Cooking Thursday - #1 January 6

A new year and new recipes to try and to share with our family and friends.

I've decided to make good use of my cookbooks and starting next menu cycle, I'm going to concentrate on one of the cookbooks in my collection and make just recipes from it.  I'm excited to see which will become family favorites and which I'll probably never make again.

I promise only to share the good ones with you guys :)

Raspberry Coffee Cake

Credit:  Land O' Lakes

Coffee Cake
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup LAND O LAKES® Butter, softened
1 cup LAND O LAKES® Sour Cream
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 (21-ounce) can cherry pie filling**

Topping
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup chopped pecans
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 tablespoons LAND O LAKES® Butter


Directions
Heat oven to 325°F. Combine 1 cup sugar and 1/2 cup butter in large bowl. Beat at medium speed, scraping bowl often, until creamy.

Add sour cream, eggs and vanilla; continue beating until well mixed. Reduce speed to low; add 2 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Beat until well mixed.

Spread half of batter into greased and floured 13x9-inch baking pan. Spoon cherry pie filling over batter. Spoon remaining batter over pie filling; spread carefully.

Stir together 1/4 cup flour, 1/4 cup sugar, pecans and cinnamon in medium bowl. Cut in 3 tablespoons butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle crumb mixture over batter. Bake for 45 to 50 minutes until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean and topping is dark golden brown. .

*Substitute 1 (21-ounce) can your favorite flavor pie filling.

First day of Homeschooling

and what a day it was.

Let me start by saying it was nothing like I expected yet so much more, if that even makes sense.

I learned quite a few things about me and my children. 

The biggest thing?????  I have an immense amount of patience, more than I thought I ever did.  HA!

Being that this was the very first day of homeschooling we were a little like baby ducklings in the water, trying desperately to find our way around without sinking.  It's one thing to say you're going to homeschool but it's a whole other when you actually find yourself face to face with it, the reality sinks in and you almost get this overwhelming sense of panic.

What did I do?  That thought ran through my mind for about an hour after I woke up, as I kept saying "this is it, there's no turning back, they're not going to school they're staying here with ME....oh my goodness, what did I DO?"

After they got up and ate breakfast, we began.   School work in pj's, what a concept.

One thing I've learned with my children is that they're not morning people, they don't like getting up early, they don't like being rushed and they don't have the ability to concentrate until about mid morning or lunch time, that is when they do best......so starting school at 10 am works perfect for us.

We breezed through two hours of work, or should I say, Jasmine breezed through two hours of work.

Nicholas was a whole other story.  My son is 7 years old so he's at that age where school work is boring, he would rather be playing games or playing outside or being stung by a thousand bees than working.  It took us about 20 to 30 minutes just to get settled in, everytime I turned my head he was off, either out of the chair and doing something else, or giving me a hundred and one reasons why he wasn't ready.

It got a little frustrating at times but I kept with it, kept bringing him back to the desk, kept grabbing his attention back to the work in front of him and soon he was settled in and breezing through it all.

We laughed hysterically, we learned together, we did experiments outside and we took lunch breaks and play breaks and fit in the rest of our work in between.  We even had snacks while we worked  GASP!

Snack evidence all over his cute face

It's an adjustment period.

We're still feeling each other out, figuring out what works for us, how many hours here and how many hours there.  One thing I definitely figured out, I need to give Nicholas MORE SHORTER breaks throughout the day instead of a long hour or two.  Once that momentum is broken it is excruciatingly hard getting him back on track.

He loves Math, he loves Science....he can't stand writing and doesn't much care for reading.  So we'll work on making these interesting. 

Jasmine is a perfectionist and she applies herself to the fullest when studying.  She takes notes....and I mean TAKES notes for everything, she loves it, she loves learning, she loves jotting things down and it's such a pleasure watching her.

All in all, it was a good day.  I'm sure we'll have our ups and downs but for now, I am beyond thrilled with this new adventure.

No more kids coming home exhausted, starving and broken down from school.

Oh and let's not even talk about the bad learning habits that their teachers and school imposed on them, I'm going to have a hard time breaking them of these, especially Nicholas. 

One of the best things for me about this whole experience?  Watching them laugh and see the shock in their faces knowing that they are allowed to just stop and go use the bathroom or get a glass of water or something to eat. 

I also learned that I enjoy teaching a whole lot more than I thought.  It takes me back to my childhood, one of my favorite ways to pass the time when I was about 8 or 9 was to play school.  I still remember grabbing all my stuffed animals and setting them on the floor with paper and pens in front of them.  I was the teacher and I walked around writing stuff for them LOL

Yeah, it's kinda like that now, but I don't get to write anything for them, I just get to play teacher, spend time with my children, have a hand in their education and watch them blossom and really what more could I ask for?

My Crafty Corner - African Flower Blanket

I finished my Jar Jacket and I couldn't love it anymore if I tried.  It looks so darn cute and now I'm looking around the house at all my other mason jars and just imagining the possibilities.

What do you think?

It's one of those projects that comes together so quick and I just love the colors.  I'm thinking of making a few others for different rooms in the house.

Now let me show you my African Flower Blanket which has completely swept me off my feet.

It's in it's very early stages but it's coming together pretty quick too, these flowers are SUPER easy to make and I actually have the pattern memorized so I make about 6 a night. 

Oh I just love it so very much, the beautiful flowers design, the pastel colors, just everything about it is making me giddy with anticipation for the finished project.

So that's what is going on in my Crafty Corner.  For now I'm concentrating on the blanket but I have a few other projects I want to try too so I might take a shot at those in between making a gazillion little flowers.

What are YOU working on?

Happy Homemaker Monday - #1 - 2011

The weather in my neck of the woods:
36 degrees.  I've had the heater on in the house and I'm finding it hard to walk on the tiled floors without constantly yelling out "it's cold it's cold". 


Things that make me happy:
The end of the holidays.  I know I know, I love the holidays and all the time spent with family and good food etc, but when it gets to the first week of January, I actually welcome this return to normalcy.


Book I'm reading:
Absolutely nothing


What's on my TV today:
Tonight, the return of Pretty Little Liars.  I can NOT wait, love this series and have been dying with anticipation for it's return. 


On the menu for dinner:
Stuffed Green Peppers, Salad


On my To Do List:
Sweep and Mop the Floors
Dusting
Finish all the laundry
Get ready for homeschooling starting tomorrow


New Recipe I tried or want to try soon:
Made a super easy but delicious Mexican Dip.  I'll have it up on my food blog this morning, along with the Menu Plan for this week.

In the craft basket:

My African Flower crochet blanket.  I'm having so much fun working on this one :)


Looking forward to this week:
Not having to send my children off to that horrible school and beginning homeschooling.


Tips and Tricks:
Give your home a quick straightening before bedtime, things like empty glasses or bowls or whatever laying around, just take them to the sink, even if you don't get to them that evening, it will make clean up easier in the morning and you won't have to wake up to a disaster house.



My favorite blog post this week:
Don't have one yet.  I hit Mark All as Read on my Google Reader this weekend and am determined to start fresh and try to keep up with everyone.


Blog Hopping (a new discovered blog you would like to share with the readers):
Noodlehead - Love the crafts and the pictures on this blog


No words needed (favorite photo or picture, yours or others you want to share):

Lesson learned the past few days:
That we should never expect people to live up to the ridiculous expectations we impose on them.  That if I decide to put someone on a pedestal and label them as perfect, it's MY fault for doing so and that I should not blame them for being human and for making mistakes.  That just because it's never happened to my family doesn't mean that it won't, it's not just "oh that only happens to others, that would NEVER happen to us", because it does and it will and when it does you will find strength and courage you never thought you had.


On my mind:
The beginning of a new year, the possibilities and the unknown.


Devotionals, Scripture Reading, Key Verses:

Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Colossians 3:12

I couldn't have picked that verse above any better, if I tried.  It's JUST what I needed to read right now, how amazing is our Lord.

1.1.11

So here we are, the very first day of a new year.  What does it hold for us?  Where will we be?


We've started this day with cleaning and organizing.  We have this outside storage area thing, I don't even know what to call it, it's outside in our driveway and it's pretty small so when you don't have a garage to use for storage, everything makes it's way in there.

Let me tell you that during the past year we got to a point where we just opened the door and threw things in, it was just THAT frustrating and overwhelming.  Well we got out there this morning and threw a bunch of things out, swept the area and repacked everything neatly organized.  Feels and looks SO much better.

We also took down the last of the Christmas decorations, packed most of them away but threw a bunch out too, especially lights.  What's the point of keeping lights that end up in a big knotted ball and NEVER work when you plug them in again?

Last visible Christmas remnant, this small little patch of red tinsel still stuck to the tree outside.

We got that done pretty fast and just in time to come back inside for some lunch.  I made Mexican layered dip for our New Year's Eve celebration and the leftovers were used to make delicious Nachos.

After lunch I sat down to draw up the shopping list.  I have to get groceries in the morning as the commissary is closed today.  Good thing we have a lot of yummy leftovers to tide us over until then.

Now I have laundry washing....I mean WHO doesn't?  It's a never ending task in this house and I'm sure in many of yours too.

While the laundry washes I'm going to turn my attention to some of my new Crochet projects, like this one below....can you see what it's going to become?

I have a big mason jar that I want to use to hold some flowers and I thought it would be really cute to make a crochet jar jacket for it.  Loving it so far and it's going pretty fast, I should have it finished by tonight.

I'm in love with these 5 colors right now, I think they make such a pretty combination, so I'm making a round cushion for the chair that is at my Homeschooling desk.   It's just a plain round flat circle, though mine is curling up a bit, but it will be fine once I block it and sew it together.  Have to make 2 of these circles, not sure what I'm going to do with the back, I'm thinking of picking just one of the colors and making it a solid circle.  We'll see.

These I'm so excited about, they come together SO fast and I already have the pattern memorized in my head so I just whip them out when I get a spare moment.

Want to take a guess what these will become??



If you guess blanket, then you would be correct.  I have a ton of these to make and will then turn into a crochet blanket, not sure if I want a full size blanket for my bed, or just a smaller lap blanket for watching tv or sitting at the computer.....I'm thinking that is probably what I'll do.

So that's what's going on around here, the very first day of January of a whole new year....2011.  My goodness it feels like the days and years are just flying by.

I don't make resolutions because I find that I never stick to them but one thing I DO want to try and concentrate on this year is my blog and visiting all my wonderful readers.  I do read your blogs but often times don't have the time to leave a comment and for that I apologize, I am going to try very very hard to change that.

With that in mind, I'm going straight to Google Reader after I hit publish and I'm going to Mark All As Read and start fresh from tomorrow morning.  Aahhhhh feels good to make a clean start.

Hope you are all having a wonderful beginning to the year, I'm actually eager to get through all the holidays and return to some sort of normalcy.

God Bless,