(For links to recipes, see the monthly list)

Today:

(bake bread for week)

B – English Muffin Egg Sandwiches

L – Bean-a-dillas, broccoli/carrots/ranch

D – Pizza and Caesar Salad w/ my parents

Sunday:

B – Steel Cut Oats

L – Lunch w/ Lawrys

D – Chicken Soup

Monday:

(grocery shop)

B – Cereal

L – Chicken Soup

D – Roast Beef Sandwiches and Leftover Soup

Tuesday:

B – Go out to bagels!

L – 7 Layer Dip, Chips, Raw Carrots/Apple Slices

D – Cream of Broccoli Soup

Wednesday:

(make purees for Sneaky Chef stuff)

B – Cream of Wheat

L – Leftover Soup

D – Migas Tacos

Thursday:

B – gf Waffles

L – PB and J or leftovers

D – Bring Papa Murphy’s Pizza to the Drakes’

Friday:

B – Oatmeal

L – Quick Fix Mac n’ Cheese and Raw Veggies

D – Migas Tacos (kids are making dinner for us for our anniversary)

Saturday:

B – Blackberry Quinoa

L – Bean-a-dillas and raw veggies (get cheese enchiladas fixed — one for tomorrow, one for freezer for the menfolk when I’m gone!)

D – Out to eat for Oompa’s birthday

Sunday:

B – Steel Cut Oats

L and D – Cheese Enchiladas

October is Soup Month at our house!  We have a big bill due this month, and trip for myself to Colorado with a friend, so I need to save money wherever I can.  Soup seems like a good way to eat healthily and save money.  Soup also seems an appropriate way to celebrate and welcome autumn!

My sister recently told me about Sneaky Chef and I am intrigued!  I requested the book from the library, and plan to do weird things like add white beans to my pasta sauce this month.  We’ll see how that works!  I also hit the recipe jackpot over at Lynn’s Kitchen Adventures!  She has great recipes and ideas on being frugal.

Breakfasts –

English Muffins (2 days)

Oatmeal (4 days)

Steel Cut Oats (4 days)

Cream of Wheat (4 days)

Waffles or Pancakes (2-4 days)

Cereal (5 days)

Eggs — one way or another (4-5 days)

Blackberry Quinoa (2 days)

Go out to bagels ($1 each, including cream cheese!) at Peet’s on way to co-op?

Lunches:

Leftovers whenever possible!  I think this will be easy w/ soup this month.

7-Layer Dip (4 meals) (my meal of choice to bring to our Tuesday co-op.  It packs well, I can make it the night before, and the chips we buy from Costco to go with it are super cheap!)

Peanut Butter and Jelly (4 meals)

Bean Burritos (4-6 meals)

Tomato Soup and Quesadillas or grilled cheese sandwiches (2 lunches)

English Muffin Pizzas (with Sneaky Chef “white sauce” added to pizza sauce!) (2 meals)

Roast Beef Sandwiches (I love the WINCO deli roast beef — we usually have one lunch from a pound of meat).

Tostadas or Tacos

Dinners –

Immune Power Chicken Rice Soup (with extra broth to save for future soups)

Cream of Broccoli Soup

Hamburgers with 40-minute buns

Spinach Minestrone

Cheeseburger Soup

Tortellini and a salad

Pepperoni Pizza Pie

Chicken Pot Pie

(make 2 pie crusts for the above meals)

Paula Deen’s Black Bean Soup

Chicken Caesar Salad (2 times this month)

Cheese Enchiladas (2 times this month) (I have enchilada sauce saved in the freezer, but sometime I’d like to try this recipe)

Roast Chicken with Quinoa Stuffing

Quesadillas, Beans, Mexican Rice (our friend Joey shared his family’s Mexican rice techniques — yum, yum!)

Migas (oh my goodness, these are soooooooooooooooo good!  I put all the veggies in the blender so they weren’t as obvious to the kids.  tasty dish!  not too eggy!)

Triple Stuffed Potatoes

Snacks/Desserts:

Apple Crisps (I have 2 premade fillings in the freezer)

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

Kefir Smoothies

Yogurt and Blueberries

Carrots/broccoli and Ranch Dressing

Fruit

Sweet Potato and Beet Chips

I’m taking a week off of wheat to see I can come out of this terrible brain fog I’ve been experiencing.  It’s been getting worse over the last 4 months, and I remember feeling better when I went wheat-free a few years ago. 

Thursday

Oatmeal

In ‘n Out w/ kids on the way to WINCO

Red Hot Chicken and Salad

Start sprouting sunflower seeds (attempt!)

Bake Bread (not gluten free — baking for kids and hubby!) and bake these yummy Blondies!

Friday:

Quinoa and Berries

Roast Beef Sandwiches for kids/Ron, wrap in lettuce for me!

Chicken Caesar Salad w/ Chicken “Croutons”

Saturday:

Cereal

Bean Burritos

Cheese Enchiladas and Mexican Rice

Apple Crisp for dessert

Sunday:

Eggs

Go out to eat!

Italian Sausage Pasta

Monday:

Rice Pudding

Leftovers

Peanut Chicken

Save this gf bread recipe for later.

Tuesday:

Oatmeal

7-layer Dip with chips

Roast Chicken with Quinoa Stuffing

Wednesday:

 

Migas served with refried beans on corn tortillas

Update:  The Lord orchestrated a surprise opportunity for us this year!  It looks like all three boys will take part in Classical Conversations, the Foundations level, and I will be a tutor for one of the groups!  I made a few changes below as we are losing a morning of I “home” work each week and will be adding a significant amount of memory work to our workload.

–

I love new seasons – I adore change!  We tend to have a few “fresh starts” each year in our home education — a Fall quarter, a Beginning-of-the-year quarter, and a late Spring/Summer quarter.  I like to plan only a few months in advance, concentrating on what is important right now and knowing we can change our focus a little as needed in the future.

Because I’ve benefited from reading other homeschool families’ plans and schedules, I figured there may be one or two people who could benefit from taking a peek into our homeschool plan for the fall.  Here’s what’s a-brewing in our home:

Soli Deo Gloria Academy, Fall 2009

Bible:

Inductive Study of 1 John (Deb, Christian, Micah)

Everyone will do daily readings of scripture (Christian is going through the NIV One Year Bible, Micah will read our children’s bible aloud to Daniel).  Update:  I found another copy of the One Year Bible for Micah at a thrift store, so he’ll go through this as well (maybe the New Testament only?  Maybe I’ll have them both do N.T., Psalms and Proverbs only, since we are intently going through the O.T. already…?  We’ll “play it by ear!”)

I also remembered a neat resource I already owned called Greenleaf’s Guide to the Old Testament.  Since we are studying Ancient History this year, it only makes sense to do this for Bible time.  I picked up a copy of World History Made Simple and am absolutely impressed at the clear explanation of world history!  Ruth Beechick explains in detail the dating methods scientists have used to come up with the age of different civilizations, and explains why the Bible has stood the test of time for historical accuracy!  (I”ll only read bits and pieces of this book to the kids, but it has encouraged my faith and helped me to understand history.)

 

Here are some nice maps that will incorporate well into Bible and History.

History:

This semester will be unusual.  Because we cannot wait to begin Ancient History and because we didn’t do much of the reading scheduled for this summer (I wanted to wrap up American History before the fall), we’ll have a semester of concurrent histories: Ancient World and Modern American.

Ancient History:  Ancient Civilizations and the Bible guide, breaking to use Truthquest (my favorite resource of all time) for in-depth study of Egypt and Greece.  We may add in a few era-appropriate art lessons from God and the History of Art. (Creation thru Greece should take us 1 year, then we’ll spend a year on Rome.)

Modern American:  We are finishing American History for Young Students III (Truthquest), hoping to get from Buffalo Bill to 9/11 in 3 months!)

Mathematics:

We use Singapore, Miquon, and Calculadder.

We have our kids going through 2 sets of curriculum for 1-3 grades.  It takes them a little longer to get through it all, but this way we ensure they understand math from 2 different angles (LOL).

Singapore 6A and 6B for Christian

Micah finishing both Singapore 3A and Miquon Green soon.  When he’s done, he’ll move onto Miquon Yellow before doing Singapore 3B.

Daniel is is finishing Singapore 1B, moving on to Singapore 2A, and continuing in Miquon Red and Blue as well.

All three boys are doing Calculadder drills daily.

Memory Work:

The boys have Memory Boxes where they keep the scriptures they are working on for Sunday School.  They’ll  go over verses to themselves for a few minutes every day, and Ron will quiz them on Saturday night in preparation for church.

I would like to attempt reading poems aloud daily to the boys for “memorizing without labor”.  I’ve toyed with the idea of using the little recording device for this too; I’m just not sure how this will work out yet.   We’re purchasing the audio CD with all the information for Classical Conversations, Cycle 1, on it and will have the boys listen to the CD a few times each week.

Silent Reading/Literature:

I’ll give the boys a few books to read over the semester, and they’ll read 30 minutes a day from the book of their choice.

Christian:  The Swiss Family Robinson (may listen to this on mp3), Winged Watchman, read one of Emily Dickenson’s poems each day.

Micah:  The Princess and the Goblin, The Cricket in Times Square (may listen to one of these on mp3), A Child’s Garden of Verses (one poem a day).

Daniel:  I bought a neat story anthology that I’m reading aloud to Daniel right now. We’ll also read The Burgess Animal Book for Children.   I think the poor boy has not been read to enough – he’s heard big boy books since he was a baby, but I haven’t read enough age-appropriate short stories to him.  So we’ll have a special reading time every day together this semester!

Science:

Finish Zoology 1.  We’re almost done with this book.  I’m going to push to finish before the end of September.

Exploring Creation through Astronomy.  We’re doing this with another family, one or two evenings a month (dads too).

Nature Study!  I really, really want to get busy with nature study.  It ALWAYS falls by the wayside.  What to do this year?  Maybe we could go to a park or the river every other Monday, if I can get going on this… Here’s a neat site w/ laidout plans, but you know what they say about “the best laid plans” — I have put this on the schedule a times now and never done it. We’re going to go somewhere “nature-y” every other Monday with our nature journals, our art notebooks, and a picnic lunch in tow.  I plan to be very relaxed about this, asking the boys to observe and to draw one thing each time in their nature journals.  The art journals will be used at their pleasure.

Latin:

Prima Latina (Micah)

Latina Cristiana (Christian and Deb)

We bought the dvd’s to go with these courses, so the lovely Leigh Lowe teaches us all Latin right here in my living room.  Yay for technology!

Language Arts:

Phonics (Daniel) – Daniel is still working through Alpha Phonics.  It’s an oldie-but-goodie that helped all my boys learn to read.  It’s simple, cheap, and it works.  You can usually find a copy on eBay for about $10.

For Christian and Micah, we bought both the Student Writing Intensive produced by Institute for Excellence in Writing. We also purchased the Teaching Writing:  Structure and Style (a training seminar I’ll watch w/ a few mom friends).  I’m excited to use this program as I’ve come to respect and enjoy Andrew Pudewa’s  style — this was where we spent our “big money” this year.

We haven’t really done formal spelling yet, but plan to this year(Christian and Micah).  The boys are actually REALLY excited about Spelling (how weird is that!).  Over the course of a week (or more if needed):  they will use a little hand-held recording device to record spelling words, use the word in a sentence, like a teacher giving a spelling test.  Then they’ll record themselves reading each word and spelling it slowly.   They’ll then give themselves spelling tests and correct their own tests.  Once they pass the test themselves, I’ll test them on the words; once they pass, they’ll move on to the next list.  (Thanks to Denise Drake and Andrew Pudewa for ideas on this method.)  (The Classical Conversations group will also hold a Spelling Bee!)

Geography:

Obviously, some geographic-learning will take place during History and Bible studies, but Christian and Micah will continue working through their Trail Guide to U.S. (just 5 minutes a day — the printable student notebook makes this curriculum so easy — no help needed from me!).

In Classical Conversations, the boys will be learning names and shapes of the 7 continents and the countries of Africa.

Fine Arts:

We take a few minutes each morning to listen to the hymn-of-the-month and look at a famous masterpiece-of-the-month.  These kind of co-incide w/ history studies.

Hymns (using Hymns for a Kid’s Heart):

Sept –This is My Father’s World

Oct – A Mighty Fortress

Nov – O God Our Help in Ages Past

Art Study (somewhat like this):

Sept – Creation/The Sistine Chapel

Oct – Poortvliet’s Noah’s Ark (available at the library)

Nov – The Tower of Babel by Pieter Bruegel)

For music appreciation, we’ll pick a song or album for each month and listen to it in the car and at random times in the house.  This month I’ve been loving The World’s Very Best Opera for Kids!  Also, some homeschoolers at our church are getting together bi-weekly for a little music co-op.  There will be some formal musical learning and some music appreciation.

Sept – The Creation Oratorio by Franz Joseph Haydn (library CD)

Oct – Ballet of the Baby chicks in Their Shells (a “symphonic poem” by Mussorgsky — CD at library)

Nov – Carnival of the Animals/Peter and the Wolf (not sure which/both yet).

Field Trips:

State Fair Forest Tour

Aerospace Museum

Sacramento Tea Party

Apple Hill (and making applesauce — yum!)

Pumpkin Patch

Ice Cream Social with Classical Conversations

Ice Skating

Lifeskills:

We’ll continue on with cooking, cleaning, yard work.

Daniel and Micah will continue learning various man-skills through Cub Scouts, and Christian through Boy Scouts.

We’ll make sure to schedule times to visit my grandmother and have the boys complete chores around her home.

The boys will continue to take a P.E. course through a local homeschool group, Youth Are Worth It.  (The info on the website is a little outdate, so email before you show up!)  Unfortunately, P.E. moved to a day that doesn’t work for us!  Or, perhaps I should say FORTUNATELY, since it opened up the door for us to partake in Classical Conversations.

I recently mooched a book called The Serpent of Paradise by Erwin W. Lutzer.  It’s really quite an interesting read!  The premise is to help the reader unravel a biblical understanding of Satan and how Satan’s rebellion serves God’s purposes.

One of the surprising aspects of the author’s writing style is that he throws in little personal applications here and there while narrating the history of Satan. It’s interesting how understanding Satan can help me see the greatness of God. And some of the analogies to my own heart and Satan’s have been startling.

Our pastor is also currently doing a series on Satan — specifically his tactics against the believer. I suppose it must be the time in my life to learn these things, so I may become a better-armed Christian.  I’m definitely learning a lot. 

Here are a few quotes from The Serpent of Paradise that struck me –

On the smallness of Satan and his capacity to seem more powerful to us than he really is:

“A single quarter lifted to the eye can obscure the blazing light of the sun, a star whose diameter is 865,000 miles. Just so, Satan, if we let him, can cause us to block out our vision of God. He can give us the terrifying optical illusion that, at least in this life, he is just about as big as God.”

On why Lucifer (Satan’s original name) decided to rebel against God:

“What we do know is that Lucifer was self-deceived, thinking that rebellion was necessary if he were to put his own interests first. He failed to grasp that even if he were motivated by self-interest, obedience to God would still be best. To put it differently, God’s best for him and his best for himself were actually one and the same.

“Lucifer’s bad judgment is a warning to us. We must never think that our obedience is best for God, but not best for us. When God commands us to obey Him, He not only has His best interest in mind but ours too. That is why we are never wiser than when we choose to follow God’s will, whatever the cost”

(While reading Lost in the Middle by Paul David Tripp last year, I became increasingly aware of how I actually “shoot myself in the foot” whenever I try find a “better” way than God’s way!)

On considering what way Lucifer desired to be “like God”:

“In what sense then can he be “like the Most High”? Only in this: He thought he would be independent. He knew that his accomplishments would always be but a shadow of what God can do. But the joy of knowing that he was now acting without God’s approval was worth the risk. He now would only give orders and supposedly not receive them. At least that was the plan.

“The irony is that Satan’s flaunted independence would in reality turn out to be another form of dependence on the will and purposes of God. True, he wouldn’t depend on God for guidance in the decisions he made, but every one of his rebellious acts would be under God’s careful direction and control. He could defy God, to be sure, but his activities would always be limited to what God allowed. His independence was hardly worthy of the word…he rebelled so that he would not have to be God’s servant, and yet today he still is!

“…Here, it is sufficient to point out that he cannot afflict Job without divine approval. He cannot harass Saul, except that he is sent to Saul by God. And he cannot give the apostle Paul a ‘thorn in the flesh’ without God determining both its time limitations and severity. This does not sound like independence! In fact…it is slavery.

“…He who hated servanthood would now become a servant of another sort. Rather than voluntary servanthood, his would be a reluctant servanthood, service with a different motive and toward a different end, but service nonetheless. In the end, he would still exist for God’s glory just as much as he did when he and God were in harmony.”

Do you see the connection between Satan’s sin and our own? When we try to be indpendent from God, we end up serving Him anyhow. All things will work together for God’s glory! This renews my love for the gospel. What a merciful God to give us human sinners a chance to serve Him as His dear children. All of us WILL serve Him, but isn’t it delightful to be able to serve Him as His child?

Delayed Academics: Key to Preventing Learning Problems

Someone sent me a copy of an article entitled Better Late than Early today. Parents hear from our president that we should be handing over our children at younger ages and for more of the year — for the purpose of “academic excellence.” What does the research say?

Carolyn Forte, in the article mentioned above, says:

Dr. and Mrs. Moore’s first book, School Can Wait and its twin for laymen, Better Late Than Early, introduced me to the facts about education and child development. The Moores collected early childhood research from medicine, ophthalmology, neurology, and psychology and came to the inescapable conclusion that for most children, the optimum age to begin formal academics is between the ages of eight and twelve! For those of us who are steeped in the culture of early academics, this is a strange pill to swallow. But the Moores didn’t stop with mere laboratory research; they studied homeschool families in the 70’s and 80’s to see what happened when children were free to learn at a more natural pace. The result was several more books, culminating with The Successful Family Homeschool Handbook. This volume elaborates on “The Moore Formula” which Dr. and Mrs. Moore developed over the years as they combined research with practical application.

The “Moore Formula” includes three elements in approximately equal portions: study, work and service. They do not recommend formal academic studies before age 8 and in some cases, as late as 12. (My younger daughter fell into this older category.) This does not mean that the child does not learn anything until age 8+. Children are learning voraciously from birth and only the roadblock of clumsy “schooling” can retard or stop a child’s otherwise insatiable thirst for knowledge. Books are useful and important tools, but for a young child, the world is filled with much better learning opportunities than can be found on the printed page alone. When a child is allowed to explore and question and wonder, whole worlds of interest can open that might never be discovered otherwise. In this homeschooling style, a child might learn to read at five, at seven or at twelve, depending on the child.

This more relaxed early learning/teaching style will incorporate important developmental areas often neglected or ignored by formal curricula: listening, hand-eye coordination, large motor skills, spatial relationships, personal relationships, knowledge about the physical environment, memory development, imagination, logic and many more. Because of the overwhelming presence of electronic media in our lives, children are often have difficulty using their own imagination or even listening to a story without pictures. They are so bombarded with constant sound from radio, TV, and electronic games that they can hardly think for themselves. Giving children time in the early years (hopefully with a minimum of TV, etc.) to develop physically, neurologically and emotionally allows them to move into formal academics with a maximum of preparedness and energy.”

The early years with my boys have been precious, delightful times of learning.  We’ve grown into more formal, rigorous work each year, and they’ve adapted well.  I do miss those early times that were centered around playing, cuddling and delight-directed learning!  I’m so glad we were directed to books like those by the Moores, Educating the Wholehearted Child, For the Children’s Sake, I Saw the Angel in the Marble and Things We Wished We’d Known right at the beginning of our homeschooling journey.  These books convinced us to truly slow down with our young ones; we have been richly blessed by doing so.

According to TIME magazine, the New Calvinism is one of the things changing the world (Number 3 of the Top Ten!).

(I read about it over at Irish Calvinist.)

My favorite quote from the article is Al Mohler’s: “The moment someone begins to define God’s [being or actions] biblically, that person is drawn to conclusions that are traditionally classified as Calvinist.” Instead of saying I am a Calvinist, since people often look at me strangely when I say that, maybe I should say, “Thinking biblically has caused me to arrive at conclusions-formally-known-as-Calvinism.”

I was excited (a few years ago) to discover there was a shorthand way to say “God is sovereign; people are sinners; I can depend upon God and don’t have to depend on myself!” But many, many people see Calvinism as Determinism or Fatalism. When you use the “C” word, they seem to check out of the conversation! I do enjoy saying I believe in the “doctrines of Sovereign Grace,” but people don’t really know what I mean when I say that either.

On the other hand, I have been absolutely FLOORED by the amount of friends and family who have had very similar experiences to my husband and myself in regard to changing, or refining, of our theology. Many people we haven’t seen in years seem to have the same story we’ve had. I’m still surprised when I come across someone else who has been moved in the same direction of heart. And this change in theology has come to those I know with almost ZERO push from the pulpit (in my city, churches that are Calvinist are few and far between, and the preaching is often more the “Jesus-wants-to-be-your-buddy” type).

I think maybe TIME magazine is onto something. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see!

I love this video. It brought tears to my eyes. Every life is potential for greatness. Circumstances that look bleak to us can — and are — used to forge phenomenally-capable individuals. Abortion is “playing God”; it is not our place to take another human’s right to life.

It seems that God created me with a soft spot in my heart regarding unborn children. If you knew me in high school, you’ll remember this was what I was fanatic about. Every speech, many papers, lots of conversations — anytime I could persuade people of the evil of abortion and the wonder of life I was on it!

Interestingly, my firstborn son came into the world on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade — reminding me in a tangible way each year of the reality of life and death. Watching my son grow has given me a renewed respect for the gift of life! On the other hand, sometimes I feel I could drown in depth of sorrow living in a country that sanctions parents taking the lives of their children.

I heard on the radio today that a group of people are requesting President Obama sign an Emancipation Proclamation for the Unborn. Did you know African Americans are experiencing a genocide through abortion, right here in the U.S.A.? What a historic opportunity for President Obama to free African Americans from this tyranny.

When you consider how abortion has been used as a racist tactic against African Americans, it is quite ironic that our first black president is so wildly pro-choice. Rev. Johnny Hunt of the Life Education and Resource Network, writes, “Because of some very suave planning by abortion supporters and providers abortionists have eliminated more African-American children than the KKK ever lynched.”

I’m praying that President Obama’s eyes will be opened to the horrors of abortion, not only against black people but all humans whose lives are lost through it.

—

“I am thrilled we reached this landmark as a country – the first African American President. Isn’t it just a little ironic (and horrific) that millions of future Americans will never learn of it?” –Mike Adair

—

(for more of my thoughts on this subject, see this old post)

Breakfasts:

Golden Oats

Oatmeal

Sourdough English Muffins — Egg Sandwiches or toasted w/ jelly

Eggs, to order

The Nourishing Gourmet’s Sourdough Pancakes

Lunches:

PB and J

Smoothies

Leftovers

Leftover Beans and Cornbread

Bean Burrittos

Dinners:

Cowboy Nachos (Monday — I’m not using brisket for these, but just ground beef mixed w/ tom sauce, I think)  Addendum:  I made a variation of these nachos tonight that was sooooooo good!  I used mexican tomato sauce in the ground beef, and made a sauce that was a variation of this recipe.  I’ll update a link when I write out exactly how I made the sauce — it was seriously yummy.

Turkey Soup (2 nights)

Beans and Cornbread (these were so good last week, we’re doing them again!)

Chicken Caesar Salad

Desserts:

Apple Pie and Ice Cream for Saturday Night

I followed a link from Cook Like Your Grandmother over to The Pioneer Woman Cooks and found myself lost in her gorgeous photos and delightful wit for the past 2 hours!  Have a look around!  She even shares her Thanksgiving Cooking Schedule.  So many good ideas and such pretty photos that my menu this week will center around Pioneer Woman’s website.

Breakfasts:

Golden Oats

Egg Burrittos

Oatmeal x 2

Sourdough English Muffins — Egg Sandwiches or toasted w/ jelly

Eggs, to order

The Nourishing Gourmet’s Sourdough Pancakes

Lunches:

PB and J

Smoothies

Leftover Chicken Soup

Leftover Potato Soup

Beans and Cornbread

Bean Burrittos

Dinners:

Chicken Rice Soup (Tuesday and Wednesday)

Chicken Pot Pie (Friday)

Cowboy Nachos (Monday — I’m not using brisket for these, but just ground beef mixed w/ tom sauce, I think)

Bean and Bacon Soup with a healthy salad (Saturday)

(Sunday…find leftovers or bust out the frozen turkey?)

Thanksgiving Day:

I only have to bring bread and potatoes and pie to Mom’s for Thanksgiving this year — woo hoo!

I haven’t decided between chocolate pie or pumpkin pie.  Doesn’t this chocolate pie look exquisite?