New Recipes

In an effort to trim our weekly grocery budget I'm trying to make better use of my pantry and make fewer last minute trips for necessary ingredients.  This past week I didn't plan very well.   As 4 p.m. rolled around, I found myself searching Allrecipes frantically for meals to create with my pantry ingredients.

The results were not well-received.  At least not by the short people sitting at the table.  Made two big-time flops this week (tomato florentine soup and chicken fried rice with broccoli).   

Thankfully to counteract the meal-time flops, I also stumbled upon a few winning recipes this week. 

Oatmeal Peanut Butter Rice Krispie Treats.  (found this recipe in a free calendar so there's no link, sorry!) This recipe was actually billed as *homemade granola bars*.  These are not at ALL like granola bars.  There's no baking involved and they turned out slightly crumbly.  Still it makes a yummy protein-filled snack.  And it must be eaten in a bowl or the crumby mess is out of control.  This is a great treat for preparing with small children.  My 3 year old counter-sitting helper loved mixing this all together!

Homemade hummus.  I like this recipe because it doesn't use tahini.  It's lemony and tangy and very easy to blend up for a quick healthy snack.  We've been eating this with pita chips, celery sticks, and on sandwiches.

World's best cornbread.  I was skeptical o this recipe touting such a brazen claim.  But after making this honey-laden cornbread, I'm a believer.  This IS indeed the world's BEST cornbread.  Try it for yourself and you'll be convinced too.  Beyond delicious!

What tasty new recipes have you stumbled upon lately?

Why I like Mondays

Contrary to popular opinion, I think that Mondays are fantastic!

Why, you ask?  Because . . .

1. Monday is my most productive day of the week.  After a weekend break from the weekly routine, I'm ready to jump back in whole-heartedly on Monday.  Not surprisingly, my surge of Monday-adrenaline makes me uber-productive.  There's something magically motivating about trying to start out the week on a good note.  Half a pot of coffee helps boost the productivity level too. 
2. Mondays are "at home" days.  I purposefully try to keep our calendar free on Mondays and Fridays.  Sunday mornings are busy so on Monday we need a built-in recovery.  It's lovely and rejuvenating to putter around the house tidying up, putting laundry away and enjoying the comforts of home.
3. The Packers are going to the superbowl!!!!

Ok, ok, so the Packers have nothing to do with why I like Mondays.  But their playoff victory sure is making THIS Monday better!

How's your Monday going so far?

Christmas questions

Can it seriously be the end of January already?!

I've had this blog post drafted since shortly after Christmas . . . life has gotten in the way of blogging.  But that's probably as it should be.

I truly want to hear about the Christmas celebrations you all had in 2010.  I also want to give you all a summary of our holidays but don't want to bore you with lengthy details and stories.  But instead of asking the ubiquitous, "How was your Christmas?" I thought it'd be more fun to do a focused question/answer format for holiday reporting. 

Here's how it'll work.  I'll list 3 questions regarding your Christmas happenings.  In turn I'll post my answers below.  And then you can post your answers as your comment.  Sound good? 

1. What was your biggest surprise this Christmas?
I framed this question to fit my answer because I got a HUGE surprise this Christmas.  My sister lives overseas and flew home for Christmas without telling me. My mom was in on the deceit and arranged for my sis to arrive at my house late one night.  My deceptive mother hid my sis in the basement that night and then brought her up during breakfast the next morning.  I WAS SHOCKED.  I was beyond surprised.  My poor sleep-deprived brain couldn't comprehend what was happening.  I kept touching my sister to make sure I wasn't dreaming or seeing things.  (I'm not exaggerating, I really kept poking her that first day.)  It was FANTASTIC to have her here with us for all the fun Christmas festivities.

2. Which gift did you most enjoy giving?
I made a few freezer-paper stencil tees again this year.  My fave was the "Serenity Now" tee I painted for Matt.  We often cry out for serenity to descend upon the clamorous chaos!

3. What was your favorite Christmas 2010 memory?
That's a tough one to answer.  Had a blast sledding (and falling) with my sis and Chloe.  And we put on a brief Mary-and-Joseph re-enactment on Christmas Eve that was fun.  Doing the Jesse tree ornaments was certainly a rich tradition that I hope to continue each year.  But overall my favorite times were the ones when we were all just sitting around the table eating, laughing and enjoying one another.  In those moments I just sat back and relished the love and extreme comfort of family.  I'm so thankful to God for the blessings of family!

Now it's your turn to answer!  Looking forward to hearing about your Christmas memories!

Happy Birthday to me!

Friday I celebrated my 33rd year of life.  And a VERY happy birthday it was!

Surprisingly, this double-digit milestone doesn't make me feel old.  Now that I'm well into the thirties, it's not so bad!  In fact, I often find myself wishing I was older.  The older moms that I know are so much wiser, patient and more experienced than I am.

As is the custom in my family, we commemorated the day of my birth with scrum-diddly-umptious food.  I made steak, twice baked potatoes, spinach salad with crumbled blue cheese, olive cheese bread and chocolate cherry pavlova for dessert.  YUM.  Everything turned out really well and even though I spent most of the afternoon cooking, it was NOT a chore.  Somehow the toil just added to the overall anticipation and enjoyment of the delightful meal.  The boys napped beautifully and I enlisted Chloe's help in the kitchen (she proudly pointed out to Matt that she was the one who scrubbed and pierced the potatoes). 

The crowning creation of my birthday dinner was by far the dessert -- the pavlova.  Pavlova is a traditional New Zealand dessert consisting of a meringue crust, whipped cream and fruit. Using Nigella Lawson's recipe for chocolate raspberry pavlova, I set out on my task to bake a memorable birthday dessert.  It was daunting. Especially so since I usually hold quite loosely to recipes and measurements.  But even I, novice baker that I am, know that you don't MESS with meringue. 

After reading the recipe reviews, I felt confident I could do this pavlova thing.  While it was a teensy bit more time-consuming than I hoped, the process itself was easy.  And the end product was DIVINE.  I never imagined a meringue could be chewy, rich and filling.  But this one sure was!  Topped with homemade whipped cream and chopped cherries, the pavlova was EXACTLY what I wanted in a birthday dessert.

My dear hubby surprised me with a lovely and unusual bouquet of flowers and I had a fun low-key day with the kids.  After dinner and putting the kids to bed, Matt and I watched a movie together.  All in all a superb birthday! 

How do you like to celebrate your birthday?

Trying to stick to a grocery budget

One of our goals this year is to trim our budget a bit in the food department.  I used to be a stickler on groceries and prided myself on our low weekly expenses.


All that has changed drastically in the past two years.





Here are the reasons I've been spending more on food:
1) We have more mouths to feed and those mouths are growing and eating more.
2)  I've been buying more fresh fruits and veggies which are more expensive than canned/frozen.
3)  I stock up on items with low unit prices which drives the monthly bill up.
4)  I don't always take the time to plan our weekly menu thoroughly which results in last-minute trips for missing ingredients.
5)  I used a debit card to pay for groceries and didn't really *feel* the expense.  I even stopped keeping track of our monthly food consumption all together!

SO, we're going to a cash-only system for our grocery buying.  Should be interesting.  The first week of January we stayed on track but this second week is definitely going to be higher than the allotted $75.  That's due to my birthday coming up and a special more-expensive-than-usual meal I'm planning to make.

I'm wondering if our $75 per week budget goal is too low.  What do y'all think?  Also, do you have any budget lowering tips/tricks to share?

Horn Homeschool: Week 16

Week 16 in our schooling was all about CHRISTMAS.  Surprise, surprise!

We did all the usual Christmas-y activities including cookie baking and frosting, decorating the house, trimming the tree, and making ornaments.

Another beneficial Christmas activity we partook of was caroling at a local nursing home.  I dressed up the kiddos in their Christmas best and we sang with a few other families from our homeschool group.  Then we gave out homemade ornaments to the residents.  Let me tell you, those old folks LOVE seeing little kiddos!  Their faces beamed with joy and their pains were momentarily relieved.  What a blessing to be able to spread some joy and remind them of the miraculous baby Savior born so long ago!

We hammer it into our kids that Christmas is the celebration of Jesus' birth.  Along that line, we did a countdown paper chain as well as a Jesse tree to further emphasize and anticipate Jesus' birthday celebration. 

Additionally, we read myriads of nativity centered books and watched portions of The Nativity Story.  We sang Christmas carols, made a timeline of history leading up to Jesus' birth and sang the song Matthew's Begats way too many times.  (Check out this fabulous Christmas album too by Andrew Peterson.  Along the same lines as the Jesse Tree, the songs travel throughout the Old Testament showing the foreshadowing and expectation of Jesus throughout history.  There's also a book that follows the song Matthew's Begats that is a fun and helpful visual aid.)

Lastly, we learned a readily applicable Bible verse for the Christmas season.  "It is more blessed to give than to receive."  Not sure that lesson sunk into their little brains yet.  But it is SO TRUE.  It truly is more fun to give than to get! 

Packer Fan-atics

We are a Green Bay Packer cheering family of fan-atics! 

I was born and raised in Wisconsin so the Packer passion courses naturally through my veins.  Though Matt is from Texas he has fully embraced the Packer fealty.  When my grandpa was still alive, he and Matt would closely watch the games together while gramma and I chatted away in the kitchen.  My grandpa would always clothe himself completely in Packer garb to watch a game.  When my granpda emerged from his room sporting his Packer pajama pants, suspenders, socks, shirt and hat we all knew it was game time. 

And we are carrying on my grandpa's fine tradition!  We all have Packer shirts and we proudly wear them whenever it's Packer game day.

This past Saturday we decorated the dining room with yellow streamers and balloons, made cheering signs, and got out the green-and-gold party food to watch the game.  The Packers narrowly defeated the Eagles to advance in the playoffs.  Whew!

And now I'm puzzling about our next Packer-themed meal.  I'm plum out of green-and-gold food ideas.  So far I'm planning to make a spinach cheese egg dish and cut up some kiwi fruits. Any other green and yellow culinary ideas for me?!

What team is your family fan-atic about?

My veggie pizza Green Bay Packer G. 

Chloe styling her Packer shirt and newly hot-glued yellow hair bow. (Not sure why her hand is raised with an imaginary glass?)

The green and gold feast.  Green jello with pineapple, cheddar cheese and spinach nachos, veggie pizza, lime and lemon wedges for our water and pizza rolls.  While not *technically* green or gold, I allowed the pizza rolls since Matt had been craving them.

Go Pack, Go!

Even Chloe's little stuffed elephant wanted to cheer!

This was our attempt at a self-taken photo. At the last minute Matt tried to smooch me.  Sneaky!  Solomon.is.violated.  And covered with yogurt.

Are you ready for some playoffs?

After last week's slim victory by the Packers over the Bears, the Horn household is PUMPED for playoff weekend!  It's always more fun to actually have your favorite team participate in the playoff games. 


Below I've pasted the playoff schedule.  Care to make any predictions with me? 

AFC
Sat., Jan. 08, 8:00 PM - New York Jets vs.Indianapolis

Sun., Jan. 09, 1:00 PM - Baltimore vs.Kansas City

NFC

Sat., Jan. 08, 4:30 PM - New Orleans vs. Seattle 

Sun., Jan. 09, 4:30 PM - Green Bay vs. Philadelphia 

 

My picks for winning the wild-card weekend games are Indianapolis, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Green Bay.  GO PACK!  I'm already getting nervous and ansy for their game on Sunday afternoon.  We'll all be donning our Packer gear, eating green-and-gold food and hoping for a victory!

Who are you rooting for this weekend? 

Resolving not to resolve

I'm not making any resolutions this year.  I know if I DO pen any resolutions, I'd just be setting myself up for certain failure. 

Also, since I'm a hugely approval-motivated person I need to tread with caution.  It would easy peasy for me to build up my ego if I actually achieve a resolution -- no matter how minor or major the accomplishment my pride does not need help in puffing itself up unduly. 

So instead I'm setting some overarching goals for 2011.  "Overarching goals" sound less intimidating than "resolutions", doesn't it?

In 2011 I'd like to:

* lose weight
* exercise more
* read my Bible consistently
* spend more time with my husband

How 'bout you?  Did you resolve or set any goals for the coming año?

Sleeping dilemma

Surprisingly, our current sleeping dilemma has nothing to do with the almost 9 month old baby in our family.  Nope, it's our rambunctious three year old that's causing the trouble.

Here's the scene.  Bedtime is announced, Matt proceeds to take Chloe and Clive upstairs.  Usual bedtime rituals ensue including an oftimes very long story-reading with Matt.  When it's lights out (usually 8 p.m.) Clive often stalls and gets out of bed multiple times receiving the necessary discipline for doing so. 

Sometimes the whole thing borders on ridiculous.  Tonight it was 9:30 before everything was finally quiet upstairs.  Nine-thirty!  That's WAY too late a bedtime for the under 5 set.

[I take that back. It's past 9:30 now and Clive is still crying and whining.  I went to get Matt involved so I can finish this blog post and get to sleep myself!]

Anyways, that's not even our worst problem with sleeping.  The worst problem is when Clive wakes up in the middle of the night from a *bad dream* -- a phrase he quickly picked up from his older sister.  We then either bring him into bed with us or I go down to sleep with Clive on the living room couch.

I know, I know both of those are very bad solutions.  But when it's 3 a.m. and I'm desperate for sleep and even more desperate to keep the sleeping baby asleep, I've made poor decisions. 

What should we do?  I suppose the best answer is to take a hard-line with Clive and just keep putting him back to bed when he wakes up.  Any suggestions for making this go smoothly and maximizing sleep for us all?

Back to life, back to blogging

Hello, again!

It was incredibly refreshing and expedient to step away from the computer for the last two weeks.  Ah.  The hiatus from blogging and active face-booking (is that even a word?) was lovely and needed so I could fully enjoy the family we had with us during the Christmas break.

We have had a glorious and overwhelmingly blessed Christmas season!  I'm sure I'll blog about the highlights soon but until then, it feels good to see the holiday hubbub fading away.  This week we'll be back to familiar routines and quiet boring days.

As quiet and boring as life with three small children can be that is.  :)

Horn Homeschool: Week 15

December began with a bang in Ohio.  We went from fall to winter in a single dramatic day!  With several snow storms dumping inches upon inches of snow in our yard I quickly switched up my week 15 game plan.  Instead of studying fairy tales as I originally planned, we launched into a week-long snow lesson!  

Each day we focused on a different aspect of snow.  Monday we talked about snowflakes and read several books explaining the science behind the formation of snow crystals.  We also read Snowflake Bentley, the true story of a farmer from the early 1900's who spent his entire life studying, photographing and learning about snowflakes.  Inspiring stuff!  We also made LOTS of paper snowflakes and played around with cyber snowflake creation using this addictingly fun site. 

Tuesday we did a snowman lesson and failed miserably at making our own real snowman.  The snow was just too dang fluffy and didn't cooperate.  Instead we constructed edible marshmallow snowmen.  Way better (and tastier) than the real thing!  We also made snowmen out of paper plates and decorated them with various shapes. 

Wednesday we read about fun activities to do in the snow including ice skating, sledding, hockey, and snowboarding.  And then I took Chloe out sledding!  It was an absolutely perfect day for it too.  Sunny and warm-ish and we had the hill entirely to ourselves since everyone was in school.

Thursday we learned about how animals handle the snow.  Also talked about animal tracks in the snow and how to identify them.  And Friday was a day for Clive -- snow plows!

Because the snow was so deep and fluffy all week the kids did MUCH playing in the snow followed by mugs of steaming hot cocoa. 
 

Chloe said she was examining snow flakes up close.

That's a snowflake shaped quesadilla in case you were wondering.

What snow lesson would be complete without eating snowball cookies?!?

Snow-mower!

Our family display of snowflakes.  Lovely!

Chloe venturing out to *study* snowflakes armed with her snowflake board and magnifying glass.

Our sweet marshmallow snow people.

Horn Homeschool: Week 14

Week 14 of homeschooling found us in Thanksgiving preparation mode.  In the midst of the preparations, we spent some time talking and reading about Thanksgiving.  I picked up this little book awhile ago (The First Thanksgiving) and it proved to be just right in its depth of explanation and length of pages. 

The main thrust of our lesson however was not so much about the history of Thanksgiving but about THANKFULNESS.  Thankfulness was plaguing my brain in November as I blogged in a daily countdown of thankfulness up until turkey day.  We talked MUCH about practicing thankfulness and memorized the following verse together as a family.

Be joyful always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. [1 Thessalonians 5:18]

I also took the kids to a nursing home with our homeschooling group to sing to the residents. I'm hoping to make these nursing home sing visits a semi-regular thing for me and the kids.  Not only does it give us a chance to spread some joy but it is a very visible lesson about meeting the needs of others instead of living selfishly.  And believe me, it's pretty natural for a kid to live selfishly.  Heck, it's really natural for me to live selfishly too.  I have a feeling thankfulness vs. selfishness is going to be a lesson we keep learning for years to come.

I also did about 1/4 of this hefty Thanksgiving study guide.  We talked about the food the pilgrims and indians ate, read some brief real stories of pilgrim children, and we made some corn pudding in the crockpot.  I will NOT be doing that again.  Ever.  The kids each had one bite and that was enough corn pudding for them!  I don't blame them either.  That stuff was mushy, gushy and tasteless.

And the best part of our Thanksgiving week was enjoying our family!  We traveled up to Michigan and got to spend the weekend with both of Matt's brothers' families.  

Horn Homeschool: Weeks 12-13

Solomon is intrigued by Chloe's pretend T-rex tongue.

After our week 11 break, we took two weeks to study dinosaurs.

My strategy in tackling a dinosaur unit study was to spend a few days defining dinosaurs and review the creation week.  Then we took one individual dinosaur a day and studied it more indepth.  We read several non-fiction and/or picture books about each dinosaur and then we did a correlating craft.

 Lastly, Chloe and I created a dinosaur comparison chart in which we graphed the heights of several dinosaurs.  This was a FANTASTIC activity!  I found some excellent resources here which gave me all the tools we needed.  The website linked above had a complete table listing dinosaur heights, weights, and lengths.  Using these simple tables, Chloe and I recorded various stats on a handful of dinosaurs.  There was SO much math involved here I was one happy math nerdette!  It was especially satisfying to see that Chloe was enjoying the math and not even recognizing it as such.  Sneaking math into fun activities is way more fulfilling to me than putting covert veggies into foods ala the Jessica Seinfeld method.

I knew close to nothing about dinosaurs at the beginning of our unit study.  Thank the Lord for helpful resources!  One such treasure trove came from our local library.  Our library has recently created some brand spanking new discovery backpacks. You guessed it, we snagged a brand new dino discovery pack!  It was incredible!  I won't even begin to tell you all the fun educational dino-themed gems included.  

Of course there are endless activities you can do when studying dinosaurs.  We did role-playing to cement the various behaviors of dinos, categorized dinos based on eating habits (herbivore, carnivore, omnivore),  did dino-computer games on the dinosaur train website, dug in the sand for dinosaur toys, and learned about fossil hunters/scientists. We should have visited the natural history museum to look at real dino bones but I was too tired to plan such a big field trip.

I learned a LOT about dinosaurs.  I hope the kids learned a few things too.

Clive REALLY loved playing and learning about T.Rex in particular.  Chloe enjoyed the study too but not nearly as much as her rough-and-tumble brother.  Near the end of our second dino-learning week Chloe sighed and asked, "Mommy, can we study something more nice next week like . . . princesses?"   

Chloe (in very tight pants) modeling her homemade Stegosaurus blades and T-rex mouth.

Putting the hard-boiled cracked eggs in to soak up some dye.  In a few days these babies become neat-looking dino eggs!

Clive creating a dino-stamping masterpiece.

Chloe stamps a dinosaur scene.

Cracking the hard-boiled eggs before soaking them in colored water.

A dinosaur egg!

Pretty realistic looking, don't you think?

Our dinosaur height chart.  Brontosaurus was the tallest by far!