How We Homeschool Without a School Room

*but first* There is just one day left to enter for the Greetings from Somewhere: the Mystery of the Gold Coin giveaway!  So go take care of that and then come back here to read about how I homeschool in the heart of my home.  Or is it in the trenches?  Sometimes it's hard to tell ;)

This past August was the first time we started a new school year after I had joined several homeschool-related Facebook groups.  Want to know what you see a lot of in August and September from homeschool moms?  School rooms.  Bright, organized, spacious, packed-full-of-educational-goodness, drool-worthy school rooms.  I confess, I spent many an afternoon coveting the in-home school rooms I saw on Facebook last August.  

As much as I would love a designated space for us to conduct our lessons, display our school work, and corral our school books and materials, it's just not an option in our current home.  

And to make matters even a little trickier, we only have one table -- one table that serves as our gathering place at meal times and as our primary school-work area.  Things might look a little different at our house if we had a kitchen table for meals and a dining room table we'd primarily use for school.  But as it is, the dining room table is it.   It's definitely not a cozy, out-of-the-way educational nook. The room gets lots of traffic and it's used for meals, school, crafts, sanctioned and unsanctioned science experiments, play time, time outs (the disciplinary kind ;) ), game night, and basically... everything.   It's pretty much the heart of our home. 

The two main "issues" we have to take into account are (1) it's a multi-purpose space and (2) there's only so much room to store our designated school stuff.  Here's how we make it work...

* Clean up every morning, pick up all day long.  The dining room gets a good once over every morning after breakfast - wash the table and chairs, pick up everything off the floor, vacuum.  I will not start the school day walking around on crumbs.

* Only keep books/materials currently in use, or as much as can fit on our one shelf.  The is tricky for me, as I'd love to have all our materials at arm's length.  But it cannot be so.  So texts, reference books, and workbooks that we're not specifically using for a designated subject this year usually find a home in a cardboard box in the attic.  If we must have them, we can get them.  Note: we have a couple books shelves in the adjacent living room where we keep some educational picture books, our lives of the saints picture books, and our readers and series books.  I keep the "school shelf" in the dining room for curriculum materials, workbooks, texts, etc...

* We can't save everything for every kid.  It's so satisfying at the end of the year to look back through all the work that we accomplished, so I look through it and then toss most of it.  I can not not save all the finished workbooks and tests and artwork from everyone.  Instead of keeping it all, I keep a binder for each child and use it to save important stuff, like letters, etc... from our school district, our IHIP's, my own quarterly reports as well as those from the study center my kids attend, and standardized test scores/reports.  I may also save stuff like unit math tests or especially well done writing assignments.  At the end of the year though, it's best to go back through last year's work and purge again.  For example, last year's math tests will have lost their emotional significance in the light of this year's math successes, so they can go.  

* Each student has a bin for his/her current school year books and must use it :)  I have found it much easier on the kids and me if each student has a place to keep their consumable (and sometimes non-consumable) books in one place.  So instead of keeping all the math stuff in one spot and all the spelling stuff in another, each child has his current math or spelling level materials in his own canvas drawer/bin.  This makes it simple for the kids to retrieve and put away their books and materials each day.  Hopefully then, books and materials aren't lying out all day long only to blindside us when it's time to set the table for dinner  (sometimes happens... but it's not supposed to ;) )

* Use baskets to corral stuff.  We have one primary "school" shelf in the dining room.  I use baskets to keep similar stuff together on that shelf -- I have a basket for flashcards and math manipulatives, a basket for the All About Spelling and All About Reading cards, a basket for art and music stuff.  I love these baskets from JoAnn's because they happen to fit perfectly on our shelves and you can see what's in them.  I actually once wrote a post about how much I love these baskets... it's a lot.  

* Konmari the art supplies.  And other supplies, for that matter.  I have a definite weakness for art supplies.  But we got to a point where we needed the extra space for actual school books, so I had to give up some of my art supply storage shelves for the greater academic good.  I tossed all the sub-par colored pencils and crayons and markers, and try to keep what remains in good shape and all in one place.  

* Stop buying books and workbooks on a whim.  I remember buying several cute reusable dry-erase marker books at a discount store several years ago.  They were going to be for fun math, spelling, and phonics practice!!  They were so appealing to look at!  I kept imagining my kids having lots of educational fun writing in answers and wiping them away!  But the books didn't follow the math and spelling methods we were using and we never ever took them off the shelf.  They, and other similar purchases early on in our homeschooling days, turned out to be wasted money.  And they wasted shelf space.  Time to move them along...

* Forgo a lot of school-ish wall displays.  This is a personal preference for me.  If we had a school room it would have wall maps and giant historical time lines, vocabulary and site words, memory work, Latin conjugation and declension charts, multiplication tables, artwork, and more on it.  But I prefer that our dining room keep a "family dining" feel to it.  It's ok for us to do school work in the dining room, but I don't want to feel like I'm eating dinner in the school room.  So, school stuff on the walls is very limited.

* Use all the rooms as school rooms.  We actually don't just "do school" in the dining room.  There's often a kid at the computer in the living room (visible from the dining room), and out of habit, the boys and I almost always do our afternoon science, history, and Latin on the couch.  The kitchen floor works just fine for math fact drills.  I give vocabulary quizzes while I'm changing the baby in his upstairs bedroom.  The boys often choose to do their silent reading in my bed or on cold days, they'll go sit on the floor next to the heater vent in their bedroom.  Now that the weather is warming up, the kids will have the option of working outside.  I actually love it this way, and often wonder how much we would actually use a school room even if we had one.  

* Other :)  A few other things that help make it work are noise cancelling earphones.  These are a must when kids are "doing school" in a main area of the house and there are other people doing other things in those main areas.  We also have a small kids table and shelf with little kids' "school-ish" activities adjacent to the dining room.  Often the younger ones will do drawing, stickers, puzzles, etc... at the little table while the bigger kids are working.  They're nearby and I can see them.  Bonus.  


Our systems are not perfect.  Often the dining room buffet looks like this (or worse)...

... and we might not always pick up everything before lunch time and the table looks like this (or worse)...

... but we make it work because we have to.  And it works because we've developed an attitude of school happens in and among the day to day rhythms and craziness of family life, and in general, it's hard to distinguish between the two!

You might also like...

My Homeschool Curriculum Favorites

All the Homeschool "Extras" that I Love

My Favorite Audio Learning Resources for Homeschooling

See Me Homeschool: and Ordinary Day

Using the IPad in our Homeschool

Slow Cooker Chicken Sweet Potato Tacos (say it with me now... Mmm, Mmm, Mmm!)

I'm not kidding... my kids chant Mmm, Mmm, Mmm! when they find out we're having chicken sweet potato tacos for dinner.  Or lunch.  Or breakfast...  

For this recipe you will need a slow cooker and people.  And some other ingredients.  But the most important thing is the people because you need someone other than yourself to eat these amazing tacos and then love you for making them.

I thought I made up this recipe all on my own.  I mean, I did because one day I had the idea to just throw some sweet potatoes and beans into our regular chicken taco thing...  I thought I was a slow cooker taco genius!  But it turns out there are lots of people out there eating chicken sweet potato tacos.  If "my" recipe is similar to yours, it is coincidental, and isn't it awesome that we discovered the same delicious thing independently of each other in our various parts of the world?!?!

Anyway, here it is...

Ingredients

2 large chicken breasts

2 large sweet potatoes, peeled and diced

1 can diced tomatoes (I use the "no salt added" variety)

1 can Rotel (diced tomatoes with chilies)

2 packets taco seasoning (I use Ortega 40% less sodium.  I also know there are several recipes for making your own.)

1 can black beans, drained and rinsed

Put all ingredients except the beans into a slow cooker on High for 3-4 hours.  Check to see if chicken is cooked.  Once it's cooked, shred the chicken breasts, stir all ingredients well, and continue cooking for another 1 hour or so.  Add black beans, turn slow cooker to Warm until ready to serve.  

Serve in taco shells or flour tortillas.  Add taco "fixins" - cheese, lettuce, cilantro, sour cream, guacamole, salsa...)

Makes approximately 16 servings a 1/2 cup each. 

Eating with diabetes??  Here's your carb info: Each 1/2 cup has 13 carbohydrates.  Served on an 8 inch flour tortilla (25 grams of carbs) a chicken sweet potato taco would be 38 carbohydrates.  (As always, it's safest to do your own carbohydrate calculations, but this should give you a good idea.)    

Enjoy.  (I'm sure you will!)  

p.s.  let me know if you make 'em and love 'em :)

Summer Dinner Solutions (a Recipe Swap n' Share Link Up)

Summer Dinner Solutions  (a Recipe Swap n' Share Link Up) 

(please participate so my family doesn't go on a hunger strike this summer!)

If there's one thing I can do, it's feed my family over the winter.   You want a hot from the oven - stove top - crock pot meal, I've got you covered.  But much to my chagrin, I admit I can't be good at everything (rats!) and one of the things I'm not so great at is figuring out what to serve my family for dinner over the summer.  And I'm talking about those days where there is no way in heck we're turning on the oven - the days when it's just. too. hot. - the days when you're already sticky and sweaty but then begin to perspire a little extra when the troops start asking what's for dinner and you know in good conscience you can't serve them a casserole or a chili.

So what do I do?  I turn to you!  I'd love for you to join me and dish out your summer dinner ideas.  Have a blog?  Link up!  Don't have a blog?  Let's chat in the comments!  You can include full-out recipes, or just give us some ideas of what your family eats on sticky summer nights.  I'm personally interested in recipes and ideas that are for "everyday" dinners, not so much the intense and involved weekend smoked-salmon-on-the-grill dinners (though I love those too!)  

Without further ado, here are some of the things I actually DO make throughout the summer... over and over and over again, which is why I need this link-up to be a success :)  My family can only take so much of my two or three summer meals and then I know they'll stage a hunger strike.

"Mexican" Bowls

I put "Mexican" in quotation marks because I don't really know if this is the kind of thing they eat in Mexico, but it does have a lot of beans and rice and cilantro in it :)

This idea was given to me by my good friend, Janelle, who, if she kindly introduces herself in the comments, may take credit for this great dinner idea and may add even add ingredient suggestions and modifications! (Gosh, I hope she reads this or I'll feel pretty foolish for assuming her readership :)  )

Ingredients:

box Spanish Rice (Rice-a-Roni)

can diced tomatoes

can black beans, drained, rinsed

can red beans, drained, rinsed

chopped greens (I usually use romaine or a spinach/spring mix)

shredded cheese

fixin's - black olives, chopped fresh cilantro, sour cream, salsa, guacamole, tortilla chips (or Cheddar Sun Chips if you really feel like pleasing the masses at the dinner table)

Cook up the rice according to the package instructions on the stove top.  Add diced tomatoes and beans.  

To serve, spoon rice mixture into bowls, cover with chopped greens and shredded cheese, and let everyone add whatever fixings they want.  I like to add tons of cilantro! 

Chicken Salad with Almonds and Chow Mein Noodles

image from PocketChangeGourmet.com

Ingredients:

salad greens and chicken breast (enough to feed your family when a salad is the dinner and not just a side)

1 c. slivered almonds

Chow mein noodles

poppy seeds

dressing: 1 c. oil, 1/2 c, sugar, 1/3 c. vinegar, pepper to taste

Pan fry or grill chicken.  Chop or shred it into the salad greens.  Add almonds, noodles, and poppy seeds.  Dress and serve.  

BONUS MATERIAL: THE TWO BEST EVER SUMMER SIDE SALADS:

Cucumber and Blueberry Salad w/ Feta

image from wegmans.com

This salad is so, so wonderful.  (I even wrote about it last summer!)  And it's a fun way to start using your mint from your herb garden!  Check the link above for full recipe and instructions, brought to you courtesy of the best grocery store in the country (and my personal favorite place to shop because of the bakery and cheese shop.  Oh. my. gosh.)

Grilled Mushroom and Corn Salad

Ingredients: 1 red onion, two ears corn, 4 -5 medium-size portabello mushroom crowns, basting oil, bag romaine salad blend, lemon vinaigrette, salt and pepper

Shave the corn off the cob.  Cube the onion and mushroom tops.  

Toss with 2 T of basting oil

Grill (or roast) the mixture until lightly browned

Toss with the salad and approx. 1/2 cup lemon vinaigrette.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Delish!

This salad is also from Wegmans. Last Friday, my children and I ate five helpings of it at the veggie tasting station.  We've had it here at home twice since then, it's that good.

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As always, whenever I share recipes, I only share the ones that are husband and children-approved.  I can't guarantee your loved ones will like them, but the odds are in your favor if it's passed the test at my place:)

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Ok!  Now link up or comment and help diversify my summer dinner offerings!  Thanks!

A Fabulously Long Day Book (and Some Answers for Curious Kendra!)

Outside my window...

It's gray and cold.  It's that time of year here when is 70 degrees one day and 35 the next.  Today's a 35 day.  Oh wait - it took me so long to write this it's now sunny and 43.  

I'm hearing...

Mostly blessed silence.  It's my peaceful afternoon time.  The three youngest are sleeping and the boys have their quiet time in the basement.  All I can hear, apart from the tapping of these keys, are strains of Jim Weiss' voice regaling the boys with his version of Kipling's Just So Stories.  We're big Jim Weiss fans around here :)  We have several of his recordings already, but I've started plotting which new ones I'll buy for our summer road trip to Cape Cod...  I'm thinking "Good Luck Duck," "Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea," "Treasure Island," and the "Adventures of Tom Sawyer."  

From the kitchen...
We certainly feasted on Easter!  We had a big brunch after Mass (which included my favorite homemade baked good of all time - orange kisses.  If only I didn't have kids... I could eat the whole batch myself!) and a delicious grilled salmon dinner.

For the rest of this week, not a whole lot.  I've been struggling lately to keep the grocery bill within the grocery budget.  It seems like by the time I buy all the fresh fruit and vegetables that we eat for breakfast, lunch, and snack, I have just enough left for everyone to have a grain of rice and a black bean for dinner.  I know plenty of "larger" families eat well on a budget, but I haven't yet mastered the art of thrifty grocery-getting.

Anyway...  I just got a loaf of bread started in the bread machine for tonight. Soup is what's for dinner.  It's cool enough for a soup night :)

Around the house...

Things are in a bit of a state around here as I transition the clothes and gear from winter to spring.  In addition to the messy confusion that inevitably accompanies the wardrobe switch, things are also a bit crazy as I experiment with a new laundry system.  We've always kept everyone's dirty laundry separate and washed each  load once a week.  It's not working so well anymore because (1) the kids get really dirty outside but I won't let them be around the house with dirty clothes, so sometimes they change two or three times a day and they run out of clothes before their designated laundry day and (2) I want to stop buying as many clothes for the kids as I have in the past.  So, we're testing out the old everyone-throws-their-clothes-down-the-chute-in-the-evening-and-it-all-gets-washed-together-overnight system of doing laundry.  I still have to figure out when we'll work in towels, linens, and adult whites...  It's a work in progress.  

I'm watching...

Woah.  There's a lot on my list.  Having given up Internet movie and tv show watching for Lent, there's much to catch up on :)  - a few episodes of "Elementary" on cbs.com, and waiting for me at Netflix are "Foyle's War,"  "Endeavor," "The Paradise," and "Upstairs, Downstairs."  Oh, British television, how I love you!  

Books I'm reading...

I just finished Dumbing Us Down, by John Taylor Gatto and The Hurried Child, by David Elkind.  Lots of thought-provoking stuff to mull over on parenting, childhood, and educational choices.

I have a gigantic stack of books out of the library right now.  I think next I'll be cracking open  Evangelical Catholicism, by George Weigel and a few John Holt classics - Teach Your Own and How Children Learn.

Books I'm reading with the kids...
The Horse and His Boy, by good old Clive Staples
The Story of Money, by Betsy Maestro (we all really enjoyed this one as a social studies / history supplement)
and I just bought a long-time library loan favorite, The Library Lion, by Michelle Knudsen.  (For this and other kids books that we love, check out this post here!)

From the Interwebs...

Listened to, and loved this:  How to Teach Boys and Other Kids Who'd Rather be Playing in Forts.

Another thought-provoking read: Newsflash: Motherhood is not the World's Hardest Job.  (If you're a mom and think that it's the hardest job in the world, you're doing it wrong.  And you're probably also doing your children a disservice.)  Read it.  It's good.

I'm pondering...

Oh so many things. 

Kids and money.  We're on the cusp of giving the boys (and maybe Ruth) more responsibility over their own piggy bank money.  I know how we are going to organize it; just have to do it.  But also, the boys in particular, are interested in earning some money to save up for Lego sets they have their eyes on.  I'm still unsure what type of work around the house would merit payment.  We certainly won't be paying them for their daily chores, but I'm having a hard time dreaming up other tasks they could do that I'd be willing to pay them for.  Any ideas?  Russ and I were thinking of 50 cents per extra "chore" (they're still young!)  

Our home and yard.  They are feel considerably smaller than when we moved in here five years ago with just two children!  What accommodations can we make so that our house continues to serve us well?  What can I do for my kiddos so that they can have more outdoor space to explore and create and learn?  

Planning for the summer months...

Stuff to do in Cape Cod.  Really, the only things on my "must do" list are the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and taking the kids to do some really good tide-pooling.  We don't travel a lot, but when we do, we're going to do some awesome location-specific educational things, goshdarnit.  You can't explore tide pools in Western New York, so that's what we're going to do.  How one goes about finding a really good place to go tide-pooling, I do not know.  Maybe ask at Woods Hole, I guess...

I'm also committed to finding another hot air balloon launch we can go to.  Maybe we'll see you at one!  (Here's a schedule for you!)

I'm looking forward to...

My sister, brother-in-law and nephew are moving here this weekend!  Yipee!!!!  And I'm praying for their safe travels and a smooth transition!

I'm creating...

Two crochet blankets, simultaneously.  The boys asked for them, so I jumped right on it!  I chose the pattern and colors according to what I thought would suit each boy.  Here's a sneak preview.  I'll post more when they're done.

I am so very happy that I rediscovered crocheting last fall!  I've enjoyed it so much and I really need "creative time" to re-energize me.  It's much easier to pick up a crochet project around the house whenever I get a spare moment than it is to find time to get up to my attic sewing space.  

What's up with the kids...

One day a couple weeks ago Ruth asked Russ to take the training wheels off her bike.  Two minutes later she was flying down the street!  What a girl!

Dominic has been begging me to do a sewing project, so I just got him started with something simple.  (Ruth joins in doing lacing.)

Aaron's progressing with reading.  He read an entire "Billy and Blaze" book yesterday, and enjoyed it!  Yay!

Clare is a cute handful.  She learned to climb out of her crib.  'Nuf said.

James is so smiley and talkative!  I think he's ridiculously adorable, but I'm his mother, so what do you expect!  

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And Curious Kendra asks... (via "Answer Me This" at Catholic All Year) 

What did we wear for Mass on Easter Sunday?   

It's actually a wonder we were even all wearing clothes at Mass on Easter Sunday.   Getting out the door for 8 o'clock Mass is cuh-razy with kids who don't know how to button and buckle and zip and tuck in on their own.  But we made it.  Barely.  I was getting dressed as Russ was buckling the kids in van.  I had wet, unstyled hair and I slopped some makeup on during the 3-minute drive.  As for what we wore, we went for thrifty over nifty this year.  Here it is...

I wore the green dress that I wore when I was the Matron of Honor at aforementioned sister's wedding two and a half years ago... when I was pregnant with Clare.  In fact, that was the last time I wore a dress at all (if you don't count a hospital gown...)  (If you know me at all, you know I'd be perfectly happy to wear sweats all day every day, even Easter if I thought I could get away with it...  Oh  wait, I did change into sweats after Mass when I remembered one of the reasons I don't wear dresses is because they make it very difficult to nurse a baby...)

Russ wore the suit and shirt he wore for our wedding. The boys wore the same shirts and ties they wore last Easter.  Ruth and Clare wore dresses that were lingering in the attic.  I had to buy them new shoes :)  And James, well, he's baby no. 5.  He wore hand-me-downs.  

Easter Bunny - thumbs up or thumbs down?

Thumbs way down.   We just don't do stuff like that around here.  

The "significant" reason (insofar as it applies to me and my family and I don't apply it to anyone else's personal or familial practices...) is that we try to avoid a thing that might minimize or distract  from the Truth of the celebration.   I have a hard enough time with the monumental task of dispensing the truths of the Faith to my children, I hardly need to juggle the confusion that holiday "characters" breed.  (Easter Bunny!!  Breed!!  Get it?!?) There are other serious reasons, but perhaps another time...

The casual, flippant reason, is I just don't get it.  And I don't want to spend my time cultivating... whatever it is.  And if the Mom doesn't want to do it, we don't do it.  (I didn't even manage to pull together an Easter basket this year.  The kids got bubbles, sidewalk chalk, and a chocolate bunny in a plastic shopping bag.  I don't think they're scarred for life...)

Do you prefer to celebrate holidays at our place or elsewhere?  

HERE!!  Absolutely, here!  I am a homebody through and through.  Then there's the convenience of being where all our "stuff" is - the diapers and wipes, clean clothes, cribs and favorite blankets.  And there's also the breath-easy aspect of being at home - if something gets dirty or broken, it's ours, not someone else's thing that we dirtied or broke :)  

Favorite kind of candy?

This question is killing me, as I'm trying to avoid candy right now...  what a dumb idea.  (Have to avoid it because I love it too much!)  I love Sour Patch Kids and Take 5 candy bars.  

Do I like video games?

I don't know.  Does computer Tetris of the 1990's count?  I've never played a real video game.  Sometimes I wonder if my kids wouldn't benefit from something like a Wii Fit, but when I start talking about it I realize I have no idea what I'm talking about.  Russ says maybe they'd like an Atari.  But I don't know what that is either.  It must be really cutting edge if I haven't heard of it yet...

Do I speak another language?

Huh.  I have a degree in French.  Do I speak it?  I used to be decent, but now?  Non.   I can say my prayers in French, so I do that occasionally to keep up the accent.  Once in a while, I bust out with a mean and melodious rendition of Frere Jacques.  But these days, with the boys doing Song School Latin, you're much more likely to hear me going around the house singing (to the tune of the Battle Hymn of the Republic), "I am a mighty miles, I can swing a sword.  My gladius is my best friend when I go off to war... A bellum is a tragedy, but a miles still must go.  Pugno in rain or snow!"  So, yeah.  I speak Latin.  Er, I mean, Dico Latin.  


And if you're still reading all this... wow.  You must really be a fan!  Thanks!  

Happy Wednesday!  

My Number One Tip for Increasing Kids' Daily Veggie Intake

(so... if you happen to read this blog and Kendra's at Catholic All Year, you may notice a common theme.  She was kind enough to serve as my opening act.  *wink, wink* )

Somehow, blessedly, all of our kids love vegetables.

When the boys were very young I would hide vegetables in meals. Looking back, this was a strange thing for me to do.  They didn't dislike vegetables.  But all the books and magazines that I had read about feeding children healthy food told me that my kids wouldn't like vegetables and that it would be a struggle getting them to eat veggies.  I believed what I read.  The magazines told me that I'd have to get creative if I expected my children to eat healthily.  So, because I was easily influenced by what I read, I fed my children vegetables the way magazine articles told me to - hiding them in otherwise kid-friendly food.  

I don't have to do this anymore.  But amusingly enough, there are some foods that, to this day, if I don't "hide" the veggies in there, the kids grumble about it.  They all know that I pump up some foods with extra veggies, but it's not because the family wouldn't eat them otherwise.  It's because they prefer it that way, and honestly, have you ever met a mom that would not squeeze in extra veggies when she could??  I prefer to think of it as "enhancing" a meal, rather than disguising a food.  (The kids favorite vegetable-enhanced meal is macaroni and white cheddar cheese with steamed, food processed cauliflower.) 

But it's all superfluous. My kids enjoy vegetables. They ask for salads. Don't get the wrong idea. They're not going to ask for brussels sprouts over a candy bar...  They'd rather have the candy bar, but since that's not going to happen, my Number One best tip for getting kids to eat extra vegetables is this...  make it the afternoon snack.  

Pretty much all kids ask for an afternoon snack, right?  Mine do.  Several months ago, I simplified afternoon snack time and added another dose of healthy veggies to our day by making snack time every afternoon a big bowl of veggies.  I've usually pre-cut them.  They're ready to go and I don't have to figure out what to offer for snack every day.  Simple.  Healthy.  The bowl always has cucumbers, carrots, and red peppers.  And it sometimes has green peppers, sugar snap peas, or green beans.  The kids all eat out of the same bowl, and this is part of the "trick" if you need one.  They see everyone else eating a "snack," they want to get in on the action.  And if a child wants any of the afternoon snack, they have to get in there, get dirty, and get what they want from the bowl before it's gone.  (I hope you're not imagining a feeding frenzy where the biggest and strongest get the good stuff... although, that's not far off ;) )  The afternoon bowl of veggies has worked wonderfully for us.  The kids enjoy it, expect it, and don't ask for anything else (like the candy bar.)  I also eat more veggies as a consequence, since they're out and available.  And if I don't serve a side salad or vegetable for dinner, I don't feel so bad.  Everyone's already gorged themselves at afternoon "snack time."  

The only downside to this method is that since I allow the kids to eat the vegetables all afternoon long, doing whatever it is they're doing - Legos, drawing, wandering around the house - I occasionally find an errant cucumber skin lying here or there.  But that hardly offsets the benefits :)

My bonus best tip for encouraging veggie-eating with kiddos is nothing new - grow your own.  Our summer gardens are small, but we're very enthusiastic about them.  The kids eat snap peas and string beans at their leisure, vie for the privilege of picking lettuce for dinner salads, watch the red peppers to gauge when they're ready for snacking, and LOVE when it's time to see what the carrots have been up to under the soil.  (Confession, no one ever eats the tomatoes though.  No matter what I try, the only way anyone around here will eat a raw tomato is if it's on a BLT. But, yum!)  

What a delight it is to have kiddos that defy the popular wisdom of parenting magazines.  And what a blessing as well.  Veggie eating is important for all my children, but I'm so grateful that vegetables are an enjoyable snack for Aaron. Finding convenient, low-carb snacks for someone with diabetes is tricky.  But all I have to do is say the words cucumbers and red peppers and this kid is making his way to the kitchen.  He appreciates the snack, and I appreciate that every afternoon he can snack "for free" - eat as much as he'd like without worrying about insulin dosing. It's one less thing for me to worry about during an already busy time of day, and an easy way for him to enjoy food he likes without carb counting.  Truly a blessing.

Incidentally, Aaron and I are working together on some upcoming material!  Soon I'm hoping to publish a few posts with some of his diabetes story as we approach the first anniversary of his diagnosis.  Stay tuned!

Seven Quick Takes (Wherein I Reveal That I Might Have an Unhealthy Attachment to a Basket)

It was yesterday afternoon when I got the email with the crucial-to-life information that my favorite storage baskets of all time are on sale at JoAnn's.  And thus was born this post, for in the very moments before the tantalizing email came through I had been pondering whether or not I had anything to offer by way of Seven Quick Takes.  I admit this is somewhat of a lame excuse for a blog post, but (1) it gave me an excuse to take pretty pictures of colorful and organized things throughout my home, and (2) there just might be somebody else out there looking for the Next Big Thing that will revolutionize the way she organizes her entire home and life books and yarn and other random stuff.  If that's you, then may I present... 

The Organizing Essentials Seagrass Open Weave Basket 

(in both the rectangular and oval variety)

and Seven (Quick Take) real-life uses in my home and/or 
potential uses for you

(1)

We'll start with the obvious... book storage.

(2)

Organizational bins for all the loose stuff on your school shelves.

In basket No. 1: Music Masters CDs and Art cards

No. 2: Math-y stuff

No. 3: the "tech bin" - CDs for Latin and memory work, DVD player for Math-U-See lessons, ear phones for the iPads

No. 4: Flyleaf Emergent Reader Series and sight word flash cards

No. 5: Holy Cards and little Saint books

(3)

Storage for your current crochet (or craft of your choice) project.

(4)

Storage for your crochet projects-in-waiting.

(5)

Diaper storage

fake baby used for effect.  real baby was sleeping :)

(6)

Couch-side prayer and reading baskets

(7)

Pencil and crayon caddy :)

(Extra Take - since it's about a bathroom, I didn't feel like it really deserved to be one of the official Seven.)

Pretty place to corral restroom reading materials.

* * * * * *

Don't forget to head over to Jen's to check out more Quick Takes - I can pretty much guarantee they'll be more scintillating than mine and they probably won't end with a picture of toilet.

Happy Friday!

Feeding My Family From the Freezer

And to clarify right out of the box, I don't mean the freezer meals department at the grocery store.

I'm speaking about my very own LG upright freezer happily housed in my basement laundry room - my faithful companion these last three years - enabling me to feed my family in a way that really, really suits me.  I'm taking about my method of going from this:

to this:

to this:

I LOVE serving my family dinners that that are healthy and that they enjoy, but I get very little pleasure from actually sorting out that project every day of the week.  I don't know what it is, but there's something so difficult/annoying/time-wasting (???) for me about getting a dinner together nearly every day, that a couple years ago I decided to treat myself to pre-made dinners most nights during the cold winter months.  Again, this isn't to say that we're eating store-prepared dinners or take-out all the time.  Home prepared meals are important to me. (But I certainly won't say no to the occasional Indian take-out!!) This is about my system of putting healthy, home-cooked meals on the table in the evenings... it's just that I made them weeks - or even months - ago!

(I should take this opportunity to thank my husband, Russ, whose hard word, budgeting ingenuity, and generosity is what permitted me to get a large upright freezer years ago, and each subsequent year to do wacky things to the grocery budget, and take nearly two full weekends "off" just to cook.  Thanks, Babe!  I love you!)

Last year I wrote about stocking my freezer and how I feel it's such a gift to myself and to my family.  (Check out these posts here and here!)  I still feel immense gratitude and personal satisfaction every time I take something out of there and we eat a delicious dinner that I "didn't even have to make." All the work was in the past, so it's mostly forgotten and it really does feel like we're eating food that magically appeared!

This year I thought I'd give you a quick idea of how it works. I can even go on as long as want to - I've got lots more time for blogging now that... dinner's done!  

I've mentioned before I divide up my cooking mostly over two weekends in the fall - soups and casseroles.  (Last year I had a third category which was Crock Pot freezer meals.  I *might* do this again right before the baby's born, but it just wasn't a priority for me this past fall.)

I've already written about how I cook all my soups in a matter of a few days.  Casseroles are similar.  I get all my recipes together and make a master shopping list.  This year I had chosen seven different casseroles, each of which I double or triple.  I think I ended up with 16 casseroles. 

I head out on Friday evening or early Saturday morning to do my grocery shopping, and then get started right away.  In addition to food ingredients, I get lots of aluminum pans and foil :)  The weekend before Thanksgiving was my big casserole weekend.  On Saturday I made the pasta casseroles and the chicken casseroles. On Sunday I made shepherd's pie and lasagna.  And then I was too tired to do anything more until Wednesday night, when I realized if I didn't get some more of my fridge cleared out our Thanksgiving leftovers might be homeless.  So, I quickly finished up with the finish rye casserole (recipe care of Heather at Mama Knows, Honeychild!  Delish, as always, H!) 

Russ is willing to get the kids out of the house for me the majority of the Saturday and Sunday that I'm cooking, so I have the place to myself - I make messes, listen to loud music or audio books, drink tons of coffee, and cook like a crazy person - all without interruption.  For me, the key is efficiency, so there's always a few things going on at once - I may be chopping vegetables for the casserole I'm currently assembling, but I'm also browning the beef and sausage for next day's lasagna, or soaking the lentils for the shepherd's pie (I made it with half beef/half lentils this year), or boiling noodles, or cooking rice. 

Casseroles and soups are always labeled with defrosting and cooking instructions, as well as additional notes like "add bread crumbs and cheddar cheese half way through baking" or "needs more sauce" or "serve with tortilla chips and sour cream."  That way, even if it's a meal that's being eaten while I'm not around, no one (Russ) has to guess at what needs to be done.  

Besides dinners, I also use our freezer for ridiculous amounts of freezer jam and frozen whole berries from summertime picking, apple sauce from fall picking (and pear sauce this year, thanks to the fabulous  Mary!!) as well as frozen cookies and breads (of the breakfast variety, like pumpkin cranberry bread, etc...)  I really enjoy baking, but don't get to it very often anymore, so when I do, I just double everything and then throw it in freezer bags.  It's been absolutely wonderful to pull a couple oatmeal raisin cookies out of the freezer as needed (needed by whom, I shall not say ;) )  

Even with this abundance of food nearly at my fingertips (I DO have to trudge down to the basement to get it...) I still do "meal planning."  About once a week I head down there and pull out a variety of stuff to bring up for the next seven days - you know, one meal with beef, one with chicken, and three soups - usually two of which are meat free.  Everything for the week gets transferred up to the kitchen freezer until it needs to be defrosted.  I also get the sauces, jams, and cookies we'll want for the week.  

I use my kitchen dry erase board to plan out the week, leftovers included - this ensures that I remember to defrost stuff and also allows me to plan veggie sides or breads, etc... where needed. 

As for variety, it's never been a problem - there are enough different soups and casseroles that, with the occasional pizza night or dinner with my parents, we never eat anything twice in two weeks.  And every so often I actually do make a fresh dinner if the urge hits me or the price for the groceries was too good to pass up.

I love my freezer-to-table method.  It works so well for me.  I am so energized and cheered by my weekends of crazy cooking.  I feel so productive in the moment (obviously!) and I'm so happy thinking ahead to the tasty meals that will be awaiting us months later. Once in a while I feel a little pang of guilt that I don't make more hot and fresh meals for my family, but it doesn't last long.  I'm confident that they are eating healthily (even though  it's "fast food") and I am always so content and grateful to know that dinner is done and I don't have to rummage through the pantry or panic at 4:30 in the afternoon about what to make for dinner.  (I do enough of that over the summer!)

* * * * * *

I think most busy moms have a meal planning/preparation/rotation system that works for them.  But in case you think there's a chance you share this love of frozen-dinners-on-hand but don't know where to start, here are two more posts to check out...

Freezer Meal Ideas and Tips
How to Host a Frozen Meal Exchange

And although the page isn't that well organized, a lot of the recipes I use can be found at the Recipe tab at the top and in the post on planning for the soup party referenced above :)  


PS - You can tell how much I love talking freezer meals, but even I can see I might be yammering on about this a little much.  I will try to refrain from writing about this again.  Will try.