A Green (urp) Christmas

Merry Christmas, a little late. Why a little late? Well, we've been getting past a very virulent stomach virus. It all began with little 4 getting a rotovirus immunization, one featuring live cultures. Deuce then contracted the virus 2 days later (we suspect poor handwashing hygiene after changing her diaper.) The rest, you might say, is history. The virus ran through (no pun intended) Jack, the King, and me. We thought that Ace and 3 might escape, but at the last minute, Ace came down with the virus as well.

To make the matter worse, despite the fact that the kids all seemed fine, we managed to infect my mom and dad and sister, and brother-in-law with the virus as well. Talk about the gift that keeps on giving!! My mom, as a person with a compromised immune system ended up in the ER. Dad and the King went along with her, while I focussed on cleaning up and laundry.

Bleaacchhh. (or perhaps bleach?)

Other than that setback, Christmas was calm, quiet and peaceful. The kids got many of the things they asked for, and were bored only moments later.

Merry Christmas.

New Year's Homeschool Resolutions

I know it is a few weeks until New Years, and we haven't even gotten to Christmas yet, but my mind keeps straying to resolutions, especially as we are so absorbed in creating our Christmas presents, crafts and cards and such, and not completing our schoolwork. Oh, some gets done. Math yesterday, assigned reading today - who knows maybe spelling tomorrow?

But the heavy schedule of Assigned Reading, Spelling, Grammar, Math, Civics, History, Science, Music, and Art has completely fallen by the wayside while we sew, embroider, knit, bake, cut and glue, color and paint, bead and wrap and create. On the one hand we haven't really met our goals for the year, on the other hand, we're having a lot more fun. Yet, every time I look at our school books I begin to feel the creeping feeling of guilt. We should be doing more school, less goofing off.

Tonight I was surfing around the internet, and I found this about guilt on lifehack:

Give up on feeling guilty. Guilt changes nothing. It may make you feel you’re accepting responsibility, but it can’t produce anything new in your life. If you feel guilty about something you’ve done, either do something to put it right or accept you screwed up and try not to do so again. Then let it go. If you’re feeling guilty about what someone else did, see a psychiatrist. That’s insane.

If I feel guilty about not doing school with the kids I guess I need to a) get over it, and b) hit the books. So, this is my plan. I am going to get the kids to hit the books, but in moderation, with lots of time for crafting, sewing, cooking, painting, knitting, etc., etc. All the fun stuff we are involved in now. Now to figure out how to do that. I'll be thinking about this. I guess a lot will come from the kids attitudes and cooperation. If it takes forever to get through an exercise, is it better to keep the nose to the grindstone and plow our way through it? Is it better for me to use the fun stuff as a carrot? Is it better to take a break and do the fun crafty stuff, but knowing that we probably won't be getting back to it once we do take a break? Questions to ponder...

Lucky for me I've got some pretty resilient kids who deal with my whims very well.

Wordless Wednesday

Making Cookies with My Boy!!

So for the cookies - we made Black Forest Cocoa Crinkles today, which are sort of like the normal cocoa crinkles, except they have chocolate chips and dried tart cherries in them. Jack helped me out. He really enjoyed the mixing, and the rolling the dough in the powdered sugar. Midway through making them, he told me, "I like cooking. There's good stuff that I don't even know what it is." I think this reference was to the powdered sugar. I found a little lump and put it on his tongue.

Anyway, here is a picture of the little chef rolling the dough in the powdered sugar.


The most important part - the testing!!












I've been putting the recipes to the cookies on my cooking blog: ChefShari