Problem of the day

Today we were at our local home school co-op. The kids are divided up into 3 groups and rotate through 3 stations. In the process of dividing the groups one of my sons was split up away from his buddy. Not his only buddy just the one he wanted to be around today. About halfway through our first station he comes walking into the other room and says the leader told him to switch and now join this group (the one with the buddy). I find out later that he was complaining and the leader said he was free to join the other group. HUMPH!

He has friends in both groups and I'm not set on which group he should be in, but I felt that his behavior was far less than adequate and probably hurt the feelings of the boy in the group he left (there was only one other boy, the rest were girls).

As much as I want him to understand how that other boy felt I don't think I'm getting through to him. He's agreed that next time he'll stay with the first group, so I don't think this is a direct disobedience of any sort. He's just not being compassionate and I don't know how to guide him to that point.

Random stuff about me

Gayle over at Grace4gayle tagged me (in a very clever way) with this meme and imitation is the best form of flattery, right? So, I'm going to completely steal her idea. Can you tell by these random things which blogs I read?

So here we go....

If I ever found a green bean with a face like that I'd auction it off on E-bay.

The thought of having twins scares me and I don't know what would be harder, newborn twins or twins who just turned one and started to walk!

If we were #5 on the adoption list I'd be super excited!!!

If my belly looked that cute while I was pregnant I would definitely allow people to take my picture while I was pouring cereal.

I believe that the Lord wants us as wives to submit to our husbands no matter who we are or where we live, be it in the U.S. or A-U-S-T-R-A-I-L-I-A.

I wish I was clever enough to be able to feed my family for $40-$60 a week. (yes, I'm tagging you back. Now you're tagged for your other blog!)

So, do you read any of the same blogs that I do? If you're confused go ahead and click through the links on my sidebar, there are some great blogs over there!!

If you are one of the blogs I listed then TAG you are it!

The "rules" of the game are as follows:

1. Post the rules on your blog

2. Write 6 random things about yourself

3. Tag 6 people at the end of your post

4. If you're tagged, DO IT and pass on the tag

My kids are climbing the walls!

This is now one of our kids' favorite things to do. I seem to remember Emily posting about her daughter doing this so I'm going to blame her everytime I walk down my hall and see dirty walls :) Okay?

Halloween

I know that Halloween is over a month away and it's a touchy subject...but I'm gonna mention it anyway. We have allowed our kids to dress up and this year I actually want to plan something ahead of time. That way I won't be rushing around the day before! A friend made a suggestion and I think I just may do it. I have 7 kids (just in case you didn't know) so I think we are going to go as:

Clever, no?

What is it with guys?

Non writers teaching writing?

I don't think of myself as much of a writer. I come here and jot down some of my thoughts but it doesn't make me a writer. When I was younger and in school I always had a hard time when the teacher assigned papers. I could complete a one or two page paper no problem, but expand that to a 3-5 paper and I was stuck. So, now I find myself in the teachers position. How do I develop writing skills in my kids? How do I get them to like to write? I've ordered a writing curriculum


and am waiting for it to arrive. Hopefully that will help.

In the mean time my daughter is working in her Wordly Wise book.


This book focuses on vocabulary and my daughter likes all of it except one part of the lessons. She likes the multiple choice, the fill in the blank and the crosswords. What happens when I open up to the page where you have to answer in complete sentences?

ATTITUDE. Bad, sulky, why oh why do I have to do this page. ATTITUDE.

So, please tell me, is there something I can do that might change her mind or is this simply a discipline area? I want her to like it, I want her to do well, but I don't want to have her working begrudgingly everyday.

The weirdest part of this though is that when you ask her what she wants to be when she grows up she says, "a writer".

Beef Stroganoff

Are you ready for some yummy comfort food???

Here's what you'll need:


cheap beef steak (cut in strips) or stir fry meat (already cut for you)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
garlic powder
1 cup sour cream
2 tsp. beef bouillon
mushrooms (the blue tub, or whole & you cut them up)
egg noodles
-or-
make your own:
2 cups flour
2 eggs
1 tsp salt
1/3-1/2 cup water
roll out flat and cut in strips with pizza cutter and boil until they float :)

Here's what you do:

saute meat in frying pan with a couple shakes of garlic powder and the beef bouillon.
When the meat is browned add the mushrooms and soup, fry a little longer. Then add the sour cream and cooked noodles. Stir, serve and enjoy! (this is mighty good with some garlic bread)

If you want to lighten this up you could use fat free soup and sour cream.

Go find more yummy recipes over at Gayle's Recipe swap!!

Our school day

We've been at our new schedule for over a week now and I'm all ready to change it up. I have most of our school time in the morning before lunch. All I left for the afternoon was reading aloud and history/science (we're doing one or the other each day not both). What I'm finding out is that our morning goes great and we get a lot accomplished BUT by the time we're done with lunch I'm tired. I'm ready for kids to nap or play outside. I'm not ready to dive into the rest of our day. I think I may just switch up the free blocks of time and chores to right after lunch and push the rest of our school to about 3 pm. Or I could make lunch at 12:30 vs. 11:00 and get it all in before we eat. Just typing that out makes me think that's the way we'll go.

Ok, so enough rambling. Want to see a few pictures of our morning?

How do you like them apples?

The house we are renting is surrounded by apple trees (about a dozen). Right now they are fully loaded and I already have 12 quarts of applesauce canned and a dozen or so bags in the freezer. I got to thinking and here's the progression of my thoughts;

A-appetizing

P-pretty


P-plentiful

L-Lots



E-ENOUGH


S-STOP, oh please, no more!

But, there really are a ton more. So, we may just have to make the best of it and have a cider pressing party. :)

C-I-R-C-U-S

This past weekend we were invited by some friends to go to the circus. We all loaded up in our van (4 Adults & 11 kids) that's a lot of car seats!!!

I've only been to the circus once before in my life and it was a small rinky dink one. Nothing compared to this:

I wish I had taken more photos, but I was holding a baby and hubby was wrangling a toddler ;) I think our favorite was the male acrobat that did these monkey bar type loops with his feet at the top of the arena! That and the motorcycles in the cage...they were incredible. The show started at 7:30 pm (our kid's bedtime) and went for two hours. It was well worth tired kids and getting home late. Definitely worth it!

How about you, do you like the circus?

My husband has started blogging!

He put up his first post recently...anyone want to go visit and leave him a comment??

He's over at Ianopolis.

On your mark, set, GO!

Power Outage

This morning I was sitting at the table having some school time with my kids when we heard a boom sound outside and instantly our power went out. Hmm, not good I thought. I called up the power company to notify them and they said they'd send someone to investigate.

About an hour later the kids and I were getting antsy so we decided to go for a short walk. We got about half way up our drive way when two power company trucks pulled in. They stopped by the pole...


Then two guys get out and say "yep, typical dead squirrel." At first I thought they were joking...then I saw it....

We watched as they replaced a fuse. It was actually pretty interesting to see the guy get in the little bucket lift and use his long pole reach up and connect it.

Voila, power back!

A few posts back I mentioned the book Managers of their homes. I ended up buying myself a copy and have read through it (it's a pretty quick read). I have even gone as far as making a schedule and keeping it (for two whole days now....). Only time will tell if we can keep this up and actually make it a way of life. I said all that to say, there seems to be a reoccurring theme in my mind about simplifying. Although on paper a schedule seems a bit complicated I'm seeing that really it's making my job easier. Not having to daily put brain power into 'what comes next' is really helping. I went a bit further with that notion and decided to simplify my menu plan. I've been making a menu plan for awhile now and know that it helps me a ton. My new idea though is to be basic. I chose 5 breakfasts and 5 lunches to keep the same every week. Only dinners will vary. For example:

Monday- toast & apple sauce, hot dogs
Tuesday- pancakes, tuna sandwiches
Wednesday- muffins, macaroni & cheese

Are you seeing my point? I'm thinking that not only will this help me to have a plan, but it will help the kids deal with meals better because they will know what to expect. So far it's working for me!!

(and just as a disclaimer: I know that this isn't an original idea; lots of people do pizza Fridays or fish Mondays...it's just something new for us.)

Is it just me or are the banana people going a little bananas??