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.