Tasty bread recipe

I love to use my bread machine to make dough. It does all the work, and then all I have to do is punch it down, take it out, let it rise, and bake it.

Anyway, I found this recipe from the aptly-named "Bread Machines for Dummies". I'll put the measurements for a 1 1/2 pound loaf first, and follow it up in parenthesis with the measurements for the 2 pound loaf.
2/3 cup (3/4 cup) milk
1/2 cup (1/2 cup) water
2 tablespoons (3 tablespoons) vegetable oil or butter
1 1/2 teaspoons (2 teaspoons) salt
2 tablespoons (3 tablespoons) sugar
2 tablespoons (3 tablespoons) oatmeal
3 cups (4 cup) bread flower-- I used whole wheat
2 1/4 teaspoons (1 tablespoon) yeast

Just put it in according to your bread machine's specifications, run through the dough cycle, take out, let rise, and bake at 350 for 1/2 hour. It's really yummy sandwich bread!

Art Unit: Portraits (Lesson 4)

I think this one was Katie Grace's favorite!

We started out with The Armada Portrait of Elizabeth I by George Gower. Again, we got to be "art detectives" and look for clues in the painting. We found hints both about history and about Queen Elizabeth's status.

One interesting fact we learned: Queen Elizabeth I was both vain and distrustful of her artists. She didn't have faith that they would paint a flattering picture of her--minus the pock marks, black teeth, small eyes, narrow lips and false hair. So, all artists had to copy from officially approved face patterns.

To start our art project, we first traced a face pattern of Queen Elizabeth I. Michael chose to be whimsical and paint her as she might look if she became President of the United States. Katie Grace went for a more elegant look, complete with "jewels".


Another royal portrait we enjoyed was Edward VI as a Child by Hans Holbein the Younger.

Big boy!

Daniel took his first steps yesterday when we were at church decorating for VBS. Tonight we caught it on film-- sorry it's so dark!

Art Unit: Portraits (Lesson 3)

Self-Portraits

This was a fun lesson! First we looked at two self-portraits by Van Gogh. He had a ton of them, but we focused on these two:

Self-Portrait in Front of an Easel


Self-Portrait with Grey Felt Hat

We compared and contrasted the two pictures-- Van Gogh all dressed up, and Van Gogh in his work clothes. We looked up close at how Van Gogh used brush strokes and various colors to create his pictures. We used oil pastels to create similar self-portraits.

Our self-portraits are on the wall o' portraits in the last post as well. Michael's was interesting. It's the one below the flower wall hanging. It's titled "Anger."

Some other self-portrait lessons are here:
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/iad/lessons/elem/selfport.htm
http://www.bartelart.com/arted/cutpaperself.htm
http://www.teachnet.com/lesson/art/selfportr092299.html

And finally, one of my favorites.
Self-Portrait by Judith Leyster

Art Unit: Portraits (Lesson 2)

Profiles

The next piece of art we looked at was Battista Sforza and Ferderigo da Mentefeltro by Piero della Francesca.

There were all kinds of awesome details to look for in this painting: clues as to the subject's state in life, differences in how the artist painted the woman and the man, geographical clues in the background. The kids especially liked the general's bumpy nose!

Next came an art lesson! We learned how to draw profiles.

Forget the University of Google-- we're going to the University of You Tube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0Vivz3vIVg

(No embedding this one, sorry, but it's basically an art lesson on how to draw a profile)

I gave the children several choices for an assignments.
1. Copy the profile of Battista Sforza. Glue spakly beads or glitter on for the jewelry.

2. Draw one of your sibling's profiles.

3. Use black paper and make a silhouette. You can see details here:
http://www.pacificnet.net/~mandel/TheArts.html

Our book took this one step further and suggested then cutting several silhouettes out of differently colored/textured/patterned paper and changing them to look happy, sad, scary, etc.

They chose to draw each other. You can see the pictures hanging on our "Wall of Portraits"

Daniel James, Child of God

Take the hand, take the hand of a friend,
Walk right down to the shore and then
Jump, jump, jump in the river of life.
Shout Hallelujah! Praise the Lord on high!

Tuesday was Daniel's baptismal anniversary. Never is the history of the world has an infant be less pleased to be a child of God. He absolutely howled.

Now, a year later, he's still a bit of a howler. By far, he has the most difficult temperament of any child I've had. He even tops colicky Katie Grace. Still, he's undeniably a child of God and I can't wait to see what awesome things the Lord has planned for him.

We celebrated his special day a few days early by going over to his godmother's house for lunch. The kids (my four and her four girls who were there) all had a great time. Even her brand new baby, who was so sweet to hold. Lunch was yummy, and the company was even better.

So, Daniel James, Child of God, you have been marked with the cross of Christ and sealed by the Holy Spirit. Here's to another year of growing in grace together!

Art Unit: Portraits (Lesson 1)

tI've been meaning to post this for a bit. This spring we meandered through an art unit on Portraits. As our base, we used the book Portraits from the A First Look at Art series by Ruth Thomson.

The first two portraits we studied were

Madame de Pompadour by Francoise Boucher

and


I and the Village by Marc Chagall

We talked about portraits and self-portraits and what they are.

Then we created a portrait wall by sorting the art prints we had into portraits and not portraits. The portraits were hung up.

From Memorial Day

Forgive the tiny picture. I can't believe I forgot to post a picture of our Freecycle picnic table! The church guy who helped us pick it up is also a carpenter, and replaced most of the bench and some of the table for us. God bless church guys!

I know I shouldn't...

but I just can't help myself.

If I'm watering the veggie garden and the children shout "You can't get me" I will always, always water the children... even if they're fully clothed.

Time for a change and Five Little Peppers, the neverending read-aloud.

Some household projects

One thing I've been meaning to get to is my mantal. This week it went from this

to this




So, my next problem is where we store the extra blankets in the living room, because this obviously isn't working


Ideas?