Creative Scrappers Sketch

A new sketch was posted today on Creative Scrappers and I had time to create it. Here is mine, if you want to see the sketch just click on the link.

Snow Day - round 2

Back out in the snow today. Meghan had made a smalle snowman yesterday but the snow was too dry and not sticking together well. Today when she and Kaden went out she started making balls. I looked out and she had a huge ball made. Nate went out to help and they constructed this huge snowman! Meghan made all the big balls of snow herself.

A sketch

My friend Shanna draws amazing sketches to use with scrapbooking. I am addicted to sketches! She has a new sketch up and I had to try it. If you want to see the sketch go here.

Snow day!

Meghan and Kaden were so excited to go outside and play in the snow today. So we broke out the snow clothes again and bundled in layers (reminding someone to use the bathroom, you know who) and out they went. They were outside for a couple hours and had a blast!

I took a few other pictures to show how much snow there is. It's pretty outside and it is around 7 inches. I measured. ;)

Baby food recipes

I thought I would share the recipes I have been using for some of our baby food.

Ellie's favorite is sweet potatoes. They are the easiest things to make too. Love them!
Scrub and prick sweet potatoes. Bake in 375 degree oven for 45 mins or until soft. After they cool just peel and mash. Ellie still likes things a little smoother so I use my stick blender and puree them. Sometimes she has them plain but she loves them with applesauce mixed in.

I also boiled a chicken breast. When it was cool I pureed that with my stick blender. This is the first time I have given her meat. I mixed this with the sweet potatoes as well. I froze both plain and mixed sweet potatoes in ice cube trays. After they were frozen I put them in ziplocks.

The other thing she eats a lot of is oatmeal. I tried to grind the oats first and then cook it but it was still too chunky for her. So I cook it and then puree it and she likes that. I make up a few days worth and stick it in the fridge. Then in the morning I just warm it and mix in some applesauce.

Winter Storm

Last night we had a storm blow in. We knew it was coming and they were predicting a mess. I started praying it wouldn't be as bad as they thought. We had sleet, freezing rain... I really don't know the difference. I know that it freezes on the trees and power lines and when that happened last year we were without power for a week and a half. I was really hoping it wouldn't happen this year because we have electric heating. All last night it was suppose to freeze. When I got up this morning though it wasn't too bad at all. I could see a little ice but nothing too bad and yay our power was still on, (Thank you Jesus!). Around noon it started to snow. We knew that was coming and I was happy to see it because no more freezing rain! It has been snowing all day now and is still snowing although it has finally slowed down and is being pushed out of our area.

Here is when it first started.

This is around 5 pm.

3 inches

It's about 10 pm now and there is probably 6 to 7 inches out there. This is more than we got during our Christmas Eve storm. I am betting there will be snow play tomorrow and more fun pictures to share.

I had seen quite a few blogs where they talked about making "snow cream". I was a little sad that I didn't know about snow cream during our Christmas storm. Although... I never eat Decemeber snow. hehe

So today when we started getting a lot of snow I thought about making some for the kids. I have never heard of this before, not being from an area that gets snow, I am sure there are many of you that know about it already and maybe made it as kids.

So I went out to find some clean snow. It wasn't hard because there was a lot on top of our grill :)

You need... 8 cups of snow

1 can of sweetened condensed milk

1 teas. of vanilla

Mix it all together...

Ellie is helping by hanging on my leg. She wasn't too impressed with the snow cream but at least I can tell her she has tried it. I tried it too. Yummy.

Serve immediately. Meghan thought it should have chocolate syrup and mini choc. chips on it.

Even Nate had some, even though he laughed at me when I was going out to get the snow. He left his plain vanilla but threw some cherries on top.

I think that was a lot of fun to make and share with the kids. For sure something we won't be doing in AZ.

Horse Riding lessons!

On Wednesday, (1-27) Meghan went for her first horse riding lesson. We decided to search for someone that could give her lessons for her birthday. When we found Angela, we knew she would be perfect. She doesn't really give a lot of lessons, mostly she trains horses, but she has a 7 year old as well and believes all kids should have a chance to take lessons and learn about horses. We told Meghan on Tuesday night. I made chocolate cupcakes and made her a little card. I wrote in her card about her gift. It was fun to watch her face as she read the card.

She had a GREAT time at her lesson. Angela, her teacher said that she had a great time teaching her too. I was happy about that because Meghan can talk. a. lot! At one point she had to use the restroom so she took her inside. Angela came back out by herself, to give Meghan some privacy she said because she was singing in the bathroom. She thought that was funny.

She learned so much. We wanted her to get an idea of how to care for a horse too and the work involved. Angela completly agreed of course and said she planned to teach her all that was involved. She learned how to brush them, clean their hooves, ( and why, before each ride), how to put the blankets and saddle on, and how to put the bridle on. She spent some time just petting the horse and making sure they were both comfortable.

She started out on this horse. She is a smaller horse and Angela thought she would be good for Meghan to get used to. However, she was really antsy because she could sense the storm coming.

They changed to this horse because she is calmer. She is pretty old and is the horse that Angela's 7 year old rides. She is however, a lot taller. :) SO she got to brush her and help get her ready to ride too.

She was really focusing on teaching Meghan how to stop. Meghan knows, in her head, how to stop and turn a horse so it was really cool that she was getting to try it in real life. She of course showed her how to get her to go, backup and turn. Meghan had a great time and one time when they were walking by she called to us "I am really getting into this horse thing." She didn't want to stop when it was time and wanted to go back the next day. We are going to try and take her once a week for as long as we can. I am so happy that we have the opportunity for her to take these lessons.

Weekly Homeschool Recap 1/18-1/22

Okay I am a little behind. Actually I'm not sure this will post but I am going to try it anyway. (Slow internet this weekend and so far this week) Not a lot of pictures (I have been trying to get them to load all week) but a little info. :)
So we did pretty much the same old things last week. Nothing way out of the ordinary. We are still reading Farmer Boy and doing the unit study with it. Meghan narrated the story where Almanzo ( the boy in the story) almost fell into the hole cut in the frozen lake. She also relayed back to me how they would cut and save ice in the winter to use all summer and what they used it for. We read some extra material about life before refrigeration also. For our science we talked about matter, specifically water and how it can be all types of matter; gas, solid or liquid. She learned how water (ice) expands and contracts. They also watched two Magic School Bus videos. One about bees and the other called "In A Pickle" (about microbes).
For Bible we are reading about Moses. They also watched a Moses video we have. (I plan to read some more about Moses this week and add a craft project or something.)
For math she is still practicing adding, subtracting and times tables (up to 5's) in a timed game. She also reviewed telling time, borrowing and carrying. Whenever we cook or bake she gets out the measuring cups we need and we talk about how to double or halve things so she is pretty good with fractions.
I did not get a lot of pictures this week. Here are the kids working on a little craft project.

 

In other news... Kaden is still wearing his "Ho Ho" hat a lot. Ellie got it one day and was trying to put it on, which was really cute all on it's own, and he got upset and took it from her. He has become very opinionated about what he wears too. He doesn't like the new pajama's that he got for Christmas, even though one has Mickey Mouse and the other has Cars. Even his jeans and shirts he wants to choose. I just take him with me when I get his clothes now, much easier.

Ellie took here first steps on Saturday! I took video but didn't get pictures. I am going to try and post that here. Very exciting! She also has two teeth coming in which probably explains her crabbiness this past week!

This week I am listening in to an online women's conference. It is very encouraging and uplifting! You can find info here http://www.awomaninspiredconference.org/

They have conferences often. Some are themed for homeschooling, others are just encouraging, all are focused on women. It's a Christian group. I was gifted the ticket so I am making the most of it and trying to listen to as many speakers as I can. If I do miss some or I want to come back later to listen to them again they will have the mp3's available so that is great.

I will be missing them on Wednesday because we are taking Meghan for horse riding lessons, unless something happens. I am waiting until that day to tell her. (ssshhhh) We have a chance of rain so I don't know if they would be cancelled or not. This is a gift for her birthday but I wanted to get started as soon as possible. She is going to be so excited and yes I will be taking lots of pictures!

Muffin Tin Monday - ABC and 123

I have been having trouble getting pictures uploaded so this is a little late. However, here it is! I did a breaskfast tin this week so that I could get it done before listening to the speakers during an online conference.

I couldn't get the pictures of the kids to load. :(

Oh well. so here is what we did for the ABC/ 123 theme.

A-apples, B-bread (pumpkin), C-cereal

1 cup of choc. milk, 2 eggs (one sliced), 3 blueberries

Check out what others did this week!