Feeding my boyz

Many years ago, after a pregnancy which resulted in the loss of a daughter, I was diagnosed with high blood pressure.  Since then, I have tried to adjust the diet of my family so that we can all eat together.  This has not been an easy task.  My husband is a southern food addict, loving mushy green beans and red meat.  My boys, needless to say, take after him.  And here comes mom, loaded with fruits and vegetables, chicken and fish - yikes!  Not to mention the meatless meals, those always go over so well in this family, haha!!  "Honey, where's the rest of the meal?"

One of the many changes that I have tried to keep going, is having salmon once a week.  No one in the house likes it except for me and the wee one, who is 3 now.  And he dips his in so much ranch dressing I'm not sure if he is getting the nutritional stuff from it or canceling it out with the ranch.  :)

So anyways, I am looking for some good salmon recipes!  I am trying my best to make this as painless as possible on my family and I'm hoping that my readers can help me.  I have a recipe that I pulled from one of my mom's cookbooks that we are trying this evening, Salmon with ginger Marinade.  I will have to let everyone know how that comes out.  The marinade smells delicious, so hopefully that is a good sign.

If you have a recipe to share, just leave it in the comments.  I can't wait to try some new ways to cook our salmon!!!

Until next time,
Gail

Joy

Hot tea, the sound of rain......beautiful.


          I could loose myself in these moments.

To me, this means peace, serenity.


  Life....as the plants gather the water into themselves.


The tinkling of a wind chime, a train whistle going through town

     Joy.

For God's Glory

I'm reading through the book of Exodus, and as I am reading, I began to think just how unfair it was that God continually hardened the heart of Pharaoh in order to show His amazing power.  But then what struck me, was even though the things God did to Pharaoh and his people were harsh, had they been God fearing people, they would have followed the directions God gave and would not have received harm.  Except for when God comes to kill the first born of each family, but God is purposely hardening Pharaoh's heart.  Is that really fair?

We know that when someone dies, they go to heaven where they get to meet God and sing praises to Him.  So, with that knowledge, if our first born was taken to show a whole people the power of the Lord, would that be a blessing or a curse?  Knowing that we would see them when we got to heaven.  Just some food for thought, had to pass it on.

Planet Earth

My little angel (I'm speaking of the two year old).  Today we were working on cutting play-doh.  Him and his brother did a phenomenal job.  While I read the Bible stories today, the two of them had a blast with their play-doh.  By the time it was all said and done, here is the creation of my two year old, see if you can guess what it is.

Any guesses?


                The answer is, drum roll please,


                                             PLANET EARTH


I love the creativity that comes from these little minds.  I am so blessed.

Baby it's cold outside

It's cold, really cold, where we live.  This is starting to be seen in the youngest boys behavior.  He is an outdoor boy, and being locked up in the house, does not bode well with him.  We take him out when we can, but wind chills in the negatives, it's just time to find something in the house to entertain.  So today, he spent his time throwing rolled up socks into a basket (advice from www.abcjesuslovesme.com), bouncing on the bed trying to hit a ball while I threw it at him, and running around trying to hide his tummy so no one could zerbert it.  He was not in the sit down and learn mode today, at 2 years old, I get it.  We don't push it if we aren't going to learn anything.

We had already experienced Bible study time with him that morning, to say the least, it was not my most enjoyable experience.  It brought me back to last year when he was only a year old and thought fits actually accomplished something.  If the house were a little messier right now I would have put him on clean up duty, but we actually have the place cleaned up.

So anyway, we are studying sound, and hearing, and the different languages and dialects across the United States.  I find this to be very interesting since I have lived on different ends of the U.S.  I have lived in Hawaii, Alaska, Florida, the West Coast, the East Coast, and the Carolinas.
                 Here is a fun game we enjoyed playing, even the nutty two year old enjoyed this one.  When he got one right he would jump up and down all excited.       http://www.scholastic.com/magicschoolbus/games/sound/
                 The other fun thing we did with this, was learn about the different dialects spoken in this country.  One that many people do not know about, but which I have experience first hand, and used to speak some, is Hawaiian Pidgin.  It's real, look it up.  It is such a fascinating local language.  We looked at a lot of others, but that was the most fun.

We are praying for some warmer weather, hoping to get out of the house a bit.  It will be nice to have some sunshine without the chill.  I know it's coming, and then I will complain that it's too hot.

Our Curriculum

This is our 2nd year homeschooling, and it has been a crazy ride.  Last year was full of discoveries, a lot of mistakes, and learning who our family is and what is important to us.  This year, I think that we are finally getting a handle on what works for us and what does not.  For those that are out there still looking for the right thing, I want to share with you, our thing.

Thru a lot of prayer, it became apparent to me that the study of the Bible and our relationship with God is the most important part of our homeschool adventure.  For my two, almost three year old, we use the ABC Jesus Loves Me - http://www.ABCJesusLovesMe.com/ curriculum for age two.  We come nowhere close to completing everything on that site each week.  We focus on the bible story and the activities for the bible, and then post the main ideas for the week on the refrigerator and try to work them into our play.

For the 10 year old, we have found a great bible program that is perfect for his level, http://foundationspress.com/.  We are using Foundations 1:  Preparation for Christ and there are days that we take longer than the time allotted.  So our days do not always align with the program, but that does not seem to be an issue.  We are able to pick up and start our week wherever we left off with no problems. 

For math we are still stuck on the Life of Fred series.  We love them.  They do not teach things "in order", but everything we are learning, we are retaining.  That is the most important to us.

Language Arts we decided to go Charlotte Mason, working in very small short lessons.  We found a workbook that we really like called Language Lessons for the Elementary Child Volume 2.  This is perfect for our son, very short lessons but very thorough and teaching him ideas that are new.

For history we are studying the middle ages.  This has been a challenge and we are using a combination of books and online resources.  As of right now, he is reading King Arthur: Tales from the Round Table (Dover Children's Evergreen Classics) by Andrew Lang.  We have also enrolled him in MineCraft Homescshool Castles and Cannons which starts next week.  He is VERY excited to start this class.  I am hoping that he will do some learning as well as playing.

We are also using portions of The Weaver Curriculum for our science, field trip ideas, music, health, and physical education. 

My sons very favorite thing this year though is learning computer coding.  He is using SCRATCH which is very user friendly for a 10 year old.  We have watched his programs just get better and better, it is amazing what he can do.  It blows my mind.

Oh yeah, and he's helping my husband to rebuild his motorcycle.  Right now they have a naked motorcycle frame in the garage, so far he has learned to solder and how electrical wiring works.  Tickle me impressed.  :)

Till next time,
adios 

REVIEW TIME!!

I have a 16 year old that attends the public high school, a 10 year old that is home schooled, and a 2 year old that is always moving around doing whatever crazy thing he can think of.  ALL BOYZ.

Time4Learning gave me one month to preview their product and give my honest opinion on it.  I was able to set it up for each one of the boys.  If you read my post before, I mentioned that I thought the 2 year old would enjoy it, wasn't real sure about the 10 year old, and thought the 16 year old might be able to use it for review or help with some ideas that he needed review with.

I was WRONG!  The two year old was interested for about a day or two and then had no interest to sit down at the computer to "do school".  He prefers doing hands on crafts and playing with toys.  This is not my sitting still boy.  He would rather be outside tearing things up than watching a story on the computer.  There were a couple activities that he did enjoy, but there did not seem to be a lot of variety and the games were only able to be played one way and there was no variance.  Once the questions were answered, they were presented in the same order again the next time.  This did not seem to challenge or keep the attention of my two year old son.

Now, my 10 year old on the other hand, really seemed to enjoy himself.  Except for the fact that the science is presented as the universe being millions of years old as fact, it looked very well put together.  My 10 year old really liked the math program and said he learned a lot.  If Time4Learning offered the programs separately, I might consider just purchasing the math.  But, we did not use enough of the other subjects for me to purchase the whole program.

My16 year old, wouldn't even touch it.  I started up the math for him and he walked away laughing.  So, I have no real opinion from him, he didn't use it.  You win some, you loose some.

All in all, it was fun to try and it gave us something new to do.  A little break from the norm is always a good thing.

Time4Learning

I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.

As always, please feel free to contact us anytime at reviews@time4learning.com.

---

Time4Learning.com Member Support
support@time4learning.com
6300 NE 1st Ave., Ste 203
Ft Lauderdale, FL 33334
Phone: (954) 771-0914 | Fax: (954) 827-7600

   
http://www.Time4Learning.com - Online interactive curriculum for home use, PreK-8th Grade.
http://www.Time4Writing.com - Online writing tutorials for high, middle, and elementary school students.
http://www.Time4Learning.net - A forum to chat with parents online about kids, education, parenting and more...

So, I know I've seen this one advertised a million times, and this time I've decided to give it a try and see if my boys like it.  I will post updates as they go forward in there adventures.  We looked at the demos and my 2 year old is really interested, the other 2 are kind of on the fence.  Stay posted!!!

Our typical day, in photo

The joy of mixing paints, creating what you see in your mind.  The satisfaction of a beauty that was in your mind, and is now outside of it for the world to enjoy....

Yes mom?

Oh the joys of an older brother.....

What the.....?

In the thick of it.

Yup, you read it right.  We are officially "in the thick of it".  We have begun our homeschoolin' and thar ain't no turnin' back now!

OK, but, anywayzzzzzzz....

We have finished our first week of homeschooling, and we have finished two days of the curriculum I planned.  Hhhmmm.....  I think we are a little teeny weeny bit behind.  But, on the same note, I know that we have been learning, which is the whole point of this little adventure.

One of the lessons that we had this week was on the poem Catch a Little Rhyme by Eve Merriam.  I highly suggest looking this poem up as it has a lot of fun words to play with.  We read the poem together and found all of the funny lines throughout.  Then, my son came up with his own verbs to replace all the verbs that the author had used.  He was laughing so hard at some points that I didn't think he would be able to go on.  We then looked at the authors use of couplets in the poem and I had him add one of his own, which again had him laughing quite hysterically.

The next day we were riding in the car and he was talking to his older brother, and what do I hear, but my middle boy reciting Catch a Little Rhyme in its entirety!  How awesome!  Then, this afternoon, my middle boys receives his Highlights magazine in the mail and as he is reading through it he calls me over to see a poem written in couplets.  Wow, it is all worth it during moments like those.

To finish off our Catch a Little Rhyme lesson, we decided to make a kite, since at the end of the poem the rhyme flies away as a kite.  I found some kite making directions online and I will leave you with a couple pictures of my boy attempting to fly his kite made all by himself without a lick of wind. (We will try it again when we get some wind around here.)

Until later,
Gail

 

1 amazing boy

Can you believe that these three amazing boyz are all the same boy?  Yep, that's right.  My oldest son has grown so big and so amazing, I am sooooooo proud of him. 

Last week he ventured off to his sophmore year in high school.  The time has slipped away much too quickly.  I hate to be one of those people, you know, the ones who tell you not to let time get away from you.  Buuuuuttt, that is exactly what I am going to do!!

Treasure every moment with your child.  When they come waddling up to you with a book in their hand, stop what you are doing and sit down on the floor with them and read.  Create an everlasting moment.  The dishes will be there at the end of the story, I promise.  If you figure out how to make them disappear, please let the rest of us know (we would pay big bucks for that secret!).

Bake cookies with your babies, your toddlers, your elementary ones, your middle schoolers (even while they look at you weird), and at least share the bowl of cookie dough with the high schooler.  I speak as a mother who missed many of these moments with my older son.  I was working, he was at daycare or going to school and everybody would come home tired just to do the routine of homework and baths and dinners.  So many times that we could have slowed down, that I am only now appreciating.  I am blessed to have two younger boys that I can do it right with, but I cannot take back the time I lost with my oldest son.

I pray for each parent out there that they treasure every child and that God gives every parent time to spend with their child.  Please Lord, do not let the parent miss the opportunities that you give them, do not let the parent fill the times that you give them to spend with their child doing other things.  God, you have given us each child for a very specific reason, please help us to love them and raise them up by your love and grace.  AMEN.

This is my boy, an amazing and wonderful boy.  He is a genius, a friend, a little bit crazy, and he drives me nuts throughout most of the day.  He is too smart for me and constantly out thinks anything I have to say to him.  He likes to prank his little brothers which results in many squabbles and tears.  He is full of joy and God has given him gifts of gold.  To my son, I love you.   

MMMMM........

MMMMM...........  

Did I make your mouth water yet?  Yes, this was my families dinner tonight.  I am quite proud of it, if I do say so myself.  AND...... everybody ate some.  This is an unusual event at my home.  My husband grew up on southern cooking, I have high blood pressure and the three boys all have different taste buds which never seem to mesh at the same time.  So, when I rave that everybody ate some, it is a HUGE accomplishment!

So, I thought I would share this wonderful meal with all the wonderful people out in the Internet world who might want to grab onto this amazing meal and make it one of theirs.  I took the basis of this recipe from a book by Dick Logue called 500 Low Sodium Recipes (am I supposed to underline the names of books - I honestly do not remember and I haven't gotten to that part in my sons 3rd grade curriculum yet, so please bear with me).  The name of the recipe in his book is Sesame Shrimp Noodles, but I made a few changes so I call them Tempura Shrimp in Sesame Noodles.

Tempura Shrimp in Sesame Noodles

For the tempura batter, I went ahead and purchased a box of tempura mix.  Now, because I have high blood pressure, I looked around and found one that was low on the sodium.  I found mine in the asian food section at my local Walmart.  Unfortunately we only have Walmart or Kroger where I live, so I am VERY limited on my food options.  (That will fill a whole separate blog - pages long).  But, getting back to the shrimp thing.  I made the mistake of not buying my shrimp deviened and peeled, with children running around this can be a HUGE mistake.  I added at least a half hour to my prep time that is difficult to find with a toddler.  My suggestion, spend the extra bucks to have your shrimp ready to use. 

Follow the directions on the box of tempura mix for preparing the mix and the oil to cook in.  I tried adding some coconut flakes to my tempura mix, but I'm not sure that it really affected the flavor.  A thought I had was maybe adding some coconut milk to the mix and not putting in as much water, maybe?  Play around with it, and if you find something good..... please let me know!  Make sure that the oil is nice and hot, and fresh.  Yucky oil tends to cook yucky food.  Just an opinion from me.

Alright, now we get into the copyright stuff from 500 Low Sodium Recipes.

For sesame noodle sauce:

1/4 teaspoon crushed red pepper

1 teaspoon dried parsley flakes

1/4 cup (60 ml) rice vinegar

1 teaspoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon fresh ginger, peeled and grated, or 1/4 teaspoon dry ginger

2 teaspoons (6.5 g) honey

2 teaspoons (3 g) cornstarch

1 tablespoon (8 g) sesame seeds

Mix together all ingredients for sauce.  Set aside.

Cook pasta (the recipe calls for 8 ounces linguine, but I prefer to use fettuccine - your call) according to package directions.

While pasta is cooking start dipping and cooking the shrimpies according to directions on your tempura mix box.

When pasta is 3 minutes from being finished, add a frozen sugar snap pea mix to the pasta pot.  Bring water back to a boil and finish cooking the pasta.

Drain the pasta and pea mixture.  Add the sauce to the pasta and pea mixture, make sure to mix it up really good.

Place noodles on plate and top with shrimp.  Sprinkle with additional sesame seeds if you so desire.

Sit back with the fam and enjoy!  YUM!!!!!!

We had minor baby sadness last night, so I finished this in the morning.  Where is says tonight, is really last night.  But.... I went to take care of baby and fell asleep myself.  So life goes, I just try to roll with it.  :)

Here is the cutest thing ever.... my littlest boy was trying to help my middle boy tie his shoes! 

BOYZ ARE AMAZZZZIN'

Until we meet again,
Gail

 



 

New Beginnings!

Hello!!!!

This is all brand new to me.  This will be my first year homeschooling my 3rd grader and my toddler, YIKES!  I am excited to get started and a bit nervous also.  My high schooled boy is continuing his adventures at the public school, where he is doing AMAZING!  We are so proud of him (Mom's gushing ensues). 

I am also new to the whole blogging thing.  I have a lot of good ideas that I want to share and I enjoy telling others about the things that my family is doing.  Sooooo..... it only seems natural that I start the blogging.  And so, the blogging shall commence.

I hope to be able to share the excitement of my family with others out there and I also hope that other families will feel free to share information with me.  We are going to be teaching an eclectic homeschooling curriculum this year.  Our basis is the Core Knowledge Sequence founded by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.  I strongly believe in this sequence which relies on building knowledge upon knowledge.  If anyone has the opportunity to check out their website, I highly recommend it: www.coreknowledge.org . 

Alright, I think I will leave everyone with a picture of my boyz being amazing boyz!!!!!

Until next time,

Adios,
Gail