This Week At Home, 2012, No. 47

Little notes written to remember each precious day! 

Living room tree and train.

Monday...

A sleepy start!  It was the Monday after a four day weekend, so I didn't expect much different. Thankfully, the early morning coffee kicked in and gave me the desire to be diligent.  Or maybe it was answer to prayers sent up in desperation?  Somehow, we managed to get back on track with our lessons, laundry, and chores. 

Tuesday...

Another blessed day at home to keep on top of lessons, laundry, dishes, and other chores.  Not much else to report.  It was a quiet day.

By Grace

Wednesday...

Our busy day!  Got our lessons done and then had an early lunch, as usual.  I dropped Grace off at art and the boys and I went to our friend's home.  She had some computer things for Ryan to do.  Trevor played with her 4 year old who is still at home.  I helped her go through a book case, trying to decide what to keep or toss.  We both have trouble in that area.  Books are like old friends.  Keep them around! 
We picked up Grace and then stopped to get a few items from the grocery store.  I made their favorite, BBQ chicken pizza for dinner.  Then it was off to church. 

BBQ chicken pizza

Thursday...

We enjoyed another good day of lessons.  Today we finished a great book, The Story of Mary Jones and her Bible.  I had read it last year, but never out loud to the kids.  It's such a great story of dedication to God's word.   You can read it for free on the link above.  It's worth the time! 

The afternoon was spent purging two closets.  Grace and Trevor tried on all their clothes, bless their hearts.  Now they are in need of replacements.  It's always the case! 

Off with you! 

Grace and I took over a big bag to Good Will, and found a few things for her.  What a blessing!  We have another 4 bags to give to friends with smaller kids.  I need to find friends with bigger kids than mine!  lol. 

In the evening, we took the kids to karate and then Jeff and I did our dash to two stores, Costco and Trader Joe's. 

Friday...

I awoke with a burst of energy and a long list in my mind!  First, we finished our lessons, mainly math and NaNoWriMo, which ends today.  Then we put things away, dusted, swept floors, and looked for more things to purge.  Grace and I also baked a double batch of pumpkin muffins, a single batch of granola bars, and a small pan of corn bread.  It all turned out rather well.  We'll eat right this weekend! 

Speaking of the weekend, we have plans to see lots of extended family.  (Yay!)  More on that next week. 

Until then,
Jenn

Contented cat and silly boy! 

This Week At Home, 2012, No. 46

Little notes written to remember each precious day!

What Grace does during read aloud time. 

Monday...

Must be diligent!  We need three good days of school this week.  We need to prepare the house for Thanksgiving, and we need to get provisions.  Those are my three goals for the week.  Thankfully, the house is in pretty good shape.  The drywall will be repaired on Wednesday, even.  We just need to keep things picked up.

Jeff and Grace put up our "new" to us Christmas tree last evening.  It was given away because the attached lights no longer worked.  Grace and Jeff cut off the lights and put on new ones.  The tree is so much nicer than our old one!  (Yes, this is putting it up early, but my husband is a big fan of Christmas, so we roll with it.)  Tonight the tree decorations will be put up.  I won't put up the other decorations until this weekend.

What Dorothy does during read alouds. 

Tuesday...

This will be my one day at home without distractions, therefore, the day I need to make the most of.  After lessons, we will clean, but save the dusting and sweeping for Thursday morning, since drywall will be installed tomorrow.  No use doing something twice.  I want to tackle some clutter spots, like the shelves in Ryan's room that I have for storing homeschool materials.  I'd like to use them for more short term storage.  There are plenty of things to get rid of.

I'm still reading my Abigail Adams biography.  I want to get her actual letters to read as well.  She seems like quite a spunky lady!  Speaking of spunky ladies, here's a recent picture of my beautiful 90 year old grandma and her baby doll. 

Grandma and baby, doing well. 

Wednesday...

Lots to do today!  We got our lessons done in the morning.  At noon, Jeff was off.  Woo, hoo!  It sure feels like the holiday spirit is kicking in!  The drywallers were supposed to come, but cancelled,  so we ended up going to play 18 holes of disc golf in the glorious sunshine! Grace went to Mom's to bake.  Granddad joined us at golf.  I put dough on for pizza before we left, as I knew we'd be tired and hungry when we got home.  And, we also are going to go to church this evening, so I need a quick meal at that!  Thankfully, the house is all ready for Thanksgiving.  It truly was a glorious day.  The weather is supposed to change tomorrow night.  It will be in the 30's this weekend!  This is "make hay while the sun shines" weather for certain!!!

Thursday...

We were blessed to host Thanksgiving again this year.  I am so thankful for my dear family who were present and missed those unable to join us.  We had the usual feast:  turkey, stuffing, rolls, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, salad, cranberries, green bean casserole, gravy, pies, and pumpkin cake.  The weather was again very nice.  It was still 60 and partly cloudy when our guests left, so we again rushed out to play nine holes of disc golf.  It was starting to get a little windy, so our game was off, but it was fun to do something active after so much food.  

Friday... 

The drywallers are here!  We spent the day decorating our house for Christmas.  We made room to put up a second tree between the living and dinning room areas.  We did a little online shopping.  We don't do Black Friday, mostly because we start shopping in September and by now we are almost done.  We did venture out to Costco to get our normal groceries in the later afternoon.  The traffic was light and the store not too crowded.  We watched White Christmas and sipped hot cocoa by the fire this evening.  It was truly a lovely evening. 

Trevor at grandparent's home. 

Saturday... 

We had a special cinnamon roll breakfast to start our family day.  I need to do a little cleaning up after the drywallers. (The painters will come this coming week, I imagine.)  Today, we are going to have a Wii game party amongst ourselves.  There are a few little errands to run on our way to pick up Trevor, who is spending the night with grandparents.  The weather is probably too cold and windy to play golf, but I would not rule it out if the sun comes out.  Tomorrow will be a usual Sunday with church, but no choir, just youth group in the evening, so that will be nice. 

Once again, I thank you for reading and wish you a very lovely rest of your weekend! 
Jenn

It Is a Gift of God

Our church's children's choir, New Creation Choir, of which Trevor is a member, performed Sunday evening.  I'm posting this short 3 minute video that one of the dad's took and so graciously shared.

It's quite a simple song, yet so powerful.   It brings tears to my eyes each time I watch these precious children singing of God's saving grace. 

By the way...  Trevor is located in the middle of the top row.  Hard to miss him, as he's the tallest in the choir!  

Ephesians 6:8 KJV
^"For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God."

This Week At Home, 2012, No. 45

Little notes written in order to remember each precious day...

Beautiful sunrise Sunday morning. 

Monday...

Today was all about water, or lack of!  Last week, plumbers came to fix a leak and discovered that the 50 year old pipes had sprung  not only a leak, but were needing replaced.  So for the past weekend, we had only one working bathroom and shower, the least liked bathroom.  Today they are back and had to turn off all water,except the kitchen sink.  They had to take out the old and put in new, which is no easy task.  And now the pictures of before...

One other exciting thing about Monday was that we got our first snow!  It was a trace amount, but so pretty coming down.  The sun came out and it all melted.  And, yes, between all the noise of plumbers plumbing we got half our school work completed.  I took the kids to Mom's house after lunch so they could have a bathroom to use.  I came back and baked bread for dinner while I waited for the plumbers to finish.

Tuesday...

Aw, Tuesday!  I think this has to my favorite day of this week, because I did not have to go anywhere and no one was coming here.  We were able to get caught up on our school work, too.  We're almost through George Washington's World by G. Foster.  I read about 20 pages out loud each day to get through the whole book in a reasonable amount of time. 

I am loving the time period we're studying in history so much that it inspired me to get a biography about Abigail Adams, which I am loving!  I think I have found my winter reading plan, biographies.  I love having a winter reading plan.  It makes choosing books easier. I don't like thinking about what to read next.  Usually, I pick an author and read everything I can find by that person.

Tuesday evening, Jeff spent a little time working on our 12 year old Orek vacuum, despite it being late, and it now works wonderfully.  You may remember that I won another Orek a few years ago.  Let's just say, I like my old one better.  The "new" one is so heavy and currently is not working  well either, and I don't want to spend money on getting it fixed.  Jeff is going to take a look at it soon. 

Indulgences. 

Wednesday...

Morning lessons, an early lunch, off to art class, a stop at Target, rest time before AWANA.  That's our typical Wednesday. Of course, I had a great time with my girls in AWANA and came home exhausted.

Thursday...

The plumbers came back to install a new whole house water filter and water pressure tank.  Another guy came to size up the holes in the drywall and will let me know if he's coming back tomorrow or next week to fix them.  I voted for tomorrow, in case it mattered to him. 

Once again, we got our work done with an audience.  That's OK. We just keep rolling along, no matter what.  Speaking of rolling along, the kids are keeping up with their NaNoWriMo goals.  It's great that they are still motivated. How can we change this to NaNoWriYear? 

The Cat Whisperer and his victim, who doesn't like to be held. 

Friday...

Hooray it is Friday!  I think our lessons are all caught up, except for Grace's math.  There is a book on hold to pick up at the library.  We need bread, too.  I want to stop at Good Will on the other side of town since I have to drop Trevor off for a birthday party this evening.  I'm making a big pot of chili for dinner.  And we need to get the house tidy for the weekend.  The drywall will not be fixed today, most likely Monday. 

Used some birthday money to replace his charger that is lost. The two brown dots on his face are chocolate, by the way. 

Indulge me with one more of Dorothy Dumpling, our sweet little photogenic friend. 

So that is a look at our week.  This weekend we have small group, church, a choir performance for Trevor, and hopefully a little disc golf. 

Have a great weekend!
Jenn

Crustless Quiche

Artwork by Grace

This is adapted from one of my favorite cookbooks, Saving Dinner the Low Carb Way, by Leanne Ely.  Check it out!  (No, I am not an affiliate.  I just like the book.) 

Crustless Quiche

Preheat your oven to 350 degree.  Lightly grease a 9-inch glass pie pan.
In a medium bowl, add: 

1c shredded cheese.  (I've used colby or mozzarella with good success)
2 T whole wheat flour

Salt and pepper to taste

Put above in your pie pan.  In same bowl, now empty, add:

4 eggs, beaten
1c milk (I use half and half or heavy whipping cream)
1 t of onion powder
Salt and pepper to taste

Pour above into the pie pan.  Now get creative. Add chopped meat, vegetables, whatever you like, leftovers work great.  I usually add either bacon, sausage, or chicken with broccoli or spinach.  The amount and variety is up to you.

Bake for 35 minutes. 

This Week At Home, 2012, No. 44

Little notes written to remember each precious day!

Sunday...

After church and lunch, Jeff and I took off to play nine holes of disc golf.  It was a pretty, sunny day in the middle forties.  The park had just mowed down the rough areas recently.  We found three discs!  One belonged to Ryan.  It was his favorite.  When he lost it a few weeks ago, eight people had stopped their play to help him, but no one could find it.  Before heading home, Jeff and I also stopped to get small coffees at Starbucks, the cheapest way to enjoy their coffee!  (Thanks Mom!  The gift card is awesome!)

I found it! 

Monday...

After such a busy weekend, today was off to a slower start.  We got through all our subjects, though.  The weather is cooler so far this week.  I can't believe it is getting down in the 20's at night already.  Today, I made homemade pizza for dinner.  We began watching Star Trek Next Generation.  It will probably take us the next seven months to watch all of them! 

Tuesday...

We were up early so that Jeff could go vote on his way to work.  I took the kids to vote a little later.  We had to wait a little under an hour.  Trevor still managed to finish his math program today and start Math U See Pre-Algebra.  We didn't get all of our reading done today.  That's OK.  We did watch more Wartime Farm. It's kind of like history!   For dinner, I made 2 crustless quiche and roasted potatoes. We listened to Moody Radio's election coverage when the national show's left bent got too much for us to stomach.  We went to bed not knowing the outcome... 

Wednesday...

Like most days since the time change, I was wide awake at 4:30AM.  Jeff was too, so we checked on the election results.  Ugh.  Lord have mercy on us.  At least we live in a state that is sane.  No matter what unworthy man is president, Jesus is King! 

That said, we had lots to do today:  lessons, art class, chores, and AWANA. I also got to talk to a friend for an hour while Grace was in art. 

AWANA was "Bring A Real Friend Night" of BARF Night.  Ha, ha.  There were lots of friends brought.  No one tossed their cookies that I know of. 

Thursday...

Today was another busy day.  I read aloud and then drew up a list of things for the kids to do while I went to have coffee with a friend.  I came home and the kids had completed their lists, so I was pleased.  After lunch, I had the pleasure to take our friends to our church to meet up with their group going to India on a mission trip.  It was a quick trip, but still exciting to help friends.  Afterwards, we had two plumbers here trying to find out why the ceiling in the laundry room was leaking water.  Turns out an old copper pipe has a hole in it.  We are not allowed to use the upstairs bathrooms until they come back on Monday to fix the pipe.  I made dinner (pizza) and we were off to karate and grocery shopping. 

Friday...

We had to do a little catch up with our lessons this morning.  We also had to do a lot of tidy work around the house.  I also had to clear out the laundry room to clean the shelves.  There is a lot of mold in the wall and it smells.  I am worried.  I hope they can get it all. It worries me that it is exposed like that with the big hole they left. 

Otherwise, the day has been very nice.  It's such a pretty day, sunny and a little warmer.  Tonight we are free to relax together as a family. 

Weekending...

Tomorrow some of us are going to a high school musical.  We also want to try to get in a few holes of disc golf and work on the leaves.  Sunday, Jeff's dad is coming down for lunch after church.  Trevor will have choir practice in the evening. 


I hope you have a terrific weekend.  Thanks for reading. 
Jenn

Flashback Wordless Wednesday: 2003

I'm going through the old albums, (sniff, sniff) and thought this was way too sweet not to share.

At the time, Ryan was going through a long phase of wanting to learn everything he could about The Statue of Liberty.  If only we could have taken the boy to her, but at the time, it wasn't possible.  Of course now, he hasn't the slightest interest in this topic.  

This picture represents the depths of his love for that statue at the age of five, and no it was not Halloween.  My kiddos dressed up at will for years, still do.  And Grace, age 4, isn't she just too cute! 

This Week At Home, 2012, Week 43

Little notes written to remember each precious day!

The birthday boy. 

Monday...

Today is Trevor's 11th birthday!  Our custom is to take birthdays off from school.  The birthday boy got pancakes for breakfast, lunch out with Nana, and presents after dinner with Daddy.

Funny thing happened before Daddy came home.  Two kiddos came to me and said they wanted to do some school work because they were bored!  Have to love that!

Nana and Ryan

Tuesday...

Enjoyed a quiet morning at home.  Grace and I did venture out in the remnants of Sandy (so windy) to get some much needed long sleeved t-shirts and a couple new cake pans.  I am such a non-consumer that I usually go way past needing something before I go out and get it.  I also try hard to find things second hand, first.  But, there are some things that I can't find, so I must go to a box store.  It also helps when I have a gift card to spend!

Tonight was our last quiet evening for the week.  We enjoyed a fire to warm up the family room while we watched Deep Space Nine.  We are now at the last episode.  I can't believe that we've seen the whole series!  I guess that confirms us as super geeks.  We've also watched the entire series of Voyager.  When Deep Space Nine is finished, we will start on Next Generation.  Everyone needs a winter hobby.

I roasted two chickens today.  One to eat roasted and one to make into soup tomorrow.  Having the oven going for a couple hours in the afternoon is pretty nice.  

Birthday boy and Grandma. 

Wednesday...

Morning lessons were followed by an afternoon of art, friends, and AWANA. The weather is less windy today and dry.  But it is cold, so I caved and turned on the heater for the season.  I set the room thermostats to just above 60.  Space heaters will warm up the area that we are spending most time in.  I want to see if that helps keep the electric bill down this year.  I dread those bills each winter! 

I made a big yummy pot of chicken soup to be eaten with my homemade bread.  Nothing beats soup on a cold day. 

Painted for her great grandparents, who used to live in AZ.

Thursday...

Grandpa came to town!  He joined us in our lessons and then treated us to the most wonderful lunch at Cracker Barrel.  Back at home we watched (via YouTube) a wonderful show called Wartime Farm done by the same fantastic crew as Victorian Farm and Edwardian Farm.  I can't wait to watch more.  Ryan hooked up the laptop to our TV and so we can watch it on the big screen!  

Also, the kids have started NaNoWriMo on their own initiative.  They don't want me to count it for school because they say it is more fun that way.  To which I said,"OK guys, whatever!  You want to write 1600 words a day for fun?  Go for it!"  (giggles)  

Taken last Saturday while playing disc golf. 

Friday... 

This morning, we finished up our  week's lessons and are working on making lunch.  After lunch, we're going to clean the house and then bake a chocolate cake!  Tonight is small group at our house.  It will be good to see everyone! 


Weekending...

Tomorrow, we may brave the cold and try to throw the discs around.  It's supposed to be a high of 45, so I am thinking we can do this.  We also need to put plastic up on the leakiest windows.  Should be a nice weekend. Paternal grandpa is going to try to come down on Sunday. He is a lineman for the electric company and is mightily busy after a storm like Sandy blows through.  

The latest, done for her dune loving father. 

Have a great weekend, friends!
Jenn