Goodbye, Dad!

My dad was here from South Dakota (Black Hills area) for a week.  We really enjoyed his visit! He is one of the greatest men I have ever known...so loving and kind...considerate of others and yet possesses a great sense of humor.  The boys enjoyed their time with him.  Dad got to meet Titan and fell in love with him!  My dad can be reserved and is always well composed and put together (being a former Lt. Col. in the Army can do that to you!), but one night I caught him sprawled out on the floor rolling around and playing with Titan.  Not a picture that I see often of my dad!  It just cracked me up!  Here is our going away picture..taken right before Dad said good-bye.  He will be driving out of Alaska today and eventually down the whole Alaska Highway home to SD.  We will miss him!  I will post more pictures soon of our time together.

Awesome Site for Free Printables!

Check out Ellen McHenry's site for some really cool free homeschooling stuff like...

A 3-D Ocean game

A pattern to make a pop-up barnacle

And so much more!

Drives me up a Wall!!!

I knew that sometimes the boys drive me up a wall...I just didn't know they could do it to themselves! They causally mentioned to Tim and I that they could walk up the wall yesterday!  What were they talking about???! Yep, they were right! My boys walk on walls!

Noah says, "Look, Ma, no hands!"                 Zach says, "Better not hit Mom's Argentine souvenirs!"  

September Bulk Cooking, Part II

Here are the last two recipes that we made...

Quinoa Burritos (This makes tons!  It is almost dangerous to double this! LOL!)
1 cup quinoa
2 t. Pampered Chef Southwest Seasoning
1 can kidney beans, drained (15 oz)
1 1/2 cups salsa
whole wheat tortillas
1 cup shredded cheddar

Place quinoa and seasoning in a saucepan.  Cook following package directions. Once cooked, stir in beans, cheese and salsa.  Wrap 1/2 cup of the mixture into each tortilla.  Freeze.  Bake in the oven at 350 until heated through.

Here is the recipe for Black Bean, Corn, and Zucchini Enchiladas.

September Bulk Cooking

This is what we made for our cooking session for September...

Black Bean and Pumpkin Chili (Scroll down to find the recipe)
Chicken Parmesan (Scroll down)
Quinoa Burritos
Sloppy Joes
Black bean, corn and zucchini enchiliadas
Marinara sauce (scroll down)

Sloppy Joes
This is truly a bulk cooking recipe!  We reduced the amounts...
15 lbs. ground beef

6 med. onions, chopped

1 gallon ketchup

3/4 cup worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup prepared yellow mustard

1/4 cup white vinegar

1 T. chili powder

96 hamburger buns!!!!!

In two soup kettles over medium heat, cook and stir beef and onions until meat is no longer pink. Drain. Stir in the ketchup, worcestershire sauce, brown sugar, mustard, vinegar and chili powder.  Bring to a boil. Reduce heat, simmer, uncovered, for one hour.

I will post the other two recipes tomorrow!

Dad, a Camera, and a Horse

My dad is currently up for a visit.  He drove up the Alaska Highway so that he could do his nature photography along the way.  Yesterday my close friend asked him to take pictures of her yearling quarter horse.  She wanted to have some real nice photos of him.  Here are the picture I took...dad's of course, are far better!!!

Running to burn off some energy before the photo shoot...

Dad, trying to get the picture!

Working with Sabre to get him to pose.  Not an easy job!

Dog Sled Day

About a week ago our church had dog sled day for the kids. We went to a great Christian family near town that races sled dogs. They have four kids and even the three year old races!  Noah got a ride on a sled and was able to pet the up -and -coming sled dogs (born in July).  There was then a cookout of hotdogs and marshmallows. Yum!!!! After the cookout there were mattress races.

A Lesson in Failure...

Encouragement if you are feeling like you failed...

Blog Button for The Architect and the Artist!!

Sheri over at The Shades of Pink helped me create a blog button! Ok, I will be honest...I did nothing and Sheri did it all...the design, the code, the work, everything! Didn't she do a great job? Thank you, Sheri, for blessing me this week with all your help.

You can grab the button code on my sidebar.

Marvelous Marble Muffins

We just tried a new recipe from Sheri's blog, The Shades of Pink. These marble muffins are half pumpkin and half chocolate muffins.  So delicious!!! She has a lot of other great recipes...check them out!

Another Great Clip from Louie Giglio

I so needed to hear this today...how about you?

Laminin

If you have never seen this video it is so worth it!

"He is before all things, and in him all things hold together."  Colossians 1:17

Apple Chip Cake

I hardly make dessert these days, but this is a fall favorite that I try to do once a year in September.

Barb's Apple Chip Cake

1 1/4 cup oil

2 cups sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. baking soda

3 cups flour

1 tsp. vanilla

1 cup chopped nuts
3 cups peeled and chopped apples (hence the name, "apple chip")
Preheat the oven to 350.  In a bowl mix oil, sugar and eggs.  Beat until smooth. Sift flour, salt, baking soda and cinnamon and beat into wet ingredients to form a still batter. Add vanilla, nuts and apples.  Stir to blend. Spoon batter into a 9 x 13 pan.  Bake 1 hour.

Optional Frosting:
Mix 1 cup brown sugar with 4 T. cream. Cook until sugar is melted. Add 1/8 t. salt and 1/2 t. vanilla. Pour over still warm cake.

Zach's Spiritual Birthday

We always celebrate the boys' spiritual birthdays each year. Zach gave his life to the Lord on September 18th, 2002.  He was quite young...only 5 years old, so our pastor suggested that each year we celebrate his spiritual birthday to commemorate the decision he had made. Happy Birthday, Zach!

Invertebrate Classification

As many of you know, we are doing Zoology this year. We recently finished an overview of invertebrates and the different phyla (groups) that they are categorized in.  I created this workbox activity for Homeschool Share. Today the boys did the activity.  Basically they had to put the different animals in their groups.  This is not an easy task considering there are several phyla of invertebrates! It can be confusing.  We may do this activity a few more times to make sure they have got the different groups down.

Here are different categories...as you can see it is a lot to remember!

Arthropods-animals with jointed legs and an exoskeleton. (insects, spiders, crustaceans, millipedes and centipedes)

Mollusks-soft-bodied animals (octopus, animals with shells, slugs)

Worms-which are divided into three different groups: flat, round, segmented

Enhinoderms-spiny-skinned animals with suction tubed "feet". (starfish, sea urchins, sea cucumbers, sand dollars)

Poriferans-sponges

Cnidarians-hollow-bodied animals with tentacles and stinging cells (sea anemones, coral, jellyfish)

Remembering Grandma...

Today would be my grandma's 89th birthday if she were still alive. Born in 1920, Jessie Storm lost her mother when she wasn't even two years old.  Her father didn't want her (maybe because she was a girl and lived in a farming community) so her aunt and uncle raised her. Despite her hardships in childhood, Grandma grew up to be a loving and gracious person with an incredible sense of humor!!! There were so many times that I caught her doing crazy things...like the time I walked into the laundry room in her home (a ranch in Western South Dakota) and saw her sitting on the washing machine.  "Grandma, what in the world are you doing???" I asked. "The washer is off balance and I am trying to hold it in place!"  Nevermind that she was barely 100 lbs. and there was no way on earth she was going to keep a washer in line!

I loved my grandma so much that when I began to have my own children I decided that I would name one of them after her, using her name, Jessie, as his or her middle name.  I figured I would have to have a girl to pull this off and when the first baby arrived and it was a boy I decided to reserve the name in case I had a girl.  Before I became pregnant with my second child, Grandpa Clarence (Jessie's husband) encouraged me to use the name regardless if I had a boy or girl.  "Just change the spelling of Jessie if it is a boy." Grandpa died soon after, but a few years later I had my second boy and named him Noah Jesse.

Grandma died in 2001...a few months after Noah was born.  Even though she had tons of grandkids and great grankids, we were honored to be the only grandkid (me) and great grandkids (my sons) in the room with her when she went to be with Jesus. One moment she was with us...the other she was looking into the face of Jesus.  What an awesome thought!

We love you Grandma Jessie!!!

Update on Our Zoology Lapbooks

This year we are doing Zoology for our science.  You can see our plans here. We are basically going though the different phyla of the animal kingdom.  So far we have done invertebrates and we just started on vertebrate by studying amphibians.  Our is to move onto the rest of the vertebrates spending the most time on mammals. Here you can see our lapbooks/notebooks of the booklets we have done so far. I am taking the lapbook pieces from different sources.  Here is a list of the ones we are using:

Hands of a Child

Homeschool Share (most of the pieces will be from this awesome site!)

A Journey Through Learning

Some lapbook pieces created by me using files from Homeschool Share since I am a member there.

The big notebooks that we are putting our pieces in are from Bare Books.  We love these spiral bound books!  They are high quality yet not pricey!

Thoughts from Jesus, The One and Only

I recently started one of Beth Moore's older Bible studies, Jesus, The One and Only. I just love Beth Moore. I have learned so much over the years from her studies. I have done all of them except for the about King David. I will eventually get to that one, too.

Something struck me a few days ago while doing the study. Beth shared a quote from Francis Frangipane:

To inoculate me from the praise of man,

He baptized me in the criticism of man,

until I died to control of man.

This quote just hit me like a ton of bricks! To protect us from wanting the praise of man, He allows us to experience the criticism of man! Why would we need protection from the praise of man? Why is there praise potentially dangerous? Because of one little word, PRIDE! Pride is so destructive. It can ruin our relationships. It can ruin our surroundings. It can ruin our marriages. It can ruin our witness for Christ. It can ruin US! I am rethinking the criticism of man...no matter how horrible it feels to receive it, it does serve a purpose in my life.

Beth points out that even Christ experienced criticism here on earth (that is putting it mildly!). We should expect no different. "Christ was blameless yet was blamed continually," she writes. Beth also makes the point that "Blameless people are rarely those that cast blame." What a description of Christ! There is no condemnation with Him. He loves us and accepts us for who we are, warts and all. How precious to know that He receives me with loving arms when others may not.

He is worthy to be praised!

Lean on Me

One of my favorite poems...

Lean On Me
As the road ahead seems rugged,
And the path is getting steep,
I feel that I can't make it,
So my heart begins to weep.
Then I turn to see who's coming,
To join me on my way,
I see it is my Lord,
And He slowly turns to say,

Lean on me...
When you have no strength to stand,
When you feel you're going under,
Hold tighter to my hand.

Lean on me....
When you're heart begins to bleed,
When you know I'm all you have,
Then you'll find I'm all you need.

Then when I felt that no one cared,
If I lived or died,
And no one bothered asking why,
I'd go alone to cry.
When the burden got so heavy,
I could barely face the day,
I felt His arms around me,
And gently heard Him say,

Lean on me....
When you have no strength to stand,
When you feel you're going under,
Hold tighter to My hand.

Lean on me...
When you're heart begins to bleed,
When you know I'm all you have,
Then you'll find I'm all you need.
~ Author Unknown~

Unit Studies Giveaway!!

We have a winner....Kim in SD!  Congratulations, Kim! Please keep checking back as there will be more giveaways coming in the near future! Over the next two months I will be doing some giveaways for some of the homeschool products we have used over the years! On November 18th, I will do a big giveaway to celebrate my one year anniversary of blogging. So keep checking back! We will start with a great unit study book by Valerie Bendt called Unit Studies Made Easy. This book is actually 4 books in one!
How to Create Your Own Unit Study
The Unit Study Idea Book
For the Love of Reading
Success with Unit Studies

There are three ways you can enter:
*Leave me a comment with a way to contact you in case you win.
*Follow this blog and then leave me a comment that you are following. (If you are already following, leave me a comment, too.)
*Blog about this giveaway on your blog and then leave me a comment.

You can enter the giveaway until September 18th. I will choose a winner on September 19th. Good luck!!

They did it!

Ok, so my photos are horrible (blurry), but the boys did a great job!  Each created a Lego Sphinx using some simple (ok, maybe not that simple!) directions I gave them.  See this post for more information.

Free E-book for Homeschoolers!

Check out this free e-book! The opening article is from Steve and Jane Lambert from the Five in a Row Curriculum. I just finished reading their article, and it really spoke to me about how we schedule our day.  It is well worth the read!