It's been very busy here!

This week, Abby and I are rowing Climbing Kansas Mountains. She made whole wheat bread dough and shaped it into a turtle (in case you can't tell what it is!). We're reading Little House on the Prairie, too, and enjoyed learning all about Kansas today.

Blueberries!

Life has been very busy here lately with schoolwork starting, dr. appointments, weekend company, a short trip with my husband, and the garden. We've picked blueberries twice at a neighbor's house and I thought you might like to have a great recipe for fresh blueberry pound cake (you can use frozen, too).

Blueberry Pound Cake

1 box yellow cake mix
1/2 cup oil
1 (8 oz.) cream cheese, softened
3 eggs
1 cup chopped pecans
2 cups blueberries

Wash and drain blueberries (or use frozen). Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease or spray a bundt or tube pan.

Mix cake mix, oil, cream cheese and eggs together. Fold in blueberries and pecans.

Bake one hour or until tests done.

If desired, glaze cooled cake with a mixture of 1 cup confectioners' sugar, 2 Tablespoons softened butter, 1/2 teaspoon lemon extract and approx. 4 Tablespoons milk to spreading consistency. Pour over cake.

How easy is that???

For Today (July 13, 2009)

I'm gone on a little trip today and tomorrow with hubby, but I did this daybook on Sunday for your reading pleasure for a couple of days.....

Outside my window....

the sun is shining brightly and it's hot!

I am thinking....

about VBS, which is at the end of the week.

I am thankful for....

my friend, Shelley, who knows me well, but loves me anyway.

From the learning rooms....

Our second week of school. Emily and Anna are back from music school and will be starting bookwork this week. Carrie, Thomas, and Anna will be adding a couple of things to their schedules.

From the kitchen...

I have special guests this next Sunday and I'm thinking about what to feed them for lunch. There's a good bit of garden produce and we've been freezing peas, blueberries, corn, turnip greens and making freezer jam.

I am wearing....

green capris and a turquoise shirt. Pink dangling earrings. Brown polka dot flips.

I am creating....

(trying to create) peace and simplicity in the midst of a wild schedule.

I am going...

to stay at one of our favorite places for a couple of nights with my wonderful husband.

I am hearing....

Abby singing. The dishwasher running. The air conditioner.

Around the house....

Spraying for bugs. Working in the garden. Cleaning off the front porch.

One of my favorite things....

Georgia peaches.

A picture I'm sharing....

My most favorite Thomas in the world!

The beginning.....

We've had a pretty good start for our new school year!

We started our school day yesterday by swimming at a friend's pool. Then we came home and ate some homemade oatmeal-raisin cookies Carrie had made for the occasion. (Can't show you any pictures because the photographer is still gone to music school!)

Since we had been doing a little math over the summer, our lessons for yesterday and today have gone well. Thomas picked right back up with his spelling. And we had been working on reading, too, so that's been an easy transition.

Thomas is SO excited about his unit study using The Door in the Wall. He's learned about plagues ("They were caused by rats and all the people needed to take baths!"), how bells are made ("They are made from copper and tin in a mold."), and the history of London ("I didn't know the Tower of London was a jail!"). He is enjoying reading Adam of the Road, too.

Carrie has started her geography unit ("Did you know Charles Blondin walked across Niagara Falls on a tightrope with someone on his back and he pushed a wheelbarrow, too? Do you know about Jules Leotard? He was a famous trapeze artist."). What does this have to do with geography? Read the first chapter of Around the World in 80 Days and figure it out!

Abby loves The Finest Horse in Town, which we are reading for Five in a Row. We've had a fun 4th of July pinwheel, we've read about horses and The 4th of July Story, looked at pictures of America, and sung "America the Beautiful" a whole bunch of times.

My parents came today and brought some hand-me-down skates and scooters from my aunt, so there's been a lot of fun PE, too.

So far, very good!

Dill-icious!

Last week, in preparation of the girls coming home from singing school, and knowing what they like to eat, Carrie and I made refrigerator dill pickles. Easy, fun, good to eat, no canning involved. What could be better???

Refigerator Dill Pickles

15 small pickling cucumbers
40 fresh dill sprigs
2 large onion, thinly sliced
5 garlic cloves, sliced
1 qt. water
1 qt. white vinegar
1 cup canning salt

Cut each cucumber lengthwise into four spears. In a large bowl, combine the cucumbers, dill, onions and garlic; set aside. In a Dutch oven, combine the remaining ingredients. Bring to a boil; cook and stir just until salt is dissolved. Pour over cucumber mixture; cool.

Cover tightly and refrigerate for at least 24 hours. Store in the refrigerator for up to 3 months (if they last that long!).

Happy Fourth of July to You!

We hope you are having a fun day today!

On the 4th, David and Katie go to a sacred harp singing in a nearby community. I thought you might like to read about fasola singing here.

Rachel, Emily, and Anna are washing and ironing clothes, getting ready for their second week at singing school.

And I'm cooking - gazpacho salad with tomatoes and cucumbers from the garden, lime-herb chicken, potato salad with some potatoes from our garden, and ice cream later.

Countdown to School Year 09-10!

I've been busily working on the last of my school planning this week, ready to begin our 24th year of homeschooling next week.

Here's what I've done, in hopes that it will help you in your planning, too.

1. Wrote out my planbook for 6 weeks, in pencil. ;)
2. Found some books to use for readers for Thomas, copied off his Easy Grammar and Daily Gram pages, looked over his unit studies to familiarize myself with the first few chapters. Copied his writing assignments for the first 6 weeks. I bought these last year and they are very helpful to me. Bought a nice notebook for him to use for his ACTS prayertime and put that in his schoolbox along with his new math book.
   
3. Planned 6 weeks of Five in a Row and made activity plans and library lists, so I can just zoom into the library and zoom back out (love that online catalog!) Organized Abby's school box with her new reader, new math book, and Bible story book for narration. Threw in some new pencils and erasers and looked over her history. Printed off her handwriting here. This is also a good site for handwriting pages and I may use this later after she's learned to form the letters using the big cursive pages from Donna Young.
   
4. I had the bright idea of making a shelf for all of Abby's books for TruthQuest history, Thomas' readers, Anna's Beautiful Feet history books, and Thomas' unit study go-alongs. I didn't have any more shelf room, so I pulled out the first few FIAR books and the go-alongs and put them into an available drawer in my night stand, all divided up. Wish I had another book shelf, but, alas.....
5. Copied Carrie's Around the World in 180 Days geography pages and put them, along with some punched colored paper into a notebook. We've bought cloth to make a cover, which we will do during Arts Week, along with a cover for her Bible notebook. She's going to also do a unit study using Around the World in 80 Days and will make minit books, etc. to glue onto the colored paper in the geo notebook. I also fixed her Bible notebook with bright colored cardstock and bought some pretty scrapbook stickers for it. She will write quotes from her book, How to be a Lady, and will write in Bible verses to go with each chapter. I pulled out her Easy Grammar, Daily Grams, math, and copied her writing assignments. She made pretty folders for each child for my desk to hold worksheets until we're ready to use them.
6. At the convention, I bought a Dover stained glass coloring book, a Dover jousts and tournament coloring book, and cool Coat of Arms book, all to go with Thomas' unit using The Door in the Wall. I also picked up How to Draw Pirates, just for fun. All these things were from the Rainbow booth.
7. I started mapping out our first Arts Week. We will study Mozart for our music appreciation and Georgia O'Keefe and Henri Rousseau for art. We will do a bit of baking with Thomas, Carrie, and Abby, and sewing with Carrie and Anna.
8. Emily has pretty much started her new year already, but I planned out her writing unit and we have to make a decision about math. Anna's writing is planned and she knows what she's doing for the other subjects. They both work independently and keep up with their own books, so there's not much work for me to do to get them ready to start school.
   

All that's left is a trip to Hobby Lobby sometime in the near future, an order for Creation and World magazines, and the purchase of a Bible with bigger print for Thomas.

Ready, set, GO!