I spread this out to let a few damp spots dry and then found the very same culprit taking advantage of the soft, clean, cozy comforter.
"wet me wead" - Let me read - ::snort::
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
LAUNDRY
Someone had an accident in our bed; again. This means that all the sheets, down comforter, blankets etc have to be washed.
I spread this out to let a few damp spots dry and then found the very same culprit taking advantage of the soft, clean, cozy comforter.
"wet me wead" - Let me read - ::snort::
I spread this out to let a few damp spots dry and then found the very same culprit taking advantage of the soft, clean, cozy comforter.
"wet me wead" - Let me read - ::snort::
Bagels!
We are big bagel fans at our house. I've been afraid to attempt making our own bagels. The task seemed confusing, daunting even. Scalding milk, making ropes, boiling, egg washes....ugh.....I've been baking our own bread for years. I knew that I could make healthier bagels than the ones I buy and yet they terrified me. THEN, Regina on a local homeschool list posted her recipe for bagels.
It SEEMED like something I could do. There are no milk, eggs, or butter in these - in other words they are LOW CHOLESTEROL...in fact they are NO CHOLESTEROL or FAT. I did add almond butter which is fat to my toasted bagel - but no cholesterol....who said eating healthy had to taste bad.
I made two batches this a.m. 16 bagels. There are only TWO folks in this house who LIKE Cinnamon/Raisen bagels but 10 of them disappeared (and I ate one).
I made another double batch tonight: 8 plain and 8 garlic/Italian....
Recipe: Cinnamon Raisin Bagels
1/2 C raisins
1 TB sugar (I used honey)
1 1/4 C warm water
3 C White flour (I used Prairie Gold a hard white flour)
3 heaping TB brown sugar (I used Rapadura)
1 tsp sea salt
3 1/4 tsp yeast
Egg Wash: 1 egg and 1 TB water. (I was out of eggs so skipped this).
Soak the raisins in warm water for 10 min. drain. Mix the yeast with the warm water and honey and let the yeast activate.
Toss raisins with cinnamon and rapadura. Add flour, salt and raisin mix to the yeast mixture.
Place dough on floured surface and knead (I did most kneading in the Bosch and just kneaded enough to get the sticky dough "workable").
Divide into 8 equal parts. Form into balls. Are your ready?
How easy is THIS: poke your finger through the middle of the ball and gently stretch or twirl around your finger.
Cover with towel and let rise while you start preheating oven to 400* and bring 3 qts of water with 1 T honey (or sugar) to a rapid boil.
Using a slotted spoon, drop 2 - 3 bagles into boiling water. Boil each side for about 1 1/2 minutes.
Remove and cool on rack about 1 minute. Brush with egg wash. Bake at 400* on baking sheet until golden brown - about 15 - 20 minutes.
These are YUMMY....much softer and chewier than store bought.
It SEEMED like something I could do. There are no milk, eggs, or butter in these - in other words they are LOW CHOLESTEROL...in fact they are NO CHOLESTEROL or FAT. I did add almond butter which is fat to my toasted bagel - but no cholesterol....who said eating healthy had to taste bad.
I made two batches this a.m. 16 bagels. There are only TWO folks in this house who LIKE Cinnamon/Raisen bagels but 10 of them disappeared (and I ate one).
I made another double batch tonight: 8 plain and 8 garlic/Italian....
Recipe: Cinnamon Raisin Bagels
1/2 C raisins
1 TB sugar (I used honey)
1 1/4 C warm water
3 C White flour (I used Prairie Gold a hard white flour)
3 heaping TB brown sugar (I used Rapadura)
1 tsp sea salt
3 1/4 tsp yeast
Egg Wash: 1 egg and 1 TB water. (I was out of eggs so skipped this).
Soak the raisins in warm water for 10 min. drain. Mix the yeast with the warm water and honey and let the yeast activate.
Toss raisins with cinnamon and rapadura. Add flour, salt and raisin mix to the yeast mixture.
Place dough on floured surface and knead (I did most kneading in the Bosch and just kneaded enough to get the sticky dough "workable").
Divide into 8 equal parts. Form into balls. Are your ready?
How easy is THIS: poke your finger through the middle of the ball and gently stretch or twirl around your finger.
Cover with towel and let rise while you start preheating oven to 400* and bring 3 qts of water with 1 T honey (or sugar) to a rapid boil.
Using a slotted spoon, drop 2 - 3 bagles into boiling water. Boil each side for about 1 1/2 minutes.
Remove and cool on rack about 1 minute. Brush with egg wash. Bake at 400* on baking sheet until golden brown - about 15 - 20 minutes.
These are YUMMY....much softer and chewier than store bought.
Fish Prints (Gyotaku Prints) or Funschooling Again! ::snort::
We finally used the fish that showed up so unexpectedly last fall. This has got to be the BEST mistake I have ever made (BTW Jeff was very willing to accept my mistake back - but I decided it would be good to add to TOG). I have wanted to try some of Jeff and Kate's hands on history kits for years. (Baby Noah is their young son, please remember to pray for him.) Our years are always full with TOG and buying extra kits when I COULD pull it together myself felt like "wasted money". I can guarantee you I would not have gone out and found 3 perch and rice paper for this project. We've done two of the projects in this kit now - and I'm sold. I will continue to add the history kits as they fit with the areas and time periods that we are studying.
We are using the Ancient Far East kit from Hands and Heart. This is one homeschool product that totally lives up to it's billing. Each kit comes with everything you need to do the projects (down to the paper towels and styrofoam cups for paint). There is a wonderful CD that has all instructions, tons of notebook pages, and MAPS (wonderful maps from Knowledge Quest - same ones used by TOG) which can be printed as wanted. I printed it all out to use and store. Each project has clearly written instructions, a bit of the history of the area, notebook ideas, and a section called "lighting the path" which ties Bible in to the project. I won't be doing all the activities listed in the kit. I'm using it to supplement and add hands on fun to our TOG.
We have been attempting lap books this year, but the kids really seem to appreciate these sorts of hands on things MORE....and they keep asking why we aren't making a history quilt this year. Maybe I'll count one finished as good enough for this year and save the next 3 for our next cyle through ancient history.
Painting fish is serious business for Zander.
And Nolan...
Nolan's prints
Zander's prints
My fish prints
Arielle's prints
We are using the Ancient Far East kit from Hands and Heart. This is one homeschool product that totally lives up to it's billing. Each kit comes with everything you need to do the projects (down to the paper towels and styrofoam cups for paint). There is a wonderful CD that has all instructions, tons of notebook pages, and MAPS (wonderful maps from Knowledge Quest - same ones used by TOG) which can be printed as wanted. I printed it all out to use and store. Each project has clearly written instructions, a bit of the history of the area, notebook ideas, and a section called "lighting the path" which ties Bible in to the project. I won't be doing all the activities listed in the kit. I'm using it to supplement and add hands on fun to our TOG.
We have been attempting lap books this year, but the kids really seem to appreciate these sorts of hands on things MORE....and they keep asking why we aren't making a history quilt this year. Maybe I'll count one finished as good enough for this year and save the next 3 for our next cyle through ancient history.
Painting fish is serious business for Zander.
And Nolan...
Nolan's prints
Zander's prints
My fish prints
Arielle's prints
They want to dissect the fish - we shall see. I've about had all I want for one day of dead fish.
Camping Trip
It was crazy; a flurry of activity on Friday morning. The last basket of produce left the house and immediately clothes, cooking utensils, and food began to appear. For the first time EVER we left on a camping trip and I had NO MEAL PLAN. Jamin had gathered frozen meat; I threw in rice, pasta, spices and a share of produce. We ate better than we ever have on a camping adventure. I discovered the joys of a crock pot for camping. Sunday we put a roast in after breakfast, spent the day hiking, fishing, and geocaching, and came home to a wonderful dinner.
I’m sorry we neglected to mention we were leaving town; which caused a bit of concern. The boys did NOT have the weekend off. We debated staying home or camping. We finally decided that we needed to go make memories even if the older ones were busy with work.
We visited a new, to us, state park. Thanks to the Z family for their recommendation. We went to South Llano River State Park. The park is also a wildlife management area. This means that in addition to a pristine river (unheard of in our previous explorations of TX) wood duck, white-tailed deer, squirrel, jackrabbit, javelina, fox, beaver, bobcat, cottontail, and armadillo as well as several exotic species such as Axis Deer, Black Buck Antelope, and Fallow Deer are often spotted in the park. We encountered many of these! During this time of the year much of the park is closed and set aside for a turkey roost habitat. They do, however, have great bird blinds and the younger ones and I had fun watching for new species of birds to show up. We’ll take the Nikon next time and get some nice photos.
Without further ado – some photos:
Stacia leaves her mark on The Caboose – as the rest of us rush to pack.
Games are always a hit! Sorry was our favorite; also enjoyed were
Ruckus
Go Fish
It was COLD this weekend. It was 37* on Saturday. I haven’t a clue what it was Friday night – but cold enough to cause this…..::snort::
We looked for and found 3 caches.
Mike with the first cache (under his hand).
We took advantage of the water to play Pooh Sticks.
The Independent Daredevil doesn't even realize the Father is protecting him. How often am I like this?
The second cache was atop this "mountain" outside Junction.
Saturday afternoon was spent fishing and playing in the South Llano river. Much of the river access is closed to the public during Turkey Roost season. We plan to go back with the canoes later in the year. I'm sure it will be a much busier park, but there is only one camping loop. We are guessing it will be a zoo during the day and settle down at night.
As we were hiking down the mountain we got a call for Cy and Jamin. They have Sundays off. Lured by our tale of a river you could see the bottom of.....
they were in the park. Yippee! Mike went to meet them. I set lunch out.
Stacia yelled, "Daddy's here" when she heard the van. Jamin surprised her.
Then Cy surprised her.
Josiah commented that you expect to see salmon in the river but they aren't there. ::snort::
I’m sorry we neglected to mention we were leaving town; which caused a bit of concern. The boys did NOT have the weekend off. We debated staying home or camping. We finally decided that we needed to go make memories even if the older ones were busy with work.
We visited a new, to us, state park. Thanks to the Z family for their recommendation. We went to South Llano River State Park. The park is also a wildlife management area. This means that in addition to a pristine river (unheard of in our previous explorations of TX) wood duck, white-tailed deer, squirrel, jackrabbit, javelina, fox, beaver, bobcat, cottontail, and armadillo as well as several exotic species such as Axis Deer, Black Buck Antelope, and Fallow Deer are often spotted in the park. We encountered many of these! During this time of the year much of the park is closed and set aside for a turkey roost habitat. They do, however, have great bird blinds and the younger ones and I had fun watching for new species of birds to show up. We’ll take the Nikon next time and get some nice photos.
Without further ado – some photos:
Stacia leaves her mark on The Caboose – as the rest of us rush to pack.
Games are always a hit! Sorry was our favorite; also enjoyed were
Ruckus
Go Fish
It was COLD this weekend. It was 37* on Saturday. I haven’t a clue what it was Friday night – but cold enough to cause this…..::snort::
We looked for and found 3 caches.
Mike with the first cache (under his hand).
We took advantage of the water to play Pooh Sticks.
The Independent Daredevil doesn't even realize the Father is protecting him. How often am I like this?
The second cache was atop this "mountain" outside Junction.
(I got a hilarious photo I won't share. I took some great flag shots....and didn't realize that in the corner of one was Zander "taking care of business".) ::snort::
Saturday afternoon was spent fishing and playing in the South Llano river. Much of the river access is closed to the public during Turkey Roost season. We plan to go back with the canoes later in the year. I'm sure it will be a much busier park, but there is only one camping loop. We are guessing it will be a zoo during the day and settle down at night.
Our Climber
Do you see the mischeif in those eyes?
Sunday a.m. we set out to find "humble begininnings"; the only cache in the park. The trail led here.
This led to jokes about humble endings.
Jared led an insurrection. They were sure they could follow the GPS directions and get to the cache quicker than Mike’s proposed plan of backing up and finding a road/trail. The GPS said .3 of a mile. They took off.
We headed back and around and found this nicely paved, steep road. The road was closed to traffic but was a nice walk. The photo doesn't BEGIN to show how steep it was. Stacia accepted NO HELP!
At the end of our nice hike, we each found the cache, had a snack and waited....
We realized the kids must have had to climb straight up....
At one point we saw a javelina. We'd been told there were "pigs" in the park. We would not have let the kids hike alone if we'd know there were javelinas. ::snort:: We yelled, they heard and pressed forward.
Arielle popped through the brush,
followed by the boys. Jared did great motivating, protecting, and getting them all to the goal! Way to go, Jared!
Zander was the last one to find the cache and was excited.
We enjoyed a well-earned snack.
Jared, the ham, when he realized there had been a parking lot a few hundred yards from the top of the mountain.
Yep - they went STRAIGHT up - they didn't even look for a trail - just followed the GPS. ::snort::
Do you see the mischeif in those eyes?
Sunday a.m. we set out to find "humble begininnings"; the only cache in the park. The trail led here.
This led to jokes about humble endings.
Jared led an insurrection. They were sure they could follow the GPS directions and get to the cache quicker than Mike’s proposed plan of backing up and finding a road/trail. The GPS said .3 of a mile. They took off.
We headed back and around and found this nicely paved, steep road. The road was closed to traffic but was a nice walk. The photo doesn't BEGIN to show how steep it was. Stacia accepted NO HELP!
At the end of our nice hike, we each found the cache, had a snack and waited....
We realized the kids must have had to climb straight up....
At one point we saw a javelina. We'd been told there were "pigs" in the park. We would not have let the kids hike alone if we'd know there were javelinas. ::snort:: We yelled, they heard and pressed forward.
Arielle popped through the brush,
followed by the boys. Jared did great motivating, protecting, and getting them all to the goal! Way to go, Jared!
Zander was the last one to find the cache and was excited.
We enjoyed a well-earned snack.
Jared, the ham, when he realized there had been a parking lot a few hundred yards from the top of the mountain.
Yep - they went STRAIGHT up - they didn't even look for a trail - just followed the GPS. ::snort::
As we were hiking down the mountain we got a call for Cy and Jamin. They have Sundays off. Lured by our tale of a river you could see the bottom of.....
they were in the park. Yippee! Mike went to meet them. I set lunch out.
Stacia yelled, "Daddy's here" when she heard the van. Jamin surprised her.
Then Cy surprised her.
Josiah commented that you expect to see salmon in the river but they aren't there. ::snort::
They did catch trout (Mike informs that technically HE caught trout;all others skunked).
Jared talked everyone in to going to see the trek they'd had in the a.m. Sadly, Mike found a trail that took them right up. ::snort::
TX is always decked out for Christmas and/or romance with mistletoe in the tree tops.
The boys headed home. We enjoyed our roast and a nice fire.
Nolan woke to two bucks sparring with their antlers outside his window. We had a zillion deer outside our campsite.
Monday a.m. we played Bocce,
packed up,
and headed home.
There is something sad about leaving a campsite. Wait....for the PHOTOGRAPHER!!! ::snort::
We came away with the determination to try to go out once a month. It's DIFFICULT to break away, but totally needful. In the end, the Bible Studies, School, Chapel, studies, house, etc waited and were right here when we got back. We are more refreshed to deal with our life. We made more great family memories, which we're learning to do even when we "feel" that the family isn't here. ::snort::
Jared talked everyone in to going to see the trek they'd had in the a.m. Sadly, Mike found a trail that took them right up. ::snort::
TX is always decked out for Christmas and/or romance with mistletoe in the tree tops.
The boys headed home. We enjoyed our roast and a nice fire.
Nolan woke to two bucks sparring with their antlers outside his window. We had a zillion deer outside our campsite.
Monday a.m. we played Bocce,
packed up,
and headed home.
There is something sad about leaving a campsite. Wait....for the PHOTOGRAPHER!!! ::snort::
We came away with the determination to try to go out once a month. It's DIFFICULT to break away, but totally needful. In the end, the Bible Studies, School, Chapel, studies, house, etc waited and were right here when we got back. We are more refreshed to deal with our life. We made more great family memories, which we're learning to do even when we "feel" that the family isn't here. ::snort::
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