Dough Moustache

I made rolls today and the kids wanted to play with some dough.  Here is what Arianna did with hers:

Funny girl

How do ya like my moustache?

Kate Update

Little Kate is growing up too fast.  I wanted to write a little list of all the adorable things she does right now so that I can remember them forever.  She is so precious.  I wish I could share some of the videos of her lately, but alas, I am having technical difficulties with uploading videos here to blogger.  Anyone know how to solve that problem?

Anyway, here is the list of Kate's cuteness:

• When I put her to nap and bed I always say I love you and blow her a kiss.  So, now when she hears I love you she puts her little hand up to her mouth.  It melts my heart every time. 
• 'Sets table'- carries plastic cups and bowls we have in a low drawer for the kids over to the table. 
• Loves to entertain us.  In the evening when we all pile on the couch for the Bible and Narnia she will put on a little show.  She does tricks.  If you say, "Kate, do a trick for us."  She will pivot around on one foot in circles and usually end up falling down.  Then she'll ham it up on the floor before she pops up and makes another circle around the family room/living room/ entry hall.  She is hilarious!
• So interested in the chickens, chicks, bugs, trees, etc.   Almost every time she finishes nursing, she'll pop up and look out the window and say, "Chickens!" Which actually sounds like 'chicks'. 
• Loves to be outside and see all of the above. 
• Says "that"
• Obsessed with the toothbrush drawer and listens for the bathroom door to open and makes a bee-line for the room so she can get her hands on everybody's toothbrushes.  If she does get ahold of them she parades around the house sucking on two toothbrushes. 
• Really flies down the stairs now on her belly.
• Oh- and she wants to walk down the stairs.  She stands on the bottom step and tried to step down and mostly falls. 
• She has a knack for picking things up.  We were amazed to watch her pick up each and every one of the Bananagrams tiles and put them in the bag all by herself.  I'm sure that will fly out the window when she turns two. 
•  Says "milk" and does the sign when she wants to nurse or wants cow's milk.
• Gets jealous when the other kids sit on my lap
• Has a knack for falling asleep in Dad's arms right at the end of the church meeting when he tries the whole time to get her to sleep.
• Starting to say animal noises- moos, barks, buzzes. 

Kate loves to climb up on the hearth and play

Kate loves books!

She loves to pull out my shoes and try to walk around

Little Ham-bone

Picking up Bananagrams tiles.  Every single one.  Kenneth and I kept looking at each other in disbelief as she kept on going.

 

 

Peep Dioramas

 

The kids made these for a contest our library is having this month.  They had so much fun this week.  Now I've got to get them to clean up the mess they made in the process!  In order: Grant, Emma and Arianna.

 

 

What a beautiful mess

You know that old country song. . ."What a beautiful mess, what a beautiful mess I'm in. . ."  Well, that went through my mind today as I was cleaning up after lunch.  We certainly do have a lot of messes around here that's for sure.  That's one of the things about homeschooling; you eat home more, you play at home more, you just ARE home more and all that equals more messes.  But, I wouldn't have it any other way.  Someday I am going to miss these messes. 


Here we are doing art.  It can get kind of messy.  On this particular day, we were making gardens on paper plates.  It was actually a project from our History Book.  We were making gardens like Babur the Tiger's Garden of Scattered Flowers in India.

 

Here are the finished products.  The kids played with their animals in the gardens for about a week when I was tired of having them in my kitchen.

 

More animal homes.  Kate was delighted that they were on her level.  Because she can be so destructive to their creations, Grant calls her "Dewey the Hun".  He remembers the Huns attacking people in our history lessons.

 One of the messiest areas of my life:  The chicks!  I make the kids put on Kenneth's old T-shirts to try to keep chick droppings off their clothes.. 

Arianna with Buffy and Exclamation Point

 

They love to play with these little chicks!

Happy Grant with Polka Dots and Puffy

Kate can say Chicks!  For quite a while she has tried to say chicken and gets the ch sound, but not the whole word.  Well, she can really say chicks.  It is so cute and she loves to go out and see them, too!

Catch up, Part 2 {March}

Here we go- March!  We were able to make a trip to the temple in Oklahoma City this month.  It was so nice to go to the temple.  We are just shy of 200 miles from the temple and with this brood of children it is a production to make the trip, but I am so glad we did.  We took a couple of toll roads to get there and the concept was interesting to the kids.  Within the couple of weeks after that they built roads with their Magna Tiles and charged each other a toll to cross.  I love to hear the children play; they are hilarious the things they come up with.  They have been making elaborate homes for their little animals and having the time of their lives.  Oh, to be a child again!
I also had a root canal in March.  I have been putting it off for a really long time.  I have never had a whole lot of dental work done in my life.  Only one cavity I can remember, and that was half-way into my marriage.  So, the thought of a root canal was scary!   I knew I had a crack in a tooth and we had tried to fix it with a filling, but it didn't take care of the problem.  I kept thinking it would get better, but it got to the point where I couldn't eat or drink anything without pain.  I would try to keep everything on the opposite side of my mouth, but it wasn't always possible.  Boy, am I glad I finally got it done!  The recover time was not bad at all and after just a week all the tenderness was even gone.  Even during the recovery time it was still better than what I had been dealing with before that.  I must say, this whole experience has taught me to have more empathy for people who hate going to the dentist.  I never understood it before. 
Here are the pictures of this month I have missed sharing in previous posts:

Kate catching the cleaning spirit!

The kids happy for spring and enjoying decorating the driveway

Grant's line-up

Kate loves dump truck rides!

Arianna loves to give them!

Emma's first real cooking experience.  The kids found a kids' cookbook and wanted to make the vegetable soup.  She felt so proud of herself. 

Kate is always at the refrigerator whenever I open it- like a vulture!  She grabbed right ahold of the celery stalk I had pulled out to use for dinner!  Funny girl!

Emma woke up late on this particular morning and so ate breakfast later than the rest of us.  Kate thought it was round two and begged to have Emma get her up and feed her some.  I love those piggies!

Sweet baby!

 

She loves pioneer cereal.  Gotta love that string of drool!

The road Grant set up.  Notice the Monopoly money for the tolls.

Emma's house for her animals.

Grant's house for Little Lion (One of these days I will do a full post on that little animal- he's Grant's favorite)

Arianna's home

Emma's two horses' home.

 

Catch up, Part 1 {February}

I thought that February and March was supposed to be a slower time of the year?  Well, not for me.  I have felt as busy as ever;  I never felt a slow-down.  It's been busy, but good.  The children are learning so much and Kate is growing up so fast.  Here are some of our February adventures:

Emma our faithful chicken caretaker.  Unless it is single digits out there, she is out there to take care of those chickens.  She is awesome!

Every Tuesday is laundry day.  They decided to dress Kate up while sorting through the laundry.

Valentine's Day breakfast.  (By the way, I will not do this again!  It was way harder than it was worth!!!! Most of them were more burnt than this one.)

Valentine's Day lunch.  It's a party!  Whenever we do a spread like this the kids think it is a party.  The heart-shaped cheese slices were so much fun.  I WILL do that again!

 We had planned to have pork tenderloin for dinner, but the day got away with me and it wasn't until a couple of hours before dinner that I realized the recipe I had had in mind was a crockpot meal, so I whipped up Thai chicken noodle salad.  An old favorite that we hadn't had in a while.  We had cheesecake with raspberry sauce for dessert and it was good. 

The girls dressed Kate up to dance with them.

 

Happy, pretty princess!

Kate loves to go outside and see the chickens.

Kate will often bring us our shoes to indicate she wants to go outside.

Here dad, let's go!!

The kids, especially Emma, is obsessed with this game called Aggravation.  I had the game as a child and really loved it.  Kenneth happened to find it at a thrift store and got it on a whim, having no idea it was an old favorite of mine. 

Kate out with the chickens.

Kenneth took a trip to Adelaide, Australia the end of February.  The flight was long, but it was interesting for him to see a new place in the world and Kenneth and his team had a productive time.  The kids and I missed him, but did just fine at home.  We even made a trip to the dentist so the big kids could have their teeth cleaned.  They all did such a great job.  I never imagined I could take all four of them to the dentist by myself before.  They really are growing up!

Beans, beans!

I got myself into a mess again.  I got some big idea that I should can some beans.  Not green beans, but dry beans- pinto, black, garbanzo, great northern.  For a while I have been cooking beans from dry to use whenever I want beans.  I would do a batch and freeze them for when I needed them so that it was almost as easy as opening a can.  The problem was, I like to freeze them on a rimmed baking sheet first and then transfer them into baggies so that I could take out what a needed and not have a large mass of beans in a bag.  It was just getting too complicated.  So, I looked online, talked to my sisters-in-law who have done this before and looked in my Blue Ball Book of Canning.  I decided to soak the beans over night before canning them.  I looked to see how many pounds I would need to fill the canner and even had Kenneth double check my math.  Well, it ended up not being a canner full, but 4 plus canners full!!!!!  Oy vey! 
So, the project overtook my kitchen for the next week.  I ended up with this:

This was minus 2 pints that cracked and a quart that didn't seal.

 

In addition, I still had more pinto beans and made crockpot refried beans which fed us for lunch and dinner and I froze 3 quart bags full.  Looks like I am set for a while!

I enlisted the help of the children to move the project along and they were truly a big help (Unlike the many other times when their 'help' is not really help). 
I only took a picture of Arianna helping, so here she is:


I think the entire project ended up being a success.  It really was a blessing in disguise, because I don't know when I would have gotten around to canning so many beans and now I have so many that I can just grab and go.  Every evening when I tuck the kids in bed, the girls (mostly Emma, but sometimes Arianna) like to tell me their favorite part of the day.  On that day, both of them said canning beans! (and playing outside).  In fact, round two, they all volunteered to help again!  They were so proud of themselves when they were able to tell Dad what they had done when he came home from work. 
So, for those of you interested, you have to pressure can beans.  I also discovered that the overnight soak was unnecessary.  The canner full that I did without soaking came out perfectly soft.  I am actually worried the overnight soak ones are going to be too soft.  Oh well.  Live and learn.  Want to know what else makes we feel good?  If we ever lost power, did not have a good water source for cooking, we have jars of food waiting and ready to be eaten.  No water or heat source needed!