Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more...

As a teacher I love summer break, truly I do, but as a parent I start getting nervous around this time every year.  I am a structure girl and the "emptiness" of summer leaves me a bit worried.  What will we do each day?  How will I keep the kids from turning into whiny, mush blobs after a few days of freedom?

I always like to have a plan.  I usually make a daily schedule of sorts, but this year I ran across the best blog post about prepping for the summer.  This lady is into prepping for everything apparently, but I'm just stealing her summer system:  specifically her "bored" jar idea, a "Time with Mom" jar and a jar dedicated to dealing with sibling fighting.

I remember my Mom having a Bored, Nothing to Do jar when we were kids, so it feels right to introduce that tradition into our home.  The Time with Mom jar is probably more for me than for the kids, really.  In all honesty, I need to be held accountable to put down my summer to-do list and spend quality time with the kids.  And I think the sibling fighting (Love One Another) jar idea is brilliant.  It's full of ideas for things the kids can do together to encourage each other and also move on from whatever is causing the problem.  I love the theory; we'll see how it goes in real life!

The original idea used colored popsicle sticks, but we didn't have any, so I came up with the paper strip idea.  Kip and I painted abstract water colors on thick paper and then I cut them into strips and wrote all my ideas on them.  I looked at lots of summer bucket lists and added some more ideas that are specific to my kids.

Time with Mom: snuggle and read together, go hiking or to the playground, build legos together, etc.

I'm bored: build an inside fort, watch the clouds, eat a snack under the tree and read a book, play Solitaire, etc.

Love One Another: run around the house 5 times together, tell each other 3 things you like about each other, share one of your toys for the day, etc.

I also decided it would help me to have themes for the days of the week, so I could wake up and at least have one solid idea of what we're going to do.  So we're going with Make Something Monday, Time to Read Tuesday, Wet Wednesday, Take a Trip Thursday and Fun with Friends Friday.  And I've got big plans for "summer schooling." I guess we shall see how that pans out!

We want to be frugal, so no camps or other official activities are on the calendar, but you better believe we are signed up for every VBS and library program I know about!!  

Have a happy summer, everyone!

Hi-Lo

Some days after school, the kids and I play a game we call Hi-Lo.  It's not really a game, more of a sharing experience.  When it's your turn you get to tell the highlight of your day and the lowest moment.  It gets some good conversations going most times.  

Well today I'm going to share my highs and lows of this Saturday.  Both of them star this little crazy one right here:

The high:  She wanted to make a special treat for everyone this morning and ended up basically baking a cake all by herself.  She started with milk, a banana, some chocolate chips, vanilla and some mini marshmallows.  Then she added flour and cooked it in the microwave.  It was actually pretty good!

The low:  After dinner, we were all working/playing in the yard.  She came up to me with a big bouquet of leaves that she wanted to put in a vase inside.  One look and I knew....You guessed it: poison ivy.  We immediately instituted emergency Technu hand washing, which I thought might be sufficient, until she told me she had rubbed the leaves on her cheek because she liked them so much.....I think we might be doomed.  

But, high or low, we love this little girl so much!  She makes everyday brighter.  

Cuties are here!

We picked up our babies today at Homestead Gardens!

Two Barred Rocks that are about 2 weeks old:

Two Ameraucanas and two Buff Orpingtons that are just a few days old: 

The kids are so excited and have already started working on a list of names.  So far the suggestions are: 

Jeffrey

Spots

Stripes

Yellow 1

Yellow 2

Guess we'll see which ones stick.

The smaller ones are just the most precious things ever:  tiny little chirps if you wake them up and the most hilarious way of falling asleep.  They will be standing up, and then close their eyes and their little heads will just slowly lean down until they are resting on their beaks, fast asleep.

The bigger ones are, frankly, pretty boring.  I'm glad we got a few little ones so we get to experience the tiny chick phase.

Real Life Right Now

The last few weeks have been fun!

An early morning rainbow sighting with the kids

 A surprise weekend away, just the two of us:

 

Family roller skating, for the first time:

But, it's also been pretty tiring.  Scott is plugging away at two jobs, I'm still teaching part-time, and the kids are working hard at school. (And doing well!)

I am still trying to keep our diet "clean" and spending a lot of time cooking from scratch and trying to manage our food budget.  

This morning was a pretty typical example.  I made coconut milk earlier this week from shredded coconut, then attempted to make the leftover coconut into coconut flour.  I looked up a ton of recipes and decided to try this one:

Fluffy Coconut Flour Pancakes

Looks delicious, right???

Well, this is what they looked like for me!

I have no idea what I did wrong (although maybe my homemade flour had something to do with it).

I had to stack about 10 to make it look anything like a fluffy stack of pancakes!!

Besides me, Kip was the only one who would try them! I don't know what magic food photographers have, but I don't think I'm going to be able to trust a beautiful photo for a while...

He Loves Me

Blizzard 2016

Hello from blizzard land!  

It's been a blast so far.  I spotted the first snowflake out this window yesterday at exactly 1:24 pm.  (We all made guesses as to when it would start and the storm beat us by a whole hour!)

As soon as Gus saw the second flake, the three of us (yes, I love snow!) were jumping up and down and yelling in excitement.

We braved the first 6 inches yesterday evening to hang out with friends for dinner and then listened all night to the wind howling around the house.  

This morning, after a celebratory blizzard donut, both kids were in the snow by 7:45.

Several hours and cups of hot cocoa later, it looks like this.  You can't see it, but both cars are stuck behind a wall of snow left by the snow plows....Guess we'll be here a while!

  

But that's OK.  We've got all the electronics charged, the generator hooked up just in case, a puzzle on the table and lots and lots of food!

I went to the Farmer's Market last Sunday, and I think between Scott and I we've been to the store at least 4 times since then...you know, just to be sure.

Winter farmer's market score!

We're not planning on sticking to a meal plan over the next couple days, but here's one from a few weeks ago that turned out great.  

I've really been enjoying experimenting with baking our own bread.  The recipe on this meal plan is my absolute favorite.  I've been trying to adapt it to soaking, and while it works, it's not quite as delicious as the original.  The kids switched over to "real" bread pretty easily and also have accepted homemade tortillas (Scott not so much, but he's been really sweet about it!).

I also have had a few revelations about introducing the kids to new foods.  Number 1: don't even bother if it's green.  Find something in another color.  Number 2: Don't give it to them at first.  Eat it yourself and wait for them to ask what it is.  This happened to me TWICE this week.  First with hummus.  Gus has now decided it's his favorite food after previously saying it looked disgusting.  I think it was the delicious smell that won him over.  It happened a day later with Kip and some almond butter on a spoon.  She's had it every day since then.  Both of these are foods I have tried before and really wanted my kids to like, but had given up on!

Anyway, for now I'm going to try to sneak in a cup of tea and an episode of Downton Abbey while Scott shovels.  Poor man.

Happy Blizzard, everyone!

Busy Days

I kept last week's menu really simple since I knew it would be a busy week.  We had two Christmas parties at school to help with, teacher gifts to give and two work parties for Scott. The hazards of a dual career! We also had lots of gifts to finish ordering, making and wrapping, but I think we're almost finished! 

I had hoped to get all my school grading done as well, before my own kids were out of school, but it was not to be!  I spent a few days fending off a cold, then got excited about a couple other fun projects....like Christmas cookies!

I also spent a whole morning scouring the internet for ideas on how to get out the door on time in the mornings.  We are always rushing around crazy and getting to school late.  I ended up with 3 lists: one for morning, one for after school and one for bedtime. We only had one day of school left after I finished them, but we were ON TIME!

I am glad I didn't try to do too much with our menu this week, 

because I had trouble keeping up with the few things I did have planned. 

 I think I forgot to add the sugar to the batch of kombucha I started the week before and it didn't "grow."  I finally decided to restart it and in the process boiled the pot of water on the stove completely dry and melted the bottom of it!  That's probably the third time I've done that.  I think I'm going to need a new pot soon!

Other than making cookies, we have kept our Christmas activities to a minimum, which has actually been nice.  It's been fun to just enjoy the moments that aren't planned, but are still lovely.