Meal Plan Monday

Monday: Beef fajitas, guacamole and salsa with tortilla chips
Tuesday: Beef stew and Phoenician bread (made as part of a homeschooling project)
Wednesday: Sweet pork chops, mashed potatoes, green beans
Thursday: Polka dot soup, carrot and celery sticks, popovers
Friday: Cheese pizza and salad
Saturday: At church with youth group (end of 30-Hour Famine)
Sunday: At church with the youth group (Confirmation)

The week in review

Well, a half-week in review, I suppose, since these are from Thursday-ish on.

As I feared... erm, expected... going to see The Lion King brought a resurgence of Lion King play at out house. Here are my little thespians' rendition of the final chorus of "The Circle of Life"

bear = lion cub

I am having furniture issues. I get that children, and particularly boys, need to climb, but our furniture is falling apart. I have declared a temporary moratorium on standing on the furniture until I think this through. Generally, I try to put people before things. But we need furniture and we can't just replace things that are broken carelessly.

Speaking of physical boys...


And big boys who are outgrowing their swing...


It's just as well. We don't use the swing a lot anymore, but Michael was practicing cello upstairs when the baby fell asleep.

And Frugal Friday!!

Katie Grace and I went thrift-storing and I found some great deals.
There was a wooden perpetual calendar with the verse "Choose this day whom you will serve, but as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord"-- $2
A beautiful like-new Hanna Anderson corduroy dress. It was $5 and won't fit Katie Grace for a few years, but it was too beautiful to pass up.
A chemistry molecule model kit to tuck away for a few years- $2
Some great books, including Bread, Bread, Bread and a math workbook that's unused. Also, The Keystone Alphabet, which will come in handy for fourth grade's state study.

And see that box? Well, I was inspired by this post over at LaPaz Home Learning. Chip told me how much Michael loved the rice table at the children's museum, and I was intrigued by the lentil tray. One of the thrift store had this box storing lots of little bits and pieces that were for sale. I've seen it a billion times, but when I saw it Friday, I knew it would be perfect. I asked if they would sell it to me, and they would, for $5. I filled it with rice and voila--


I think lentils might be easier to clean up though.

It was the last week of basketball.








Michael had his birthday dinner and cake on Saturday.


And today was his birthday. My baby is nine!

He loved his Eagles hoodie from Mimi and PeePaw.

The desire of his heart was an "electronic organizer." He's obviously inherited my OCD tendencies. And Grandma and Grandpa enabled him.




Grandma and Grandpa are moving into a condo and have been cleaning out their house. They brought most of Daddy's childhood home today. A lot of it was paper, and Daniel was in heaven.

Weekly Plans for the Week of February 18, 2008

Liturgical Focus: Lent/Passion of Our Lord

This Week’s Feasts and Festivals:

Monday, February 18: Martin Luther

Presidents’ Day

Friday, February 22: Washington’s Birthday

Chair of St. Peter

Special Events:

Thursday, February 21: 10 AM LLL

6 PM Mask Making at the Library

Friday to Saturday: 30 Hour Famine

Saturday, February 23: 10:30 AM Mask Making at the Library

2:00 PM Carnival of the Animals Children's Concert

Only in this household do you hit Martin Luther and the Chair of St. Peter in one week. Oy vey.

Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow...

Another blustery day yesterday! No public school, so no orchestra. Michael was upset we couldn't have the day off. To be honest, we've been slacking off all week because I'm trying to get my bearings back, so I don't feel a whole lot of sympathy.

Daniel loves to crawl into the kitchen. I don't get the appeal, unless it's the all-you-can-eat baby buffet that inevitably ends up on the floor. And it has to be cold, especially since I often forget to put his pants on after a change. I think it's a subconscious plot so I can kiss and squeeze those fat little baby things, LOL! He actually cries if we close the door from the living room to the kitchen. Yesterday, he found a box of SIGG lids, straps, and other sundry cup paraphernalia.

That's one happy baby!

I took this photo last night when I was feeling confident in my caramel-making prowess.

Note the awesome vintage candy thermometer I scored at Goodwill for a buck!

But today, I must confess that my caramels didn't set. The butter all rose to the top like a crust, and underneath was a grainy, soupy mess. So for snack, we had apple slices dipped in caramels.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Our Little Saint

Today is the tenth anniversary of our losing our first little baby, Mary Elizabeth. It's good to know we have a little saint in heaven, interceding for us.

A Lazy Sort of Day

We have about four inches of snow outside! I'm glad I got to the store yesterday.

I am totally off my groove. When I am done with this post, the plan is to get some organizing done. The plan was to take today off and get some organizing done, but I didn't get any done. And we ended up "doing school" more than I thought we would!

As I knew it would, The Lion King brought a resurgence of creative play. I put out the shadow puppet kit and the wooden animals to see what would happen. They started their day upstairs practicing for a scene from The Lion King (I told them I would video tape it if they practiced, so that was music. Then they came downstairs and made some shadow puppets-- art.

They started playing basketball downstairs (phys ed!). I bought some pop up laundry baskets that hang on the door, and so we were using one for a basket. I ended up cutting the bottom out of one, and voila--instant basket!

Next we did devotions (Christian Ed). We're talking this week about how God not only wants us to love Him and do good things, but also to think good thoughts. Our verse this week is Phillipians 4:8:
Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.

The baby needed to nurse and nap, so we read two chapters of The Phantom Tollbooth--language arts.

Michael wanted to burn a CD of his favorite songs, so we worked out a play list. Then while it burned, he and I did some long division (math), including a fun tic-tac-toe-ish game.

While he listened to his CD and did some problems, Katie Grace and I did reading.

By now it was lunchtime. After lunch, we read Story of the World--history--which was followed up by some map work--geography. Katie Grace did some coloring, Nicholas made a plague picture, and Michael started his Red Sea diorama.

At this point, we cleaned up and called it a day. And, for a day that was supposed to be pretty easy, it was quite packed!

Yesterday at the grocery store, a clerk asked Katie Grace why she wasn't in school. This was odd because it was 3:30. But odder still was Katie Grace's answer. She looked at the lady and said in a deadpan voice...


"I ate my teacher."

She has an odd sense of humor. She must take after her Daddy.

One last thing--Daniel learned something new today too!

AUGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

A Week in Review

Three posts today, and no posts last week. It was a rough week, but we did get lots done.

Sunday was Michael's First Communion. Except it wasn't, because in the ELCA, children can technically receive Communion from the time their baptized, so Michael has been receiving since he was around a year old. This was a hard day for me actually, one of the hardest parts of raising Little Lutherans.

This is Michael and his buddy Lukey.


And cake! Everybody loves cake!


Monday was Rosa Parks birthday, and we talked about the life of this wonderful woman.

On Shrove Tuesday, we had pancakes for dinner.

Ash Wednesday was spent getting the house ready for Lent.

It was a rainy, dreary, cold day, and my four little ones and I went to Mater Delarosa to receive ashes at noon. When Father blessed Daniel, Daniel gave him the biggest baby grin, and both Father and Monsignor couldn't help but laugh out loud. By the time we got to the car, Daniel's ashes were pretty much gone. Michael said, "I guess Dust doesn't really stick to babies."

On Thursday, we changed out the Nature Table.

We'll definitely have fun adding more to King Winter's kingdom!

I also couldn't help but notice I had three matching children on Thursday, and I couldn't resist a picture.


On Friday, we traveled about three hours to stay with some college friends. They're also homeschoolers, as you may be able to tell by the great bookshelves. Here are their three girls with our crew.


We spent the night and made our way to our main destination on Saturday- the Benadum theater in Pittsburgh to see The Lion King. I'll blog a little about that separately, I think, but here are some pictures.

The opening curtain and beautiful stage.


And two happy children before the curtain went up. Daniel and Nicholas went with Daddy to the Pittsburgh Children's Museum.


And Katie Grace wanted me to take a picture of the chandelier, because it was pretty.

After the play, we stopped for dinner. A lady came up to us and said, "When I saw them seat a family with four little kids next to us, I almost cried. But your children are very well behaved!" I didn't quite know how to take that!

We left the restaurant around 7 and pulled up in front of our house at 11. We would have gotten home sooner, but we hit horrible fog. I prayed for the last hour of the trip!

The today, I caught Daniel doing this:


Time to dig out the baby gates!

This week's feasts and festivals

Liturgical Season: Lent
Monthly Focus: The Passion of Our Lord
Monday, February 11: Our Lady of Lourdes
Tuesday, February 12: Lincoln's Birthday
Thursday, February 14: St. Valentine's Day
Sunday, February 17: Michael turns 9!

Another week with lots happening! Michael has orchestra this week--it's one week on, one week off--and Grandma and Grandpa will be up Sunday for his birthday. I told him he could have a buddy over for dinner Saturday. Add to this the usual parade of scouts, basketball practice, ballet lessons, and Odyssey of the Mind, and it's shaping up to be a crazy week.

Thank you!

I've been remiss in my thankfulness lately, and wanted to give three shout-outs. I, who rarely win things, have won three gievaways in the past month!

First of all, I won two Preserve recycled toothbrushes over at Gruppie Girl. My daughter claimed the kid one and I'm loving the grown-up one. Thank you!

Love2Learn had all sorts of giveaways and I was blessed enough to win a copy of Secret Angels Four from Bethlehem Books. That's getting tucked away for Michael on a rainy day! I am very excited about this company, and am thinking of ordering the Happy Little Family books for a read aloud. Thank you!

Finally, I won a Zadyball from Alayna's Creations! This was part of the Bloggy Giveaways Carnival. If I can wait, I'm giving it to Daniel for his birthday. Or maybe I'll give it to him tomorrow. I can't decide. Thank you!

Candlemas, but not candle-less

Our Brigid's Bread was yummy! And yes, all the best bakers wear tutus.


We didn't get to read Brigid's Cloak until today--the roads were a sheet of ice and I couldn't get to the library to pick up my holds--but we read it tonight, and it was beautiful. I definitely need to score my own copy.

Tonight was our Candlemas-Africa feast. We learned about Ancient Africa in Story of the World, and for dinner we had chicken with figs, rice (it was going to be papaya rice, but the papaya went over and I didn't know in time to get a new one), peas, and fried plantains.


After dinner, we talked about the Presentation and had some snow-white meringues for desert. They were definitely a hit!

We ended our day with a lovely story and prayer time.


Good night, and have a blessed Sunday!