Frozen Smoothies

I hate wasting food.  With four kids it seems to happen around here a lot.  One of our favorite morning meals is smoothies; we have them once a week.  I always have just a small amount left over when we are done.  For months I have been feeding it to the cat.  A few weeks ago I came up with a great idea.  I put what little smoothie is left into our popsicle forms.

When we have enough for everyone - we have "popsicles" for snack one day.  My kids love them and no more wasted food.   Here is my favorite part - Eliana doesn't like smoothies, or so she says,  but she loves the frozen ones.  I try to make sure she isn't around when I am pouring them into the forms. 

Asher showing off his frozen treat!

1st field trip of the year: Apple Orchard

Our first field trip of the year was a new on for us.  Yes- we have been to an apple orchard before but this was a new location.  We attended a tour of the orchard with our homeschooling group.  It was a  beautiful day to be outside.  Here are a few pictures of our day!

pretending to pick apples

Looking at the bees

Washing and sorting the apples

Making apple cidar

First week of school

I am a few weeks behind, but school has started.  So far so good with homeschooling all three.  The twins are much more into seat work than I expected.  I am having a rough time planning more preschool activities than I thought I would need!  Josiah has started speech at the local school.  He is loving it!  He has a graduate student from the local university.  She is really eager to help and keeps going on and on about how well Josiah participates. Here are a few pictures from our first day:

35 meals in 8 hours!

I started with this:

And 8 hours later I had this:

Since I had been such a slacker this summer and not put one meal in the freezer, I really wanted to stock up before school started.  Having only been doing this for a year, I do not feel like I'm an expert but I definitely felt like I found my groove this time.  Things did not take me as long as before.  With eating out once a week, Sunday dinners with my parents, one rice/bean meal a week, and Meatless Mondays I shouldn't have to "cook" dinner till November.  I spent $107.14 and used a lot of our stock pile, averaging about $3 a meal.  Here is the list of what I made:

1. White Chili
2. Manicotti
3.  2 Pizza's
4. Sausage and rice casserole
5  2 batches of calzones
6. 2 French bread pizzas
7.  4 quiche
8. Italian beef
9.  Steak in mushroom sauce
10.  2 - ham and broccoli rolls
11. Asian pork
12.  Pot Roast
13.  2 - taco meat
14.  Hamburger stroganoff
15.  Easy skillet meal
16. Taco pie
17.  Tator tot casserole
18.  Meatloaf
19.  BBQ meatballs
20.  Hamburger patties
21.  Wild rice chicken
22. Jerk Chicken
23.  Mediterranean chicken
24. Chicken cordon bleu
25.  Chicken nuggets

Here are the new recipes I tried with the links:

Italian Sausage Soup with tortellini

Ham & broccoli cheddar roll

Asian Pork

Baked Penne - I used ham in this recipe instead of chicken.  I also left out the tomatoes (because of Josiah's allergy)

Here is what I learned this time.

Before you put an unbaked quiche in the freezer - make sure it is sitting level.  If not, you will end up with a frozen egg mess all over your freezer!

My quirky grandma!

Since it is Grandparents day I thought I would write a little about my wonderful grandparents.  As I sat down to write this post hours ago my grandmother called.  She had something really cool to show the kids.  It was just south of the house and we needed to come down.  So once everyone was up from naps, we went over to Great Grandma's house.   I forgot my camera so no great pictures of what we saw.  But she had puff balls!  Here is a link in case you are not familiar with them.  She has 6 growing in the woods.  She had never seen that many before and was really excited about it.  She let the boys pick two to bring home.

Here is one of the many things I love about my grandma.  She is always teaching us things.  She has always been a hands on kind of person.  If you ever wanted to learn to do something she would teach you or find some one that could.  She continues to teach her great grand kids things.   We have made butter, home made noodles and baked apples with grandma.  In the woods she has painted on my kids with blood root, looked for deer tracks and taught them how to identify different trees. 

Growing up I always knew my grandma was little different, but it wasn't until I was an adult, that I truly understood how different my relationship with my grandparents was from everyone else.  See, I grew up around the corner from my grandparents.  We spent every Sunday dinner eating at their house and playing with my cousins.  My grandparents had us spend the night on a regular basis.  They hauled us to every festival within a 60 mile radius.   We spent many afternoons at auctions, bidding on items they would buy.  They attended every chorus concert, track meet, football, and basketball game my brothers and I were in.  They were actively involved in my life growing up.  I thought this was how everyone grew up.  I didn't know anything else.  I feel so blessed to not only have had them around, but now my children are building a relationship too!

So even though my grandma has always been quirky and  sometimes really embarrassing, I look forward to the day that I can be a grandma just like her!

2012-2013 Goals

The first year we home schooled I reached the end of the year, and realized I had no way of knowing how Eliana was doing.  Since we are an eclectic homeschooling family, I didn't have a book that needed to be finished.  Since Illinois has no set standards for homeschoolers, I had no list to check off.  For this list maker it was a little unnerving.  So the second year we set school goals.  That way at the end of the year I can look back and make sure we have covered everything on our list.  The beauty of this is - it is our list.  No one tells me what to put on it.  Trevor and I decide what we want our children to learn and when.  So for all of those of you that always ask what are we doing; here are our school goals for the year!

Eliana’s School Goals 2012/2013

1. Finish 2nd grade Horizons the phonics/ reading program we started in Kindergarten
2. Master adding and subtracting 3 digit numbers
3. Basic multiplication and division
4. Master fractions, telling time & all money amounts
5. Write one book report a week
6. Begin typing program – create some efficiency in using a keyboard
7. Memorize one scripture a week
8. Master daily routines of brushing her hair, bathing, getting dressed in appropriate attire and brushing her teeth.
9. Master skip counting by 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10
10. Continue to learn Greek with dad
11. Write one blog post a week

Josiah’s School Goals 2012/2013

1. Know all letters & phonetic sounds
2. Be able to count to 30
3. Recognize numbers 1-30
4. Write first, middle and last name
5. Know our phone number, address
6. Read simple Bob books
7. Work on daily routines
8. Master making his bed
9. Improve speech skills with weekly speech class
10. Memorize 1 verse a week

Jeremiah’s School Goals 2012/2013

1. Know all letters
2. Be able to count to 30
3. Learn to hold a pencil correctly
4. Write first name
5. Know phone number and address
6. Work on daily routines
7. Recognize number 1-30
8. Learn basic colors
9. Practice making eye contact when talking to people
10. Memorize one verse a week

Asher’s Goals

1. Start using words in sentences
2. Get potty trained
3. Destroy the house while everyone else is doing school
4. Have sissy read him books every day
5. Dress himself