kara is memorizing a poem called "The Goops." She is also learning the being verbs. Part of her English curriculum is copywork. At one point this week she had a meltdown during copywork because she was convinced that I was making her write way too much. Afterall, she had already done her spelling and handwriting!!! Needless to say, it didn't get her out of her copywork that day. Ellie is also writing a paper about life on the Silk Road. This pertains to our current history topic. She's about done with it--I just have to go over it with her to make a few modifications and then she'll copy it for her final draft. Ellie is actually quite good at her writing and rarely needs to make modifications to her rough draft. She usually thinks quite a bit about each sentence before she writes it down. I'm pretty much the same way. In college I rarely edited a paper since I knew what I wanted to say the first time I wrote it.

Latin: Ellie is now working in Latina Christiana II.

Art: Last Thursday we went to a fundraiser at the Art Center. The fundraiser was for the local food bank and was called Empty Bowls. Basically, you pay a certain amount (either per person or per family) and get lunch (a bowl of soup and some bread) and you get to take home a bowl that was donated by someone. With the purchase of a family ticket, you only get to take home 2 bowls. However, there were several people around us who found out we didn't have enough tickets for each of us to have a bowl and gave us their tickets. We got 5 tickets so each kid could pick out a bowl and I picked one out. The kids were very thankful to the generous people around them. Dan went with Natalie and she picked out a really ugly bowl (according to Dan--I didn't see it) so he put it back and chose a different one for her. She said she liked that one too. I think she was just excited to pick out her own bowl so she just grabbed the first one she saw. :-) The museum was open to the public without an extra admission fee so we toured the current exhibits and went to a kids activity. The theme for the activity was installation art. Basically it is art you can walk through. The kids each made their own installation art--sort of like a diorama. There were some really weird exhibits there that I'm not sure were really art and the kids didn't really care for some of them either. One of the exhibits had a video with it that we watched. When it was over, Ellie asked me what in the world that was all about. I told her I didn't have any idea and to ask the museum docent who was standing outside the exhibit. She did and the lady told her it was for her to figure out. Ellie didn't really appreciate the answer. :-)

History: We've studied Kublai Khan, Ghengis Khan, Marco Polo, Joan of Arc and the Black Death.

Science: We learned about the life cycle of the frog and about the function of a lily pad and all of the life that lives under a lily pad. We also watched some videos on National Geographic's website about the life cycle of the frog and some of the dangers of frog life. The kids had a blast watching them.

Cornmeal pancakes

This recipe has become one of our favorite pancake recipes. It is definitely a hit with the kids, especially when served with real maple syrup (except for Kara who prefers pancake syrup). Make sure you don't skip the whipping of the egg whites or the pancakes will be much denser. This recipe come from Food to Live By.

Cornmeal Pancakes--makes about 8 4-inch pancakes.
3/4 cup flour
1/2 cup yellow cornmeal
1/3 cup sugar
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
2 tsp finely grated orange zest
1/4 cup orange juice
2 large eggs, separated
1/3 cup buttermilk
3 Tbsp canola oil
Extra canola oil or butter for griddle

Combine flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, nutmeg, cinnamon, salt and orange zest in large bowl. In a separate bowl whisk together orange juice, buttermilk, egg yolks and canola oil. Pour buttermilk mixture into dry ingredients and stir just until combined. In a separate bowl, beat egg whites until soft peaks form. Fold into pancake mix. Do not overmix.

Heat oil or butter on hot griddle. Spoon the batter onto griddle and spread the batter a bit. When bubbles appear on the surface of the pancakes, flip the pancakes. Cook until other side is brown.

New job!!

As many of you may have already heard, Dan got a new job!! Yeah!!! This has been something that we have been praying and hoping for for quite awhile. His current job (which he is resigning from) was not allowing him to have any work/life balance. It required extensive travel and very long hours basically from November to April/May. So he was really missing out on much of our family life. Earlier this spring at the homeschool conference he was really convicted to find a new job that would allow him to be home on the weekends/evenings as it is only eight short years until Ellie, our oldest, will be leaving home.

He had been watching the job postings for quite awhile and was starting to wonder if anything would open up before his travel schedule picked up again. He had set an internal deadline of being done with this job by October 31. Plus he had met with a couple of the people in the department in which he wanted to work and knew that they were currently overstaffed. We knew that God would have to work a miracle in order for him to get the job that he wanted. Well, He did. Two people in that department quit and they posted an opening. He applied, was interviewed and offered the job all in a time frame of 2 1/2 weeks--unheard of here!!! One of the interviewers told him that they had 20 applications in the first 2 days. The job was only posted a week so I'm not sure how many applicants total they had.

We are thrilled about this new direction in our life and the kids are really excited about him being home this winter. They are hoping Dan can take them ice skating this winter and I'm hoping he can shovel the snow! :-)

Mosaic Cheesecake

When I first saw this recipe on this blog I knew I had to make it. I love cheesecake and I love brownies. So when some friends invited us over to play cards, I had this dessert in mind when I volunteered to bring the dessert. We had half of it left when we were done playing cards so I put it in the freezer for a later time otherwise I'm sure I would have felt the urge to sample it several times during the following days.

Mosaic Cheesecake

Part 1: Fudge Brownies
1 1/3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
3/4 cup baking cocoa
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup canola oil
4 eggs, slightly beaten
2 tsp vanilla
Combine dry ingredients in large bowl. In smaller bowl combine wet ingredients. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and mix just until moistened. Line a 9x13 pan with tin foil. Let tin foil hang over on two sides so you'll have handles with which to remove the brownies after they've cooled. Spray tin foil with cooking spray. Pour in batter. Bake in 350 degree oven for 20 minutes or until toothpick inserted near center comes out clean. Do not overbake. Let cool. When cool remove brownies from pan and cut into 1/2 inch chunks with cookie cutter. You will need about 1/2 of the pan for the cheesecake. The rest you can just eat. :-) (they are really good refrigerated)

Part 2: The crust
2 1/4 cups chocolate graham crackers, crushed
8 Tbsp butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 tsp salt
Mix crust ingredients together and press into bottom and up sides of a greased springform pan. Fill crust or chill until ready to use.

Part 3: The cheesecake
3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened (I use the 1/3 less fat kind)
4 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 cup sugar
2 cups brownie chunks
Mix cream cheese and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and eggs one at a time, beating and scraping the sides of the bowl after each addition. Gently fold in brownie chunks and pour into crust. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until the area near the center is set. Center will still be slightly wobbly when pan is shaken. Let cool and top with ganache.

Part 4: Ganache
1/2 cup chocolate chips
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup heavy whipping cream
1/2 tsp vanilla
1 Tbsp powdered sugar
Scald butter and cream in a saucepan. Place chocolate chips in food processor and process until powdery or very small pieces. With processor running, pour in hot butter and cream. Stop machine and scrape sides as necessary. When mixed, add vanilla and powdered sugar. Process until completely combined. Spread over cheesecake while ganache is still warm.

Chill cheesecake until ready to serve.

Weekly review

Our school week this week wasn't as productive as normal since we had illness going around our house. Ellie spent most of Wednesday lying on the couch. Dan was also sick with a cold this week and Kara's had a cough. So far Darin, Natalie and I haven't been ill.

History: We continued to study the influences of feudalism in the Catholic Church and some of the reformers of that time--namely St Dominic and St Francis of Assisi. We also learned that St Dominic developed a system of governing that the current English and American governments are modeled after. We also read about the Crusades--the good, the bad, and the ugly. Ellie and Kara learned how to play 9 Men's Morris--a medieval game similar to tic tac toe. They also finished painting the salt map they started almost a month ago. A few of the geographic features that they chose to put on there are an island, a peninsula, the source and mouth of a river, an estuary, and an ocean. Here is the map sans labels.

Math: Not much new here. Both girls continue in their studies.

Bible: We are still working on the catechism questions (and will be for quite awhile) and singing hymns. Kara is working through an Explorer's Bible Study book for her devotional time and Ellie is working on a study about willingness that I got from Keepers of the Faith.

English: Didn't get much done here this week--only 1 lesson each I think.

Science: This week we learned about complete and incomplete metamorphosis. We looked at the life cycles of several insects and caterpillars/moths/butterflies. One of the insects we studied was the mosquito. Only the female mosquito bites as it needs blood before it can lay its eggs. We also learned about surface tension and how some bugs use it to either stay on top of the water or hang just below the surface.

Latin: Since Ellie wasn't feeling well we didn't start a new Latin lesson this week.

Handwriting: Kara started a couple of lessons on beginning cursive this week. Ellie is a bit bummed that Kara is learning cursive because now Ellie can't be cryptic by writing in cursive.

Weekly review

One of these weeks I'll get around to actually posting my weekly review at the end of the week. By the middle of the next week I hardly remember the specifics of the week before without getting out the curriculum. Plus some weeks just blend together. Here's what I remember.

Math: Ellie learned about expanded notation and Kara learned more about fractions. Both are reviewing their math facts.

English: Ellie finally finished last year's English and we started on this year's English. She learned how to diagram compound sentences. Kara continues to review the four types of sentences. Darin learned a few more letters and has been working in a workbook. He worked on writing some of his numbers this week and was quite proud of some of the 5s he drew.

History: We learned about how feudalism and about how the church got caught up in it. They also learned about knights: how they were trained, what they wore, etc. Ellie read a book about building a castle. We also went to JoAnn Fabric to pick out our fabric for our unit celebration.

Science: This week we learned about photosynthesis and pollination. We read a few books about it and then dissected a lily and looked at it under the microscope.

Tomato Spinach Phyllo Bake

This recipe came out in a Light & Tasty magazine either last year or the year before. My whole family loves it (well, except for Darin who sometimes thinks he doesn't like anything) and it is good for you too. I made it one night for supper this week and Darin helped me mix the ingredients.

Here's the recipe:
Tomato Spinach Phyllo Bake

4 eggs, lightly beaten
2 packages (10 oz each) frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
1 cup (4 oz) crumbled feta cheese
1/2 cup cottage cheese
3 green onions, sliced
1 teaspoon dill weed
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
10 sheets phyllo dough
Butter-flavored cooking spray
3 large tomatoes, sliced

Combine first 9 ingredients. Set aside. Spray 1 phyllo sheet with cooking spray. Place in greased 9 inch cooking pan allowing one end of dough to hang over the edge. Repeat with 4 more sheets staggering which side the dough hangs over.

Spread 1/3 of spinach mix over phyllo dough. Top with 1/2 of sliced tomatoes. Repeat layers and top with spinach mix. Spray remaining phyllo dough sheets and layer on top, staggering as before. Gently fold over ends of dough towards center. Spray with cooking spray. Loosely cover with tin foil. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Remove foil and bake 30 minutes longer. Let stand 15 minutes before serving.

Our bike ride

This weekend Dan's parents were here and they brought their bikes along so that we could ride on the Cannon Valley Trail on Saturday. Saturday morning we got up, had bran muffins for breakfast and packed up the bikes. I packed a lunch for us all and brought that along. The trail runs from Cannon Falls to Red Wing--19.4 miles one way. We hadn't planned on biking the whole trail, but we weren't sure how far we'd go. We figured we'd just play it by ear.

The trail was beautiful as was the weather. The trail is mostly tree covered and doesn't have many hills. The sun was shining and it was cool to see the sun shining through the trees onto the trail.

We got to the trailhead a little before 11. After about 10 miles we stopped in Welch to eat the lunch that we had packed. We were all feeling quite good, especially after eating, so we decided to keep going. After another 5 miles we took a little break. The older girls were ready to head back but we told them that if we went all the way to the end we'd stop at the bakery in Red Wing for donuts. They were all for that and agreed to keep going.

We got to the bakery (which was about a mile further than the end of the trail) and sat down for some donuts. Unfortunately they were out of the custard-filled ones that we love.

On the way back I started to have some knee pain in my left knee--the same knee that has kept me from running. I knew this wasn't going to end well since we still had 20 miles to go. At about mile 30 my right knee started to hurt. And we still had 10 miles or so to go. Darin was a huge help and pedaled the whole way. And we finally made it back to the van. It took a lot longer to get back than it took to get to Red Wing. Next time I don't think we'll ride so far in one day. But I have to say that the kids did a great job. Ellie and Kara didn't complain and Darin pedaled the whole way. Natalie had it easy, of course, in the trailer.

Here are some pics that Dan's dad took:

Pound cake

The other day when I was showing Dan our newly organized downstairs pantry, he saw the box of cake flour and commented that I hadn't made pound cake in quite awhile. I got this recipe several years ago when we lived in Lincoln. One of Dan's co-workers, Karl, made it for a potluck one night and it was so delicious and moist. It freezes well, but around here it never lasts that long. Here is the recipe:

1 1/2 cups butter, room temperature
3 cups sugar
6 eggs, room temperature
1 cup sour cream
1 1/2 T vanilla
3 cups cake flour
1/4 tsp baking soda

Cream butter and sugar. Add eggs and mix well. Mix in sour cream and vanilla. Add cake flour and baking soda. Butter and flour a bundt pan. Pour in batter. Bake for 2 hours at 300 or until a toothpick inserted near center comes out clean.

Weekly review

I haven't posted a school update for awhile so I'll just summarize what we've been doing the last few weeks. We still haven't gotten into a good school schedule yet since we've taken a day off here and there to do some canning, some deep cleaning, some purging of toys and getting out the winter clothes. The weather has been just about perfect so it's made it hard to buckle down and do school. We're still getting the basics done just not a lot of the extras.

Math: Ellie and Kara are moving right along. Ellie has been skipping lessons here and there since it seems she is still having some review (even at lesson 40!!!). Kara usually does a couple at a time because there don't seem to be many new concepts introduced and when they are, she picks them up right away. Both girls are working on increasing their speed on their math facts. I need to make sure this gets done more often, especially since Ellie doesn't particularly like to do them.

English: Ellie is finally almost done with the English book we started last year. She's finishing up a chapter on diagramming prepositional phrases. Kara is almost done with her first grade section and has been working on sentence types, i.e. statement, command, etc. She's also still memorizing Mr. Nobody. She's just got the last stanza to finish up.

History: This week we've been studying the Vikings (not the football team) and last week we studied King Arthur and Charlemagne. We also built a salt map to cement some of the geography terms we've been learning. The kids still need to paint it so maybe they'll do that today. They would have had it done by now but it was taking forever to dry cuz I kept putting it out on the porch and I'd forget about it. Then the dew would settle on it making it wet again!!!
Ellie and I have been discussing the level that she is working on in Tapestry and for the next unit I plan to move her up to the dialectic level (she's currently working in the upper grammar level). The reading selections have definitely been too easy for her so I'll have to figure out if I'm going to move her up in all the areas or just literature.

Bible: For our devotion time in the morning, we've added singing hymns and the kids have loved it. It's really added a dimension to our devotions. We've also begun reviewing the catechism questions in Westminster Shorter Catechism that we learned awhile back.

Art/Music: Haven't done any.

Latin: Ellie is on her last lesson in LCI. Then she'll move on to LC II.

Science: We did make it out to Quarry Hill once to observe the pond and take some pond water samples. We have a Brock Magiscope at home and have been having a blast looking at things under it. In our pond water we've seen several protists and looked more closely at the different types of algae. There have also been a few snails that we've looked at too.

Here is a story that Ellie wrote for one of her writing assignments this week. She used a graphic organizer that used all of the senses to describe something.

A Viking Family
It's a fall afternoon and I'm hiding behind a rock watching my father fight. I see the slaves as they scurry about, the spears as they whiz through the air. The smell of blood pierces my nose. The scream of a child echoes in my ears. I taste the delectable beans I picked from our garden and the satisfying milk I milked from Hazel, our cow. I feel the rock now stinging my hands for I was clutching it tightly in fear my father would die.

My little entrepreneurs

Ellie and Kara have been making friendship bracelets with some embroidery floss lately and today they asked if they could go around the neighborhood selling them. They even made business cards and coupons (which they forgot to hand out). So they went door to door telling people about the friendship bracelets--i.e. which ones would be good for baby showers, which ones were related to certain sports teams, etc. They made sure that they didn't go to people's houses that had signs for No Solicitation. They were selling them for 10 cents each; however, several people gave them more. They were all excited when they got home. They made $6!!! It was really cute to see them so excited.

An experiment

A few weeks ago Dan and I were talking about our budget and discussing how we could cut down our expenses. We've recently made some major purchases and while we do have the money to pay for them, we want to continue to make extra payments on our mortgage at the same time. So we were brainstorming ways to cut down our expenses so I wouldn't need to pick up some extra shifts at work. Dan made a few comments about our grocery and miscellaneous allocation every month and alluded that maybe I could decrease those. I just laughed. I already feel that getting healthy, balanced meals with the budget I've got requires a little ingenuity (and I'm OK with that). Dan, however, isn't so convinced. So I've challenged him. For the month of October, Dan is in charge of the grocery and miscellaneous cash (we use cash for our expenses). He will be planning the menu and doing the grocery shopping. Now he's not so sure he should have opened his mouth.

I've placed a couple of stipulations on the menu though. We cannot have macaroni and cheese every night and I do want some fruit and vegetables. He also cannot use all of my freezer meals and all of my canned fruit. I'm actually looking forward to October and I think that at the end of the month, he'll have a much better appreciation for what I do. :-)

In an effort to help him out a little, I've inventoried my pantry. I figured I usually have a mental idea of what's in there, but he doesn't. This is something I've wanted to do for awhile but him planning the menu has given me the impetus to get it done. I made an Excel spreadsheet with everything in the pantry with room to expand and write in new things that aren't currently on the list. This way I'll be able to glance at how much of a certain staple I have on hand before I go to the store. And I'll know how much jam, etc I have so next year I won't have to hunt through the shelves to figure out how much of each kind to make.

I'll let you know how our experiment goes.

Roasted veggies

Last Saturday I took the kids with me to the farmer's market and we picked out some veggies. We picked up some purple, yellow and red peppers and a yellow tomato. We also picked up some broccoli, carrots and watermelon. And we picked up some Okra. I recently saw a post by Bethany about how to make okra so I figured we'd try it. We haven't yet but I'll let you know what we think of it when we do.

With the fresh veggies I made veggie pizza on Sunday night and last night I made roasted veggies over a mix of brown and wild rice. It was so yummy!! I got the recipe out of a new cookbook I've gotten: Simply in Season. My sister-in-law had brought her copy of the book along when we went camping over Labor Day so I was able to preview and she (along with my brother who is the main cook in their family) gave it a whole-hearted endorsement.

The recipe in the cookbook gives 4 different seasonings to put over the veggies. I just poured 3/4 cup Italian dressing over 10 cups of chopped veggies. Then I put it in the oven at 425 for 20 minutes. When I served it I topped it with shredded Parmesan (not the green stuff in the can but the shredded stuff). It was so delicious and I'll be making it again very soon.

Finally!!

Yes, I'm finally blogging. I realize it's been awhile so I'll try to update you all on what we've been doing lately. I'm sure I'll forget half of what I had planned on blogging about since I never write anything down.

This week we went to a local fruit farm and picked a bunch (ha, ha, get it?) of concord grapes. Ellie and Kara had their own clippers and Darin and Natalie helped me pick some. We picked 42 pounds of grapes. Aren't they beautiful?

My original plan was to make 2 batches of grape jelly and to make the rest into juice. I've got a great canning cookbook with wonderful recipes. I started with the first batch of jelly. What a pain!! First you have to cook the grapes, strain them and then strain them again--using cheesecloth. It takes forever!!! Then you have to strain them a few more times. It seemed way too labor-intensive and wasteful (you throw the pulp away) so I only made one batch of jelly and one batch of jam. Turns out, I prefer the taste of the jam anyway.

Since I figured out that using cheesecloth to strain the grapes was too much work, I decided that the original recipe I was going to use for the juice was also way too much work (same process, just save the juice instead of adding sugar for jam). There was another recipe in that cookbook and a friend of mine had used a similar recipe so I decided to try that. Plus it would make a whole lot more jam.

Here's the recipe:
Wash 1 1/2 cups grapes. Place in clean, hot quart jar. Add 2 T sugar. Fill with boiling water leaving 1/2 inch headspace. Process in hot water bath for 10 minutes. Let cure for 3-4 months before drinking. Strain before drinking.

I got 57 quart of juice.
In other news I recently got my own sewing machine. I'd been borrowing (mostly keeping) a friend's and recently gave it back. Dan figured it was about time I got my own so we stopped by Sears and picked up one that was pretty similar to the one I'd been borrowing. We can't afford a really, really good one with all sorts of fancy options so since I was familiar with this machine and I'd not had any problems with it, we picked this one up. I sewed a couple of things on it and then it went kaput!! No matter how much I monkeyed with it it would not sew correctly. It kept pulling on the spool of thread and I'd have huge piles of thread bunching up under the fabric. Needless to say the seam on the underside was a mess. So I gave up and sent Dan back to Sears with it. Normally there is a 15% restocking fee but since it wasn't working right they didn't make us pay that. Had they tried Dan would've gotten them to reconsider. He's good about things like that.

Before Dan took back the sewing machine I thought I'd check Craigslist to see if there was a used one since my mom and my sister have recently gotten some really good deals through there. And there was!! It was the same brand I've been using but an upgrade. And it cost less. Plus it came with the quilting feet including a free form foot which I hope to use soon to make some coasters.

So here is what I've made so far:
Some burp rags I made for a friend who is expecting her first baby:
AWANA bags for Darin and Kara (Ellie's isn't done yet):
I've got a few more bags I want get made and then I hope to get some coasters done.

Child Labor

A few weeks ago before we went camping I really wanted to get some green beans frozen and was grateful for the help I got from the kids. They had a great time snapping off the ends and I didn't have to do it!! Here they are hard at work:

Fruit of my labors

I recently picked up some peaches from the area YFC fundraiser. They are so, so yummy. I've gotten them for the past several years and have never been disappointed. However, this year I had bought some peaches from Cub Foods in the hopes I could save a little money. Ick. They were horrible. So I wasted that money and ended up buying them from YFC anyway. From now on, I'll just stick to the YFC peaches since I know that they will be excellent. I bought 3 boxes--we'll eat 1 box fresh and I canned/froze the rest. Here is my bounty (8 quart frozen, 7 quart canned, 8 1/2 pint jam) :

State Fair

Saturday we went to the state fair. We've never been. Even Dan, who has lived in Minnesota most of his life, hasn't ever been. So when we found out that Dan's dad would be singing Saturday afternoon, we decided we'd go. We've always wanted to go--just never got around to it.
This year is Minnesota's 150th birthday so someone decided that a choral group from each of the state's regions should sing at the state fair. They commissioned new pieces of work from Minnesota composers. Each group (about 6 total) sang 2 songs and then they all sang a song together at the end. It was pretty good although a few of the groups sang some rather boring songs. The song that Dan's dad's group sang was good-lively and funny.

We spent the whole day at the fair. We left town at 7:30 and parked at a Park and Ride which was pretty close to the fair. We didn't have any problems finding a parking space and took the shuttle over to the fair. We even took the double jogger along and fit that on the bus without any problems. I'm so glad that we parked there instead of at the fair because the line to park at the fair was incredibly long. Plus then we'd have had to pay for parking. This way we parked for free and those shuttle buses just cut in front of everyone so the ride and wait was quite short.

When we first got to the fair we went over to the Little Farm Hands building. Here is where kids get to pretend that they are farmers. They get an apron and a bucket and work their way through the path. They get to milk a pretend cow (water comes out, not milk), plant crops, harvest crops, take their crops to the farmer's market, sell it and then buy a snack with their profits (apples or boxes of cereal).





After that we met up with Dan's mom (his dad was at a church somewhere practicing for their afternoon concert) and we picked up some lunch. I picked up a bucket of cookies (freshly baked) from Sweet Martha's and we got a roast sandwich--both yummy. And of course, the fair wouldn't be the fair without an order of cheese curds.

We also went to the Miracle of Birth building and got to watch a calf being born. We couldn't actually get close enough to see the cow but watched it on one of the many TVs they have hanging from the ceiling. The building was packed, but we also managed to see some little piggies that had been born the day before. They were in the farrowing pen with their mother and they were all suckling away.

Next we went to the horse barn and looked at the several different kinds of horses they had there. The kids even got to pet a few. Some of those horses are absolutely huge and I definitely wouldn't want to get in their way. They were such beautiful animals and it was cool to see all the different varieties, colors, etc.

We also went to the Creative Activities building. There they have all sorts of different displays including quilting, jewelry making and miniatures. The older three were fascinated with the miniatures. There was a group of ladies working on some miniatures and the kids spent a great deal of time there. Darin even got to help one lady make some plants. They learned a few tricks about making miniatures such as drying green pepper seeds for potato chips and using the bottom of individual creamers for a waste basket. Also on display was this beautiful canoe that someone had made. They had put together different types/colors of wood (kind of like a butcher block) and made this gorgeous canoe. I'm not sure I'd want to put it in the water since it was so beautiful.

The canning and baking items were also in the CA building. The kids thought I should enter several things next year. And I might. I wasn't all that impressed with some of the entries (I realize they were about a week old by the time we saw them, but still). It'd be fun to do I think but I'll have to check out the rules.

In the education building the kids got a bunch of freebies--bags, pencils, etc. They also had on display artwork from kids. There are some really talented kids out there. There was one painting that I saw that I wish I could buy. It was done by an 11th grader and was just ethereal. It was two little girls sitting on a blanket on the beach. The colors and the technique were superb. I just stood there looking at that one painting for quite awhile.

Later in the day I took the younger two with me to the Fine Arts Building because I wanted to see the photography and paintings by adults. There were a few cool things but I'd have to say I enjoyed the ones in the education building better. Some of the things done by adults were really weird and others I could have done (and I wouldn't have called it art). There was one very large picture that someone did completely in pencil (though you'd never guess). That was really amazing. There were also some others done with colored pencil--although I had no idea that was the medium until I read the placard beside it.

After the Fine Arts building Darin, Natalie and I went over to the Eco building and had our pictures taken at the reusable bag booth. Then we each got a free bag. They are nice and large and I'll definitely use them, especially on my big grocery shopping days since I never seem to have enough of the green ones I usually use.

While we were at the Fine Arts building, Dan was with Ellie and Kara at the WCCO building. Ellie and Dan both rode bikes to generate power for the broadcasts. Once they got to a certain amount they got to pick a prize--Dan chose a t-shirt and Ellie got a really nice bag. Here is Ellie riding the bike:


While we were at the fair we actually ran into my brother and his family. They live in St. Paul and I hadn't bothered to tell them we'd be in town because I didn't really figure we'd see them and I knew we'd be seeing them in a few days for our annual camping trip. It was kind of funny to actually run into them considering how many people were at the fair that day (171,000 that day).

After Dan and I met up again we went over to the Drink-all-the-milk-you-want-for-$1 stand and dipped our leftover cookies into our milk. Then we headed home. We picked up the shuttle again and went back to the Park and Ride. The shuttle we rode back was a charter bus and Darin got the biggest kick out of it. He was giddy and loved that he was in a charter bus. All the kids thought it was pretty cool that a bus could have a bathroom!! It was hilarious to watch their excitement over something that we find so commonplace. It wasn't funny, however, to listen to the guy in front of us swear every third word. Thankfully, the kids didn't really pay attention to what he was saying and since they've never heard most of the words he wasn't saying, it didn't really register with them that he was saying bad words.

We got home safely around 11:30, much later than we had planned, but we had a great time and plan to go back next year.