Doing school!
Wonderful that this is a homeschool blog. Please forgive us. Wish it had been for a good cause, like a baby. We did have the H1N1 come thru, that was not pleasant. Please forgive. will add cute picture of baby here to make up for it.
Here we go again! Another busy Sunday. You – the Martha Stewart one in the back – sit down! Every other very busy MOMYS feel free to pay attention! You, busy mom, have gotten your children to church, looking very decent, and yet you have NOT had time to brush your hair, or your teeth, or the spit-up off your shirt. What happens the minute church is done, you will be stampeded by your children who are dying of starvation (no offense to the millions in Africa who can go longer than 2.5 hours and who maybe actually cannot remember their last meal… )
THEY WANT TO KNOW WHAT IS FOR LUNCH!
So, here is my plan. When I walk out the door to church, we already have lunch plans ready to go.
1st sunday – potluck at church
2nd Sunday – roasted chickens
3rd Sunday – roast beef
4th Sunday – Turkey
5th Sunday – Hams or pork loin
When we get home, we work on side dishes, either putting out biscuits and a vegetable, etc.
Other tips, we don’t do dessert on Sunday noons. We do it on Sunday nights, after we eat the leftover related to the meal. For our chicken, I have a casserole I make. Recipe to follow. Turkey is turkey noodle soup. Roast beef might end up as pulled meat sandwiches. Ham ends up as some sort of casserole and my favorite – pork loin ends up inside potato soup. yum!
This way, we save lots of money on not eating out and come home to a great smelling house.
Maybe anchoring one part of your meal planning will make your Lord’s Day run a little smoother.
Momma
P.S. we do stray off the plan, did a lovely grill out tonight with a local homeschooling family.
If I can figure out how to link… mostly we’ve been doing the summer crafts and also working on sewing aprons.
This is her apron and she is doing all of the sewing on the machine herself. We actually picked up another sewing machine for the girls due to her interest. (Sorry sweetie! Momma tucked it under some school books she is planning, hence the wrinkles! My fault, I’ll iron it.)
Amanda
If I can figure out how to link… mostly we’ve been doing the summer crafts and also working on sewing aprons.
This is her apron and she is doing all of the sewing on the machine herself. We actually picked up another sewing machine for the girls due to her interest. (Sorry sweetie! Momma tucked it under some school books she is planning, hence the wrinkles! My fault, I’ll iron it.)
Amanda
From the 50 activities, while we were gone to Wisconsin, Brian and the girls made the craft from here.
Unfortunately I was gone, so no photos! I’ll have to see if I can round some up, I did a picture! These turned out real cute and are fun and easy! My 11 year old daughter helped lead the project. IF we did it again, I would buy even more colors of balloons. I took this lovely picture on my phone.
Today, we made bean bag mosiacs.
We’re having so much fun! Post some more ideas for us, if you have them -> please 🙂
First off.. the Wisconsin homeschool convention, (www.wisconsinchea.com) where we saw good friends. Here I am in the car 🙂 not a great photo, but accurate.
The following week, I was called back to Madison, to pick up our son who broke his leg. He was in the hospital with rods for his femur. This has been very challenging because he has been on crutches now for 6 weeks. (which may be where I’ve been).
The next day we send our second son off to Ireland on Teen Missions… see www.teenmissions.com
Then, DH and I took turns going to NICHE (Iowa Homeschool conference) where Voddie Bauchum was speaking. His messages were inspirational to all of us. We were able to take several of the big boys with us both days.
Next to that, we were able to get some off to camp. We have 2 going to Pine Lake, one at Hidden Acres (home of the great homeschool camp!), one off to FCA soon.
As far as homeschooling… we’ve been working to finish up old math books. Does anybody else have ratty workbooks with pages missing? We haven’t been doing any workboxes but we have been trying to do some fun math activities to firm up skills.
For our church VBS, we were using the Keepers At Home/Contenders of the Faith curriculum. I’m not quite sure why we dont’ have any photos of the girls clubs, but we did soap making, laundry and cleaning, and rubber stamping. We also helped each of the girls start their own home making binders. The boys did small engines, camping and woodworking. Here are photos from woodworking: 
(notice the fore-mentioned crutches!)
Lastly, thanks to a great post , we’ve been having lots of summer fun. Here we are making chunky crayons. 
Then… the sidewalk chalk paint:
(Mixing it!)
(painting) and results….
which just like the directions said were so vivid and colorful. The photos just don’t do it justice.
Anyway, that is summer so far on the homestead. Next week is an adventure as the big kids and DH will be gone on a mission trip to Kansas City.
Love, Mommaplus
We went to the Dexter Show in Fort Dodge IA this weekend. We watched a milking exhibition
The Dexter’s are a consideration for us because of their multi-purpose and also due to their size. We saw beautiful exhibits.
Does anybody else notice that the more we actually DO on the homestead, the LESS we have time to write?
Amanda
We have a chicken building. It is 3 parts. On the East side, are our layer chickens. In the middle, is our storage area and brooders. On the West side, is the NEW and IMPROVED meat bird side. Once moved out of their brooder, we had to wait until it stopped raining, and we were home to get them into their new yard. (Our daughter had a car accident last weekend and we were at the hospital the entire Saturday – figures… it was gorgeous weather!) Well, this weekend, their accomodations became deluxe. We added a door to their pen and moved their fencing to the back of the chicken coop. Their new fence home is probably 20*40 and they LOVE it!
Here we are adding the door to the back of the building. Brian is introducing the chickens to the yard.
He needed help from the inside, so as we are blessed with helpers… they shoved them out the door.
They were outside here while we built that new door. They have lots of space to grow now.
Amanda
Saturday we had an amazing day. We searched online for skoolie buses for a long time. We knew another large homeschooling family with one and so have been trying to find one that “meets OUR unique needs”. We drove about 2 hours Saturday over to drive one. I’m not sure that it was THE ONE, but it was a start.
We then went to Chuck E. Cheese. There isn’t one close to us at all so when we get that close, we make it an event! I do have some photos for this but not able to get those off yet.
It was raining so it was not a good farm day.
Sunday, we spent at Worship and again, watching the outside —> rain. Late Sunday night, I took the big kids to see Night at the Museum 2. Wow! Not for littles but very entertaining.
Monday, the sun shone, so to work we went! We had a huge to do list, and we didn’t accomplish all of it, but we sure did work hard.
First, the Turkeys… They were originally in a brooder. (Maybe Brian can add a pic of this). Then they went to a tiny room we have in our big barn and yesterday they moved to their new home with a huge new yard. This yard was completely closed with trees and debris. It is rather large, probably 20*30 or so. The fence itself didn’t need much work as the Turkeys won’t be there forever *Grin*
Here is Keisa moving the turkeys…
We have 13 of our original tureys left. Here they are – exploring the new yard.
This was just our first task for the day… stay tuned for more updates.
Amanda
Our Faith, Our Family, Our Farm 