Homeschooling Summary for Last Week

This may be our last week "home schooling" with the cousins since my SIL has a new job now and I probably won't be watching the cousins 2 days a week anymore. But never fear grandparents, we will have lots of photo worthy play dates.

Our weather has continued to be wetter than ever. Last week I decided that we needed to get outside in spite of the weather conditions - the kiddos were all for it.

This could be called "child labor" rather than "home schooling", but to be clear - they WANTED to help make the diaper cake for my friend's baby shower. It was new and exciting to them. They made quick work of wrapping about 80 baby diapers too. 

Here is the finished diaper cake. One of you dear readers will recognize several elements of this cake as your very own contribution to its beauty. Thank you, thank you. You are an inspired friend.

 And yes, that is a new rug in the living room - the Ikea one that I have been wishing for for about 8 months now. I was holding off on getting it until I finished making white slipcovers for all the LR furnishings. More on that next week...

 Here we are using these awesome Clifford the Big Red Dog educational brochures that a friend passed along to me. We did one about the seashore, one on caterpillars, one on the alphabet, and one on fruits.

Pretending to be inch worms as part of the caterpillar brochure.

Recommended Reading: City of Bones

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare is part of the Mortal Instruments series. It is not quite a "twinkie book" - follow this link for my definition of the Twinkie Genre. The plot had some interesting twists and it was a page turner, but overall another Twilight-esque  dark teen romance book. Recommended to anyone looking for a twinkie book.

Good Reads Summary:
When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder -- much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing -- not even a smear of blood -- to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know. . . . 

Exotic and gritty, exhilarating and utterly gripping, Cassandra Clare's ferociously entertaining fantasy takes readers on a wild ride that they will never want to end.

Reuse Recipe: Cereal Remnants

This week I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies with my favorite recipe (see below). The only change was that I used the 2 CUPS of leftover shredded mini-wheat cereal bits from our Costco size package in place of 2 of the cups of oats. Easy and so delicious - they were gone before I could photograph them.

The Best Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Cookies

Ingredients:

1 C. shortening (butter flavor crisco is best)

1 C. packed brown sugar

1/2 C. granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 t. vanilla

1 t. baking soda

1/2 t. salt

1 1/2 c. flour (can use part wheat)

3 c. oats

1 t. cinnamon - small amount, but critical to perfect flavor

1 pkg (2 cups) chocolate chips

Directions: beat shortening and sugar until creamy, add eggs and vanilla, beat well. Add flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Mix well. Stir in oats and then chocolate chips. Bake 10-12 minutes at 350 F. Do not over cook.  They will look like they are just barely done (brown on the bottom), but be nice and chewy when they cool. 

Garden Progress:Harvesting

The garden is fruiting at full tilt these days. I am trying to incorporate the harvest into our meals each day. Our lovely neighbor has also been sharing his harvest with us so we are eating lots of cucumber salad lately.

The Sunflowers third year. These seeded themselves. 

Yellow grape tomatoes

Abi's harvest

Bringing in the harvest. 5 cucumbers, onions, and 2 small heads of cauliflower

Sew Special: 4 Bridesmaid Dresses

My friend's daughter is getting married. I love wedding planning and inculcated myself into the process. One way that I have been helping is with the bridesmaid dresses. We started talking about them at least 2 months ago and now they are finally all done!
The theme of her wedding is "Garden Party" and it has a shabby chic victorian vibe to it. The bridesmaids will wear these dresses with thin leather belts and bubble necklaces. I hope to take some pics of them on the big day in August.

Dress without the belt (from the back)

Dress front with belt for test pics

Dress back with belt for test pics

Home Schooling Summary for Last Week

As I mentioned previously, we are all obsessed with Magic School Bus lately. We've been watching the first season on Netflix and reading the books from the library. The book called The Magic School Bus Gets Ants in Its Pants suggested this experiment to see what kind of foods ants are attracted to. We put various foods in lids and then set them equal distance from an ant hill in the garden.  We waited about 15 minutes and then checked to see which foods attracted the most ants. They actually all had a few ants. The honey was a death trap, but I think the sugar and bread crumbs were the preferred choices. 

Magic School Bus Ant Experiment

Checking to see whether our "Ant Preferences" hypotheses were correct

We also have been regularly picnicking in the back yard. Sometimes with food, like frozen juice pops, sometimes just with books.

As

Recommended Reading: The Fault in Our Stars

I am tempted to blame the lapse in my blogging on this story, although that would be only a tiny bit true. I did not finish this post last week when I started it because I had a squirmy baby in my arms and I wanted to write something meaningful about this story. Yet here I am again at a loss for words to describe how it touched me.  
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green is an incredible book. Recommended to me by my friend Brooke in her Summer Reading list. It's the only thing that I've ever read by John Green, but I now think that he is a genius. The characters in the book are striving to live life even though death is a constant presence in their periphery. They are beautifully multifaceted, fictional, but (I think) realistic representatives of teens and kids suffering from cancer. Their stories made me want to live vivaciously and be more grateful for all the precious minutes of my life. 

Here is the book summary from Good Reads:
Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.
I recommend this to adults and teens without reservation, but I would just point out that the language spoken is "teenager" and includes a fair amount of cursing.
Go. Read. This. Book!