Party Planning

Alex and Cyan both really like to cook. But honestly, I don't let them in the kitchen very often. Well, they help me all the time, but when it comes to cooking their own thing the opportunities are few and far between. I am always working in there! So last week I decided that since we were doing the Farm to Table curriculum, their assignment for the week was to make a full on dinner party from scratch. From start to finish.

Alex was given the heavier load that included the menu plan, table set up, selecting and cooking the appetizer, main and side dishes, and then setting the tables. This included many more little jobs through out the week for him. Such as a grocery list, checking the pantry for supplies, making sure we had the amounts he needed, deciding on a budget, making a cooking timeline for party day, and remembering to defrost/prepare the things needed in advance so they would all be ready.

Cyan's side included dessert and table decorations. She had to pick and read a recipe, get the ingredients all ready and then help put them together.

I did have a couple of stipulations... the budget had to be under $40, the food had to all be from the same culture, and the groceries had to be in season. Other than that though, they were on their own. Alex spent hours pouring over cookbooks and finding the best recipes. He picked one that I thought looked daunting, and I told him so... but he wanted to make it. So I let him choose. He picked Italian American Lasagna from the Joy of Cooking. Which includes making the sauce AND the meatballs before hand. A lofty recipe to start with. Especially when you are responsible for three more courses as well.

The day before I had him sit down and make a timeline for what he needed to do the next day. He checked all the cooking and prep time, and decided that he needed to start by 1pm so that he could be all done by the time our guests arrived at 6pm.

When the day came, we went and I had them get their groceries from Trader Joe's. I had already gotten the produce on their list from the market. Then we got home and Alex got to work. He started off by making the meatballs. He had started to defrost the 1 1/2 of beef the night before, but it was still frozen. So he put it in the microwave on defrost and got it all ready. When the meat balls were done, he realised that it had taken him 45 minutes longer than it should have, and just like any good host... he started to freak out.

At this point, Cyan and Don were making the carrot cake. This was great because it left me free to help Alex. After the meat balls were made, he added the sauce stuff to the pot and let it simmer. Then he cut the lettuce for the salad and set the tables.

He was still feeling stressed, but as things got completed and he was able to focus on setting the table and such, he started to calm down.

Dinner turned out to be about a half hour late... even with his 5 hour head start, but it was DELICIOUS! The menu they picked:

Appetizer: Italian Salad (butter and oak lettuce with kidney beans, Genoa Salami and provolone)

Main Course: Italian American Lasagna with spiced meatballs

Side dish: Fresh baked sour dough bread and steamed artichokes.

Dessert: Carrot cake with vanilla ice cream with fresh raspberries on top

It ended up being a educational experience for the whole family, for my very non-culinary husband decided that he would help Cyan with the dessert once again. Twice in the same day looking up recipes and making them... Banner day for my man. :)

Cyan was very proud of her cake:

And Logan loved Daddy's cream cheese frosting. :)

It was a wonderful learning experience. There were tons of great learning opportunities. I think I may have them do this once a month this year and see how they improve their skills.

It's like Easter!!

Well....sort of. Our fine laying hens have become official "egg layers." Yesterday we woke to a fun surprise of an egg in the coop. Later that day Shay found another egg under the ping pong table. Today we found 2 eggs on top of our outdoor table-yes the chickens can jump on top of the table. Kind of gross. So, it's anybodys guess as to where we're going to find the eggs tomorrow. See what I mean? EASTER!

On another note...my cute 13 year old has started a little hair accessory business-she has even put a few things on a blog called http://littlebowspeep.blogspot.com -She's actually done a pretty cute job. So, I thought I would give her a shout out on my blog-if you have daughters, nieces, sisters, etc., these would make cute gifts. Here are a couple pics of how we've used a few of her creations. She also has bows and yoyo barrettes.

Alex's Potion Shop

Alex has spent the last week making a magic shop in his room. It is pretty adorable. He has a whole bunch of things in there that look ordinary, but have magical properties. Some of them are really inventive. Like last week he went out and collected rain water in a bottle. He calls it "last minute rain water". It was on sale for cheap because it's magical properties are unknown.

He had a simple piece of paper taped to his door that said that his shop was open, and I thought that for the work and time he has put in to his shop, that just wouldn't do. So I made him this sign:

It was very simple. I used a craft round from Micheal's and chalkboard paint. Then I drilled two holes in the top and hung it from thick brown ribbon. He loved it! I painted the other side as well. It currently says "Closed".

What an amazing week of FOOTBALL!

Oh this week was a good one! Monday night we traveled to Cleveland to take on the clippers. Dalton had to face some pretty big 8Th graders but showed great success on the field. His coach mentioned him twice in this weeks sports article. The Jr. High team has yet to win a game but show big improvements week by week. Tanner played JV right after Dalton's team and squeaked out a win. Tanner lead the team in tackles again that night. Man is he an ankle bitter on the field! Thursday we had a HUGE VB match and the boyz were awesome and all came dressed like crazy RAIDER fans. Then we finished off the week with a big win over JWP. Bubba was spot on and no one got to his QB! Hey Coach can we get a little love for the O-Line this week? Tanner got to see some varsity time as well tonight going in the 3rd quarter for a series and then played the last 7 mins of the 4Th. Our no hurtle offense seem to stump the Bulldogs with Raiders winning 54 to 14. The boyz celebrated the win by a trip for Perkins for pancakes, I think this could become a habit. Next week will be very busy with games on Monday night for Tanner & Dalton, Thursday Dalton has another game then Friday we have Hills-Beverly Creek coming to town.

Fine Art class #7 & #8 ~ Winslow Homer

These last two classes have been great. It is fun to see what kids have learned and be able to apply it to future lessons. Today and last Friday we studied Winslow Homer. He was an amazing American artist that started out drawing for newspapers and ended up being a master of capturing moments. He created so many beautiful works that it was hard to concentrate on the any one style, for he used many styles and many mediums, in his art work.

At first we talked a bit about his life and watched Winslow Homer ~ An American Original. Then we had a good chat about what it was to be an artist for a news paper in that time and how they were crucial; like the photographers of our time. They were counted on to draw exactly what they saw, and usually they were amazing artists as well, for they had to have their work not only be on paper, but on wood printing blocks so that they could add it to the printing press for the paper. To be able to make these took amazing skill, and Homer was a master.

Thousands of his paintings survived him. And his love of the pencil and paper were some of the things we concentrated on first. We talked about Monochromatic color schemes, and using only black and white to make the picture have depth using nothing but color value. We used the ditto from the Meet The Masters curriculum for this activity.

The kids were only allowed to use one pencil from their sets to color this whole page. They had to think of how hard they were pressing and the color values they had used next to each other to fill in all areas and create some depth to their picture. It was a neat exercise.

Then this week we started off with more talk on color value and depth perception. The activity that we were doing today had a lot with reflective plains, so we concentrated on that for a while. The kids each were given a chance to see what different plains will do to a reflected image. For example, if you are above the reflective plain you will see a nearly perfect image... like this:

But if you are at eye level with the plain (as you are with the sea and the sunset) you will see this:

Then, I had one of the kids move to the side of the mirror and as they looked they took turns shaking it a bit to simulate waves moving the reflective surface. They got SUCH a kick out of this activity. They probably didn't get all of the terminology, but that can always be touched up later. They completely got the concept and they really enjoyed finding other reflective surfaces during class to tell me about how the light was distorted and how long it made the reflection. These kids are truly amazing!

I illustrated what we were going to show on the paper up on the white board, showing the reflection of the sunset in a visually accurate way. They followed suit on pre-made pieces of paper put together to show the two plains of the sky and ocean (we made them last week).

We used torn paper (as suggested by Meet the Masters) to make monochromatic clouds and a rocky shore out of greys, whites, and blacks.

Then we made the sunset and the reflection, along with a few bird sillouettes. We discussed the bird siouettes in detail and why they would only be sillouettes in the setting sun. I took my camera and snapped a few pictures to show how this would be true to the eye if there was something between them and the setting sun.

I love the results for each kiddo. They were all so determined to get it finished and perfected.

After the project was completed we had a little review... and as I showed the paintings I have used in past classes, they kept seeing the way people painted reflections and pointing them out! LOL! Even Van Gogh painted a reflection of a person in the water on The Red Vineyard. I would have never even seen it... I love these kids.

A Second Witness

Take the time to watch this video of the depiction of Christ in the Americas. I know He Lives!

http://Deseretbook.com/video/embed/343

Photo Friday

Field trip with a side of homicide.

This morning Cyan asked if we could go to our favorite farm instead of the zoo like we had planned. I thought that sounded like a great idea as we hadn't been there for a few months now that we live 25 minutes away. We started getting our chores finished and then got ready to head out. Logan started in on his before nap routine about an hour early and so I begrudgingly decided that we would have to wait until after nap. I wasn't happy about it. But it was better to wait if Logan was going to melt down on our little field trip. So at 3:30pm we get on our way to go see the goats and pick up some apples for sauce to can.

It takes us a while to get down there since we have moved... but the kids got really excited as they started to see the familiar stuff around the farm, and the horses and houses... along with the huge pumpkin patches that we have gone to every year for pretty much their whole lives. When we pulled around to go into the parking lot however, it was taped off with yellow police tape. Don and I were both thinking that something was really strange... and then we saw the police cars... and then news vans. We knew as we drove by that something was really wrong.

I called my aunt who lives close to there and asked her to check online to see what had happened. This is what she found:

Woman Shot at Lattin's Cider Mill

OLYMPIA, Wash. -- A woman showing up for work was gunned down by her former boyfriend who then turned the gun on himself.

Co-workers tried to stop the horrifying and deadly encounter as it played out at Lattin’s Cider Mill, a popular farm near Tumwater.

How stinkin' crazy is that? And on the one day we were going in the last 4 months??? SOOOO strange. So very strange. I seriously went to this farm once a week for 6 years or so. We spent Easters there, Halloweens there... We got all our eggs and produce from there for years! I have taken field trips with my homeschool group to there numerous times. I have pictures of Cyan feeding goats there as a toddler right next to my desk this second. It was a huge part of our Olympia lives. Just crazy.

I am having a crazy week folks. Feeling very strange and disjointed.

Better get on with it

Life, that is. Monday night I took the kids out to eat and we snuggled in my bed to watch a movie. This has become a very rare thing recently that is only done on mommy is near meltdown 'very special' occasions.

This last two weeks has been really rough. Yesterday was the pantry shelf fall out. Still dealing with a bit of shell shock on that one (and has absolutely NOTHING to do with the tv. Still figuring out how to get two more boxes of peaches this late in the season without breaking the bank too. That is the only thing that really was effected in mass quantities. Which sucks, because they take a LOT of work... unlike jam... which is easy and fast. Like I said: shell shock.)

But back to the tv... Last week the kids had some sort of argument about something related to who gets to pick the next movie and the bigger one ended up stabbing the younger one in the eye with a fork. Yes. A fork. In her eye. It was horrible. Luckily her reflexes took over and thank God because that meant that we had two puncture wounds on her eyelid instead of sight problems to deal with. Between this and the numerous toddler melt downs (every day) that have been going on around "movies"... I have taken the tv completely out of the living room. Now the only one we have is the 19inch in the bedroom. The game boys are gone too. I have even had to limit my cell phone (as there is a game demo on there that Logan will freak out if not allowed to play).

It was out of control for a while. We have not had cable tv since we have had children... but we do have the tv box and the Xbox console and so we rent and watch movies quite regularly. Things have been slowly changing at my household with regards to screen entertainment from a 'fun pastime' to a 'frantic addiction'. And it had to stop.

So out the tv went. Into the garage, covered with a quilt, with a huge tuperware under it of the all Xbox stuff, gameboys, and video games. The folders with the movies in them went into the top of my closet, and that was that. All the media, out of the center of the house.

What is strange is the last few days have really not been bad. The first days were hard. Espically on Logan, who, not really understanding, threw more fits than usual... but the last two days in particular, I have noticed that he doesn't freak out when I say 'no' about the movies. Yesterday when he asked I said "Nope... sorry bud, the tv is all gone." and he looked around the livingroom and said "Ok, you play puzzle with me?" That was that. I am sold. I may never let it back in.

It has been hard trying to get through the moves, and homeschooling two older ones etc to not use the tv as a crutch for the toddler. But we are settled now, and it is time to get back into the routines and rituals that we had when we were settled last time. No tv on weekdays. "Get outside." That was my mantra whenever my kids said they were bored. (Well, that and "Well I have something for you to do... go pair socks." which they hate to hear and will vow never to say to their children. I think all moms have some of those don't they?) I will even say it in the pouring down rain... "Get outside" when it is raining is then usually paired with "You will not melt."

TV free evenings are a treat for me now. The rituals that we started when we first moved here have now come alive. All of a sudden Logan is telling stories outloud. Full on, long stories which always invlove someone dying or being shot and always include lots of sound effects... and yesterday, someone brushing their teeth. Funny boy. Cyan builds fairy houses in the back yard again. Alex has taken up reading again and even spent time in the library the other day looking up a new book series he has had his eye on... which he read the first of in less than a day. It is amazing.

The world is out there... better get on with it.

Protect your QB

As you can tell my the black & white photo's the Raider's had a rough night with Edgerton. At the half we lead 7-0. They just out lasted us in the 4Th quarter. The boyz didn't hang their heads but rather learned a big lesson that will carry them through the season. We want to thank all the fans who spent many many hours on the road and in a bus to cheer us on! NHS brought 51 fans on the bus. Grandpa & Grandma made a long trip too. As we prepare for next week this loss will be a vivid reminder of how we play the game of football. Raider MEN play with respect for the game and the other team. Cheap shots are for losers and Good sportsman don't play that way. Another time another day we'll get a rematch and the out come will be a different story. The photos will be in color.

Lady Raiders!

We gotta give the girls some love! Our VB team is 10-0 and will face a tough challenge trying to top off MCW who is ranked 7Th in the state Tuesday night at home. The girls made t-shirts for all the boyz to wear at the vb games & the girls have made every football game to support us so it's time to return the favor! Way to go Lady Raiders!

JV & Jr.High have 1st game!

There is not doubt about it ......it feels good to win but...... to watch our son go out and face kids twice the size and weight and just stick it to them every play. Now that is something to brag about! The scoreboard didn't show a win but man did those kids play hard. Dalton played QB tonight and aired it out a few times and had 8 tackles as well. It was a very warm afternoon getting up to 91* and Dalton needed to play both ends of the ball. Jr. High will play again in Cleveland on Monday. Tanner stuck it to those 6 foot Jr. boys all night long! Tanner lead his team in tackles. He never came out of the game all night long! IF he keeps this up he'll find some playing time on Varsity. JV was able to score twice on GHEC but they wanted some redemption from the kicking they took from Varsity this past Friday night. JV plays on Monday night after the Jr. High. Friday afternoon we hit the road for that 3 plus hour bus ride to Ellsworth. A win would be nice but we are just hoping to leave healthy and get a score or two. GO RAIDERS!