Here are the rolls that Jodi has on her blog. I made them and they are good! I did the cinnamon/sugar ones and they are mostly gone already.lol In addition to making these, I also did another batch of granola because the batch I made on Monday was supposed to last 2 weeks and it only lasted 5 days.lol I've also started a list for my every two month run to BJ's and will try to get that done either tonight or tomorrow morning before our run to TRU. Now, I need to work on dinner. We only have Chili left on the list of dinners so I guess that I won't have to make too many decisions.lol

Blessings,

Lisa

Look at this sweet little guy! He's going to be a great big brother. He found Allison's Vision Forum doll and just fell in love with it.lol

Lisa

Genevieve and Isaac setting up Duck, Duck, Goose. They love this game!

Genevieve and Isaac playing in the sand...

Allison blowing bubbles cause mom got tired.lol

Pictures from the park...

Today was a great day! I woke up feeling pretty good and decided that it was a good "park day." So off we went! We were able to get up and going before 9:30 and the park was so nice. Another cool front came through last night and the temps were perfect for being at the park. The little ones were so happy that we ended up staying until 11:00! I got tired then and decided it was lunch time so the older kids and I discussed the options and decided to go to Larry's Giant Subs. I've never been there but the kids go there on the weekends with their grandparents sometimes and they love it. Well, now I love it too!lol It was a tad expensive for lunch but the food was much better than most places we've gone to lately. Isaac and Genevieve shared a turkey sub and they ate the whole thing.lol I had the Philly Cheese Steak and it was very good. O.k., I had the steak part, no onions, with lettuce and mustard and a pickle on the side. lol This is the first time that we didn't have any leftovers. Everyone ate everything.lol I think that on payday weeks we'll splurge on this.

Now the kids are working on finishing up their school work for the week. They actually finished most subjects yesterday, so they don't have too much to do. I'm so thankful that the kids are really taking their work seriously and working so hard. They are making a lot of progress this year.

I talked to Eric and he's been working on the requirements for the Bright Futures Scholarship. He's found that the state has pretty simple rules for homeschoolers and that we'll be able to qualify without too much hoop-jumping. He's really stepping into the guidance counselor role that I asked him to take on if the kids decided to homeschool for highschool. I'm thankful that he's so willing to help me. What a blessing he is!

Well, the little ones are setting up a game and the olders are busy with their work so I must go.lol This schedule is really perfect for us. Everyone is getting what they need each day and I'm not stressed at all. What a blessing.

Lisa

Well, the schedule is going great.LOL We've been pretty busy today just trying to keep up with everything. Genevieve's birthday is on Sunday and we are going to get some party supplies from Party City on Saturday and pick up whatever we are getting her for her birthday. It's hard to figure out what she might like this year. She really hasn't outgrown anything, toy-wise and we just bought her new clothes because she all the sudden had a growth spurt, after being in size 3T for 2 years. She couldn't even put her panties on they were so small.LOL We thought about taking her somewhere but she's so young I don't think she'd understand that THAT was her birthday.LOL So we're buying party supplies even though we don't really have any kids to invite and we'll just celebrate it within the family. As for gifts, I have no idea. I've been looking on the internet at different stores but I really don't see anything that she'd play with.

We just got back from the YMCA. The kids take homeschool P.E. there on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Usually, I just go home and wait the hour and go pick them up but today decided to stay and chat with the other moms. Well, the little ones went crazy!lol Isaac thought the water fountain was "magic" and kept running over to it and pushing the bar to make the water appear. Everytime the water appeared he would scream with delight.lol Let's just say we were a little distractive. I'm guessing I'll need to find a better place to wait for the kids from now on. It's been starting to get a little cooler here. Every week or two we'll have a nice cool front that will take the heat to barely manageable so I'm thinking about this little park that is down the street that might make a nice place to wait. It has no trees so I've been avoiding this particular park but the good park is too far away to get there and back in an hour.

Whew! I guess I'm just rambling. I woke up tired today and am just trying to make it through the day. All the kids have been great today and that really makes my day.lol The house is clean, the wash is done, even the little ones are bathed. So in my books, that's a good day!

Blessings,

Lisa

Here is the inside of my new dishwasher! I put stuff in it so that you could see the different levels. This will save us so much time! It holds a lot and it cleans better than I do.LOL

Lisa

I get my dishwasher today! Yipeee!LOLOL I'll take pictures once it's installed. This is the most amazing dishwasher that is made! It's the Maytag Jetclean 3. It has three levels to put dishes in and has four cleaning wands. It also heats it's own water and has a sterlize button for bottles and when everyone has had the icks. Pretty cool, huh? lol Who knew an appliance could make me so excited!

I implemented a new schedule today and the day is going really smoothly. I think it's a keeper! Normally, when I change things it's chaos for a couple of days but today has been quiet. I think this routine fits us as a family. I am really looking forward to each change of subject/routine each hour.

Well, it's my lunch hour/clean up time, so I better get finished.

Blessings,

lisa

Here's an activity out of The Preschooler's Busy Book that Genevieve and I did today. She was so proud that she found all the matches! We just took index cards and wrote the upper case letter on the left side and the lower case letter to match on the right side and then cut them apart into puzzle pieces. She had a hard time with some of the letter matches and was proud when she got them all done. I am really enjoying this book! It has a lot of great ideas and everything seems to be right on par for her needs. Not too easy and not too hard. The older kids and I will be putting more of these activities together during our free times for Genevieve to do during school times.

Blessings,

Lisa

O.k. so far today I've completed most of our laundry, made two different fudge sauces, made a huge batch of granola, and just put our dinner in the oven for tonight. I also straightened the house and made a trip to the Post Office.LOL

On the little kid front, they've:

played playdough
played store
played McDonalds
bubbles
painted
went to the post office with me
and are now wrestling with the older kids while I write this.

I think we've really accomplished a lot today. I'm ready for a rest.LOL If I don't watch out, we may end up becoming "over achievers."LOL

Blessings,

Lisa

The Art of Sauce, Chocolate that is...

:Edited to say that Alton Browns recipe has turned into a brick and it's no longer tasting very good.LOL In fact, my dh just threw it out. Now the Emeril sauce is the winner and everyone likes it. Don't waste good chocolate on AB's recipe.


O.k. I've made both sauces. If you make Alton Brown's cook it no more than 3 minutes. It gets grainy with time. I sampled it throughout the cooking process and it is good but grainy if you cook it too long. It is what I think Fudge sauces should taste like, a cross between icing and candy. It's thick and rich! Very good! Just be careful not to cook it too long.

Emeril's sauce, which was tested by my tasting panel, was judged good, but more like pudding. Genevieve likes this one best as she keeps bringing her spoon back for more.LOL Both older kids liked it and said it was more like pudding.

So there. My fudge sauce making is done and I would say that we have 2 good sauces to choose from on Ice Cream day.

Here are the recipes:

Chocolate Syrup

3/4 cup water
1 1/2 cups sugar
(Bring to gentle boil over med.high heat.)
Wisk in:3/4 cup dutch cocoa
pinch of salt
1 tbsp honey
Continue to cook allowing the syrup to reduce and thicken, 3-5 minutes.
Add 2 tsp vanilla
Allow to cool and strain.
Enjoy!

Emerils Chocolate Sauce:
3/4 cup half-and-half
1 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/2 pound semisweet chocolate chips
1/4 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Melt together and enjoy!

Blessings,

Lisa

My menu for this week.

Lunch

sandwiches
pizza
hot dogs
fish sticks
salad sandwiches


Dinner

Chili with toppings
Oriental Pepper steak with rice
Nacho dip and chips
BBQ chicken and salad
ham and bean soup and rolls
baked chicken and roasted veggies


I'll be making granola this week to last us for 2 weeks and maybe yogurt near the end of the week. I never made the chocolate chip muffins, so those will be done on Monday but I did get the Blueberry ones done last week. We will also make ice cream sometime this week. I'm hoping to try making Alton Brown's Fudge sauce for the ice cream. I hate the premade stuff and really, Genevieve can't eat it, so this will be a good way for her to have something other than vanilla. I may even decide to make some strawberry sauce, if I have time. Then the kids can have banana splits. Should be a good week! I've even gotten my shopping done already!

Blessings,

Lisa

Here is our city and roads that we made. Isaac is really enjoying this! That is a Clean diaper behind him, he emptied out his diaper holder right before I took the picture.LOL Even right before I put him to bed, he was playing with this.

Here is Freaky Fred.LOL

Today was a looonnnnggg day.LOL Isaac was up again last night, several times and it just makes it feel like yesterday never ended. We've had a pretty good day, nothing exciting just regular. We were stuck at home today because we were waiting for Terminx to arrive. We were able to come up with many different activities to keep us busy. First, the kids played with the Easy Bake Oven. They made blue cake, chocolate chip cake, and pretzels. After they finished with the oven, they moved on to crafts.LOL First, Jon took Genevieve around the block to collect flowers and then they shaved crayons and made stained glass windows by having me iron it all between two pieces of wax paper. Then they all made two scarecrow door hangers from Oriental Trading Company. They named Genevieve's Freaky Fred. LOL He had three eyes and he was put together pretty interesting.LOL They all had a good time. I gave Isaac some cotton balls and glue and he glued them onto a piece of paper with a face drawn on it. The hardest part was keeping him from eating the glue.LOL After all this fun, the older kids worked on their school work and Isaac had a bottle and watched a little t.v. while I worked with Genevieve. We did some cutting and pasting and then I set her up with some paint with water. Then I went to snuggle with my little Isaac who was just rolling around on the floor being as cute as can be.LOL He's such a sweetie.

I bought The Toddlers Busy Book and The Preschoolers Busy Book and finally had a chance to look through them today. It has really good ideas! Reminds me of Slow and Steady Get Me Ready. I decided to try one of the activities in the book which was to tape a road onto the floor for the kids to drive their cars on. Well, I didn't want to chance ruining the carpet so I used a box and drew a road and town. It turned out to be alot of fun for both little ones. My ds helped to draw the city and roads on the second part of town and the little ones played with the box the rest of the day. I'll upload the pictures of the town next. There's a couple of things I want to try out in the book next week but I need to collect some supplies. I think we'll try the puffed rice "sand box" next and I thought I'd try to put together a Baker's box and a Busy box. I really like the books a lot!

It was a good day.

Blessings,

Lisa

It was a busy day! I feel like I've accomplished a lot! I spent the day cleaning out Isaac and Genevieve's rooms. Well, first we went to the park. LOL The kids had a great time and the little ones were able to play with some friends. After the park I started on the little kids rooms. Isaac has been growing so much that it was time to sort through all the clothes and put away the ones that he's out grown. It was so sad to see so many of my favorite outfits being put in a bin for the next baby! He's also out grown two pairs of shoes and I even found a stray bib or two hiding on the changing table.LOL I also went through all the toys and was able to find at least 4 bags to give to Goodwill. I also found 2 bags of trash or broken toys to throw away. His room looks so nice now. Next I worked on Genevieve's room. I organized all of her clothes because she's been putting things away lately and well, it was a mess.LOL I also found a bunch of things that she's outgrown that I put away just in case this one's a girl. I was able to find at least 2 bags for Goodwill and one bag of broken stuff in her room. Most of her things, she's just grown into so mostly it was just organizing and cleaning. My plan is to move Isaac into the "big kid" room when he's around 2.5-3 years old and keep Isaac's current room as a nursery. That way, as he grows out of the toys in his room we'll just move him up to the toys in Genevieve's room. If this new baby's a boy then eventually the boys will share a room but not until they can both have big kid toys.LOL

All in all it was a very productive day. I'm glad that I made the time to go to the park! It was another beautiful day and I would've hated missing it.

Blessings,

Lisa

Today has been a good day! I woke up at 4 this morning and couldn't go back to sleep. Instead of just laying there, I got up and began my chores for the day. I was able to get most of the wash done before 8 this morning! I was also showered and dressed by 7 this morning and ready for the day. See, I had a surprise for the kids. Last night, the very first cool front came through and the weather was reported to be fabulous, so today was our first official park day! I got everyone out the door by 9 this morning with lunches packed in case they lasted that long.LOL The weather was nice and the park was just wonderful! The kids had a blast. Isaac got tired around 10:30 and we decided to come home to eat lunch. When we got home we had two boxes sitting on the doorstep! Yea! It was the Catch a Bubbles that I ordered! While we prepared lunch, we took turns blowing bubbles. The little ones were so happy!

Now that lunch is almost finished, the older kids will get back to the grind stone and complete their work for the day and I'll play with the littles. Gotta love these kind of days!!!

Blessings,

Lisa

My Menu this Week: (completely done by Allison)

Lunch

Pizza
Hot dogs and chili
Lunchables
Ramen
Mac and Cheese

Dinner

Baked Tilapia
Hamburgers and Fries
Steak and Potatoes
Salad Bar
Grilled Chicken


Today is muffin making and bread making day. I love to have muffins in the freezer for lunches and snacks. It's a great traveling food. I bought some frozen blueberries, so I'll make blueberry muffins and I'll make some chocolate chip as those are everyone's favorites. I will also make at least 2 batches of bread today. That usually makes 4 loaves or around 35 rolls. I usually make two loaves and 18 rolls. I use the Family Homestead's whole wheat bread recipe but I use unbleached flour instead of ww. I just can't seem to digest ww, so I figure unbleached is better than nothing.LOL I love the King Arthur Unbleached Flour. Very good! My yogurt from yesterday turned out great! We now have 2 quarts of very good quality vanilla yogurt for the week. I've found that the more I make myself, the cheaper the grocery bill. I've also found that I can get this all done with 4 kids in the house, even though 2 are little. LOL And I've found that my little ones can do a good job of helping.

Blessings,

Lisa