Menu Monday

I have to take F to get a tooth filled today. That's about it on the excitement calendar.

Yes, I realize this is of no interest to anyone but me (and the people forced to eat my cooking) but I gotta put this somewhere so I remember.

Mon-chicken&rice casserole w/ broccoli, grapes

Tue-husband's delight casserole, carrots, strawberries

Wed-pasta w/spinach&cheese, fruit salad

Thu-ratatouille (ok, it's vegetable stew, but it sounds better all fancified) on rice, peach cobbler

Fri-cheese filled breadsticks w/pizza sauce to dip, fruit plate (all the bits and pieces w/chocolate dip)

Sat-corndog casserole, green beans, applesauce

Sun mac&cheese, broccoli and mandarin oranges

Life in the Fast Lane

This weekend included the Andrews Western Days Parade and Brethern Church Pancake Breakfast, the Van Buren Popcorn Festival, and swimming at Markle Pool (a water filled quarry folks). Bright lights, big city, that's my life.

First Day of School

High schoolers before leaving. Gotta love that sibling affection.

Middle and grade schoolers

Pre-pre-schooler

We're calling this homeschool PE

Not Yet

Please, can we stop the post-mortem on summer. It's August. No, I'm not glad the kids are going back to school this week. There's tons of time left. Time for

softball played by wistful girls

Potions made by princesses in pools

And milkshakes drunk shoeless under a tree

So have a popsicle, walk down dusty gravel roads, swim, flop down in the grass.

Eat watermelon and let it drip down your elbows, yell after dark and play bloody murder with your friends.

Get mosquito bites and chiggers and nettles and go back for more the next day.

Swing, jump out and do it again.

Savor the season, soon enough we'll be bundling and huddling. Use up the last bit of summer and drain the glass for every drop.

Bad

Someone resurrected the badminton set from the garage. The racquet's are sort of bent and missing some of the tape but oh well, we suck anyway. The pathetic part is that we've had a ball (so to speak) batting the birdie over the clothes line. There've also been way too many shuttlecock jokes but that's teen boys for you. The sad thing was that amid much laughter one of the kids noted that other families don't do this stuff. They don't hang out. They certainly don't do something as mundane as play badminton. Siblings don't associate. All of which may be more pathetic than us playing badminton.

Thanks to Some Unnamed Artist

Boring

The problem with a really good week at camp followed by going to the parks and going swimming is that if you have a gray, rainy day in which your mom has to change a flat and then go get the tire fixed it's booorrrriiinnnggg. I did get this though. I'll add it to the pile of ones that say I stink.

Menu Monday

All the chicks are back in the nest so I'll actually have to make food again this week. Camp was a huge success. Surprisingly, for some reason, F was a favorite of the counselors. Everyone loved F. Em kept asking them why, lol. This week

chicken&gravy over potatoes, carrots, banana pudding
macaroni&cheese w/hotdogs, green beans, fruit cocktail
homemade pizza, relishes, applesauce
hamburger gravy on noodles, corn, peaches
homemade pretzels and homemade nacho cheese sauce to dip or pizza sauce to dip, relishes, pears
potatoes&eggs, canned oranges
chicken stir fry, fruit salad

No particular order to these, it all depends on how busy we are.

Trying To Be A Planner

We jumped into the homeschool thing mid stream last year. We've kept at it since, doing a little bit every morning this summer (when F wasn't at camp, bible school or some other event) but.....we've just done whatever looked good in no particular order. This year will be more difficult. Miss Ads will be 2. Enough said there. Mel will be joining us too. She will only go to K from 8:30-10:30. K has become all day/every day here. I just think that is too much. I asked for a half day and this is what it will be. It seems the kindergartners eat lunch at 10:30. Good grief, I'm just considering something solid at that hour. Anyway, we will start the year this way because she really wants to go. If it's a huge pain in the behind I'll just keep her home second semester. Oh yeah, back to the plan. Can you see why I might need a plan. ADD mom here. I have figured out that 15 minutes is about as long as F can tolerate seat work so it's short and sweet and repeat.

We usually start at 8:30 too so
8:30-8:45 Singapore Math and Time4Learning Math

wiggle break

9:00-9:15 KISS Grammar M,W,F and Time4Learning LA
Creative Writing T,Th

9:30-9:45 Vocab/spelling

10:00-10:15 Finish any of the above work

10:15-10:30 Independent Reading

Sissy Home!!!! They'll do history and science together

11:00 Lunch, Sonlight History while they eat. It's read aloud.

12:00 Ads to nap, Sonlight Science

12:30 Read aloud story


Done!!!

In the afternoon they can do puzzles, read more, play outside or come with me to do errands and go to the library. I have workbooks that Mel likes to do for fun, just simple phonics and counting things.

P.E. is covered by playing soccer in the fall and spring and baseball in the summer. We'll probably participate in homeschool music classes for 6 weeks and he is a Cub Scout and attends church Kids Klub. His friends get home at 3:45 and he is out of here to play with them at 4:00. The kid has plenty of friends. Mel will play soccer and t-ball, be a Daisy Scout and attend Kids Klub. She is harder to find playmates for because people don't tend to let their kindergartners run around on their own as much as third graders.

Summer

Then followed that beautiful season... Summer....
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow





Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.
~John Lubbock

Wacky Wednesday

Sometimes my kids totally crack me up. Yesterday Mel was playing with this

She ran over to me "Mommy, my frog is choking. I need to help him."
Me "Really, how can you tell?"
Mel "He's blue! Stop laughing, this is sewious I will heimwick him"
Just where did she learn about turning blue and the Heimlich maneuver?

Menu Monday and Camp

Here's where I was going to post the adorable pictures of leaving my kids at church camp. Except I couldn't catch their speeding figures whizzing by me to the field to have fun. I did get a wave. I'm obviously going to miss them much more than they miss me.

I've got the three gone at church camp and S works during dinner so it seems I have no one to feed this week. Just 5 of us for dinner. If I end up with alot of leftovers the menu might change but they usually get eaten by the boys during the next day.

Sun-bean tostados, corn on the cob, cantaloupe
Mon-chili, cornbread, cantaloupe&blueberries
Tue-chicken stir fry, mandarin oranges
Wed-spaghetti&tomato sauce, zucchini, grapes
Thu-tater tot casserole, green beans, fruit salad
Fri-ramen noodle soup, leftover fruit salad (13yo is in charge of dinner, I have to go pick up those kids at camp)
Sat-pizza, whatever leftovers are around
Sun-pork roast, corn, strawberries

Books

Those who know me know I read alot. Not as much now as I'd like, but still a good bit. I've been on a non-fiction binge lately and can recommend all these books.

David Plotz reads the bible and reacts in Good Book. Amusingly written and as close as I'll come to reading the entire thing. (Well the OT anyway). I get lost in all the begats. I guess it's a cliff notes of the Old Testament.


The Outliers and Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. It's pop science but it's interesting pop science.


Born to Run by Christopher McDougall
This book was so weirdly interesting I read it in one afternoon and evening. Ok, more like I stayed up half the night but it was a fascinating look at two anthropologically interesting groups ~ the Tarahumara and Ultra-Distance runners. Honestly, pick this one up, you don't need to be a runner to find this interesting. Really.

Submitted Without Comment

National Debt Clock

Tightwad Tuesday~The Vacation Edition

I'm sure there are tons of articles out right now about having an inexpensive vacation. I haven't looked because we've never not had an inexpensive vacation. Most years we don't have a vacation at all. We did take the kids for a trip to Holiday World last year (don on the cheap) but this year with L's appendectomy to pay for and orthodontia for S rearing it's ugly head even that was out of bounds. We could have done absolutely nothing, but that would have left dh feeling like he might as well have worked so here's what we did last week.

Mon-Indy Children's Museum $67 for 2 adults/4 kids/free 1yo
fun and educational, everyone had fun, we brought our own picnic lunch and snacks

Tue-buffet at Pizza Hut $30
we don't go out to eat or buy pizza usually so this was a treat for the kids, dh stayed home, we played games that afternoon,
I don't usually have time to do that so it seemed special. I had planned on taking advantage of dollar day at the pool but
weirdly for July it was chilly

Wed-Harry Potter $28 for me and 5 kids, no concessions but (bad me) I snuck in twizzlers in my purse

Thu-Tincaps game $45 We like baseball games. I did spend $25 on concessions.
We took the two littlest ones to the free splash park that afternoon to make up for no game. Dh and ds opted to stay
home so no sitter needed.

Fri-Fort Wayne Children's Zoo $67 for pass. I bought a zoo pass last year so cost
was already payed. We hadn't been to see their new African Exhibit, which was very good, so it seemed new. We again
brought a picnic lunch and played at the park.

Sat-Fired up the barbie and cooked out. We don't do that too much so it seemed like a treat. Hot dogs, burger,chicken. Yum
I had all the food in the freezer so no extra $$ spent over normal groceries. Dh and I hung out with the little kids and
took them to the park.

Sun-The kids and I went to church except for dh and 15yo who went browsing at sporting goods stores. Different stroke, etc.
We took the kids who were interested swimming -$6

So $268 for vacation counting the zoo pass. I probably spent some gas money so call it $300. Not free but not bad for 9 people to have a good week.

Menu and Fun Extra

I'm back from a week on 'vacation' which mostly involved a couple day trips and trying to figure out how to have fun for nothing. More on that tomorrow. For today

Menu
Mon: spaghetti & veggie tomato sauce, 1 hr french bread garlic toast, salad
Tue: chicken breasts w/soupy rice, broccoli, applesauce
Wed: tacos/enchiladas, corn, mandarin oranges
Thu: grilled cheese, soup, fruit cocktail
Fri: hamburger stroganoff, green beans, pears
Sat: hot dog spaghetti squiggles (see below), carrots, peaches
Sun: shepherd's pie, peas, cake

Here's the link to how to make this

Argh

Flying By

So the 4th is over, summer's half gone. Shoot! The weekend was filled Thu-Sun with holiday/festival fun. Monday I had a migraine and yesterday I made applesauce from free apples the neighbors let us have off their tree. I'm thankful for that but criminy I was sick of apples by the time I was done. I couldn't seem to remember to take my camera anywhere this weekend. I did take almost the same shot of three kids while they were doing the 'olympics'. Notice none of them are wearing shoes. They took this as seriously as if it had been an actual competition.

What A Difference

So after miserable heat, it is now unseasonably cool. Not that I'm complaining. I just find the 30 degree drop weird. A semi quiet week here. Baseball and softball tourney have started but then they have to stop for our town's Fourth of July Festival which runs from the 2nd through the 5th. They use the ball park for events. At least it should provide entertainment for the kids all weekend. It's so wholesome it makes your teeth ache but the kids love it. S started work yesterday so now two of them are earning $$. The 13 yo is dejected he can't work yet. I've been doing some 'creating' from a cool old bed sheet I bought for a dollar. Here's the little girls in their dresses. E got a halter top and L a skirt from the same sheet. Imagine if I used a pattern how much better this would be. I really need to quit just cutting and seaming, but they're happy with them so what the hey.

Sauna

No, not like I got to go to one, like I'm living in one. Ah, the midwest in the summer. It was 96 yesterday. I have no idea what the heat index was. Today is supposed to be about 90 but even higher humidity. Tuesday we took advantage of dollar day at the pool, yesterday I took them to the free splash park. Yes, money is an issue. The 'spring' property taxes have come. Notice how it's late June when the county got around to sending them. I wonder if I can be three months late paying them. Yeah, I didn't think so.
The older boys are still at camp until Saturday. I'm expecting them to be DONE with the great outdoors after all this heat and mosquitos.
The Chocolate Frosting Incident

Sisters ~nothing like the swimsuit sale, they are not crazy about matching

Enjoying the wading pool

Life Scout-trying for Eagle if girls don't get in the way