Homeschool Systems: Lunches, etc.

For me the difficulty in home educating is not so much in the choosing of courses of study. That's the fun part. I enjoy deciding what we will study, finding the resources that we will use, and laying out a map of how we will cover the material. 

The real challenge lies in balancing the rest of life. Between the all the books and the learning there is so much more. Laundry, all that eating these people do, all the clean-up from the eating/playing/studying, the parenting, the nursing, etc, etc. You get it. There's a lot more than just learning.  The juggling is what gets you. Plus, one has got to rest sometime too. Still haven't figured out that one yet. 

Anyhow, the homeschool systems. If I ever need advice or new ways to innovate, it isn't so much fancy curriculum that I'm looking for but how to make it all work together. Homeschool routines/systems .. . whatever you call it. Rubber meets the road.

I might share some of what has worked for us along the way. . .  what's working for us now. This stage, this moment.  Different routines work for different seasons. 

Food. Meals. I've mentioned this challenge before. Homeschool breakfasts and even more challenging . . . LUNCHES! I brought up this topic in a homeschool group on facebook and it was quite the active thread.

This year I have finally have hit on a AHA! DUH! revelation. Ready for it?? The more organized and prepared I am, the smoother things run.  Wow. Just amazing, huh? I stun myself with my brilliance. *eyeroll* Really. I know its a no-brainer but I supposed I felt like I organized enough and needed to wing SOMETHING.  Nope, nope, nope. There is enough in life that is fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants. Parenting brings plenty of spontaneity. If there is anything I can organize and plan now, DO IT. Do it now. Squeeze it in. 

I found a few more things that I could *try* and organize beforehand and even though it doesn't work all the time, it is helping. Less brain energy exerted later when the rubber is hitting the road hard. 

One thing I've done is more meal planning. Time consuming and nit picky but boy, is it helping. I always have planned our dinners but now I'm planning breakfasts and lunches as well. Super duper helpful. Maybe I can do snacks someday too. 

And kid involvement in those meals. I'm starting slowly. The boys are cooking breakfast one day a week.  And one kid is choosing a meal to make one day a week. We alternate weeks. Nutmeg cooked lunch the first week. Sage is cooking lunch this week. I've got Basil looking at cookbooks for next weeks. (he just wants to make nachos=lame!!)

Here are a few lunches that have worked well for us so far. 

Today:

Baked Potato Bar

The kids said this was the best idea EVER! I loved the fact that this basically

cleaned out the leftovers from the fridge. I cooked up the potatoes and then pretty much 

all our leftovers complemented the potatoes well. Insta-toppings! Score!

Five different ways:

Basil
(this is beef stew on the bottom, chicken on top: Mr. EverHungry)

Mace

Sage

Myself

A couple lunches from last week:

Nutmeg wanted to take a picture of her lunch on Make-Your-Own-Taco-Salad Day. 

This is a super simplified version of the cheese platters we like to make for
holidays. The kids loved this one. We'll have to repeat it. In the bowl is homemade baba ghanoush. 

Another newish homeschool system for us:  Fridge Organizing Central

We don't really have a name for this. I just made that up. This started at Christmas last year. I wrapped the fridge up like a Christmas gift and taped peoples' Christmas cards onto it. Then maybe you remember that we liked it so much that we sorta used that as a central place for our Lenten activities. We couldn't get enough of it, so we used it this summer for bucket list and calendars. We continue to love it, so here we are for the beginning-of-another-year/autumn theme. (Sage helped; he digs this!)

The paper is "home project paper" from JoAnn's. The top thingy a little white board from Walmart. We write our breakfast and lunch menu on there. The next three squares are our activity calendars for October-November. The next three are daily schedules. That's new this year too. Everyone has a schedule so they know exactly what they are supposed to be doing. Even me. I asked myself today, "what am I supposed to be doing after lunch?" The bottom is labeled "Autumn Memories." This is like a "finished" bucket list for autumn. We've got one or two that we already need to write down.

And finally Nutmeg wanted to take pictures of her table arrangement. 

My Summer Project

Happy Monday Ya'll!

So here's a not-so-great picture of our table and chairs. This table and chairs were a hand-me-down when we moved to Washington some years ago. It has served us well. The top is wood-looking laminate. The chairs are the super knobbly-look from the 80's (I think the eighties). I've been ready for a fresh look for some time now. Doug has really wanted to try his hand at table building too. There are a number of great-looking table building tutorials out there. And not expensive either. But it wasn't going to happen this year. Pinterest girl that I am, I've noticed a number of people redoing old, outdated tables/chairs and coming out with some nice-looking products. Recycling and reusing at its finest. I decided to just jump on in!

So here's what I did. I used coat after coat of Polyshades from Miniwax on the tabletop. This is a mix of Polyetherane and stain. I didn't find it easy to work but then I am very, very new at refurbishing furniture and working with wood. It's a long story but the top ended up darker than I had planned due to mess-ups that I was trying to fix. I finished the table with several coats of Quick Dry Poly.  

The bottom of the table is a chalk paint from a spray can. Rustoleum brand. That brand works nicely for us because have the cheap little attachment that allows for super easy spraying. 

I ditched all the old chairs. Brought them to to St. Vincent de Paul. I'm not a fan of all the knobby lines. So I thrifted out six new chairs. Habitat Restore, St. Vincent de Paul, and Goodwill. The great part of all this is that not only are you reusing/recycling, your money goes to a good cause. 

Some of the chairs are upholstered on the top, some are wood. The white part is Rustoleum's Paint and Primer In One. Love that stuff! The wood is the same product that I used on the table. 

I know, the light colors are not exactly practical with kids but oh well, I like it. I'm not a perfectionist. I enjoy beauty but I don't require perfection at all costs. The finished product is far, far from perfect. There are mistakes all over the place. So don't look too closely. Guess that goes for me too (or all of us for that matter, right?). I'm not perfect but I striving to be the best version my myself.  Lots of imperfection in this jar of clay but at least willing to be instrument in the hands of my Maker. 

Happy Chair

Mom scored a sweet seat for me! Wahoo.  More pics to come. Love and hugs!!

Happy Easter Monday!

Mr. and Mrs. Dork

Smells so good!

Happy Easter loved ones! Did you have a joy-filled day? We did! We had a nice Triduum overall. On Holy Thursday we had a great Christian Seder dinner with good friends before going to church. It has really hit home lately how important (and fascinating) it is to really understand the Jewish roots of Christianity. I enjoyed our Seder meal and learning about some details through that experience.

Friday we followed the Stations of the Cross as a family. In the evening we watched "The Passion." Of course, the kids covered their eyes for many portions. It definitely isn't an entertaining movie to make you feel good but so important to understand a bit of Jesus's sacrifice for us. True love. 

Saturday I gathered groceries the festivities and the week. Grandma came. She took us out to dinner at Doug and my favorite restaurant. Yummm!!  We were dorks and ordered the same thing because we loved it so much last time. We were worried how it would work out with four kids but it was just fine. Yay!

Sunday we worshiped together at church. Oh, I could just throw up my arms in love. Thank you, Jesus! After church we did the usual Easter baskets and egg hunt. It was great fun to watch Mace play with his little toys. Especially his little wind-up chick from Grandma.

We feasted with wild abandon on grilled lamb, vegetables, and a lemon berry tart! Ha, ha, ha. My usually food-disciplined husband even ate two helpings of dessert. Go Doug! Happy Easter! 

(oh and the last two are little projects that we finally finished and hung this weekend. I like, I think. I was thinking maybe the canvas collage was too much of the same thing but I do think I like it.)

(oh and the ones outside are Basil doing his Mentos and soda experiment.)

Simple Pleasures

I had intended to wait until our bathroom make-over was completely finished to share pictures with ya'll but it seems that when I wait things often don't happen at all. Doug and I are pretty tickled with how this little project is going. It's been fun to work together. He finished the mirror last night. It was a builder grade mirror that he framed in with pine. I asked Gabe how he liked it this morning and he replied "I love it. It looks like a barn a little bit." Yes, a pretty barn. Rustic but beautiful in our opinion. Doug distressed pine and then stained it with "Dark Walnut." Then he simply glued it onto the plain mirror.

**sorry my pictures are a bit blurry.

I realize that the Golden Oak doors and trim aren't a great fit but oh well, its what we've got.
Probably won't change that. 

I love the bead board and all the oil-rubbed bronze accessories.

Autumn in Full Swing (a whole lotta apples)

Hello there Matey!!  Be this the Spanish Main? Arg!

This isn't Pirate Day? Oh, whoops. That was the other day wasn't it? I missed the memo. Apparently is was "Talk Like a Pirate Day" or something like that and everyone was dressing up to get free donuts.

Anywho, only one of us has been dressing up like a pirate but none of us has been eating donuts. We have been eating lots of apples, applesauce, pumpkin pancakes, and pumpkin muffins though. I think we've been spending about 95% of our time either eating apples or studying. Or something like that.  :)

We finally finished digging up all our potatoes last week. We were so pleased again this year with our harvest. We've become potato people. These ones are fingerling potatoes. Our favorite. Yum. Digging for potatoes like digging for gold. Nutmeg is a good potato digging helper. Every time she sees one in the dirt she yells and points, "There's one! There's one! There's one!!" Like its going to disappear if we don't grab it fast enough. It's like a fun game with the kiddos. 

Mr. Mace the other day when I set him down by the door while I unloaded the car. Good times with those pumpkins. Like a bunch of orange balls. 

Doug made a trail for snowshoeing/xc skiing in our field out back, so one night he wanted to go for a walk to check it out. Last year I got some great exercise, just throwing on the snow shoes for 30 minutes. It will be fantastic to get out there again this year. Our own little track. Thank you God for our own little piece of earth.  

And . . . another apple along the way.

And what is Mace up to? Oh, you know, just getting into . . . everything! Busy being nine months old. Here's the classic oh-I-must-climb-into-the-dishwasher-and-unload-all-the-dirty-dishes-for-mom trick. Lucky for me, I've seen this fun trick a couple times before. All I can say is I'm glad there is just one baby digging in the dishwasher. I can handle that.  

So yes, basically my life has been educating little people (and myself), feeding people, cleaning, and seeing how I can make use of the bounty in our yard. Potatoes, basil, apples, potatoes, pumpkins. It's delicious work, you know. It's a rough life.  

Our neighbor stopped by the other to day to tell us to help ourselves to the pumpkins and butternut squash in his garden. Sounds good to me. The pumpkins being carving pumpkins. Our's are baking pumpkins. This week the kids and I headed down one morning to gather some bounty. When we came back to our house we also worked on picking some apples from our tree.  

babysitting his brother

Today Doug and I picked another huge basketful. Apple sauce is on the stove and in the crock pot. Ready to be pureed. Time to get back to work.

I'm so happy to be back here sharing life with you in this way. We'll catch up more later, huh?  Don't forget to keep in touch. I want to know what ya'll are up to too!!

All our love from Wisconsin!!