Has it been that long??

Wow, July was my last post!! Where did August and September go? For that matter, where is October going?

We have been busy, busy, busy! We started school early in August and our days have been a blur of homeschooling, classes, Classical Conversations (CC), gymnastics, church, AWANA, laundry, cleaning (not nearly enough of that), and other things. Good thing God gave us the Sabbath! We are certainly "laboring and doing all" of our work the other six days.

School is going well. We had some bumps at the beginning of the year. I had decided to try some new things that didn't work well for our family. When you have six kiddos under age 9, not every program is going to be a good fit. We're pretty much back on track now, although I did sign the kids up for WAY too many classes this semester. They're loving them, but the expense and busy-ness is just too much. Next semester I will be wiser. For now, we're starting to "get in the groove," so to speak. I've tinkered with our schedule and even our curriculum, and I think we've found a happy balance between educational excellence and, well, real life.

I'm tutoring CC (5th and 6th graders) on Tuesday morning while all my little people are in their respective CC classes. We really do enjoy the Foundations portion of CC. All the classes cover the same material, so we work on it together throughout the week. Everyone from Nathan down to Justin. Carsten joins in too. He's very insistent about doing everything the big kids do.

I'm also teaching Latin on Friday afternoons. That's been fun and it's kept us on track with our Latin studies here at home. We're using the Latin for Children curriculum. I highly recommend it. It comes with a DVD that you can either use to teach the children directly, or (as I do) use as a how-to-teach aid. Anyway, it motivates the kids when they're learning together.

Bryan and I have taken the position of AWANA commanders this year. That's been a big commitment, but we've found it very rewarding. There's such a great group of people that we're blessed to work with, and they make it enjoyable. There are just about 80 kids signed up. AWANA is a good, biblically sound program, and I know the kids are going to benefit from learning God's word. He promises His word won't return to Him void, and that's a promise that we hang on to when we're with the kids on Sunday nights.

Now, on to more important things: Steffen turned one! My little tiny baby man is already a year old! I can't believe it. He is just so cute and has such a big personality already. He loves to do motions to songs and he can already say a few baby words. He took five steps last night, but he's been refusing to demonstrate for his siblings today. They are so anxious to see- I think he's teasing them. He gets into everything. No cabinet is safe with him around.

I know you'll want a picture of our grown-up little baby, so here you are! We combined his birthday with our Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) party. Such is the life of a sixth baby.

Oatmeal Pancakes

Okay, I mentioned Oatmeal Pancakes awhile back. Here's the recipe:

Mix together and set aside for 30-45 minutes:
4 c. old-fashioned oats
3 3/4 c. soy or almond milk
1/4 c. lemon juice

Mix together and add:
1/4 c. sugar (optional)
1 c. flour (I use spelt or whole wheat)
1 T. baking powder
1 t. salt

Then add:
2 T. extra light olive oil (optional)
1/4 c. milled flax seed, whisked together with hot water to make 1 c.

Spray a griddle with nonstick spray. Ladle batter by 1/2 cupfuls. (They expand quite a bit.) Flip when the bubbles begin to pop, and then cook several more minutes.

These are very popular around our house. I usually double the recipe and freeze the extras for Bryan to take to work as "breakfast sandwiches" with almond butter and jelly.

A Goodbye

Well, the past month has been a tough one for our household. We're finally getting to the point where we can take a breath, and we hope to get back to normal soon.

We said goodbye to Bryan's dad, Othell, on June 21st. He had battled prostate cancer for the past ten years, and he passed away at the age of 79. He will be missed.

Funny Carsten

This is a blast from the (recent) past. A couple of months ago, when Carsten had transitioned to a big boy bed, he and Justin were partying until late in the night. As a result, Carsten was having a hard time making it through lunch to naptime. He kept falling asleep. On this occasion, we had the camera handy.



Oh, and if you're wondering about his hair, this was during his Vaseline stage. He found jars of Vaseline and gel that I didn't even know we had...

What Do You Eat??

Over the past year, our family has made a change in our diet. We had been cutting way back on meat intake for a while, and then we cut back on dairy. This past year, we've moved to a primarily vegan diet. We try to stick with 90% vegan foods, with a lot of veggies, fruits, nuts, whole grains and beans.

The "90% vegan", practically speaking, means that we eat vegan at home with exceptions at restaurants and celebrations like birthdays. I stick with it the most strictly. My exceptions are pretty much confined to our monthly trips to our favorite Indian restaurant. I choose only vegetarian items, but I know they probably have ghee- clarified butter- in them. I've been doing this long enough that I've really lost the taste for meat and dairy. Daddy "celebrates" more than the rest of us. ;-) His diet, though, really is much better than it was before.

Anyway, I thought I'd just post what we eat for about a week, just for fun. People seem to be curious as to what you eat if you don't eat meat. Here goes:

Saturday
Saturdays are our feast days. We're busy during the week, so our meals are simple then. I try to do something special to welcome the Sabbath on Friday night, and then we all like a big breakfast/brunch on Saturday morning. The kids, on this day, got up and ate apples and had a glass of almond milk. I guess this was their first "snack" of the day.
Breakfast: Oatmeal Pancakes with Orange Syrup, fresh raspberries, and orange juice. I'll post the recipe for the Pancakes. We love them, and I use the leftovers to make almond butter and jelly sandwiches for Bryan to eat for his weekday breakfasts. (He eats in the car on the way to work, so it has to be portable.)
Lunch: Breakfast was late, so there's not really much "lunch" to speak of. Just my homemade whole wheat challah with carrot sticks as a snack.
Dinner: Spaghetti (Bryan's absolute favorite), homemade whole wheat French bread, steamed broccoli, and a big salad with olives and cherry tomatoes. We had almond cookies for dessert.

Sunday
Breakfast: We need to be quick in order to get to church at 8:30, so I made QUICK bread. Orange Quick Bread. Even though I made it with spelt and cut the sugar in half, it's still kind of a treat. I opted for muesli, but then ended up sneaking the last piece of Orange Bread when I got home from church. Justin wasn't happy about that. I guess he was planning on doing the same thing, but I beat him to it.
Lunch: Lentil Nut Mini Loaves, Baked Potatoes with Chives, Steamed Kale, and Fresh Cherries for dessert.
Dinner: I decided we just HAD to run some errands, so we found ourselves out around dinner time. Poor planning on my part. The kids had had Lara Bars in the car earlier, but they were HUNGRY. Anyway, we went to a Souper Salad, and got big salads and vegetarian soup with fresh melon for dessert. We made (mostly) vegan selections. I think a couple of the kids got ranch dressing, and I can't vouch for the cornbread. As a sidenote: It was a perfect opportunity to see that here in America, one can make himself a full "salad" without touching a single vegetable.

Monday
Breakfast: Steel Cut Oatmeal with Almond or Soy Milk. The kids have theirs with a touch of molasses and cinnamon. (My Opa from Tennessee gets us the best molasses.) I have mine just with cinnamon. Later, we had apples for snack.
Lunch: Stir-"Fried" (really steamed) Veggies and Rice, Steamed Bok Choy, and Kiwi for dessert. The kids had Bananas with Almond Butter for snack before gymnastics.
Dinner: Almond Butter and Jelly Sandwiches for the kiddos, Big Salads for everybody. Mango Smoothies for dessert (mmm, yummy!) (Bryan eats a late snack at work, and then usually has our "lunch" for dinner when he gets home. He gets home late, so that works out better during the week.)

Tuesday
Breakfast: Fruit Salad (with lots of yummy fresh and frozen fruit) topped with milled flax seed and Almond Cream Sauce (made with almonds, dates, and water).
Lunch: Leftovers!! The kids had spaghetti and I had stir fry. We had had baked tortilla chips (just baked corn tortillas) and black bean dip (black beans and salsa whirled together in the food processor) as a snack earlier. We had been raking mulch all morning and we needed some fortification!
Dinner: Pecans and raisins for afternoon snack, then Big Salads and Vegetable Soup for dinner. My friend Kristi gave me the idea to have salad stuff (lots of variety) in the fridge just to pull out whenever. Then everyone assembles their own salads. It's fun for the kids and really healthy too. I also fixed the kids smoothies. These are a good way to get them to down some things they might not otherwise eat. (In this case, I was trying to get a certain avocado-hater to consume some heart-healthy fat. Shhh...)

Why you should NOT buy dyed mulch

Well, here it is! The mulch that marks the beginning of our yardwork. We are finally starting to get some things done on the outside of the house. Our first step was to mulch in the large (100x50) circle in the driveway. The kids were excited about spreading it, and I'm happy to have their help, but...

The mulch is dyed black, and this was the result.

Justin says he's like the "Epicomian" (Ethiopian) in Kipling's Just So Stories. Let's just hope it's non-toxic...

Creepy

Okay, I REALLY hate snakes. This one was slithering across the driveway when Nathan and I were taking the trash cans up to the road. Then, he got up in a tree. (Nathan wants to know how I know it's a "he.") Our good-for-nothing cats were calmly munching their dry food all the way back at the house. He (or she) was about 3 feet long.

My skin is still crawling.

(Click on the picture to enlarge it.)