~ Wednesday ~

My body is healing!!  Woke up this morning with a slight headache (day 3 of this headache), but no stiffness in my ankles!  It seems like whenever I return to eating grains I am miserable with stiffness in my ankles and hips.  I think I'll stay away from the grains for good.  It's nice waking up and being able to walk without limping!

Breakfast this morning was 2 cups of coffee with homemade coconut cinnamon creamer, two fried eggs, small amount of sauteed kale and some delicious homemade "cereal".  It was actually very good, and just what I was craving on Day 5 of my Whole 30 Challenge!  Here is what I did ~

Handful of slivered almonds and sunflower seeds, toasted

1/2 small apple chopped into small cubes

full fat coconut milk w/ cinnamon (Mine was chilled in the fridge. It's also what I use for my morning coffee)

Mix together and ENJOY!!  Yum! :)

Our children have had a good day ~

Minecraft

Playing house
Morestarfall.com
Read about St. Felix of Valois
Read/discussed lesson 2 in The New Saint Joseph First Communion Catechism
Took Unit 1 test on My Catholic Faith Delivered ~ aced it!!
Completed Chapter 5 of Jesus Our Life (on My Catholic Faith Delivered)
Read "Forgive Us Our Trespasses" from the book Today I Made My First Reconciliation.  This is an absolutely AMAZING book.  I highly recommend it!  It is broken up into sections that are the perfect size to read and discuss.  It is great for either a Charlotte Mason or Classical education approach. The story line is great and is holding our children's attention.  They actually stop what they are doing to see what's going to happen next.  They are truly learning about reconciliation.
The boys attended their last Sacramental Prep class with daddy.  The next step is their first reconciliation!
4H meeting
Created habitat pictures :)

The Feast of St. Nicholas...

     A little late on this, but better late than never :)  December 6th was the Feast of St. Nicholas.  Here are some pictures from some of our activities...



Our yummy candy cane coffee cake from Catholic Cuisine



Our goody basket, the kids really enjoyed all of these treats ~ even into the next day :)



Our gold coins...a big THANK YOU to the awesome mommy at Shower of Roses for creating the document of St. Nicholas gold coin covers!



J working on a St. Nicholas puzzle



P is enjoying a treat after working on his puzzle



S and another puzzle



K is working on a St. Nicholas memory game



Some help from P and M



P is cheering K on after she was successful at a match!!

I got the puzzles and the memory game from another wonderful website: The St. Nicholas Center

Enjoy your day!! :)

On large families and frugal living...

     Having a large family means many things are done differently ~ obviously.  I know this, I live this...but for some reason some things I/we continue to do as if we were a family of say 3 or 4.  Those things have to change :)

     We store clothing the children have outgrown in large bins for use by other children (some of those clothes are on their 4th child :), we purchase good, solid homeschooling books that can be handed down, I make copies of consumable workbook pages (if allowable by copyright laws!), to save from having to re~purchase every year, we re~use and recycle what we can, and we purchase used as frequently as possible!  I took a test online once to see what kind of carbon footprint we are leaving on God's beautiful planet earth.  Believe it or not, our carbon footprint is actually LESS than the average family of 4's!!  So, we are doing something right.  But, still some changes need to be made.

      One area that truly needs to change is our grocery shopping/meal planning and prep.  Somehow our grocery bill has skyrocketed to an unacceptable amount.  I still continue to make a menu ~ that includes all 3 main meals, plus 3 snacks for the kids EVERY day.  They have to have their snacks or else they ALL end up with low blood sugar levels, which is no fun!! :)  I'm not quite sure what has happened to our bill, but I am on a mission to lower it. 

     So, I started hunting yesterday for more ways to cut back on the grocery bill.  I googled all sorts of things, but the one that brought me to a treasure was bulk cooking for large families.  That took me to an amazing womans blog entitled: bakers dozen. This woman is amazing.  She has 14 children (that she homeschools by the way :), and she feeds them on about $800.00 per month!!  I am actually devouring her blog during every free moment (which aren't many) I have ~ and LOVING it!

     This morning I am sitting here with my pen and paper out and taking notes.  I am finding this all very exciting!!  The chance to save my hardworking husband MORE money ~ YES!!!!!!!  I can do this!!  Wish me luck!! :)

 

Cobbler...

Today has been wet, wet, wet!!  We are supposed to get rain and thundershowers through Tuesday!  This morning was dry so Daddy got some work done outside. 

Last week my wonderful FIL drove all of the way out here with his 5th wheel to help take down our swimming pool.  He actually did most of it by himself while Daddy was at work!!  He stayed in his 5th wheel that night and then mowed our lawn the next day!  Woohoo what an awesome thing to do!!  We GREATLY appreciated it. 

This morning Daddy cut up the liner and rolled it up in order to take it to the dump.  The neighbor came over and hauled away the deck with his flat bed trailer and then Daddy pulled out the concrete where the deck had been!!  Now all that is left is to bring in some dirt and level it out!!  Yaaaaa!! 

After Daddy came in Sister K and I left to take her to a birthday party.  Then I went SHOPPING!!!  I purchased materials to make the littles some sandpaper letters.  We are going to begin working on the alphabet shortly.  To purchase sandpaper letters would cost a minimum of $60 - $70.  More than I wanted to spend!  I've already started them and so far I'm pretty happy with how they are turning out.  I'll show you the finished product when they are completed. 

Brother J and Brother S helped make fruit cobbler for dessert tonight!!  Lots of learning going on :)  They helped measure, pour and stir.  They helped put the solid butter in the microwave and were surprised by what it looked like when it came out :)  When I brought out the egg, both of them started saying egg and then Brother S said "chicken egg".  We laughed.  As Brother J was stirring the batter they were both saying "bye bye chicken egg" :)  Kids are so funny!  We used raspberries (Brother J likes them) and blueberries (Brother S like those).  The cobbler was YUMMY!! We enjoyed it with some vanilla ice cream!

The finished (and already dug into) product.

Brother S (yes, that's a turtle neck he is wearing in 80 degree weather.  He saw it in his closet and just had to wear it because it had all of those balls on it!!  This is his second day wearing it!  Thankfully I was able to get it off of him tonight at bedtime :)

Brother J

Talk to ya soon...