Joseph and Dad at the Life Chain
Happy second birthday, Nicky! (We gave him a little doggy cupcake from the pet store.)
Our Hollywood starlet Tilly, ready to take a spin in her convertible . . .
We enjoyed participating in our homeschool community’s traditional Cupcake Rosary, which we do each October. We gather to pray the rosary, and then eat cupcakes—as simple as that!
I’m feeling grateful to be home and able to make breakfast for my kids every day. Today I made homemade wheat bread, eggs, sausage, and cooked apples. We ate together and simultaneously listened to our morning saint story. The small things are big things.
I scored some freshly milled flour from a local friend and, after baking two loaves of bread, had two cups remaining. No way was I going to throw it out, so I made a double batch of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. What a nice little dessert last night—and I froze four more bags of eight cookies each for future dessert nights.
Chris took Joseph and Thomas to a fishing and survivalist course for children. (Thomas was so sad to miss it, but was home sick.)
Meal Plan for the Week Oct. 14
Saturday (tonight)
Pasta, marinara + homemade meatballs (I made a triple batch and froze two separate bags of them for future dinners.)Brusells sprouts (and since none of my kids will eat them, they will go wonderfully with my breakfast eggs all week)
Baguette
Sunday
Trying a new recipe of a sheetpan meal of chicken, potatoes, broccoliTake-and-bake dinner rolls
Homemade angel food cake
Monday
Pulled pork sandwichesRoasted baby potatoes and spinach
Boxed mac and cheese
Tuesday
Beef pot roastCornbread
Brown Rice
Corn niblets
Wednesday
SandwichesChips
Fruit
Thursday
Homemade Baked Chicken TendersDon't know what sides yet . . . .
Friday
Protein wafflesCooked apples
Weekend of mid-October: Mary had the wonderful opportunity to go with family friends for a weekend in a mountain cabin. Picking apples, playing musical instruments together, baking, hiking . . . .
Oct. 15: Emergency Room visit for fever and pain. Poor Thomas was in so much pain he was crying loudly in the waiting room, which is so unlike him.
One task is done for the upcoming week!
Oct. 17: After my admonishing a particular child to eat with a fork and not his hands, he retorted, “Mama, it’s your fault I’m eating with my hands because your food is too good to wait!”
Smooth move, my boy!
Oct. 17: I woke up to discover that David (6) had made a nest and gone to sleep in the hallway at the top of the stairs (dangerous!). Who even knows why? It's particularly funny because he is always welcome to come crawl in bed with us.
Oct. 19: My first adventure into the land of milling my own flour! This morning I milled flour, mixed a pancake recipe, cooked them, and was able to clean up entirely while I was cooking except for the skillet which is still cooling. From my starting to the kids finishing eating was one hour flat. I’ve always made hot breakfasts for the family, and it cuts into homeschooling time in a frustrating way, but, for the most part, I can’t bring myself to have them just grab cold cereal and get to work.
The reason I’m excited to try milling my own flour is that commercial flour has had the bran and germ removed 😊 fiber, fat, and vitamins). The industry replaces (enriches) flour with about ten of the roughly 40 vitamins removed, but it doesn’t replace the fiber or fat. When one mills flour fresh, all that is retained: flour goes bad very quickly and 90% of the nutrients are gone within 72 hours of milling. The idea is to mill and bake at once, which then locks in those nutrients to last.
These pancakes were a big hit! And now, off to homeschooling, at which I am much less skilled than at making pancakes!
"I Am That Kid" is a video series of people who were adopted as children who have led incredible lives. What a beautiful ministry! This video of Scott Hamilton, the very famous skater of my childhood, is so moving, and I forewarn you to have Kleenex at hand. I had no idea of his mother's or his cancer diagnoses. When Scott tells of his fundraising specifically and only for immunotherapies, I burst into wailing tears because it hits so close to home. That truly is the future of cancer treatment and it will be a beautiful day when we can use less chemotherapy and more immunotherapy. RIGHT NOW, just since Thomas's cancer diagnosis three years ago, the very first children in America are receiving immunotherapy, such as CAR-T. I personally know children who are alive because of it. When someone achieves wealth and influence and uses it for true good, that is so meaningful. This video is worth 15 minutes: such inspirational themes about adoption, maternal dedication, choosing joy, doing dedicated hard work for the honor of someone outside oneself . . . .
We greatly enjoyed watching A Million Miles Away as our family move tonight. It is based on the autobiography of the first Mexican-American To become an astronaut in space. The subject matter was close to my heart because Mr. Hernandez was an agricultural migrant worker in the Central Valley of California where I grew up. I was so familiar with the migrant kids who showed up at school at random times of year and then left a couple of months later.
Read the IMDB parents’ guide. We watched this PG movie with all the kids, down to six years old. The themes are very pro-family. The poor Mexican migrant culture is shown in such an inspiring light and dignified manner. The family relationships are very strong. Extremely hard work and dedication is shown throughout the movie.
Highly recommend!
Oct. 21: I was still sick with bronchitis (for what turned out to last 10 weeks), so Mary went to the annual Mira Via banquet with Chris in my stead.
Oct. 23: I tried a new recipe for gingerbread oatmeal and it was SO DELICIOUS! Substitutes I made were: steel cut oats instead of rolled (more fiber), Fairlife milk (more protein than regular), and sucanat instead of brown sugar (causes lower glycemic response). I’m currently out of blackstrap molasses, but that would be preferable because it is a nutritional powerhouse: one ounce contains 27% daily value of iron plus high amounts of various vitamins. Recipe in comments!
Oct. 24: Happy birthday to Chris! Please wish him well today! Chris has such a servant's heart. He has been carrying an extra load around the home, doing a lot of my chores, for the last three weeks while my bronchitis began turning into pneumonia. (I'm on many good meds now!) He dedicates all his time to family without complaint.
My lap isn’t big enough for both dogs while teaching. What else can I do but hold Nicky in my arms, so insistent on being with me and his sister?
I'm so proud of little David starting to learn to read! For whatever reason(s), my first five learned to read early, fluently, and easily. I didn't know what to do when I taught phonics to David for his entire Kindergarten year using my trusty All About Reading and he didn't even yet have letter recognition. During first grade, I have changed things up a bit. I stepped backwards and worked on letter recognition, even just singing the ABCs, which he didn't know.
Then something dawned on me one day: Of my five previous kids, one of them learned encoding first (spelling), decoding second (reading). Statistically, most of us learn decoding first. That previous child began at three years old asking incessently how to spell everything and before four was reading well, and then at five reading things like the entire eight-book series of Anne of Green Gables.
I saw something in David's thinking process that was similar, so I switched to playing spelling games with him about six weeks ago. I would put out the tiles for the phonemes he had learned and ask him to spell a word for me, which he could do far easier than decoding/reading the same word. We've been spelling like that for six weeks and he's now really getting it, blending on his own, and starting to read some words. I'm just so happy for him. Homeschooling is very hard and leaves a parent feeling the burden of the world on her shoulders, but the successes are sweet. I hope David keeps chugging along!
Math was daunting today, so after lunch, I brought the books outside for school on the picnic bench. We used pretzels and popcorn for math manipulatives. Spirits were raised. One son told me, “This is blissful, Mom.”
While I wish I ran a strict, Pinterest-worthy homeschool, with all the children on an hour-by-hour schedule and sitting in little desks in one room, I have yet to achieve it and now know I never will. I spend every day trying to embrace gratitude in many moments for what I can manage.
Today I made my bed and completed two loads of laundry. I got through most of the lesson plans with all three boys. (So rarely do we get through it ALL.) I paused our school three times to have the kids join me in preparing bread: we milled the flour, baked it, and finished the day with two glorious loaves of sandwich bread, a loaf of pepperoni bread for dinner (bread rolled with cheese and pepperoni), and a loaf for breakfast (rolled with sucanet sweetness and raisins). My oldest two attended classes, my middle stayed home and did a pet-sitting job, and my three little boys played freely outdoors A LOT. The house isn't as prissy clean as I'd like, but it's good enough. I paused my day six times to take my medications for this awful bronchitis. I always prefer a strictly ordered life, which I don't have, but at least I have a FULL life.
My sweet breakfast bread was lovely! Fresh milled flour, rolled bread sweetened with butter and Sucanat: yum!
I think I posted last year that Trader Joe's sells great pumpkins for a mere fraction of the cost of going to a roadside stand or a true pumpkin patch. These big pumpkins were only $5 each and the minis were $1 apiece. The $40 I spent would have gotten me maybe two big pumpkins elsewhere. I haven't been to a true pumpkin patch experience in some years because it's hard to get out of there for less than $150 with the pumpkins for all six kids, cider donuts, money paid for each ride and event, etc. I miss those trips, but I was pleased on the drive home from Trader Joe's that my little boys were discussing amongst themselves making frugal choices with money. That's a benefit, too, even if I didn't get adorable pumpkin patch photos.
Made challah rolls today: one batch for a church potluck and three batches for my family’s future dinners!
Tonight I made a lovely low-sugar caramel sauce to serve with Granny Smith apples for dessert. I’m feeling pretty good about my wee accomplishment, but to keep me humble, the one kid I was doing this effort for (Thomas!) disliked it and insisted on dipping his apples in Hershey’s Zero made with chemical soup and sugar alcohol. Ha ha.
Oct. 31: Because it is close to my heart . . . On my mind today is children who cannot pause chemotherapy for Halloween, so they are still showing up at Clinic today, or checking in for hospital admission. Perhaps they’re home, but neutropenic, so they won’t be joining all the children they can hear shrieking with joy in the streets. I’m also thinking very fondly of the medical staff in children’s hospitals who are prepared and ready to make Halloween in the hospital as special as possible. They are parents, too, and plenty of them will miss trick-or-treating with their own kids because they are on shift trying to bring care and cheer to medically fragile children. Please spare a prayer for those kids and medical workers alike, and keep your parental stress level low because any normal Halloween at home is easy compared to Halloween with kiddos in active cancer treatment.
Oct. 26: Annual corn maze for teenagers
Halloween 2023
Fun neighborhood block party and trick-or-treating!
Miscellaneous from the Month
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