What is it about homeschool curriculum that is so addicting? Deep down, I know that for this year, we are all set. We're using Singapore math, and it's going awesomely. Our reading curriculum is a mishmash of different things, but I feel good about how it's going. IMO there's not really a need to pay for a curriculum for science and social studies at the moment. I have plenty of supplemental 1st and 2nd grade teacher books with games and activities. Really, we don't need more stuff.

Then why do I get weak in the knees when I see an Ebay listing for a Kindergarten Investigations curriculum? Must be nostalgia, since I used Investigations to teach when I was working. Sometimes Investigations was a pain but most of the time the kids loved it and I liked it (with supplementation). It would be so fun to use it with Reese and Eli, but we don't *need* it.

Speaking of homeschooling, I was making copies at Kinko's the other day and discovered that they provide cardstock for copies at no extra charge. Eric helpfully (?) pointed out that they're probably overcharging me for copies anyway. I was still thrilled to discover this. I copied a bunch of stuff onto cardstock: activities for Eli, game boards, mini books. I feel that I got my $9 worth. It is 9 cents a copy though...any Columbus friends know of a cheaper copying place?

I suppose, it's time to make the To Do list and get cracking. Kids need to be schooled, the house needs to be cleaned, food needs to be prepared, and we have a plan to go swimming this morning. Happy Busy Tuesday!

Let's Cook Some Stuff!!

I love, love, love being in the kitchen. This could very well explain my snug pants, but you know, I just can't stay away. It's relaxing for me to duck into the kitchen and fix dinner or bake something.

Yesterday night was pizza night. I tried something new, an idea I swiped off Arti, otherwise known as The Next Food Network star. She made pizza with chutney sauce, and since I'm a chutney addict, I thought it would be awesome to make some of my own. I'd linkie you to the recipe, but Eric found it for me and I'm too lazy to go looking for it again. Sorry, readers! But! If you go to the Food Network site, I think you can search for it there.

Anyway, here's what's left of my vegan chutney pizza. The cheeze on top is Daiya, which I'm pretty crazy about:

Tonight I made Indian food, including these samosas! The recipe is from Vegan with a Vengeance, an awesome cookbook for beginner and experienced vegan cooks alike. We also had some chickpea curry, and assorted fruits. Yes, my children will eat samosas, in case you were wondering.

And here's what I did much of Sunday afternoon with Reese:

Reese got a sewing kit for Christmas that we finally got around to working on. It's hard to see, but those are sweet treats (cake, cupcake, cookies). The kit itself was pretty easy, all the holes for sewing were precut and the directions were clear. It was tough for Reese though so I did lots of it for her. Whenever there's a straight stitch though, Reese is all over that. I think she'll be a great little seamstress someday. Anyway, she and I had a good time.

Then after dinner tonight I threw together some granola bars for Eric. He found a raw recipe that he wanted me to try. Those are in the freezer setting up right now. If I remember, I'll snap a picture before I cut them. I also made after dinner drinks (canteloupe margaritas). It's been a long, busy Monday, and they taste so so good.

Whatchamakin' for dinners this week? ;)

End of the Week Recap

I woke up at about 5:45am this morning. That's such a crummy time to wake up. It's just so early, but I knew if I went back to sleep, some kid was going to wake me up in about 45 minutes. I don't know about any of you, but I feel like crap if I go back to sleep and then have to get up before I'm ready. So I opted to enjoy some alone time, some peace and quiet, and some coffee. There aren't many things better than a cup of coffee fixed my favorite way (lots of cream and sugar! It's Saturday so I get sugar!!) and sipped in the quiet that is 6am.



Yes, the children will be awake soon. Eli might sleep past seven, but Reese has always been a little early bird, hopping out of bed all cheery and light. I think I'm mostly a morning person too, minus the cheery and light. The nice thing is that Reese is content most mornings to play with her dolls and guys while I do some yoga or just zone out. It's after Eli wakes up that the demands of the day begin.



So what's been happening, let me see. Oh the raw experiment. That was kind of a fail, not really because I disliked raw food or because it was too hard or anything. It failed because of leftovers. I'm really the only person in the house who will consistently eat leftovers. I've been really trying to make just enough food for one meal so we don't have sad containers of food wasting away in the fridge. Sometimes I'm successful, sometimes I'm not. It just irks me to no end to waste food, so a lot of times I'll eat leftovers for lunch. In the interest of not wasting food, I only ate raw maybe two days last week. However, I liked the way I felt. I felt very clean, and like I was doing a good thing for my body. And with my vitamix, it's not a problem at all to whip up a raw veggie soup.



Speaking of raw foods and my vitamix, they can both just take responsibility for me discovering a most delicious raw dessert: banana soft serve. I can't believe I didn't know about this awesomeness before now. It's so good, you should try it. Here's what you do:



Freeze some bananas (maybe break them in pieces before you freeze them? I broke them in half).

Get some kids to put the bananas in the vitamix (cause why should you do all the work, am I right? Unless you don't want to share...)

Dump in maybe a couple tablespoons of maple syrup (or your liquid sweetener of choice).

Add about a teaspoon of vanilla.



Have aforementioned kids flip the Vitamix switches and blend the heck out of the contents of the blender. And you have a smooth, sweet but not too sweet, perhaps healthy dessert. Om nom nom nom.



Oh! I sewed some stuff this week! Not a really lot of stuff though. Sometimes I get in a sewing frenzy and pound out a bunch of projects, and sometimes I'm too lazy. This week was in the middle of those extremes. I did sew up a pair of flannel pajama pants to give as a birthday gift. And I got a good chunk of the most current batch of cloth pads done. I hope to finish the cloth pads this weekend.



I worked on a super secret project too. I guess I can tell you about it. I ordered a zine off Etsy recently and was inspired to create my own zine-like thing, but it's a coloring book so perhaps not so zine like? Don't laugh, but it's an animal rights coloring book, you know, all pro-veg and all that. It's not propaganda, just some line drawings of animals that I found on google, and some fun facts about said animals. Can I even legally use line drawings of animals that I found on google in a printed book? I don't even know. Anyway. It's cute and dorky and hippie-like. I titled it Animals are Friends...Not Food! I have a friend who says that to her kids, and I always secretly loved it. My plan is to put copies on Etsy but I might chicken out. Let me know if you're interested in a copy.



So it was a busy week when you also add in all the homeschooling and baking and cleaning up. And laundry. However, I'm still thankful that I'm able to do the laundry because there was a stretch in the last year that I wasn't. You can read about that in my other blog, RIGHTHERE

Okay, so I made the linky work but now my letters are all purple. See that? Ah technology.

I was going to rant...

but man, it's Friday, it's been a great day so far, and you don't want to read a rant from little old me, do you? (haha, maybe if enough people do, I'll rant some time soon).

On the docket for today:

• baking bread (rising as we speak)
• making a dent in the batch of cloth pads I was supposed to be DONE WITH already (want to know more about cloth menstral pads? Leave me a comment and I'll help you out!)
• edumacating my children (some math, some reading, and some science-y shark stuff awaits)
• taking a trip to Marvin's Market, which is where I've found the lowest prices on produce (Columbus friends, feel free to point me in other, cheaper directions!)
• laundry, never-ending laundry
• working on a super secret project which will be shared later
• and probably some snuggling with my kids, misc cleaning, and cooking things

It doesn't seem like that much, but the time passes so quickly. Heck, it's almost 10:30am and we're all still in our pajamas. I aspired to get us out for a walk too, but it might just be bikes in the breezeway.

I'm looking forward to the weekend. Weekend days don't look a whole lot different than weekdays, I suppose, but Eric is home and that's really nice. The kids were invited to a birthday party Saturday morning, that's good fun.

All right, one of the children is demanding food. Again. I suspect this kid is growing because he's eating constantly. Sometimes I'm at a loss for good snack food. What are your favorite (preferably healthy) snacks?

It's Cracker Makin' Day

Yes, I'm making crackers today. I don't do this every Tuesday, just when we run out of crackers. I know what some of you are thinking. Geez, Sheri, can't you just buy crackers at the freaking store like regular people?? Well sure I can! And if I were working outside the home, I probably would. There are many great brands of crackers without all kinds of scary junk in them. Not everyone has the time or the inclination to make home made versions of convenience foods, and that's cool. However, we are on something sad called a Budget, which doesn't allow me to spend $5 a box on healthy crackers. Good thing I have everything in my pantry to make my own!


I think I always knew that some food ingredients aren't healthy. Since the whole Cancer Thing, I'm even more mindful about what I put in my own body, and what I purchase for my family to eat. I do a lot more scratch cooking, a lot more label reading, and am just more thoughtful about the foods we eat. Granted, crackers aren't health food no matter where they come from. But if the kids are going to snack, and they do, I'd rather they were eating something that has ingredients we can pronounce, ingredients that come from my pantry.

So, the crackers! These are rosemary garlic crackers. They are pretty delicious. Here's the recipe if you're interested: www.everydaydish.tv/index.php?page=recipe&recipe=156

And here's the dough for the vegan saltine crackers I also am working on this morning. The goal is to get it paper thin, as thin as you can roll it without the dough tearing. It's kind of hard, but if you can make it work, the crackers are awesome. They taste just like saltines from the store, but better. I sprinkle garlic salt on them instead of plain salt because we are nuts about garlic around here. Here's that recipe: http://dairyfreecooking.about.com/od/breadsbakery/r/Recipe_Vegan_Saltine_Crackers.htm

And I just got a request for graham crackers from the children. They want to make duck and little man shapes. Cooking with kids is good math, yo, and life skills.

That's what I'm doing today. Got any big Tuesday plans?

Callaway Gardens

On Sunday Eric and I took the kids to Callaway Gardens, which is about a 25 minute drive away from Columbus. It's a pretty awesome place, lots to do.

Guess which kid had to be coerced to get this picture taken? Sigh.



This is one of my favorite places at Callaway, the boardwalk bridge. You can see ducks and fish and turtles.


The trees are so tall. It's fun to look way up. We didn't end up walking too far because Eli just really did not want to be hiking in the woods. Poor Eli. It turns out he was developing a blister on his heel from wearing his tennis shoes with no socks. I suppose it's a lesson for us all, that Eli needs to wear socks with his shoes.

Another cool part of Callaway Gardens is called Mr. Cason's Vegetable Garden. It's a working veggie garden. The produce is used in the Callaway restaurants and sold at the general store. It's so weird to see dry corn stalks in August, but corn season here is already over. As we walked past the corn stalks, Reese goes, "My honey wants to know what these are." She was talking about her doll. Hahahahahaha.

This is the view from the entrance of the vegetable garden.

And this is the view from the back, while we were standing in that little red roofed house thing. Pagoda? It's not really a pagoda. Anyway...it's pretty.

By the time we got done hiking and exploring the garden, we were freaking hungry. We found a super nice picnic spot and Eric got to grillin'. Guess which grilled items belong to me?

The Grillmasters, and they're even wearing matching shirts!

After lunch, we headed to the beach on Robin Lake. I think I've posted pics of the beach before, so I just grabbed a swimming shot. It was a good time, swimming, snorkling, and building a sand castle.

Do these kids look tired and cranky? They WERE.

We stopped at Sonic on the way home and had slushies and onion rings. The onion rings at Sonic are not very good, but the slushies, as always, were very tasty.

All in all, it was a great way to spend a Sunday, being out in nature, getting a chance to walk in the woods and learn about plants and animals. I like the calm before the storm that is our busy week ahead, a week I should be getting ready for right now.

Muffin Fail!

It's rare that an Isa Chandra Moskowitz recipe is a fail, so I suspect user error on this one. This is the coffee shop blueberry muffin recipe from Vegan brunch. They were supposed to rise and be like those big awesome muffins you get at cafes and coffee shops. Instead, they spread out and the muffin tops come apart from the bottom.

See? Sad face. :( Although the muffin tops and crumbly bottoms are good, and the kids gobbled them up.

It could be my flour. I accidentally bought self-rising unbleached flour the last time I did the grocery shopping. That's probably it. I might stick with my tried and true blueberry muffin recipe next time though. I kind of like my muffins to stay together.