Menu Plan Monday

Monday

Breakfast: Kefir smoothies, toast, hard-boiled eggs, cheese

Lunch: Peanut butter sandwiches, fruit

Dinner: Daddy saves the day!! Kale krisps, broccoli, coconut flour-battered chicken

Tuesday

Breakfast: Bagels with cream cheese

Lunch: Leftovers

To do: Soak batter for waffles

Dinner: Breakfast for supper

To do: Soak oats for granola and quinoa for soup

Wednesday

Breakfast: Soaked waffles, fruit

Lunch: Bun-less black bean burgers, carrots, chips

Dinner: Hamburger soup, cornbread (maybe, maybe not)

To do: Bake granola

Thursday

Breakfast: Banana yogurt with granola

Lunch: Leftover soup

To do: Bottle kombucha

Dinner: Pesto chicken, baked sweet potatoes

Friday

Breakfast: Parfaits (strawberry-blended yogurt, granola, and berries layered in an ice cream sundae dish)

Lunch: Leftover soup

Dinner: Frozen pizza for kids; southwestern fish cakes with chipotle sauce for parents (date night at home!)

Saturday/Sunday: Daddy's Choice, leftovers, various activities will determine...

Anyone else want to start planning and posting your menus?? It's really helped me stay focused and (better) organized. If you'd like to give it a try, leave me a comment saying so. Even if you just want to try it once or twice to see what you think. If enough people are interested, maybe I can set up a linky for us all here. Okay! Happy eating!!

Project 365: Week 9

Okay. So if you haven't entered my giveaway yet, it's not too late!! (Yet.) You have until midnight tonight, so get with it, people!!

Sunday, February  20, 2011

For our family night tonight, we watched a real nail-biter...

It was some kind of intense!

Surprised? ;)

Monday, February 21, 2011 

We had our kitchen floors professionally cleaned today with the hopes of helping out the looks of the hopelessly-nasty grout. I'm not sure it was worth it. They people who laid it did a poor job and let the grout set up too quickly, so it's real brittle and grainy and grabs everything, and then they didn't seal it either. We didn't get it nearly as clean as we wanted. But it WAS nice to have someone ELSE clean the floor!

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Noah got a package in the mail today. He'd been waiting for it for about a week. It's a classic controller for the Wii so he can play old games like Donkey Kong. Boys. I don't get it.

Wednesday, February 23, 2011 

A little of our school day back in our school room. It's going well so far. The teacher's enjoying it, so that's a HUGE plus!

Thursday, February 24, 2011 

I won these books from Marla Taviano when I posted this response to Your Secret Name by Kary Oberbrunner.

Friday, February 25, 2011

An incredible, sacrificial, wise, loving couple from church offered to come keep our kids tonight so we could go out!! They played games with them and even brought homemade cookies. We love our church family so. very. much. We didn't have grand plans or anything, but we had fun and tried a new sushi place!

 

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Saylor had a birthday party to attend this morning.

And then we met our community group for a picnic/play date at Pinnacle Mountain State Park.

(He had no idea I was taking these...)

This one cracked me up:

And on the way back to the car, I got to take a walk through the woods with my favorite three-year-old in the whole wide world.

That's the end of Week 9.

Be sure to check on the other participants at Sara's.

And definitely don't forget to enter my giveaway!!

(What have you got to lose??)

Wanna Be This Excited?

Winning our giveaway will do it. Hurry! It only runs through Sunday!!

Participating in Works for Me Wednesday (because giveaways work for me...don't they work for you?) AND Wordless Wednesday (because this post was mostly wordless). 

Menu Plan Monday

Monday

Breakfast: Kefir smoothies, bagels

Lunch: Peanut butter sandwiches, fruit

Dinner: Ribs, sweet potatoes, broccoli, apple crisp

To do: Make cottage cheese dip

Tuesday

Breakfast: Soaked muffins (from freezer), yogurt

To do: Soak oats

Lunch: Cottage cheese dip, crackers, fruit

Dinner: Poached eggs in marinara, kale krisps, sliced bread

Wednesday

Breakfast: Soaked oatmeal w/apples and coconut

Lunch: Four cheese toasted sandwiches, fruit

Dinner: Dinner with friends

Thursday

Breakfast: Cinnamon toast, scrambled eggs

Lunch: Apples w/ peanut butter

Dinner: Crock pot white chili

To do: Soak flour for biscuits, boil eggs

Friday

Breakfast: Soaked biscuits, fruit, bacon

Lunch: Hard-boiled eggs, fruit, crackers, leftover cottage cheese dip

Dinner: Pizza

Saturday/Sunday: Daddy takes charge of meals  :)

As a general rule, we drink drastically diluted fruit juice (with the hope to one day wean completely off of fruit juice altogether) for breakfast. Unless we're having smoothies. For lunch, we drink raw milk. For dinner, we drink homemade kombucha. Or, at least, SOME of us do. Some of us enjoy it more than others.  :)

Linked to:

Menu Plan Monday

 

Project 365: Week 8

Sunday, February 13, 2011

What happens when there's been lots of snow? Answer: lots of mud. Gabe enjoyed a little mud-slingin' this evening.

And then we had our popcorn night.

While watching Kipper the Dog. If you haven't seen Kipper, I highly recommend it. It's refreshingly entertaining (read: not one bit annoying). So that's good!  ;)  For your viewing pleasure (if you so desire):

Monday, February 14, 2011

A friend's kiddo came to play today because he was out of school. These two used to be in child care together during a Tuesday night Bible study I attended waaaaaay back when Noah was a baby and up until he was about two and a half years old. It's funny to see them together after all these years.

And, oh, by the way, Happy Valentine's Day!!

It's always so fun to open mail from Mimi and Da.

Especially when there's money inside!

Atticus reads his card...post-cupcake.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Saylor is really driving me crazy lately with trying on clothes all day long. She puts 'em on, but then she doesn't put 'em up. She HAS a huge supply of actual dress-up clothes, but for some reason she's been changing from outfit to outfit from her CLOSET. It's a real problem. Because her entire room looks like THIS at the end of the day. Time for a new rule!!

However, the combinations she chooses can certainly be quite interesting.

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

This is Saylor's improvised workbox system for school. You can read more about it here.

And, in the meantime, these two were in awe of big brother's project.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Brothers are good for fixing bikes. Even pink, glittery ones.

Friday, February 18, 2011

Tonight we went to a family picnic and movie. 

But here's some big news: 

The Rackleys are letting us use their computer they had left behind when they moved to Africa. It was actually delivered to. my. door. before 8:00 this morning! (Thanks, Grand-Kate!) That's what I call "good friends"!!

Saturday, February 19, 2011

We took Noah for a good hair cut today.

That glassy-eyed expression can be explained. He was playing a video game. You can do anything you want to that boy's head as long as he's playing video games.

Saylor enjoyed time on the iPhone.

While the little boys played at the train table.

And then we had friends over for dinner. This cutie-pie was born the day after Atticus.

I feel like a brand new person typing away on an actual keyboard. What a relief! Oh!!!!! I almost forgot. You seriously need to check out my giveaway. It runs through next Sunday night. I'm giving away a $45 gift card to CSN Stores. Don't miss out!!! Thanks, Sara, for hosting the "Project 365" fun.

What's in the Workbox?

School for Saylor, up to this point, has consisted mostly of her asking me for something to do, I dig it up, and then she comes back for more when she's done. Not very efficient. And all my planning energy was spent on Noah's schoolwork, leaving her with a handful of last-minute ideas hastily snatched up in desperation. Well, I finally determined a way to get Saylor started on a workbox system...withOUT purchasing another cart of drawers. Eventually, I might like to move to a cart, but for now this works really well. And I didn't have to spend a penny because I already owned it! Yay for me!

I'm starting her on six boxes/folders, since she's six. (Well, it just so happened that was how many folders I had, too.) She may be ready to add a couple more pretty soon, though, as she works really well with this system. She really enjoys order, especially when it's all laid out for her.  :)  Bless her heart.

For today:

1. Handwriting Without Tears "Get Set for School." She loves all the components to this program. Fine motor skills are not her strong-suit, but this is her favorite part of school now--simply because she gets to listen to a CD, "build" letters with wood pieces, and write with chalk on a slate while doing the work. Besides, the music and the tactile aspects HELP her learn better.

2. We love this series for its "big picture" style. The kids enjoy the one-on-one time with Mommy as we read through it. And that's pretty much all we do. Unless I get a wild hair and feel a sudden burst of inspiration to "take off" on a certain subject matter. Doesn't happen often. But we have gotten a lot out of it just from reading and discussing things together. Right now she's learning some interesting facts about each of the seven continents.

3. This is a great independent activity for exploring the world of spelling. There are plenty of easy-to-decode words like "cat" and "hut," but there are more difficult ones as well, like "eye" and "egg." So it provides children with the opportunity to explore words with strange spellings.

4. This is technically a file folder game I made for my kindergarten/first grade class years and years ago. But I simply put the pieces into a baggie. She has to use decoding and word recognition skills to match the correct-colored "yolk" to the egg white.

5. Reading lesson.

6. This book provides interesting spatial problems to solve while using pattern blocks. Sometimes I assign a specific page. Other times I let her explore the book on her own.

She was on folder #5 by the time big brother was on his box #2, which says something about how much fun SHE had, as opposed to how much HE enjoys school.

In other news, we've rearranged the whole house (just about) and Mommy here has decided to move all the school BACK upstairs. *sigh* The homeschool is an ever-changing thing. Stay tuned for more details.