From Pensacola with Love

We got up Saturday and Dianna asked if we could go to the park. So our plans were set - to the park! Parks are typically a normal playhouse and maybe some swings. As you have seen, this is not your run of the mill, ordinary park. This park comes with swings, play houses that could be cars, buses, pirate ships, or space ships. Swing sets that double as pretend coconut trees and bars that simulate a crude cage of sorts. Also, a rock climbing wall. That is right, a rock climbing wall. Last of all, was a wonderful view of Pensacola Bay from a pier that doubled as a race track for the children. We had a great time and wished you all could have been there.
Here are some assorted pictures from our day at the park. Enjoy! We love you all. Hope this brings a smile to your faces today. Love from Pensacola.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words or Is It?

Thank you for coming here today. I am sure you are all wondering why I invited you all here today. Well, I am about to tell you. Today's lesson will explore the depth and/or validity of the our title statement. Is a picture worth a thousand words? Well, I submit to you that it is not; in fact, I dare say that a picture (specifically, pictures of these children) are worth more than a thousand words - much more. So much more, might I suggest the description as "priceless."
Now to the nitty gritty (please read those last two words in a horrible mexican accent, akin to Nacho Libre). Let us look at our submissions for "priceless" pictures. We begin with a beautiful princess at the park, carefully negotiating the toad stools like a little lady. Exhibit B: shows two young males appearing to be rather close, perhaps even family. (The one with the glasses looks rather dashing, almost unnaturally so.) Our third exhibit shows the same striking young fellow being cradled by some adult male not quite as handsome. We move on to our next exhibit in which we see our same princess and handsome prince taking time out for a photo opportunity for the general public. Lastly, we notice the handsome polynesian prince doing a traditional Samoan siva. We have reached the end of our time together; my how fast the hour has gone. I do not think I need to say anything more in defense of my thesis. The evidence speaks for itself. Thank you for joining us on this brief journey of priceless photos. We hope we have inspired you to take a closer look at the pictures around you and not put a superficial price on them. Oh, okay, let us just agree that these children are just so cute. We love you all. Mom and Dad, we love you so much and look forward to talking to you soon. Alofas to all the family. Nacho-o-o-o!

A New School Year and Family Fun

Ayden, Dianna, and Jarod enjoyed the park immensely today the park . . . more pictures coming soon.
Aren't they so cute? Dianna loved being "in charge" of the boys.
The park we went to is so cute. It's right down on the water of Pensacola Bay and has lots of newer equipment just right for them.






A new challenge at school for me this year: I'm teaching Language Arts instead of Arithmetic, Science, History. I've been teaching the arithmetic side since I started at PCA (this is my fifth year already, praise the Lord). I am completely uncertain how I will do, but I trust my administrator who is also a dear friend. I know she seeks the Lord's will in preparing teacher assignments. I was given a choice; I didn't have to make this change. Although, if I hadn't agreed to the switch, I don't know what I would be doing. This first bulletin board is one I've used several years in a row now for my welcome board. I don't know if you can tell, but the ball just off of Mickey's kicking foot is half a styrofoam sphere that Talani cut in half and drew the soccer pattern on. The other soccer balls are sheets from a notepad that I laminated so I can write on them and wipe them off to use from year to year. Each student has a ball with their name on it. So far, I have 30 students, praise the Lord, and am praying for 2 more.

Here's my good work board. I should admit that I used all the same bulletin boards when I was teaching arithmetic, science, and history. My cheerleader board used to have the caption, "Hurrah for Homework Habits" and I had little labels for homework ideas, mostly geared toward arithmetic homework. (Always do your best, Ask for help, Use time wisely, etc.)

My teaching board used to say Dive into Division. I probably shouldn't admit this, but I had to ask another language teacher what the proper past tense of dive was (dived or dove?)

Also, I've heard that diagraming has 2 m's in it, but all the A Beka Language only uses 1. Interesting.

Here's a tip I learned from a TA a couple of years ago: She did not want to put staples or pins through the visuals she worked so hard to make, so she put velcro on the back. Since I use felt for all my backgrounds, I just added little bits of velcro on the back of all my visuals this year. Now I don't have to use staples or pins and I can move the visuals around as I need in order to make it look right. I even put velcro on the Bible flash-a-cards I used for my Bible board. I cannot remove that velcro, but that's okay. It doesn't hurt the card, and next year I will remember which cards I used. Thank you, Holly Knehr Shier, for the wonderful idea!

My Bible board is probably the easy way out. In 4th grade, we teach the life of Christ after Christmas, so I used to take down my Christmas board and put up this board so quickly before leaving for vacation. We teach the life of Christ at the beginning of the year in 6th grade, so I decided to use this board again. I probably should come up with something a little more hand-made, but until there's time for that (yeah, right) I'll just stick with the easy board.

Well, now I will attempt a new post with more pictures. The kids are eating dinner - homemade black-bean-and-steak chili, rice, and homemade breadsticks. It's quite late for them (9:00), but we all took a great nap today, and nobody's tired.

More Domestic Experimentation

Jarod has become my most devoted helper in the kitchen. He did a great job of helping me knead bread dough this morning. He took my instructions so well. I told him to push the bread then fold the bread, and he did exactly as I showed him, over and over. What a boy!
He kept pushing the dough farther and farther away from him, so by the time he was done he had flour all over his little brown belly from leaning on the counter. So adorable!
By the way, the orange pot on the stove in the background is full of black beans that I soaked and boiled this morning. Healthy and delicious!








I've been reading a new-to-me website, passionatehomemaking.com, and I've come across a lot of wonderful ideas to feed our family healthful food frugally. One of the author's ideas that I had to try was Crock Pot Yogurt. I didn't even know, until just the other day, that one could make yogurt one's self. It never occured to me that yogurt could come from anywhere except the yogurt factory to Walmart! The recipe on passionatehomemaking.com was so simple, I could hardly believe it. I put a half-gallon of milk into the crock pot and turned it on low for 2 hours and 45 minutes. Then, I turned off the crockpot and let it cool for 3 hours. (So far, the only ingredient is milk. How simple is that?)

After the 3 hours of cooling, I removed 1 1/2 - 2 cups of milk from the crockpot and whisked it together with 1/2 cup of plain yogurt. Then I added it back to the milk in the crockpot, whisked it just a bit, put the lid back on, and covered it with a couple of bath towels. It then had to sit for 8-12 hours; I actually let it go for 14 because it finished at 4:45 am. Not getting up to check then, uh-uh.

When I opened the lid of the crockpot, what I saw looked like milk, but with a considerably thicker consistency. I poured it into these two quart containers and put 1/2 cup into the tiny container in the foreground of this picture. That 1/2 cup will be the yogurt that I whisk into the next batch after heating and cooling. The yogurt has to sit in the fridge for a day before using. I haven't tasted it yet . . . I don't like the taste of plain yogurt, so if I tasted it and it tasted bad, I wouldn't know if it was really bad or if it was just me. I don't plan to use the yogurt for eating, anyway. I have been in the habit lately of making smoothies for breakfast and will use this yogurt in those smoothies.

So . . . Is it really cheaper than store-bought? I had to buy the quart containers for storage since I didn't have anything that would be just right. I paid $1.68 for 4 of those, and only need 2 for yogurt. So that means a yogurt-cost of $.84 per batch, or $.42 per quart. Milk costs us less than $3.00 per gallon, so I used just under $1.50 for this yogurt, $.75 per quart. I did have to use a bit of store-bought yogurt in the recipe. I pay $1.72 for a quart of Walmart-brand plain yogurt, so my 1/2 cup costs $.22. Grand total for this batch of yogurt, then: $2.56, or $1.28 per quart. I already beat Walmart's price by $.44 per quart. Next time around, I won't have to buy the containers or the starter-yogurt, so my cost next time will be just $.75 per quart, a savings of almost $1.00 per quart over Walmart's best price. AND I have the added bonus of knowing what's going into the food I'm eating. I think it's too easy and too frugal to not make my own yogurt from now on.

On an unrelated note: it's been really nice to be off this week, with the exception of the Summer Seminar sessions I was involved in. I had permission from Dr. Shoemaker to attend some different sessions this year. I attended 5-6 grade Language, 5-6 grade Reading, and 5-6 grade Spelling and Penmanship. It was very informative to get a better perspective on how those subjects are taught. It's been about 6 years since I taught them, and I needed a boost. :) I also got to teach 4th grade History and 5-6 grade Science. Both very enjoyable and I got good feedback from delegates. Of course, I don't think anyone would walk up to me and tell me that I was terrible and they never want to see my face again. I'm thankful, though, for the kind words, and for the idea that I might have helped some teachers face a new year.

Dianna, Jarod, and Ayden are ready for a "splinker" day, so I'm off to man the splinker, then to make rice, eggs and pisupo for lunch. (Oh, I hope I spelled that right; I'm so embarrassed if I didn't.)

A Day in the Life.

Hello there to all!! Hope you all have had a great week. The LORD has been good to us. Six years ago today HE blessed me with the best gift ever with the most wonderful, beautiful woman I have ever known - Barbie. I love you so much. Thank you for marrying me and for taking care of our family throughout the years. I look forward to the rest of our lives together. I love, love, love you.

Going around the horn with the pictures. We have two wannabe firefighters (with hats courtesy of Firehouse Subs). Then we have Fireman Jarod. And then my gorgeous wife with our two adorable children relaxing on the couch. And lastly, the cousins hanging out. We love you all.

We heard that the Arkansas family spoke with Mom and Dad wia Skype. That is great! I feel a conference call coming on. Let us know when you all want to "get together". Can I get Lika and Jason's Skype contact info from somebody? Thanks. Love you guys. Have a great week.

Sightings of Cows and Cuties

Hello there, all! We just wanted to post something quick. We have had a great week; school and work were good. Everyone here is doing just fine. The children are still learning to get along with their cousin, but all in good time. Praise the LORD for the chance to help Mandi and Ayden. Well, here are just two pictures from last weekend. For those who were not aware, last Friday July 10, was cow appreciation day at Chick-Fil-A (chicken restaraunt). If you dressed up like a cow from head to toe, you got your meal for free. If you were only partly dressed up, you could get a free sandwich. So Barbie made costumes for the children and they were the cutest little cows you ever saw. The next picture is of the children wearing new shirts that they got from Pop pop. Well, we will post something else later this weekend.

P.S. Asian Chicken Salad - excellent. Cream cheese/onion/bell pepper tortilla Pinwheels - awesome. Lika, Res, Jason, hope you guys have a great week in NC.

Here are the little cows singing. Enjoy.

More About Once A Month Mom

Once Talani got home from running his errands he was able to keep the kids occupied. Here, they are relaxing after a tough round of watching cartoons. So cute! This was actually taken just after I finished cooking, so I promptly got in the recliner for a little nap. I nearly stole one of the kiddos from the couch to join me, but couldn't make myself possibly wake them.







Before Talani got home, I had already begun cooking and preparing the food. Once a month mom (OAMM) suggests having a baby sitter to take the children away so Mom can work on cooking. Since I didn't get a sitter, I had to take frequent breaks to entertain Dianna and Jarod. Here, Jarod and I cuddle on the kitchen floor after he brought the blanket in with him to get some "Mommy Love".
Another OAMM rule I broke: the instructions for preparation are for 2 moms working together. Since I just made 4 recipes, I worked solo.




In the last post, Talani posted a picture of chicken in the crockpot. That was 5 pounds of chicken, all to be used in our Asian Chicken Salad. I shredded the chicken in the food processor, added chopped red and green bell pepper, pineapple, onion, garlic, and a sauce made from teriyaki sauce and peanut butter. I ended up having to use my largest container to hold all the chicken salad for mixing - a 9 x 11 deep dish cake carrier. Each of the gallon bags pictured here contain a quart bag of chicken salad as well as several pita halves. To serve this meal, all I will have to do is thaw the chicken salad in the fridge during the work day and nuke the pitas for a few seconds to soften them up. A little rice on the side will be all we need to make this a complete meal, since there are plenty of veggies in the salad.
I also made mocha-chip muffins for breakfasts. The recipe made enough to provide four weekday breakfasts.
Next came sundried-tomato-basil pinwheels: cream cheese, garlic, sundried tomatoes, and basil all blended together, spread onto flour tortillas, rolled up, and sliced into little pinwheels. That recipe also made 4 meals. We will need to add a salad or baked potatoes or something to fill out that meal.
Last, I prepared a crock-pot meal of cheesy chicken. Boneless, skinless chicken, cheddar cheese soup, red and green bell pepper, and a little bit of salsa each went into 4 gallon-sized ziploc bags. Now, to prepare these meals, I will empty the bag into the crockpot in the morning and let the crockpot do the work over the course of a day. A pot of pasta or rice will finish out this meal; maybe a little garlic bread on the side.
So, over all, we have 4 breakfasts and 12 dinners or lunches. I spent about $100 buying the groceries for this, although some of what I bought was more than I would need. For example, I needed 1 c. of sugar, but I bought 10 lb. I have enough instant coffee and chocolate chips to make another 4-breakfast-batch of mocha chip muffins. I'm figuring that the average cost per meal, after I make the other batch of muffins, is around $5.00, and that includes the cost of pasta, potatoes, or rice added to the side.
I'm praising the Lord for the opportunity to provide good quality, healthy, EASY meals for the family at an affordable price.
I suppose we'll have to blog again later this week and let everyone know if the food was actually any good! In the meantime, check out the website: onceamonthmom.com.