Wednesday, March 31, 2010

For my Little Nephew

I'm super late getting this out for my Little nephew Darrin for his birthday and I really don't have a great excuse.  We have been so super busy with baseball, the house, buying furniture, homeschooling, piano, friends, parties..well..you get the idea.  This is a coloring book tote with handy little slots on the outside of the bag for all his crayons.  Funny story about this tote..after I finished sewing it Nicholas BEGGED to keep it..I mean cried he wanted it so bad.  He loves the puppy fabric(and I hope little Darrin will too).  So, I had to run out and secretly buy some extra fabric to make something for Nicholas too...
I hope you'll like it sweet Darrin!
Happy Birthday from your  Auntie Tanya!

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Creating...

The boys have been busy making things for their Grandma's Easter gift last week.  We are sending them out tomorrow so y'all should all get them soon.
They aren't perfect, but made with love...

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Piano at the Nursing Home




The boys have begun playing piano every other week at a local nursing home.  They love it(especially Matthew).  When I asked them last week what their favorite thing about playing piano was they both said they enjoyed playing for the seniors.  We don't have any family here, which saddens me greatly, so the boys never get to play for extended family but in playing for the nursing home, it's been a blessing to us as well as them.  You can just see the joy in the ladies faces when the boys sing and play old hyms like Amazing Grace and Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.  They also love when the boys play duets-mostly blues songs.   They sometimes save their cookies for the boys in exchange for a hug of course.  It's been a wonderful experience...

Sunday, March 21, 2010

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Leprechaun visit..

Well, the boys didn't catch the leprechaun this year despite the great traps.  He did manage to steal my gold earrings.  He did leave the boys gold chocolate coins inside the traps but did leave a couple of tricks as well.
First they recieved notes from the Leprechaun...
He also drew a shamrock on their heads!




He made our milk green and yes...he did pee green in the boys toilet and didn't flush!  He's one silly Leprechaun!

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

That Sneaky, Sneaky Leprechaun...


Every year Mr. Sneaky Leprechaun visits our home.  And every year the boys master mind traps to try and catch him.  Because we all know if you catch a leprechaun you get his pot of gold, right?  Well, this year is no different.  I have loaned out my earrings because the boys wouldn't take the chance to put in the *real* gold coin Daddy brought home from his last business trip, so I had to scrounge up some gold earrings.  They worked all evening trying to find the best way to catch the sneaky leprechaun.
Here is Nicholas's first trap.  He has enticed the leprechaun with a colorful rainbow and inside the box is an gold earring in the pot-o-construction paper.  He has tied fishing line to the top of the box so when the leprechaun enters the box, Nicholas then pulls the invisible string  which in turn causes the top of the box to close and catch him!


Here is Matthew's box.  And while his is not as colorful, you do see the pot-o-green drawn in.  However, Matthew has ingeniusly TAPED down the earring to frustrate the leprechaun in the hopes of gaining more time to catch him-Brilliant!!  He has also used the fishing line trigger method in hopes of closing the box when the leprechaun enters.

Here is Matthew's warning system.  He has set up an alarm and light to distract the leprechaun and wake him up so that he can catch him.


And Nicholas's system is equally sneaky.  He has tied fishing line from one end of his bedroom to the other.  And on the one line he has two spoons.  When the leprechaun walks into the room, he will trip on the line, which will in turn cause the spoons to rattle and alarm the boys to wake up.

Now, these traps are especially good this year.  But, as we all know, leprechauns are very, very hard to catch.  But, I do know that last year Mr. Sneaky Leprechaun, while not getting caught, was very amused and left the boys some treats...but also some tricks...stay tuned to see what happens tomorrow!

Friday, March 12, 2010

"The most important work you and I will ever do will be within the walls of our own homes."
-Harold B. Lee

Baking bread...

Thursday, March 11, 2010

After a long, long, long winter...

Spring-like weather has come around in the Carolina's and with that the shoes have been thrown off, shorts have been dug out, and snacks are enjoyed in the tree, of course!


Venison recipe

My good friend gave me some Venison to try recently.  We had never tried it before and was wondering if it was good enough for Darryl to learn how to hunt.  She gave me some Venison round steaks and I used this recipe I found in the Fix it and Forget it Cookbook(modified slightly).  This was soooo good!  It was even better the second day and Darryl couldn't get enough.  Needless to say, he will be hunting this fall now...(-:
Here is the recipe:

Venison Swiss Steak
2 lbs round venison steak
flour
2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
butter
3 onions, sliced
1 cup carrots, diced
2 cans of stewed tomatoes
1-2 Tbspns of Worcestershire sauce

Cut up the Round steak into bite size pieces.  Combine the flour, salt and pepper.  Dredge the steak in flour mixture and brown in butter in your skillet. Place in slow cooker.  Add remaining ingredients and cover.  Cook on low 7.5-8.5 hours. 

I made some creamy homemade mashed potatoes on the side and it was a man's dream dinner.  I could do no wrong that day.  Enjoy!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

A History Project

In our continued studies on monks, the boys make crosses similar to what the monks would have worn(except the monk's crosses would have been made of wood and we made ours out of clay).
Here is Matthew drawing his cross onto his molded clay.



Here is Nicholas's hands forming his cross.


More building progress...






We have had some more progress on the house.  It's totally framed in now and the roof should be on already.
It's neat seeing it come together.



This is looking at our great room from upstairs...




This is a view from the great room looking upstairs...


This is the view from the front hallway...

Friday, March 5, 2010

A Spring Sweater for a Special Birthday...


I knitted this sweater for my sweet niece's birthday(Don't worry she's only 1..so I know she's not reading)
I got the pattern from ravelry.com but made some modifications.  I made short sleeves so she could wear this during the spring when it's too warm for a full sweater but too chilly for nothing.  I thought it would also look cute with a long sleeve shirt underneath as kindof an accent sweater.
I also made a little yo-yo decoration with a button in the middle for a little extra pizazz...
Happy Birthday Michelle!!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

A little peek into my challenges as a homeschooling mother...

Today in history, we were studying the early Church and how the monks had to write the Bible by hand on parchment paper.  It talks about how they made the paper and also made the quill pens.  It went into lengthly detail on how the process was done and what was required of them.  They worked for 8 hours a day and it was very tedious work.  It stated (in one sentence at the very end of the lesson) that even though the monks were not permitted to talk they sometimes would joke around and make silly pictures on the corners of their papers...Well, when I asked the boys to write down a summary paragraph of what we learned as well as a picture to describe what the chapter was about..this is what I got...
Let me narrate the picture for you.  This is a picture of Nicholas on the toilet.  He is reading his required 30 minutes of reading a day...on the toilet.  I am at the door asking him to please hurry up or we will be late(it seems Nicholas does always make us late so I find this humorous because I'm a broken record about this with him) and he is saying to me Please don't come in Mommy....
Now, while the picture is completely hilarious, what does this have to do with a monk writing the Bible, I asked him.  He told me it does because he remembered that the monks drew funny pictures sometimes.........
Incidentely, Matthew drew the Bible...
This is so indicatant of their personalities to a tee..Matthew follows the straight, predictable path.  He's my little rule follower..and well Nicholas...he's just....Nicholas...

Nicholas told me today that if I had married Jon Bon Jovi instead of his daddy, that Nicholas would still be Nicholas but have long hair...he reasoned he would still be the same person because they both are from New Jersey....

Well then...

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

My son...

Matthew has asked me to play with him several times lately.  I've always been to *busy* to play with him.  Either I'm cleaning or cooking or homeschooling or dealing with the building of our home or trying to catch up with our activities...or on the computer...dang computer..it's such a time waster for me.  I can go online to look up a specific recipe and rabbit trail for an hour afterwards..do you do that?  Ughh....
Well, the other day he asked me if I could set aside 10 minutes to play with him a day....10 MINUTES...that's all he felt like he could get out of me...Gosh, talk about stab to the heart...He really needed some mommy time and while I counted all the hours upon hours of homeschooling and reading and projects as mommy time, he doesn't..and really I shouldn't either. Just because I'm always with them doesnt' mean I'm always WITH them.  He wanted all of me..  He wanted to play with me...Well, after that reality check and after seeing how much of a bad mommy I had been lately, I prayed for the Lord to help me see when I get sucked into something that's not important and when he needs me to stop what I'm doing and say..yes.....
Yesterday, he asked several times to play a game with me and while I was busy..I stopped and said yes. Today while I was making homemade english muffins, the Lord quietly reminded me to include Matthew.  So, I called him in the kitchen to help me cook.  He was thrilled!  He helped cut out the muffins from the dough and had a great time.  Then later on in the day he asked if I would play cars with him and I'll be honest, I didn't want to, but I said yes..and I had such a great time.  He was so thankful and kept saying how much he loved me and how happy he was...I feel awful for slipping into my routines and not stopping to enjoy each moment with my boys.  I get so caught up in everything I forget sometimes to cherish every moment.  All my son needed was just me...and really all I needed was him...

February Grocery totals...

I know you've been waiting on pins and needles to see if  I made my goal, right?

Well, the final week of February I spent $93.10.  So, the total for the month was $471.06!!! That's including spending $20 for the food bank.  I really did so much better than I thought.  We ate home every night and we ate well!  I'm going to cut the grocery budget from $550 to $500. I'm also going to take $30 from February's budget(since we came in $80 under budget) and save for our beef budget(we buy 1/4-1/2 a beef cow at a time)...March will be a bit more challenging because we have three milk pickups so I have to keep in mind that $105 is already taken up with that...I think I'll continue to monitor the grocery budget on my sidebar for accountability purposes.  And I will post some recipes soon(per Rona's request) (-:
Oh...and our eating out budget was $40 this month...I know..really low I was determined to stick with it...well..we spent $17.24...I don't think we've ever....ever....in 15 years spent only $17 eating out for the month.. so I'm pretty happy and hope to continue that(unless we go out for sushi)...