Posted in Slow Cooking Thursday
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Visit Sandra at Diary of a Stay At Home Mom for more great slow cooker links
The I need to put something in NOW version: Throw into the crockpot enough boneless skinless thighs to feed your crew (frozen if you forgot to defrost.) Top with 3 cups(more or less) pizza sauce . Cook on low 6 hours if using thawed meat, 8 hours if using frozen (or you can cook about an hour on high and then turn it down but be careful because pizza sauce will burn if left on high). About 30 min. before serving remove the meat and stir in 6oz. cubed cream cheese. After the cheese has been stirred in smooth add the meat back in and finish cooking . Serve over cooked noodles with parmesan cheese. If you are not in a rush you could add chopped onions, pepper and sliced olives (sauteed if you really have the time to spare). Next time I also want to try mozzarella cheese instead of the parmesan. As moms with lots of kids will understand it is often good economical sense to open a #10 can. In my experience if you need three or more "normal" size cans it is cheaper to go with the #10 even if you end up throwing all the rest away. I try not to throw anything away which results in some creative experiments sometimes. Thus this recipe. (Oh- and I was in a hurry. It was Sunday morning and we were running late and I had to throw something in fast so we could eat after church. )Despite it all my husband, who cringes when he sees the slow cooker, loved it and said he definately wanted to have it again. Go figure. |
Posted in About Us
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I have had a blast reading 100 Things About Me that many people put up on their blogs. So I decided to do my own.
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Posted in Blogger Friend School
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Find more Internet Gold by clicking here!! This weeks assignment is to share our Internet Gold: those sites that we find useful or inspirational. 1. Favorite Blogging site: Homeschool Blogger 2. First place you look to buy a book: If I am looking for something that is NOT a homeschool book that I want new then I go to Amazon becuase they always seem to have the best prices and there is free shipping after $25. 3. Favorite Homeschool Support Area: Homeschool Blogger and various mailing lists at Yahoo Groups 4. Site you buy NEW curriculum from: I always check out Rainbow Resource first since their prices almost always beat everyone including Amazon. 5. Site you buy USED curriculum from : Ebay and VegSource 6. Sites offering frugal tips: Dollar Stretcher, HillBilly Housewife and Money Saving Mom 7. A Site offering good wholesome recipes: Recently I found What A Crock! which is full of recipes I have to try. I also like Sue Gregg Cookbooks 8.A Homeschool Family site I purchase things from: I recently purchased the Raising Leaders Curriculum from the Beck Family. I also like products from Cindy Rushton. I believe her children are all grown up now but my favorite phonics product ever is from Back Home Industries 10. I will be looking at all your posts for educational calendars and graphics sources because I don't have any. 11.Site Offering Homeschool Freebies: Homeschool E Store has a free product every week. Hands of A Child offers a free ebook lapbook every 3 months. There are also lots of free worksheets constantly changing at Teacher Created Resources 12. Blogs you visit for various reasons. All my favorite Homeschool Blogger Blogs are listed in my Friends bar. I do not know how to add favorite blogs from other sites yet but a couple of them are: MultiTasking Moms, My Teachers Name is Mom and Starry Sky Ranch. 13. A site that you allow your childrento visit. So far we haven't let our kids use the Internet much. Honestly, it is boring to supervise them cause they like such silly stuff and I slowly go crazy. When they have gotten on they have spent way too much time drooling at everything they would like to have from the Lego Site. 14.Other favorite sites: Vision Forum (we spend WAY too much money here), Classical Homeschooling, Homeschool Tracker, Library and Educational Services (amazing deals but a limited selection of product) |
Posted in Works For Me Wednesday
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I am obsessive about washing clothes at the proper temperature. I used to wash everything in cold but then I had boys and it seems that when you have real actual dirt on the clothes it comes out better in a warm water wash. So if it is theirs and it can be washed in warm it gets washed in warm. In our bathrooms we do not have room for multiple hampers so everything just goes in one and them I have to sort everything later. Instead of having to read each tab, figure out the international clothing symbols or figure out where they hid the English directions amongst 42 languages, I have marked each tab with a "W" or a "C" for warm or cold. I use a black sharpie on most things- it is the most reliable. When I have to I use the silver but have not decided how long lasting they are yet. For jeans I also mark on the pockets. This has reduced the time it takes me to sort the clothes. What would really work for me now is if I taught my kids how to do the laundry!! |
Posted in Blogger Friend School
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Click to see other BFS entries for Week 3!
I am getting this in at the very last minute but it looked like too much fun to miss. Part One: Using each letter of the alphabet describe yourself or things that are important to you. I had a little bit of trouble with this one. For some letters it was hard to choose just one from all the words possible. For other letters I had a hard time coming up with just one word. Abundance Books Cuddling Disorganized Education Family Growth Honesty Internet Jesus Kids Learning Momma Nurturing Old-Fashioned Practical Quietness Reading Serious Teamwork USA Virtue Wife eXamining Yeah!!! Zookeeper Part Two: Share a Scripture that is on your heart.. Psalms 132:12 If thy children will keep my covenant and my testimony that I shall teach them, their children shall also sit upon thy throne for evermore. Several years ago I found out that I had had a great grandfather that was a traveling preacher in the Tennesee Mountains. Sometime between his generation and mine our family had turned away from Truth. Having grown up unchurched I marvel continuously at the fact that God found me and saved me. I do not want my children to grow up not knowing Jesus or what He did for us. I continually remind them that it is important not to stop with just their salvation but that it will be their responsibility to teach their children so that they may also know. I pray continuously that our family never has another generation turn away from the Light.
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Today was supposed to be our first day back at school. I admit, I didn't do the whole stressed out thing I do every year. This year was going to be different and a stressed out mom was not part of the lesson plan. The Baby decided to wake up early this morning. He is in a growth spurt again which means I seem to spend 23 hours a day nursing. By the time his brothers woke up I was already behind for the day. Noone was interested in breakfast. More accurately noone was interested in the work required to get breakfast. (Exactly how hard is it to put a piece of toast in a toaster?) I have to pull out my copy of "For Instruction in Righteousness." I really need to teach the boys what the Bible says about work. We delve right into the academics. The Bookworm decides that he would like to double time it through our phonics program so can I please give him his lesson seperately. I concede. Our phonics program was our most successful subject last year and I have to admit that I expected to just jump right in and be flying. Summer breaks slow down moms too I found out. I couldn't remember some of what *I* was supposed to do. Meanwhile Rabbit has started math. He is doing Saxon 5/4 this year, his first year with a "real" math textbook. And binder paper. Knowing that the first several lessons are refresher of skills he has already mastered I let him at it with no instruction. I figured it would be self-explanatory. Within minutes he is back asking what is he supposed to write- he was worried he had to copy down the discussion section. So I show him the anatomy of the math lesson and he goes off again. A little while later he comes back to ask another question. There is writing on the back of his page. This is good I think to myself, he has gotten pretty far. Then I turn the paper over and notice that he hasn't written anything on the front! He didn't realize that binder paper has a front and a back. I did not plan our group time very well. Honestly, I didn't plan any group time for the first week thinking that the things that didn't require a ton of my input would be the easiest to ease back into. Clearly this was a false idea. I decided to keep a list of what exactly was going on so I could get it together better tomorrow. I ws tempted to name it "First Day Failures" but went with the much more constructive sounding "Problems to be Addressed." We ended up packing up early and heading to the park to enjoy the beautiful day. They got to run off their energy and I got to sit in the sunshine. |
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A few years ago we were introduced to the game "Banana." It is basically Slug Bug but with points instead of hitting. As it was originally introduced to us the point system was complicated and we hardly ever played. So we revamped the point system and now all the kids except the baby play along. It is a constant part of our car trips, the perpetual game. But it has brought character deficiencies to the surface. The 5yo has claimed my husband as his constant partner because my husband, and by default his team, always wins. For awhile the older boys were okay with this. They realized that 5yo wasn't going to win without some help. Now the 8yo is showing great desire to win. In the past we have always played one game all day long. Today, the 8yo decided to restart for the trip home from church. As our side again falls behind, he decided to restart when we drop of our carpool passenger. At this point I inform him if he is going to be a sore loser that I don't want to be on his team anymore. This is new behavior for him so I am going to have to see what it is rooted in and try to work on solving it. For me Banana is just a family thing, like an inside joke. When the boys were away at day camp the last two weeks I would see a banana and go to call it and realize it was just me and the baby and miss my older boys. I hope they don't ruin this little past time with their competitiveness. For anyone who wonders what in the world Banana or Slug Bug might be. A "Banana" is any V W Bug.In the original game, Slug Bug, players would slug each other when they saw one. Obviously with so many boys this is recipe for disaster so we play for points. A V W is worth one point all on its own. Being old model, yellow or soft top are each worth an additional point. So, an old yellow convertible would be worth 4 points, a new yellow or a new softop of some other color would be 2 points etc.. Since this is the perpetual game that we have been playing for so long every now and then we add something new to the rules to make it interesting. Our recent addition was to make all V W Vans worth 5 points. My husband hasn't lost a game since... |
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This has been the hardest summer of my life. Last month my two oldest went to sleep away camp for the first time. At first my husband and I thought we would try to go with them taking the younger two in tow but after looking into it he decided that a.) it would be diificult to manage the littles and b.) it would be a good experience for the olders to be on their own in this secure environment. It WAS a good experience, for them. Me on the other hand? Well, let's just say that when even one of my children is away from me I have this huge gaping hole in my heart. These last two weeks the oldest three have been away at musical theater camp for a whole five and a half hours a day. This is a total blast for the 5yo who is used to standing on the sidelines while his older brothers get to do everything. Me? I feel as though I wander aimlessly, for those five and a half hours a day, wishing they would hurry up and pass. Thankfully, today is the last day I have to go through this. I think we will go out for ice cream when I pick them up today. I don't get all the parents with the "home stretch" look on their faces these days. Summer is almost over and the kids will finally be out of their hair in a couple short weeks. Of course, with the way some of these kids behave it is no wonder that their parents are looking forward to getting rid of them, continuing the cycle. My children are such a joy for me to be around. Even when they are at their worst they aren't so bad that I am ready to ship them off. I think it is because they are with their dad and I so much that they are so tolerable. Groups of kids barely supervised don't learn to act well. Childhood has some very nice and worthwhile qualitites to it, none of which are brought out in the conditions of the peer mob. We keep a tight reign on the group activities we let the kids participate in and reap the benefit of enjoyable children. So while many parents are looking forward to fall because it means the kids will be gone, I am looking forward to the fall because the opportunities to be gone will dwindle. Now I know very well, that I have to let my kids do things like sleep away camp and day camp. Being with me constantly will not allow them to develop into the independent and capable men I want them to be. I am not so selfish as to keep them locked by my side for every moment of their lives. It's just hard. I miss them. Maybe someday after I have done this letting go a bit more I won't wander aimlessly with a huge gaping hole in my heart, but this first summer was hard. I will continue to let them go because it is good for them but only because it is good for them. |
Posted in About Us
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The Lord has so far blessed my husband and I with four wonderful children of the male variety. It is quite an adventure for a former girly girl like myself. At this point I don't even know what I would do with a girl. I think I have adjusted well. I enjoy getting to relive the wonderful newness childhood offers from an entirely different perspective. I don't think boys get a fair shake all the time. It seems everyone always expects the worst out of them just due to their chromosome makeup. I think the problem stems from the fact that this day in age we seem to forget that we aren't raising children to be children; we are raising them to be adults. When we treat them like children , they act like children. When they know we have higher expectations for them, they try to live up to them. When those children are boys the little balls of energy can be left to destruction or directed toward construction. I want my boys to grow to be mighty warriors for God's army. They need to be strong, brave, and honorable. They can't be afraid of a little pain, or a little strife. They have to be willing to take charge when a leader is required. They have to realize that the very best leaders serve while nurturing the leadership qualities of others. The 10 year old, The Bookworm, is my scholar. "Momma, I want to know everything." He consumes books like they're air. My 8yo, The Rabbit, is fearless. He climbs trees like they are his second home and runs like he is riding the wind. The Force (to be reckoned with), my 5yo is curious; while describing him as a cat may be cliche, it is true. He is also my right hand these days, glorying in finally being a big brother. The Baby, 8 months, is the sunshine in all our lives. He wants to be anywhere his brothers are. These are my future men. I hope you enjoy sharing our journey.
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