Ahhh, growth, life....

Our new hens

The chicks are here!

My sprouting tray

Jacob's tray

This week's menu

Thought I'd share what's on our menu for the week:

Sunday: 

Breakfast-baked oatmeal and boiled eggs

Lunch-EMFH (Every Man For Himself--aka leftovers)

Dinner-slow cooker French dip with salad and homemade bread

Monday: 

Breakfast-cereal

Lunch-cheeseburger cresents

Dinner-lettuce cups (The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook) and rice balls (Basic Asian)

Tuesday:

Breakfast-biscuits and sausage

Lunch-leftovers

Dinner-cheddar & potato soup with spicy spare ribs (cooking double to use in fried rice on Wednesday) and homemade bread

Wednesday:

Breakfast-cinnamon bread

Lunch-homemade Mac and cheese

Dinner-stir fried rice, potstickers, and chocolate wontons--recipes from The Steamy Kitchen Cookbook
(due to other commitments, we're celebrating CNY tonight, it's on Thursday.)

Thursday:

Breakfast-toast and sunny side up eggs

Lunch-leftovers

Dinner-chili taco salad

Friday:

Breakfast-pancakes

Lunch-sandwiches or homemade lunchables

Dinner-Dh is hunting, so it's leftovers and sandwiches for the weekend...

Saturday:

Breakfast-banana nut muffins (the boys make them!)

Sunday:

Breakfast-grits 

Lunch-??

Dinner-PW chicken spaghetti (cooking extra chicken to make 2 chicken pot pies-one to eat this week and one to freeze)  Both recipes are from The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl

Our newest gizmo is a popcorn popper and we're loving it.  The kids are into having popcorn with nuts/seeds for a snack and we were going through the microwave bags too fast!  I also bought a Kindle book called Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  I made my first batch of bread today and it turned out great!  One of the kids said it tasted as good as Great Harvest Bread Co.--I'll take that as a compliment!

We (Troy) ended up grinding 53 pounds of venison from one deer!

Ingredients for baking bread today (minus the oil)

 This is what it looked like right after I finished mixing it:

This was 2 hours later--it had tripled in size!

Getting ready to go into the oven...

Fresh out of the oven.  I sprinkled a little too much flour on top, not a big deal...

The kids LOVED it!

~Excitedly waiting on popcorn~

What we do in our spare time...

This week's chick update & more

The chicks are now about 2 weeks old.  My how they're grown!!  They're getting bigger and their color is changing.  I just love their wings, so beautiful!  A few more weeks and they can move out to the old coop (weather permitting, it's been a rather cold winter here).  

Grace will grab anyone she can to read to her and once she's got you--there's no escape!

For those who love our sleeping shots, I just came out from packing for the Ladies' Encounter this weekend and found Grace asleep on the floor where she climbed (or fell?) off the chair!

                   

Our Kunming cutie--she just loves to dress up and do her hair!

"The fun has arrived!!!"

Ok, so we just let the girls watch Tarzan (the title quote is from Turk)... When we got back from church yesterday, we had a wonderful surprise message waiting for us---the chicks were in!!!  Jacob, Grace and I went to the post office and picked them up.   Now the fun starts!  Thought some pics of the cuties would make a Monday morning post not so Monday morning...

This was their travel arrangements.  There were actually 4 of these at the post office, so others in our area are getting started on the fun too!  We purchased them from McMurray Hatchery.   We've heard nothing but great things about them.    You should have heard the peeping coming from those 4 boxes!!!  

We opened our box to these adorable little Rhode Island Red chicks.  

Awww, cher!

Of course the children couldn't wait to get their hands on them.  They are so furry and fluffy and cuddly!

Here they are in their brooder.  They loved the heat light. They ended up in a pile underneath it, all cuddled together.

We lost one little one, but we expected it.  It's the little black and yellow cutie in the front of this picture.  It was an extra they sent.  We thought it looked small and weak.  The rest seem to be doing great this morning--eating and drinking and PEEPING!

Countdown to baby chicks!

Our baby chicks are expected to arrive at the post office in about 7 days--probably Tuesday or Wednesday!!! We cannot wait!  There is a shipment of 35 Rhode Island Reds coming to our town!  We're sharing the chicks with 2 other home school families.  The kids are SO excited!Publish Post

Chicken update

It's been a while since I did a chicken update, so I thought I'd let you know what's happening.  We hired someone to build a coop.  They build it on Wednesday and Thursday.  A sad turn of events on Thursday morning.  Jacob went out to feed the chickens.  He came running back into the house in tears and I knew...his hen had died.  How sad that she was so close to getting to live in the new and big coop...  She was his pet, she would sit at his feet and let him carry her all over without a fight.  He really misses her.

I have to ask, why is it that it's always the pet of the child who cares that passes?  Connor wouldn't have been broken up.  Same as when a gerbil died...it was Shaoey's and she LOVED her gerbil and was crushed.  Connor's lives on.  But I digress...

Here the roosters (and kids) are in their new home:

We are expecting a shipment of 35 Rhode Island Red day old chicks around February 9th.  No, they're not all for us.  We are keeping about 15 of them.  I can't wait to get the call from the post office that they are waiting for us!  How fun is that going to be?!  I'll keep you posted!

When life hands you lemons...

What does any self respecting homeschool family do?

We make LEMONADE, of course!

We also had a bunch of satsumas.  The kids peeled them.  Gracie had a special job of pulling the pieces apart.  We spread them on a pan and put them in to freeze.  We'll see how it works.  I figured we'd take them out the when we pack a picnic lunch and see if they've defrosted enough by lunch time!

Nature study

One Charlotte Mason study I've had trouble implementing is Nature Study.  Wierd, huh, considering we live on 6 acres...  We took a walk around the yard today, exploring, taking pictures, collecting items to look at back in the house, and trying our hand at sketching what we saw (mom, too!).  Thought I'd share some of the things we found today: