57 Days Until Christmas

....but who's counting? That means that there are even less days until the baby is here. It's all very exciting, but there is so much work to be done!

This weekend Justin and I performed a major overhaul on our bedroom closet. We found lots of things to get rid of, pulled all the summer clothes and shoes out, and I even took a deep breath and stored away anything that doesn't currently fit. (I have about five articles of clothing left...but it's wonderfully clutter-free!) We finished it off with a new paint job and new hooks for hats and purses. The final result is beautiful. After living in this house for 3 years, I finally feel like our closet is usable....even though it's hardly bigger than a matchbox. I think I might even enjoy putting the clean laundry away now!

Amidst the Great Closet Cleanout, we took the boys to a local orchard and picked 150 lbs of Jonagold apples, which are currently in the garage dreaming of their future as pies, sauce, and dried to be later added to homemade granola.

Anyone care to guess what I'll be working on this week?

Homeschooling: Outside The Home

One of my favorite things about homeschooling is the excuse to get involved in community classes under the pretense that the kids need socialization. They don't, of course; it's just a common misconception, and, truth be told, there are many days I wonder if there's a method for making them LESS socialized-- Ah, but I digress.

This week, there was an opportunity we just couldn't miss: A science class for 5-10 year olds at the Roeder House! Any of you that know Cole know how much he loves science. AND the subject matter for the first class was the Human Body, which is pretty much his favorite topic to discuss in the whole world. He watched the clock all day and kept asking how much longer he had to wait before he could go to science.

The class went off without a hitch. I worried that being in a new location with new kids would cause him anxiety. He seemed a little apprehensive when I dropped him off, but was so jazzed up when I picked him up at 4:30 that he literally did not stop talking until he went to bed four hours later. Justin and I finally had to tag-team spending time with him because our heads were hurting!

Here is the skeleton he made in class with some cut out pieces of bones and a few strategically placed metal brads. It's his new favorite toy.

He has also now decided that for Halloween, he wants to be a skeleton wearing a black coat. (He doesn't HAVE a black coat; I have no idea where that came from.) Reese, not one to be outdone, will be a ghost.....with bat wings.....wearing a blue jet pack. I think this sewing Mama might have her work cut out for her!

Questions I've Answered This Week

....all courtesy of Cole.

"Mom, is this an apple?" (holding an apple)

"Can we have marshmallows on our macaroni and cheese?"

"Where is your heart if your Feeders are right there?"


Sometimes I think my life could not possibly get any stranger.

Feeding An Army

Many of you know that the latest project in My Quest To Make Life Easier has been learning to use my freezer more efficiently. I have spent hours researching the concept behind once-a-month cooking and have scoured my notebooks of recipes for anything that may lend itself to being prepared in large quantities and frozen for an easy re-heatable meal. And even though I know that there are lots of mommas that spend one day cooking one month of meals, I still came away feeling like it was out of my league. So I am starting "slowly".

Two weeks ago, I made 40 servings of spaghetti sauce and 8 loaves of fig and date bread (a quick, yummy dinner with a plate of scrambled eggs and a bowl of fruit!). I also roasted a whole chicken and shredded the meat to use for dinners and sandwiches and then made a whole pot of stock out of the bones, a little of the meat and some fresh vegetables and herbs.

Last week, I roasted another chicken (this time for dinner) and made another pot of stock. Then I took some of the stock and made a kettle of lentil soup and added that to my freezer stash.

Yesterday I made two loaves of brown beer rye bread and will make another two loaves today (I ran out of plain yogurt for the dough yesterday). Last night we had reuben sandwiches on homemade rye, pickles and warm German potato salad on mixed greens (all from the farm stand), YUM! I was pretty sure I was in heaven.

All of the produce I picked up yesterday with our CSA (community supported agriculture) dollars from the K&M Red River Farm stand down on Railroad. Justin told me to buy them out. I did my best! Isn't this stuff beautiful? Now I have to figure out how to process all of it. We'll eat through the cherry tomatoes, plums, and apples at snack times, and have plenty of salads and sandwich-toppings from the mixed greens. The spinach will make Asian Udon Soup (with noodles, the stock, shiitake mushrooms, ginger and garlic) and Sracciatella (chicken soup with garlic, spinach, carrots, celery, parsley, egg, and parmesan)--both for the freezer. I'll cut the red peppers into strips and add them to chicken or steak, onions and marinade for fajitas....the tomatillos will make a tangy salsa verde for enchiladas...the peaches will can. We used quite a few of the baby yukon golds in our potato salad last night but the rest will be parboiled and fried up for weekend breakfasts--or with salmon dinner next week. Oh! And that zucchini--if you can see it, way in the back?-- they said that zucchini will make 4-5 loaves of zucchini walnut bread. Mmmmm. But I'm still at a loss as to what to do with all the pears and something fun to do with the delicata squash, so please send me your suggestions!

On Becoming Men

If there's one thing you could say about these boys of mine, it is that they LOVE Crayola markers. Love, love, love them. One of their favorite pasttimes is decorating their legs, arms, faces and torsos with all different shades to become "warriors". They do it so often that it's not even worth trying to clean them up to take them out in public....which means that yes, I do get some wonderful looks from my fellow shoppers at Fred Meyer. But they love to play the role of fighters.

Brenda and I were laughing recently about the huge number of baby boys being born recently. She joked that the reason our new baby is another boy is because I am friends with her, and she ONLY knows people that have boys. At the time, we just thought it was funny.....but then I started hearing from other mommas (who also have only sons) that even within the schools, the younger classes are FULL of boys, with only a handful of girls. And suddenly I was hit with the sobering thought: Whatever could be coming in the next 20 years that might require an insurgence of Godly young men?

..."Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, 'Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?' And Jesus answered and said to them....'You will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled, for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilence, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows'" Matthew 24: 3-8

I am feeling new resolve to train my sons in the way they should go.

"Like arrows in the hand of a warrior, so are the children of one's youth. Happy is the man who has his quiver full of them!" Psalm 127:4-5

Ants

So I'm cutting a red bell pepper tonight and Cole walks in to kitchen. "Hi Mom," he says. "Can I try one of those seeds?" The seeds? "Sure," I say. I give him a seed and he stares at it. "What does it taste like?" he asks. "I don't know," I say, "I usually wash them down the drain. Try it."

He munches on it thoughtfully.
"What does it taste like?" I ask him.

"Sour," he says. "Kind of like an ant."

Dinner Conversation

Cole: "Superman, he could lift 2000 dinosaurs."

Reese: "Superman, he could lift 26 ducks!"