Menus for the week of 2/27/06

Monday
Egg Foo Yung
Rice
Salad
Almond Cookies

Tuesday
Meat & Potato Salad
Pickles
Carrot sticks
Apple pie

Wednesday
Leftover day

Thursday
BBQ Chicken
Sweet potato fries
Corn sticks
Pineapple & strawberries

Friday
Breakfast for dinner!
Scrambled eggs with cheese
Bacon
Glazed peach coffee cake

Saturday
Leftovers

Sunday
Soup
Sandwiches

Getting ready for Monday

I'm sooo excited.  Hubby and I decided to order kindergarten curriculum from My Father's World.  I started V on it last week.  I have been looking through all the lessons and I am so excited to do this.  There's a lot of the Charlotte Mason approach integrated into the curriculum.  I've been doing more structured schooling with hopes of working my way to CM, but ironically, felt I needed a guided CM approach.  And MFW, I feel, is exactly this.  There is some workbook work, but it's mostly DOING things and reading storybooks; I love it!
Right now, we're in the introduction part, which usually takes two weeks, but I'm doing 2 per day with V, since he already knows his alphabet and numbers pretty well, and this curriculum starts out assuming students do not know these things.  Which will be wonderful when it's time for A to do school.  This is such an easier approach to phonics than what I started out with with V…I think we were both getting frustrated.  I had the worksheets, but no guidance on how to go about teaching phonics.  MFW even gives you what to say!  LOL That's exactly what I needed to start out!  Can you tell I am so happy and excited to have gotten this curriculum?
We have already decided we are going to use MFW for 1st grade, as well.  Since we're officially starting at such an odd time of the year, we will be done by August, have time to give V some time off, and get him started on 1st grade by September.  So he will be a whole year ahead, as he will turn 5 this coming March.
Anyway, I am going through making sure the basic house stuff is done, like Hubby's work shirts ironed for tomorrow, dishes done, and general picking up done.  As soon as we get up tomorrow, I want to have breakfast, do my quiet time in the Word, then get going on school.  Once we get that done, I can start on some serious de-cluttering around here.  It's so great to finally get back into a routine!

Menus for the week of 2/20/06

Monday
Taco Ring
Cucumber salad
Ice cream sundaes

Tuesday
Ravioli carbornara
Garlic bread

Broccoli
Grapes

Wednesday
Leftover day

Thursday
Chicken Parmesan
Veggies
Baked potatoes
Pound cake w/ peaches & raspberry sauce

Friday
Fish w/ lemon sauce
Broccoli cheddar gratin
Red potatoes w/ butter & dill
Cookies (not sure what kind to make yet LOL)

Saturday
Leftover day

Sunday
Soup
Sandwiches

Crockpot Chicken and Stuffing

4 boneless skinless chicken breasts
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/3 cup milk
1 box stuffing mix (such as Stove Top) with seasoning packet
1 2/3 cups water
Place chicken in crockpot.  Mix cream of mushroom soup and milk until smooth; pour over the chicken.  Mix together the stuffing mix, seasoning packet (some brands already has the seasoning mixed in) and water.  Let soak for about a minute and then pour over the soup mixture.  Cook on low for 6-8 hours.
Enjoy!

Lots of smiles!

Oh, how I adore baby smiles 👶.  A smiled for the first time at a little over 4 weeks old, but now, he's doing it all the time!  As long as he's not cranky, I can usually get him to smile whenever I want him to, and I absolutely love it!  He even makes happy noises along with his smiles.  It totally melts my heart every time he looks into my eyes and his mouth opens in the biggest smile I have ever seen. *Happy sigh*

Menus for the week of 2/13/06

Yay, I actually finally did my menu planning!  LOL.  And I actually did them for the next three weeks!  Here's this week's.
Monday
Crockpot chicken and stuffing
Buttered egg noodles
Veggies (something from the freezer)
Cherry cobbler

Tuesday
Pizza
Salad
My “killer” brownies

Wednesday
Leftover day

Thursday
Minestrone
Homemade French bread
Fruit

Friday
Crispy chicken
Cheesy potatoes
Veggies
Strawberry shortcake

Saturday
Leftover day

Sunday
Is usually just a soup and sandwich day as we do the big lunch over at my parents every Sunday after church.

Wednesday Bright and Early

LOL I know this probably isn't too early for some, but it is amazing that I got up early enough to be on here by now.  For A's last feeding of the night, I just decided to get up and get moving.  Hubby is working all day today, so hopefully much will be done when he arrives home tonight.  He thought he was starting to get sick with a cold last night, but he awoke feeling better today.  Hopefully, the long workday won't bring back those feelings of being sick.
I have my pot of hot water brewing in the coffee pot right now.  I do that so that all the day long I can choose; coffee, tea, or cocoa.  I have a tray out on my counter that has a variety of tea bags, coffee bags, cocoa packets along with my own cocoa mix, individual creamers and packets of sugar.  Then in the morning I just run plain water through the coffee pot to keep it hot all day.  That way, it caters to whatever mood I'm in (Hubby doesn't like drinking hot beverages if he can help it).  Plus, I'm ready if company decides to drop by.
So, I'm waiting for my pot of water to finish, then I can have my quiet time in God's word.  After that, I will get V started on school, then work on the disaster zone that is my front porch.  We've got bags upon bags of baby clothes that Hubby had pulled out of the basement and that people have given us when A was born.  I need to sort these out by size and get them ready to store until we need them.
Until next time…

Tuesday for school

Well, after V's nap, he calmed down and had a pretty good day for school.  I also found a Kindergarten skill test online at www.tampareads.com/skills/kindergarten/test-html.htm
I don't really like public school “standards” but it's nice to know where most kids need to be before they enter the 1st grade.  V is doing preschool right now, and he already knows about half the stuff on this test.  Now I'm working on some of the other things in addition to what we're already doing.
V has learned “The Pledge of Allegiance” per the request of Hubby, and we start out every school day with that.  Then we do prayer.  For one of his AWANA activities, V has made his own prayer list, and that's what we pray to start out his school time.  Then we read a chapter or two out of the bible…right now we are reading the Gospel of John and just finished chapter 5.  After bible reading and discussion, we pick a devotion out of his devotional, “Gotta Have God,” which is a devotional for boys ages 2-5.  If he has a lesson to do out of his AWANA book, we will do that after this.
Next, we move on to worksheets I pick out from his book.  We bought a complete kindergarten basic curriculum workbook up at Sam's and he is working his way through that.  Plus he has a thinking skills workbook and a fun maze book (he LOVES mazes and is very good at them) that we got him from Walmart.  Today, he learned how to write his uppercase and lowercase U's and did some activities involving the numbers 13 and 14 (we're working our way up to 20).  Also, since he finished working with 12 yesterday, we dabbled into time a little bit.
Then we do a little break and have a snack, and if he wants, he can do an activity out of his Precious Moments activity book (which is usually more learning anyway).  Then we do our reading and any added activities.  Right now, we're reading out of Dinosaurs by Design.  We also have a sticker book that has all kinds of dinosaur stickers with a small blurb about the dinosaur.  We do one per day and then go to enchantedlearning.com to learn a little more about that dinosaur and print out a coloring page for V to color.  Then I hang it on our wall above our desk so that he can look at them and once in a while I will quiz him out of nowhere on what the dinosaurs are called…he's getting really good at remembering the names.  So far, we have learned about the Pterodactylus, the Diplodocus, the Compsognathus and the Brachiosaurus.
I also made reading flashcards for color words and also for number words 1-10 and we are going through that right now.  I am also going through the calendar with him now, too.  Besides the color and number words, he can read about 10 other words without help as well.  He can also spell and write his name and the word apple and ball without any help.
So, now that I've written a novel, can you tell I'm excited we're back into our school routine?
For Kindergarten, we are considering either My Father's World or KONOS.  I would love to hear opinions of those who have used either of these.  Any other suggestions are also welcome!

Sugar highs...or lows?

Oh, my, what a week it has been!  Last Monday, we finally settled back into our homeschooling routine here with V.  He has been doing really well, too, and excited to get back to it.  We started learning more about dinosaurs, as he is really into them right now.  We are reading out of a book called Dinosaurs by Design, by Duane T. Gish.  It is a really good book, as it takes on a biblical approach to the dinosaurs.
Despite being back to school, V had been acting impossible for the last few days.  Hubby and I couldn't figure out what was going on, especially since once he has school work to keep him occupied, he's usually pretty mellow.  Well, today we found out what was going on.  Hubby found on the floor a little round pink thing and we weren't sure if it was a piece of candy or some sort of pill or something.  V claimed he found it in his pocket.  I was freaking out looking on drugs.com (they have a very good pill identifier there) to see if I could find this thing on there.  Meanwhile, Hubby tried to get out of V where he got it from.  After lying and throwing a bunch of fits (very unlike V), he finally broke down and led Hubby to the kitchen closet/pantry.  In there, I have a box with holiday baking supplies, including many different kinds of sprinkles and such.  Well, he had been getting into those and he proceeded to show Hubby which ones he had tried and whether or not he liked them.  I could not believe it, but at least we know where this behavior was coming from.  By this point, V had calmed down enough to go take a nap without throwing a fit about it.  And all the sugar (and I'm sure there was tons of red 40 in that stuff as well that was contributing just as much) is hidden out of reach again, at least I hope.  I thought it was last time, too, but apparently, those darn kids keep growing and getting smarter!
So now, V and A are both taking naps at the same time…praise God!  And Hubby has gone off to work for the evening, so for the first time in a while, I've had time to get on this…this…oh yeah, it's called a computer!  I've had time to get on the computer and do a little update and catch up on A LOT of email.

Getting back into the swing of things

Well, Hubby got called in to his part time job this morning, which, while I am sad to have him gone, is really a blessing as the hours there are scarce during the winter.  Hubby has really been blessed with hours there since A was born and he took some paid time off from his full time job as we sure could use the money right now.  The Lord always provides.
So, with the call, we were up and at 'em early this morning and after feeding and cuddling with A for awhile and doing a quick email check, it was off to the kitchen to get it clean!  I cleaned the fridge and got all the dishes done.  I got everything picked up and put where it belongs, so now I have some counter space.  The only thing I have to do now is get a bunch of canning jars out of my cabinet so I can make room for bottles, as they are taking over one side of my counter.  A has been having problems latching on, so I am pumping breastmilk and feeding him through bottles for the time being.  At every feeding, though, we try the breast first and sometimes he does get it!  But sometimes he gets sooooooo frustrated, and I don't want him to get too upset about it, so we go to the bottle.  I know he will get it eventually…I have a friend who went through the same thing and all of a sudden at around 3 weeks old, her little one latched on like she had been doing it the whole time. 
Anyway, as time, energy and A allows, I am going to be working on getting this house picked up, one room at a time.  I'm not going to worry so much about deep cleaning yet, but I just want to get things picked up and to find a home for all this stuff laying around from Christmas and the baby.  The other big thing really, now that the dishes are done, is getting laundry done…it's mostly clean, but I have a huge pile on my dining room table that needs to be folded and put away.  I think once I get that done, the picking up part won't be so bad.
I also really want to make some banana bread.  It seems like it's been forever since I baked, and we have some bananas in the basket that are just about perfect for banana bread right now.  Plus, Hubby will be home close to dinner time, so I want to find a good meal to make for dinner.  This should be fairly easy since when I cleaned the fridge, I found a lot of good basics in there, plus our freezer and pantry are stocked pretty good.  The hard part will be making a decision.
Well, I best go get busy!  I hope you all have a blessed day!