Keeping It Simple

Look at me writing 2 posts so close together!! So... I have loved listening to the podcasts on morning time called "Your Morning Basket". I have listened to all of them. Very inspiring! They are all worthwhile to listen to, but I have to tell you that episode #2 with Andrew Pudewa is a game changer (in the homeschool sense). We have had our own variations on morning time in our house. When my girls were younger (they are now 31, 30, 28 and 22 years old), we had "seat work time" and "couch time". I'd say that couch time was our version of what is now being called morning time. For the most part, we read historical fiction, discussed history (I would either read from or discuss from a text), learned a little geography, read the bible, had prayer time, and had some pretty fun discussions. There was a transition when my now 28 year old became sort of a teachers helper for her younger sister. I remember working on art appreciation with her at the h...

Lots of baby care around here as the boys' big sister (our second daughter, Jessica) was having her fifth baby. It was a week full of sword fighting, cuddles, disney movies, books, and coloring. It's also been a week full of colds. The 2 year old twins had a cold, which I assume James caught from them (although every one in the world seems to have it, so not necessarily). The problem is that no matter how many times I caution the boys, who can resist cuddling with a sweet little toddler who does not feel well? I guess germs are meant to be shared. In the way of school, we have been in "keep up" mode. Paul's strongest focus is on his Dave Ramsey finance class (which I highly recommend), his Spanish class, and his economics course. http://www.daveramsey.com/store/search.ep?keyWords=homeschool http://www.livinglanguage.com/languagelab/spanish  (I cannot recommend this highly enough. The books and cds make it easy to open and go. Additionally, the...

While driving home today from a homeschool activity with my son and my nephews, it was observed that one of the young ladies who did participate is no longer attending. This of course leads to a conversation: Kyle: Yeah, she goes to public school now. Me: I wonder what happened. Kyle: Her parents made her go. Me: Oh, how do you know that? Kyle: Well, they must have. Who doesn't want to homeschool? We get to do school in our pajamas!! No reason for this picture- just some happy homeschoolers. Then, I sat down to eat lunch with my boys. Our conversation was about becoming fluent in speaking Spanish. James is excited because a friend's mom speaks Spanish (and very little English), so he is enjoying the opportunity to jump in and try talking- although he says he probably sounds like a 2 year old. I was telling my boys to look for opportunities to speak to people who are fluent. In explaining some opportunities their sisters had, I mentioned that their one sist...

This is sort of a lighthearted post, but I am going to start by saying that all those in Paris and the World are in my prayers. There are never words when something so unspeakable happens. As it has been pointed out, it happens far more often that we usually hear about in places that are more obscure to most of us. I'm going to continue with this planned post as most of us still have "normal life" to attend to and families to feed amidst this very stressful backdrop. To keep myself accountable, I was going to keep up posting about my crusade to eat at home. I have failed the last few weeks, but the resolve to eat at home has not! The great thing is that on the days when resolve wanes in me, my husband picks it up. He is often the one to encourage me that he can stop by and pick up an ingredient I forgot, or to step in and create a dish himself. He chose make us a Lasagna last week- for me, that is a more involved dinner than I will take on a week day. Rather than...

The one where we get back on the horse... Since beginning this self-imposed challenge (about 5 or 6 weeks ago) to plan, make, and eat meals at home, I have been fighting this silly cold/cough. Two trips to urgent care ('cause after hours is when I would finally cry "uncle!") and a recent trip to my doctor, a round of steroids, a round of antibiotics, and lots of over the counter medication later, I'm just now on the mend. More on that in a minute... Monday and Tuesday we had the best home cooked meals ever! They were home cooked by someone else!! On Monday , we had dinner with my daughter and her husband. They put together a lovely baked potato bar that included this absolutely lovely gluten and meat free chili - but don't make it for those reasons. It was just darned good! Tuesday , another daughter and her husband invited us over for dinner (we could work this system for a while ;)). Our son-in-law's family is Greek and he knows how to cook up som...

Still at it! So much of success is attitude and planning. It is easy when we are tired and out anyway, to just pick up some quick food. It is much easier to keep a "can do" attitude when you have planned for the week's meals! This week: We reran Orange Chicken from Danielle Walker's Against All Grain cookbook. My boys love to eat this one leftover for lunch. Our first try at making Spaghetti with Shallots and Brussel Sprouts from Jenny Rosenstrach's Dinner the playbook  was a huge success. This is a seriously good yet quick and easy meal. I also baked some potatoes with our Sunday dinner to use with leftovers. We had a lovely dinners this week using our roasted chicken (previous post), orange chicken, and spaghetti.  To mix things up we added bell peppers to our chicken to make chicken quesadillas. We also used our leftovers to stuff bake potatoes. For our weekend meals: Saturday we entertained four grandchildren (ages 6, 4, 1, and 1), so we had ho...