Today's Activities

I was feeling a little worried that we didn't get much done today, so I decided to write it down. Here is our day so far:
Wake up
Look for The Magic School Bus on TV while getting breakfast ready
Eat breakfast with Daddy
Build racetracks for Hot Wheels
Make bread dough
Get everybody dressed
Read Goodnight Moon and Paul Revere's Ride
Make moon book (Sarah)
Make Snowy Evening book (David)
Color story circles for map
Paint story circles, then destroy (Michael)
Make Total Eclipse of the Sun music video
Eat lunch
Deliver music books to two students
Look for animal tracks in snow
Walk to general store and get snack
Pick up mail
Climb on snow
Eat giant pretzel snack from last night's baking project
Bake bread

A Day at Home

Here we have a typical day in the living room of the parsonage. David is flying his space shuttle, looking out the window at the planets. Michael is driving cars through Hot Wheels City, and Sarah is jumping up and down, making silly faces. It was a good day.

A Car for Pinkie Pie

Sarah enjoys driving her dollies around in a cardboard box car, so David and Michael decided to make her a really nice looking one. They also called her Pinkie Pie because she likes to wear all pink. :)
If you click on the pictures, you may be able to see the personalized plates that say "1509 Girl!"

The headlights are even yellow, and the taillights are red with a stripe like Daddy's car.

We all enjoy watching Pinkie Pie in her new ride!

Chicken Supreme

Here is a recipe that got David and Dan's highest rating when we served it to Grandma and Grandpa on their way home from helping Emily move:

Chicken Supreme (our version in parenthesis)

4 large chicken breasts, split, boned, and skinned (whatever chicken you have)

8 slices bacon (1/2 slice per chicken piece or whatever you have)

1 package dried beef--3-4 oz. (a good amount of shaved ham from Wal-Mart deli)

1 can cream of mushroom soup (1 can cream of chicken soup)

8 oz. sour cream (we didn't mess with this one)

Line 9x13 pan with dried beef (or ham).
Wrap each chicken piece with a slice (or half-slice) of bacon. Put on top of dried beef (or ham) (Put more ham around each chicken piece, too)
Mix soup and sour cream, pour over chicken.
Cover pan tightly with foil.
Bake at 300 for 3 hours (Bake at 400 for 45 min or so, until chicken is cooked through)
Remove foil for last hour (or last 20).

Vanilla Project

We've started a new bottle of vanilla extract, as our current one is getting pretty low. We're using the same ingredients as last time, which is cheap vodka from Sam's Club and Madagascar vanilla beans from World Market. We enjoyed carefully cutting open the wrinkled-up beans and sniffing the yummy vanilla smell. They are more like green beans than coffee beans, which surprised us the first time we tried this. The children know, however, that the vanilla in the bottle is NOT yummy to drink. It is only for cooking and smelling, because it would taste worse than the yuckiest cough medicine and would even make them sick. Now our vanilla bottle is resting in a high, dark cupboard until it turns a nice vanilla-like color. Maybe we'll check on it this week.

Little Kneaders

It turns out that the children enjoy kneading bread! Here they are, kneading the oatmeal bread whose recipe is found below. They also like to make tortillas and wheat bread. I enjoy having the dough all prepared while I get other things ready. Everyone ends up covered with flour and sticky dough bits, but it is worth it!

Gingerbread Men

Here are the children having fun decorating their gingerbread men. Notice that Sarah's doesn't have any candy actually stuck on it, though a lot of it disappeared while she was working.... :)

David was very careful to give his gingerbread man a good hat and shoes.