random monday

I've been writing posts in my head, unfortunately they have not made it onto the blog, so here is a photo summary of all those posts...

Regan discover that my water color pencils are great for face painting.

Adelaide's first popsicle

We have two super tiny super cute frogs living in our garden. In just a matter of days these little fellows have nearly doubled in size!

Okay, so I wasn't going to write a post about this, but check out these super cool mushrooms I found growing in our yard this morning!
Aren't they beautiful?

This is my favorite picture... She did this to herself. It is a drawer divider from Ikea. It has a zipper in the bottom so it can pack flat. I guess she found it unzipped and put it over her head. When I took it off her she cried, so I gave it back and she put it back on her head...

silly girl :)

yesterday

While the kids painted in the kitchen...
I did a little painting of my own. We won't talk about how long I have had that can of paint and how long I have been planning to paint those lamps... or the fact that I also have plans to paint the bed frame too but it will probably take me another who knows how long to get that job done... Well, I guess we did talk about it then, didn't we? Oops :)
I still need new lamp shades for these, the current shades at 10+ years old, faded yellow, plastic cracking, "decorated" by children... you get the point. I already know what shades I want, just waiting for an extra few dollars to spend on them.

The kids painting was way more interesting then mine. They found these broken "palace pieces" (as they call them) in someone's trash pile in the neighborhood. I love it when they create their own art projects! This is Regan's
Max's
Tallulah's
Micah threw his "palace piece" away last week, so he painted this bird house instead.

menu planning

I have tried making menus before and have not stuck with them, but I think it was because I only did 8 weeks worth of dinners and used some recipes that were not "tried and true" family favorites. This time I pushed myself to come up with 12 weeks of meals that I knew we would enjoy. (I use the term "we" loosely, not everyone in the family will be thrilled with every meal, but you can't please everybody all the time.)

I also made this list to fit our schedule, for instance, we have CC on Thursdays and are gone all day, so most of my meals for that day are easy, pre-made casserole type meals that I will prepare on Tuesday, which is my "kitchen day" (see this post). Also, I planned mostly crock pot meals for Wednesday so that I have less to deal with the night before CC.

12 Week Dinner Menu
If you look at my list, it may seem a bit odd- only 6 days and starting with Saturday, but we shop of Fridays, so my week, as far as meal planning goes, starts on Saturday. Also, we usually eat dinner with friends of Friday nights, so I don't plan anything for dinner on Fridays.

I also have a rotating, 4 week breakfast/snack/lunch schedule.
Breakfast, snacks and lunch

I will add that when I made both of these list I had not intended to share them, so there are some dinners with no sides listed and maybe they could be laid out better, but this is what worked for me, so I am sharing in hopes that maybe it will inspire you or help you to make your own menus. I really has free up a lot of time that I used to spend trying to figure out what to eat each week!

I also have a master grocery list as well. I made this list based on the things that I most frequently buy, and according to where they are found in the stores I shop. There are always things to be written in, and it needs occasional tweaking, like my BJ's list has juice on it, but we are no longer buying juice, but I find it makes creating a grocery list just that much easier. I made my list in Excel and it does not come across right on Scribd, but it is specific to our family and the things that we buy each shopping trip anyway, and really, I think it is something best made up on your own, to suite your family :)

I hope that some of this is helpful/encouraging to some of you, I confess I am feeling a bit insecure about sharing all this, I am no expert and it is far from perfect... I think I better just hit publish before I change my mind!

upcycled

I picked this shelf out of someone's trash pile at least 6 months ago and it has been sitting in front of the windows in our living room ever since... waiting to get a paint job... waiting to find some free wall space to hang it. My ever patient husband never once said "what are you going to do with this shelf?" or "why is this still sitting on the floor, dirty, and unused". When I brought it home I had wanted to paint it and hang it somewhere for the kids to store all their art supplies, but I could not find any wall space where they could easily access it, so it sat...
Until yesterday when I had a moment of inspirations, with just a few small adjustments it would fit on the wall over my sewing desk and I would finally be able to get all those jars and containers holding sewing notions and tools off the desk (about 97% of what you see on the shelf was stacked on my desk, plus some other stuff). So, I dug out a can of white spray paint and got to work!
Pretty exciting to actually be able to see the desk top... it's been awhile!

week at a glance

Here is a sneak peak at what the average school week should look like us this fall. This schedule still has some things to be added, like I forgot guitar lessons and practice in the evenings with dad and I forgot to list French in our school subject list. Really, those of you who homeschool know that there is a lot of trial and error at the beginning of any school year. We have an idea of how we think things should look, but in reality they are often quite different, like most of life.
Weekly Schedule Fall 2011

It was hard to fit everything onto one sheet of paper, so I made some things on the calendar general, like "Afternoon Chores" and made a separate document with the specifics of what those "chores" are. I got the idea of assigning each day with a certain area of the house from Kim Brenneman's book "Large Family Logistics".
Daily Chores

Both of these documents are bound for editing and in no way do they cover everything that we might do in a day, say for instance, sew, blog, email... I did not even include vacuuming the house anywhere on the chore list (In case you were curious, My hubby vacuums every Tuesday before bible study and I pull it out as needed throughout the week... although it is rare that I find the floor needs vacuuming more than once or maybe twice a week- there are usually more pressing jobs to do, like starting a new craft project).

Next up, Menu plans.

fun finds

I found this pile of brand new books in the library's book store, $.50 each!

The Anne of Green Gables and Anne of Avonlea books have an inscription in the front. It seems someone did not like the gift they were brought from the Anne of Green Gables Museum. The date on the inscription was June 2011! Well, I am glad to have them in my library, even if Bonnie did not want them :) I have not read any Miss Reed books, but they looked interesting enough for $.50 a piece.

I also found this super cute dish towel at Kroger, of all places. I am pretty sure I will be making a little skirt for Adelaide with this.

And with that admission I guess I am busted... I have not touched my WIP pile since we returned home over a week ago (truthfully I have not done any sewing since we returned, I have been working on some organization projects to help get the school year off to a good start.) and I've already got my mind set of making some of these flowers as soon as I can pull my machine back out. I have had this idea in my head for embellishing a couple of lamp shades for our bedroom, and I think that these flowers will work perfectly for what I have in mind!

Maybe I will get some of my organizational projects together and share with you all, things like meal plans, chore schedules and school work record-keeping. Any interest?

P.S. I am still playing with my image sizing, so if it is not coming out right when you view the blog, please let me know!

just a test

Just working on the blog... trying to figure out how to make my pictures bigger...

You can't complain too much about a picture of this cutie though :)