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: