May :: A Month in Review :: Large Family Style

Aargh!  It's already time for a May month in review.  Finishing off the school year strong was my top priority along with preparing for Nick's graduation party along with getting the garden planted along with, along with.  Doesn't it seem like there are so many along withs?  Most days my head is just spinning with all the to do right nows.  My notebook system to do list wasn't working - the notebook was always getting buried in the paper mess that is my life and the to do list became a never do list.  I needed something more in my face than a notebook so I bought a magnetic white board for the fridge door similar to this:

And it's always in my face because #1 I like to eat and #2 My family likes to eat so I'm always reading the list and working at shrinking it.  It's been a good thing and I still use the notebook for shopping lists and menus.

In my April month in review I shared a picture from Nick's turkey season.  He's a huge protein nut and cooks plenty of his own food.  Well, the day he shot the turkey I was with Amber at the hospital while she recovered from her appendectomy.  He breasted out the turkey and baked it just as he would for chicken breast.  It was so tough, basically inedible for those of us with average jaw strength.  Hah!  I suggested he turn it into crockpot turkey and rice soup.  I walked him through the process, but he did all the work of chopping vegetables, etc.  The turkey tenderized pretty well in the crockpot and the soup was delicious.

The season changeover called for a great big shoe cabinet clean out.  With a family of 9 we have a ton of shoes, not because we believe in excess, but we all have a number of interests and many of those interests call for certain shoes.  And country life requires a good stash of junk shoes so we tend to keep shoes for gardening, lawn mowing, cranberry planting, and all sorts of outdoor activities until they fall apart.  I know, that's very green of us.  Below you can see what we took from the cabinet; we sent seven pair off to Goodwill, 10 pair went into the trash, and the rest were placed neatly back in the cabinet.

Maria and I baked a giant 2.5 pound of whole wheat bread in a very old pan found in my Grandma's basement.  I wish I knew the story of the pan - where she got it, if she used it, why it was in the basement and not in her kitchen cupboard.  I suppose I'll never know; even though, using it still brings out stories.  Stories I share with my littles who never knew their Great-Grandma.

Mother's Day flowers - we spied three huge Bumblebees pollinating this day.

One of Joseph's favorite games is jumping on the trampoline with toys.  This day he grabbed his horse, but he's also jumped with balls and sand pile trucks (that one I put a stop to, I don't want him to fall on a metal truck - that'd probably hurt).

Amber loves finding paintings on Pinterest for inspiration and painting them with her own style.  She uses this fold-able easel and a variety of supplies to create some really fun paintings.

It is rhubarb season; I've been baking with rhubarb and juicing it.  This weekend I put up 15 quarts of rhubarb juice.  I'll share a post on how I do that soon.  This little number, though, is so good.  I doubled the recipe and reduced the sugar.  That way there was enough to go around and it still tasted like rhubarb should - sour and puckery.

The virtual homeschool program end of year field trip took us to Circus World Museum.  See Maria clinging to Dad; she was nearly scared to death of all the newness.  She warmed up a bit for a carousel ride.

107 year old carousel

Circus snacks:  popcorn and ice cream

 Apparently we raised a little lady.

Fishing....always fishing around here and an endless supply of cheesy smiles.

He's not riding yet.  Matter of fact, a couple weeks back he actually punched me when I lifted his foot onto the pedal.  I'll give it some time before I try again.  Until then, though, he walks the bike around the yard every chance he gets.  And in the background was my Memorial Day treat, a tilled garden ready to plant.

That's a wrap for May.  Another blink of an eye and it'll be the end of June; all our much anticipated events of early summer will be over.  Enjoy every day, each is indeed a gift from God.

Weekly Wrap-Up.....{two weeks worth}

Weeks go by so quick so these weekly wrap-ups are turning into more of a two or three week wrap-up.  I have a variety of miscellaneous pictures from March, which I'll use to recap the month so far.

At first glance it appears to be Joseph's birthday, but of course, his is in August.  March brings us Warren's birthday.  The little kids really wanted Dad's birthday to be a party.  The best place I know of to get party supplies is Dollar Tree (where everything's a dollar, except some candy bars, which are only 69 cents).  $4.00 later we had all the makings of a party - 1 balloon, 1 centerpiece, 18 birthday plates, and a 60 pack of candles.  We didn't use all the candles, but it was nice to actually have enough.

Once the balloon was tied to Dad's chair, Joe sat down and literally didn't move all day.  He kept saying, "It's mine, it's mine."  I see lots of helium balloons in my future - because let me tell you, knowing exactly where to look for him was pure joy and I need more of that in my life.  Keeping track of his wanderings is a full time job.  Often I need a few LTE's to help out, too.

That's a lot of fire.

Sadly, Nick had to work so he missed out on the fun, but we saved him some fish and cake.

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 Sam, Joseph, Peter, and Maria have been following along with Holy Heroes' Lenten Adventure.

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Peter's been sneaking off with my camera lately.  He fills the card with pictures like these. ↙

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Counting down, remembering to pray for the daily intention, placing coins in the Rice Bowl - Lent is well under way.  You can find directions and a free printable for making your own calendar here.

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Always playing communion.  This little activity keeps her busy for a long time, and she has no problem distributing them to the entire family.

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One day the ground is clear, the next it's covered in snow again.  I just want the sun - cold March temps are bearable if it's sunny.  Amber's already working with Rhythm getting ready for fair.

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Now that Sam has turned intermediate, he's advanced to clip shoes.  He just bought them in size 13.  And he's still growing!

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Amber is dog sitting; there's 3 of them.  Family? recognize these dogs?  Bella, Daisy, and Teddy(not shown)

Amber and Bella

Joe and Bella

These little dogs live a pretty posh life.  They wear sweaters and ski jackets.  They eat salmon and bible bread.  They have their own stroller and rolling luggage.  We get to keep them for another 10 days.

That sums up our March so far.  

On the homeschooling front, we're in week 25, which means we should wrap up the year on May 27, just in time to get the garden in.

I hope to be back soon with a number of recipe reviews and a recap of what we're using for math this year and how it's working.

Linking up with

November and December Recap

It was November 3 the last time I posted here at Camp Homeschool.  Of course I have a few recipes to share, videos of Joseph reading, and a review of Calming Clippers, but first I think a general recap of the last couple of months is in order.

Duck hunting has infected a few members of the family.  Nick spent a good portion of his fall chasing ducks and geese.  He and Amber went to the Mead Wildlife Refuge one morning and brought home 6 nice sized ducks.  Nick's perfected the art of cooking duck - it only took a few pointers from me and now he's the main duck chef.

Joe attends Friday school through the virtual homeschool program.  Just before Thanksgiving he made a turkey head band at school.  It didn't make it to Thanksgiving Day; he had it wore out long before that.

Deer hunting takes center stage in November when everyone eats, sleeps, and breathes deer hunting.  Conversation around the dinner table often includes talk about deer hunting snacks, blaze orange jackets, sighting in rifles, ammunition purchases, and who's sitting with who.  We have so much to be thankful for this hunting season; 7 deer went in the freezer.  Most likely we'll eat it up by the end of July or August.

Can you tell Joseph loves hunting season just as much as his older siblings do?

We alternate hosting Thanksgiving with Warren's brother's family.  It was our year.  I like having a few games ready to play, just in case the electronics are trying to take over the day.  This competitive relay race had everyone laughing and cheering and moaning when the ball dropped.  Good times!

And more post Thanksgiving hunting.

This year we attended Canadian National's Holiday Train light display.  I think it was one of the coldest nights of the year, but we trudged on.  I'm so glad we did; the light display was awesome and it was pretty neat to be so close to the train.  When it was time for the train to leave there were a group of workers shooing people back and checking in between each car to make sure no one was hiding out.  So, it was safe even though we were so close.  It happened to be the vigil of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Thanks to the internet I was able to look up a Catholic church and see what time their vigil Mass would be and it ended up working out perfectly.  I always enjoy, out of curiosity, attending Mass at other churches.  I was surprised by the number of youth at Mass that evening; there had to be at least 100 teens.  And to really top off the night we went out for a late supper at Culver's.

The search for the perfect Christmas tree had us all trudging along one Sunday afternoon.  We had slim pickings so when someone spotted a 30 foot tree with a beautiful top, we decided it would be perfect.

We all watched as Nick notched and sawed and pushed a little until it came down.

We left the bottom section of the tree in the woods for rabbit habitat; Sam carried the top to the truck.

December is also the month of Peter's birthday.  Right away in the morning (when you're the tallest) I measured Peter.  Turns out he's the tallest 5 year old yet.  I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but the boys' measurements are on the left and the girls on the right.

Peter and Maria love to color, so when I found this over-sized Melissa and Doug coloring pad, I snagged one for Peter and Maria each, plus the crayon sets.  Maria got her set for Christmas, but Peter immediately went to coloring.  The pictures are big, clear, and exactly the types of things boys like to color:  spaceships, dinosaurs, race cars, and tractors.

Peter asked for angel food cake, but also wanted cupcakes.  I decided to make mini angel food cupcakes with white frosting, which represented snow and then made white chocolate (tinted green) trees as the decoration.  It's so easy to create chocolate shapes.  I found inspiration here and here.

Now that was a lot of pictures, so I'll stop here for tonight.  I hope to be back soon with more useful posts relating to Catholic life, homeschooling with Down syndrome, and maybe a couple of recipes.

Have a wonderful evening.  We're coming off a cold week of below 0 temps and moving into a week filled with freezing rain and increasing temperatures.