How We Do School

Group Handwriting (At the table, on the table; it all works!)

Recess & Science (5 seconds later, the rope came undone and the boys fell=a good study of gravity!)

Nature Study--She's calling the horses to feed

Hmm.  Independent Study?  Creative Writing?  It was illuminating, whatever you call it.

We're finished with the first six weeks of the school year, and I'm wondering if the whole year will fly by?  I hope not; first grade is fun!

For those who've asked, the boys are definitely left-handed (So am I), but Addie's still up in the air.  She likes them both right now. :)

Homemade Donuts

You're going to love this recipe:  it will make you a hero in your children's eyes, and you can know that it only took you 25 seconds.

I called my mom last week because we were about to read the "Donuts" chapter in Homer Price, and I had vivid memories of Saturday mornings making donuts with my own mom.  I wanted to see if I could master making donuts in time for that day.  When she answered, I said "Mom, I know you're in a rush and will probably have to hunt for this recipe and call me back, but do you vaguely remember how to make the homemade donuts you made for us growing up?"

"Yep.  Open a can of refrigerated biscuits, cut a hole in the center of each biscuit, and throw it in the Fry Daddy.  Then roll it in cinnamon sugar. Take the "holes" and throw them in, too."

"That's it?  You mean you didn't make the batter from scratch?"

She paused, then said, "Sarah, I had three little kids.  Do you really think I made homemade donut batter every Saturday morning?"

Good point.  So now we've had homemade donuts twice in one week, my kids think I'm a hero, and I get fresh donuts pretty much whenever I want them!  Thanks, Mom, for sharing your secret!!

p.s.  You'll need a good amount of vegetable oil to fry them in (a deep skillet will work just as well as a fryer), but you can save the oil and use it 6-8 more times.  At about $1.50 for a can of biscuits, that comes to $1.80 per 10 donuts and donut holes, and you didn't even have to get out of your jammies to drive to the donut store.  

Making a Plan

It's a happy weekend here, with homemade donuts for breakfast and lots of scurrying around to get ready for a father/son campout this weekend.  Chris and Caiden leave in a while, while Grayson and Addie and I figure out what to do by ourselves!  

It's finally cooling down here, and I'm tempted just to snuggle up with the two little ones, make lots of hot chocolate, and read to them all weekend.  The other, more productive side of me, thinks I should attempt to clean the entire house.  But then I look out the windows, see the acorn showers falling on the front drive, and think we should go for a walk down the country lane instead.

Now I'm onto something.  Have a happy Friday in your neck of the woods!

Coming soon:  answers about my Post-It note system, pictures of some best friends, and the knitting post I've promised for a year but not delivered yet!  Oh, it's exciting around here :)

Weekend Highlights

The weekend's halfway over, but it's been a full one:

*Caiden and I found a female black widow spider near the latch of one of our pasture gates.  We grabbed the spider identification book, blew on her so she'd move around, and marveled as we read the description of what would happen to us if she bit us.  Not pretty.  But fascinating, for sure.

*Chris and I have been painting our great room, which is no small feat.  We rented a scaffolding, and I had a bona fide panic attack last night when I got up to the tallest point and realized I still had to crawl down.  I was tempted to live up there, and I was slightly disappointed that I hadn't lost weight when I got down, I sweated so much.  

*I've been cooking a ton lately, all from this fantastic website.    I've made brisket, mashed potatoes, homemade rolls, tostadas, lasagna, orange muffins, black bean soup, pan-fried ribeyes, and breakfast burritos.  Chris is still in shock.  It's the most cooking I've done in one week, possibly ever.  I think the Pioneer Woman is his new hero.  But I'm really, really tired.  And full. :)

*Chris hung up a tire swing and an infant swing for the kids, and I can't describe how precious it was to see Caiden today lead Addison, holding hands, across the pasture to push her in her swing.  She had on a little lavender fleece outfit, with a gigantic pink flower bow on her head that he found somewhere and decided she needed, and as they walked, she chattered to him with the hugest grin on her face.  She adores him, and the feeling's mutual.  Heaven help the boy who thinks he'll marry her someday.  Caiden will have something to say about that!  But I stood in the window and snapped a mental picture, to hold onto.  I'm still feeling a little bit teary.  Grayson turned four recently, and I'm having a hard time accepting that Addie will be three next spring.  I don't want my babies to grow up!!  I'm tempted to have three more, just to keep somebody little around here!  

Quickly this post is rambling its way to nowhere.  See, that's what happens when I get nostalgic.  Combined with cooking exhaustion and the knowledge that we have to do a second coat of paint tomorrow (read:  crawl back up on the death trap) after church, and I think I'm off to take a bath.  Miss Read and I are finishing up our third novel together, "Storm in the Village."   For some reason, I love reading novels every fall that take place in England.  I started this in college with "Wuthering Heights," and since I can't bring myself to read it again, I pick a new one each autumn.  

Okay, at this point only my mother is still with me, and probably only halfway, so I'm signing off.  Clearly I'm in no shape to write anything else tonight.  But did I mention that I'm really full?  The good news is that tomorrow's lasagna for after church is already done, and that means no cooking tomorrow!  Yay!!

I hope your weekend is full of random, fun little things, lots of good food, good sibling moments, and no poisonous spiders or death trap heights.  :)  I'm really finished now.  

Fall Sewing

I know you'll be shocked to hear that I've been sewing a lot lately. That might explain why my floors are so dirty. I usually just blame it on the kids and dogs, though. When it comes to projects, I seem to have an aversion to only one thing going, so I stock up on 68 different projects at a time, then get overwhelmed and go knit something instead. Which doesn't help my pile much. And then I go shopping for one tiny piece of fabric and come home with five. There's something addicting about fabric.

So I decided to actually do something about the list.  First I worked on making lined curtains for Addie's room.  She's still in a crib, but soon-ish she'll be in a bed, so I'm planning on making the patchwork duvet cover from Amy Butler's "In Stitches" book.  I also want to make awindow seat cushion, rocker cushion, pillows, and anything else I can dream up.  I'm using the Sweet Escapes line from FreeSpirit, and I can't wait to see it all done!  Back to the curtains:  I finished them, hung them up, and then realized I didn't love them.  So I bought more fabric today to add another 12 inches at the bottom.  I'll take a picture when I'm done.  When I envision the final product, I love it in my head.  I hope I love it as much in reality.

And I'm finishing up a quilt for somebody special who rarely read my blog, but if I get into details, this'll be the one time she does.  So mum's the word 'til later.  But I love it.  And if I didn't love her so much, I'd keep it.  I do think a miniature version might be needed by a little girl I also love dearly.  Hmmm.  Maybe out of the leftover fabrics from her duvet cover?

Then there's the football-watching pillow I cut out when my machine was broken but forgot about finishing.  I found this really cool mini corduroy that's tan with embroidered footballs on it, and I'm pairing it with this horrendously-shedding hairy brown fabric that sounds terrible but is really cute.  The lady at the fabric counter had to sweep after she cut it.  It'll probably break my machine, now that I think about it.

I also stole several sets of sheets from my parents' lakehouse, with vague plans in my head for them, but I can't divulge, since my mother does read my blog.  Unlike my sister.  

And of course there's always fall pajamas that need to be made.  All three kids have grown out of last years', which is good, since I stocked up on flannel recently.  

It looks like the floors might not get real clean for a while, doesn't it?  But at least we'll be wearing jammies that fit.  And that counts for something, right?

Oh!  I forgot to mention the robots I made for Grayson's birthday.  I'll take them on a photo shoot soon and post pictures.  I love them.

Spaghetti Soup and Fall Music

For those who asked, here you go!

My "fall music" is a CD of Celtic Psalms.  I looked on iTunes to see if I could find something to link to, but it's not there.  And when I Googled Celtic Psalms, it pulls up the album by Eden's Bridge, but that's not what I have.  My CD is green, and it has several of the Psalms sung Celtic-style.  It's very quiet, very soothing, and reminds me of fall because the first time I played it, I was rearranging furniture in my family room after Caiden was born, and it was fall.  There's nothing I love more than rearranging the furniture, except for the season of fall, so when I have both at the same time, it's bliss.  Hence the "fall music" love.

See, doesn't this look like fall music?

Here's the info, if you're interested:

Celtic Psalms, "The Celtic Series"

Produced in MCMXCVIII (Is that 1993?  I can't read that many Roman numerals.)

by Bill Vincent

"Music to Soothe the Soul" is printed on the CD.  See, I told you it's soothing!

And the spaghetti soup recipe, from the cookbook, "Better Homes and Gardens Biggest Book of Soups and Stews."  I love making soup because it's real cooking, but everything goes into one pot, and I usually don't have to worry about keeping a good eye on it.  It's hard to ruin soup.

Souper Spaghetti

1# lean ground beef

1/2 c. each chopped onion, green pepper, celery, carrot  

2 cloves garlic, minced

2 1/2 c. water

2  14 oz. cans diced tomatoes, undrained

1 jar spaghetti sauce

1 T. sugar

1/2 tsp. dried Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp. salt or 1/4 tsp. coarse Kosher salt

1/4 tsp. black pepper

dash crushed red pepper

2 oz. dried spaghetti, broken into 2-in. pieces

several pieces fresh basil, if you have it handy

NOTE:  Most of these ingredients can be changed out for other things, like different veggies, or different styles of tomatoes, etc.  Like I said, it's hard to ruin soup.  And since soup is almost always better the next day, make a lot, and you can feed your kids a hot lunch.  I added a can of beans and more noodles the second day, to make up for what we'd eaten for dinner the night before.

Cook ground beef and all veggies over medium-high heat til browned and vegetables are tender.

Add rest of ingredients and bring to boil.  Then reduce heat to boil very gently, uncovered, about 12-15 minutes or til pasta is tender.

Serve that with some crusty bread and a salad, with your fall music playing quietly in the background, and voila!  Instant Autumn.  :)  Which is important in Texas, where fall comes somewhere around Thanksgiving.  Until then, I just pretend.

Happy fall, friends!  Enjoy the recipe and the music!  If you make it, let me know what you thought!

How to Come Home

We spent part of the weekend at my parents' lakehouse, sans my parents.  It was, actually, very  funny to call my mom and tell her all about her new house.  She's only spent 15 minutes in it.  So now that I've spent two nights there, I'm the connoisseur.  Scary.

Then we rushed back home, for Chris to make it to church, and I walked in with that feeling of, "Is it ever worth going away, when coming home takes so much work?"  So I got busy.  Here's how to come home without letting it make you crazy or destroy your house:

We unloaded the car as we came in, putting everything away right away, except the contents of the two small suitcases.  Then I Febrezed the inside of my van and threw away all the McDonald's trash.  There's nothing like getting in the car and realizing you left a sippy cup of milk in it.  Blech.  I hate unloading the car, but it only takes a few minutes, and it's better than leaving it for later.

After that, I put Addie down, sent the boys to play Legos for roomtime, took a bath with a book, and took a nap.  I highly recommend it, if you can squeeze it in.  I got very little sleep while I was gone, and everything in life feels better after a little alone time and a nap.

Then I got busy for the second time:  spaghetti soup on the stove, and artisan bread and pumpkin pie in the oven.  None of them takes much time or odd ingredients, so they're great to make the house smell good after a trip away, and I don't have to run to the store.  After a weekend of eating out, it's nice to sit down to real food, especially food that doesn't take much effort.  

I didn't do anything today except that.  No laundry, no bills, no cleaning.  Today was just about getting back into the house, cleaning out the car, and eating comfort food.  Tomorrow I'll unpack and plan out the next week.  It's a slow finish to a leisurely trip.  And did I mention there's a pumpkin pie sitting in my kitchen window, waiting for me?

Now it's 9 p.m., and (after I eat some pie), I'm crawling off to bed early.  That's the best part of coming home:  sleeping in my own bed.  It's always good to be home. 

An Interruption

I was just reading this morning in my favorite Elisabeth Elliot book, "Keep a Quiet Heart," about allowing God to use the interruptions and irritations in life. Then I told my mom how overwhelmed I feel with our October schedule, and that I just wished I could stay in bed all day long and read more of Elisabeth. And then it happened: Addie threw up. On my down comforter. And on my bedroom carpet. And I realized that while I didn't hear God's actual voice, it seemed a pretty clear message:

"Sarah, here's an interruption in your schedule. The birthday party? Cancelled. The errands? Not going to happen. Stay home, love on your little girl, and be thankful for a chance to slow down. And do it with a cheerful attitude. That's your job for today."

So that's what I'm doing today. That, and a little laundry.


p.s. Hey look! It's a snappy new template! And it was free, and I did it in about 2 minutes. So if you're home with sick kids, or otherwise have 2 free minutes and want to customize your blog for free, click on the top left link on this page. I love easy technology!!

Sunday

Creative title, isn't it? How is it that I last wrote on Tuesday, and now it's already Sunday? Does anybody else feel like falling is flying by? SLOW DOWN, FALL! You're my favorite season!!

As I survey the family room, the floor is a mess. Crumbs, errant coins, a soup bowl, shoes missing partners, a Tinkertoy can lid. If I look, I suspect the rest of the house looks the same. On Sundays I try to unwind, forgetting about laundry and errands and emails, and just hang out after church. But not this week. This week is full, and I don't really like "full," so today I'm trying to get ahead. Then maybe the week won't feel quite so full? That's what I'm hoping, anyway.

I've got a new system of organization I'll have to share soon. It involves differently-colored post-it notes, and it seems to work so far. Well, it works until Addison plays with them, but that's another story.

So today my goal is to bake some bread to use for breakfasts later on this week, wrap some birthday presents, and finish Addie's curtains. The velvet bedspread hanging over her window has been there long enough. And if that gets done, I need to tackle the family room, although sometimes I question why I even try. Fifteen seconds after it's clean, it's messy again. Didn't Erma Bombeck Phyllis Diller say, "Cleaning the house while the children are growing is like shoveling the walk while it's still snowing?" Amen, sister. I feel your pain.

Have a happy Sunday, whether it's productive or happily not, and I'll see you back here again later this week. Hopefully with a clean floor.