Showing posts with label in the kitchen. Show all posts
Showing posts with label in the kitchen. Show all posts

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Farewell, October...

It's been awhile, friends. 

As October is nearing to an end, I decided it was about time to update my blog and upload the photos I had taken. We've been quite busy in our little home with lots of learning and being together doing our regular family rhythm, too. 

Sienna took this photo of the front of our little blue home on the way out one day. Of course, it looks a little different now. We have some pots of my lavender sitting in the flower bed in front waiting to be planted.


This was my attempt at a baguette to make garlic bread with spaghetti for dinner one night.   


Chai Guy just being ... Chai Guy. Oh, how we love him, so!


Halloween cookies ... the wee ones and I made together one day. 


Sienna in her kitty mask from a card Grandma Diane and Grandpa Paul sent in the mail. 


Kona jumped into the recycle bin a few times this month and sat in there. Not quite sure why? 


Sienna finished her first embroidery project! 



We studied about apples this month and finished the unit up with a field trip to Padilla Bay for apple cider pressing and to learn a little about apple orchards. Sienna got to use this apple press to help make cider. It was quite tasty!  


She also helped plant an apple tree. 


And, composted!


We carved our pumpkins together, roasted pumpkin seeds and saved some seeds for our own little pumpkin patch. 



We took Sunshine on some adventures. This is her pushing her head between us in the front seat.


We danced at Sienna's Halloween Party for her dance school! Sienna and Forest dressed up as hippies. This was the only photo I could get of them all night.


Our beasty friends napped a lot, too. I caught the next two photos of Kona and Sunshine during Forest's afternoon nap. 



It's been quite a lovely month together. Sienna just finished learning about Bats and will begin a smallish unit on Pumpkins and then, we will learn a bit about Scarecrows and perhaps make our own! I must remember to take more photos in November and update more often. 

Monday, September 29, 2014

Why Homeschool is so good!

What's better than having your sweet kitty join you while you do your school work? Hmmm... maybe having homemade hot cocoa and chocolate chip cookies while you finish your work, too!





These photos were from Friday. Forest awoke from his afternoon nap to the smell of Mama's homemade cookies. 

On a side note, we had a scary thing happen yesterday. Forest threw a plate down from the table and it hit our sliding glass door. It ended up shattering into a million little pieces. We weren't sure what to do so we got some advice from my Uncle Mike, who told us how to get the glass to fall down and David vacuumed up the glass. The door was double paned so we temporarily have a one paned door until our new one comes. We ended up getting a very good deal at Lowe's on french doors (the doors were originally $700 and we got them for about half the price). Luckily Nana was over to help us and watch the wee ones. My Uncle Mike will be helping us install them on Saturday. Luckily, we are all okay and nobody was hurt. Forest thought the crackling sound the glass made was amazing. He kept saying, "Amazing." Well, not so amazing for us money wise, but it will be a story we can tell him one day!

Monday, September 15, 2014

Monday = Baking Day

Hello, friends. 

We are moving right along with our homeschool rhythm and loving it. Mondays are the busiest days in our little blue house. Along with Language Arts, Social Studies, Science and Math, we always do our baking for the week. We've discovered Forest isn't too fond of sandwiches, so we are now adding weekly muffins to the baking mix. That way we can bring along a few muffins when we head ever to Sienna's homeschool co-op on Tuesdays and Thursdays. (I am planning to do a few posts on homeschooling very soon. I would like to write a bit about our homeschool environment, our plans for the school year, what the co-op is like and share some of Sienna projects.) For now, on to the muffins...

Last week we made Maple Glazed Pumpkin muffins. They were so good, but a tad bit sticky. The recipe called for a mix of whole wheat flour and white flour. It also used olive oil rather than vegetable oil. Honey and maple syrup were the sweeteners instead of sugar. (We are looking for more recipes made with whole wheat flour instead of white flour.)

Sienna likes to put in our ingredients after I measure them out for her. 


 She also helps by stirring the ingredients together.

 Maple Glazed Pumpkin muffins!  

Forest approved! 

So did Sienna! 

Sunshine wanted to do a taste test. (She no longer has to wear her cone. She is all healed from being spayed now.) 

This morning, we made Apple Cinnamon muffins. This recipe used all whole wheat flour and honey for the sweetener.


Apple Cinnamon muffins

These muffins were quite tasty! Sienna had two muffins for lunch and Forest had a muffin and a half. 

Happy Baking!

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Summer of Well-Being Recap

It's almost been two months since I started running again and I feel so much stronger and healthier already. I am down 13 lbs. and today I ran 4 miles for the first time in almost 7 years. I am still a lot slower than before, but I am confident that the speed will return in time. Plus, I find it amazing that in less than an hour I can burn 660+ calories! 

A few weeks ago on my birthday weekend, we ran our first run together as a family. (All except for Forest, who was part of our fan club.) Sienna ran her first run, which was a Kid's Dash 1k. The course was a little confusing for the younger kids in the back, but she did fantastic! She ran the entire time and was so excited to get her finisher's medal at the end. 



Then, David and I ran the 5k together. The run was a mixture of grass, paved trail, sidewalks and gravel trail. This was my first time running outside and not on a treadmill. It was a lot harder to pace myself outside, but I surprised myself and did better than I thought I was going to do. Part of the way through the run, I told David to go ahead, because I felt like I was holding him back and plus, I like running by myself. I really value this time to just "go in my head" and think about all sorts of different things. 

 


 

Some things I am doing differently than before are doing a full 0.25 warm up and 0.25 cool down walk each time I run to try and avoid an injury. Also, I am drinking way more water than ever before. With two bouts of kidney stones in the past, I know that this is essential.

The things I am doing the same are following the Cool Running 5k Program. I used the Cool Running Half-Marathon Program when I trained before and was really happy with the results. I really want to work on my speed before I train for a half marathon again. We have our next family 1k and 5k planned at the end of October!

I am also eating vegetarian again and a lot of our veggies our coming from our own garden. I try to do one green smoothie a day for a meal (my version is: kale, 1 apple & blueberries).

Last night for dinner, I made homemade hamburger buns and David made salsa with all different varieties of tomatoes from our garden. Next, we must plant onions and garlic, since they are definitely staples in most of our recipes. 



I also made "Midsummer Veggie Burgers" from a vegetarian cookbook I've had for awhile called How to Cook Everything Vegetarian. (Thanks, Casey) They are a great way to use up zucchini, which we have a lot of right now. This picture was from before they were cooked. I will have to take another one next time after I cook them. Basically they are just zucchini, onion, garlic, corn, jalapeno and a little flour. I thought they were quite tasty and will definitely make them again.    


So, that's the recap of my summer of well-being so far. I think it's going really well so far. This week, I'm going to try and start running at 4:00 am on Tuesdays and Thursdays to prepare for when my mom returns to work in September. She has been a huge help with watching the wee ones, so I can go run. 

Monday, May 12, 2014

Moments












I thought I'd share a few moments from last week. We've been sticking to our homeschool rhythm, which includes baking on Tuesdays. Last week, we made homemade biscuits to eat with our dinner. Sienna really loves this part of our day together, while Forest usually ends up in the Ergo after too many attempts to climb onto the dining table and stand on it. I do realize that my babywearing days will be coming to an end very soon and that makes me feel sad. I just loved the faces he was making at me while I carry him around the kitchen.

We also had a a few celebrations this week. On Thursday, it was David's 33rd birthday. Sienna decorated his birthday table for him. On Saturday, Sienna lost her first tooth and the tooth fairy came during the night. She discovered her tooth fairy was a "rock/pebble fairy." She left Sienna a little glass jar filled with rose quartz. Lastly, we celebrated Mother's Day and decided it would be the perfect day to free our butterflies.       

Sunday, August 25, 2013

The Tale of Two Loaves

One of the things I've been meaning to perfect is my breadmaking. So, last week when I made my weekly loaves, I tried two different methods when rolling the loaves out and shaping them into the loaf pans. Alas, I think I figured out how to make my loaf rise! So, we had one perfect and one flat. But, they both tasted delicious. These loaves were a mixture of Bob's Red Mill white and wheat.




 I couldn't just write a post about bread, so here are a few pictures of the kitties and wee little Forest.

Mr. Chai Guy 

Miss Kona Mocha 


Wee little Forest in a play silk. 

Happy breadmaking!