Menu Plan Monday

I haven't participated in Menu Plan Monday in FOREVER!!! But did I mention I'm trying to blog more regularly? And generally be more organized . . . so, here goes . . . (click on the items to find links to recipes, if applicable)

15 Things I Love About My Husband

One of the blogs I read recommended this post on another blog. It's a beautiful, thought-provoking post on safeguarding your marriage! In the post, Ann Voskamp challenges her readers to have a Thankfulness Journal, to record things that we're thankful for about our husbands. I thought that was a great idea!! It's so easy for all of us to make sure everyone knows when things go wrong, but forget to mention the simple, every-day things that we're thankful for (or even remember to BE thankful for those simple, every-day things.

So, without further ado, in no particular order, (some of the) things I'm thankful for about my husband:

1. His love for our daughters
2. That he provides well for our family
3. That he supports my desire to stay home with our children
4. That he's always willing to cook when I haven't had time
5. That he never complains when the house is a mess
6. No matter how busy things are, he finds time for his girls
7. Watching him melt when his girls ask him for anything
8. He shares my enjoyment in "window shopping" for houses
9. He supports my desire to homeschool our children
10. His sense of humor
11. His smile
12. His hugs
13. He's always done everything he can to help w/ nighttimes with babies (both when the twins were little and now with Little Bit) so that I can get enough sleep to function (I need more sleep than him to function)
14. He always puts others first
15. His generosity

Our Week!

I'm trying to get back to doing a weekly update each weekend. So . . .

This past week was pretty quiet. I LIKE quiet weeks!

Monday we came home from my parents' house. Tuesday the big girls went with Daddy to visit Grandmom and Little Bit and I ran some errands, caught up on some stuff around here, and did lots of snuggling, she was pretty fussy, I thought it was teething but she's been fine since then and no sign of new teeth (though her gums were swollen that day so I think the teeth WILL be coming sometime soon, we shall see).

Wedneday-Friday we worked on getting back into our "normal" routine after campmeeting and all.

Of some importance, we finished up Prairie Primer!! This was our main unit study this whole past school year, so it feels good to be done (I like checking things off the list LOL). We had finished listening to the books (on mp3) while driving to/from campmeeting, so last week we just did the last little bit of fun stuff & discussions and such. It was a good unit, I look forward to "revisiting" it when the girls are older and can do more independently (and/or I can do more of it w/ them w/o a baby/toddler) so we can do more with the crafts/handwork and cooking and such. But I'm glad we did it this way, we had a good, laid back year doing it this year and can re-use all the books and such when we re-visit it when they are 5th grade (give or take) and Little Bit is old enough to enjoy the stories and some of the cooking and such.

Our other project was getting the girls' room clean/toddler-proof. We've had their small piece toys (play food/kitchen, etc) in baskets for years, BUT that doesn't work so well with a toddler around since emptying baskets is her favorite pastime. So, we got some plastic containers w/ lids that latch on. And got everything put into those boxes and generally cleaned up the room. So now Little Bit can go in there w/o the whole room being a choking hazard AND w/o destroying hte room. Our tentative thought is that in a few months she might be ready to move to a mattress on the floor in there, she loves doing all things "like big sisters" so I think with a little bit better comprehension, she'll like the idea of sleeping in the same room as them. We do need to secure the bookshelves to the walls (or loft frame) before it's safe for her to SLEEP in there, but we got alot closer to that point today. My other hope is, that now that their room is ok for her to be in, we'll be able to take a little time each day that she can play with them in there while I work on other projects, like the disaster that is OUR bedroom. We shall see . . .

Setting Sail!!!!

It's official! (actually it's been official for a couple weeks now, but they've been a busy couple of weeks). I was chosen to be a part of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine's (TOS) "Homeschool Crew". Basically it's a group of homeschoolers that agree to review products for homeschool(ish) vendors. We get to try out, and keep, really cool homeschool stuff! And all we have to do is actually USE it, and then blog about it! So, now I have a new incentive to keep up-to-date on this blog LOL.

We got our first product to review a couple days ago. It's our "practice" review, so it's a

downloaded product from the TOS store. We'll be reviewing the e-book Travel the World! This is a stand-alone unit study on world geography! The timing is perfect, we finished up Prairie Primer (our year-long unit study on the Little House books) last week, so now we're free to concentrate on this unit study instead. I printed it off and looked through it, I think we'll have fun with it. It looks like it provides activities for a variety of ages and interests. I think we'll plan to spend a day or 2 on each continent and then wrap things up with a lapbook! Should be fun and expose the girls to something we haven't spent alot of time on.

So be on the lookout for my review of this product and many more as the new school year progresses.

Happy 95th Birthday Grandpa!!

I'm a week late getting this posted because I kept forgetting to download the pictures off my phone when I had it plugged into my computer. But, better late than never right?

Last Friday my grandpa turned 95!!! We skipped out on the last couple days of campmeeting in order to go down to my parents' house (my grandparents live on the same property) and join in the celebration.

My mom's brother and sister were both there (here's the 3 of them doing dishes, it struck me that THAT probably happened a time or two (or hundreds?) 50 years ago or so, though without the convenience of the dishwasher. Darla's husband, Jim and daughter, Jani were there as well. The girls were excited to "meet" Jani. They'd met her a few years ago but didn't remember her.

We had a nice weekend. I think Grandpa enjoyed having his family around. He even went down to the basement to pick on the girls when they were playing down there LOL.

The above picture is when Darla was trying to get Grandpa to look at the camera, she had to steal his book (that's what she's holding behind her back), hee hee.

So anyway, a belated happy birthday to my grandpa!

Healthy, Portable Food on a Budget!

One of the challenges we had for campmeeting was food. We were leaving the house by 8:30 every morning and I was getting home around 8pm, the big girls didn't get home until close to 10pm most nights. We opted to eat out for suppers with Daddy, but I didn't want ALL our meals to be eating out that week, both from a health standpoint and a budget standpoint. So, the week before campmeeting, I planned accordingly. I knew we would need to eat breakfasts in the car. Mornings were hurried enough without adding in time to eat at home PLUS the girls tend to not eat much when they first wake up, so waiting a little longer meant they'd eat more as well. So, the week before I made sure that one morning we had breakfast cookies for breakfast and I made a double (or triple, I forget, LOL) batch and froze all that we didn't eat. Another day we had banana muffins and again I (actually my mom, who was here visiting that day) made extra to freeze. So, we had banana muffins and breakfast cookies to eat for breakfast in the car on the way to campmeeting all last week.

For lunch, my kids aren't huge sandwich fans and again, I wanted as little prep as possible. So, the week before one day for lunch we had corndog muffins a new favorite at our house. Again, I made a double recipe and froze what we didn't eat that day. Another day we made picnic pockets for supper. I made 2 rolls and sliced and froze what we didn't eat.

Sunday morning (we didn't have morning meetings at campmeeting on Sunday), I went to a local farm stand and got black raspberries and cherries. I also had carrots and bell pepper in the fridge. Each evening I asked the girls which breakfast, lunch, and fruit options they wanted & pulled the breakfast & lunch items out of the freezer to thaw overnight (though one night I forgot and we at the cookies straight from the freezer for breakfast and they were good that way too, and the lunch items thawed by lunchtime, I just pulled everything out at the same time to save time overall, and to save trips to the basement freezer since I had a broken toe and going down the steep basement stairs was less than comfortable). In the morning I put the lunch "entree" (cornbread muffins or picnic pockets) in each of our wrap-n-mats. I washed the fruit of choice and placed it in a small stainless steel container (similar to these). I placed each of these items, plus a frozen juice box in each of our insulated lunch bags (I have a Built NY Gourmet Getaway, not that fun of a print though, wish it had been available when I got mine LOL, the girls each have a Lands End insulated lunch bag, that's no longer on their site). Then in my bag I added a ziplock of cut up bell pepper and carrots and a small stainless steel container full of ranch dip, that we all shared. It literally took a few minutes to throw this together each morning. Then I tossed the breakfast items into my "car basket" to hand out once we were in the car. A1 sits in the seat beside Little Bit, so she shared her breakfast with Little Bit each day as we drove.

The girls each have a stainless steel water bottle and were responsible to fill it each morning (or the night before, their choice) and I filled mine. So we had water on our drive up and at lunch, plus they had the juice boxes (I used a small re-freezable ice pack in mine instead of a juice box).

The Rest of Campmeeting

Ok, I give up on the whole post from phone thing . . . it just doesn't seem to work right. The post that is JUST the waterslide picture told me it didn't post and the one I wrote about the waterslide was supposed to have the picture in it. So whatever . . .

I took Little Bit to her meeting a few days,

but it was right during naptime, so as the week progressed and her erratic (at best) sleep schedule was catching up with her, I decided getting that morning nap in was more beneficial than the meeting. So the last few days I took her to the nice dark, quiet mother's room to sleep during that time.

Our afternoons were spent going to the ABC - we must check out the samples each day AND

the big girls discovered some Rice Dream ice cream sandwiches they liked, so those made a good afternoon treat, visiting with (or bothering)

people at Locating, playing on the swings and in the sandbox, visiting Trust Services to tease

(and by teased by) Mr. Floyd (he and the girls have an on-going battle of teasing and picking on each other), and get popcorn when the popcorn machine was running.

In the evening, Daddy came up and we all went to Taco Bell or the cafeteria/snack bar for supper (usually Taco Bell, the lines at the snack bar were generally pretty long) and then Little Bit and I headed home while Daddy stayed so the big girls could go to their evening meetings.

The pictures in this post include: Little Bit at her meeting (a creation theme), and Little Bit with Pastor Barry. She is so different from her sisters at this age, perfectly happy to talk to and go to pretty much anyone who comes along. Since her big sisters tease Pastor Barry by "ignoring" him when he walks by, he decided we needed a picture as PROOF that at least one of the girls in our family is happy to spend time with him, hee hee (of course, one afternoon at Locating, the big girls talked his ear off for a half hour or longer about gardening and everything else under the sun).

And so, campmeeting 2010 is over! The girls had a blast, and that is what's important. I do think, now that they have evening meetings, we'll probably plan to stay up there all week next year. By then, hopefully, Little Bit's sleep will be better and not having the extra 45 min drive home in the evening will help us to not all get SOO over-tired by the end of the week.

In homeschool news, all that driving gave us a chance to finish listening to the Little House books to wrap up that unit. We'll spend time this week doing the odds and ends that went along w/ the last several chapters, and then we will be done with Prairie Primer (for a couple years anyway, we plan to re-visit it when the big girls are in teh 5th to 6th grade range and Little Bit is old enough to at least enjoy the stories and some of hte cooking and such that goes with it)