Aa is for Apple

I am pretty behind on my blogging and keep being tempted to quit, but i really want to blog each unit for my own sake to keep record of what we did. So... here it goes :o)

Our apple unit was delicious! I really wanted to go apple picking, but because of a freeze in April there were no local apples. Sad stuff! We still did a lot of fun activities outside of our regular school stuffs.

We went to the grocery store and lij helped me pick out a few different kinds of apples. We used these to make apple graphs,  

discussed and organized by largest/smallest, first/last,

read books about apples and practiced apple stacking, 

Explored the 5 senses with apples,

we had a taste test to compare and contrast the textures and flavors,

and made fun apple snacks including apple crisp (not pictured), apple sandwiches, apple muffins, apple sauce, and apple sugar cookies.

I filled a bag with different fruits and had lij feel around without looking to guess what he felt and to compare/contrast the items without looking.

 

We also made apples to hang on our tree and he made an apple tree by tracing his hand.

We also learned about Johnny Appleseed, the Fruits of the Spirit, and all about tally marks for counting.

In the middle of the unit, we got to have our awesome nephew come stay with us for a few days. I decided to pause the apple unit and do a few random things instead. We learned about Daniel and the Lion's Den and all about lions and we also learned all about fire (and a little bit of gun) safety and worked on patterns.

 

I LOVE all the Clifford and Let's Find Out papers I have from my mom. I finally got them organized and as soon as I decide on a subject I want to teach about, i pull out a few of these and I have a lesson ready. I highly recommend looking into getting them if you are homeschooling and can do it.

The boys and I went on a walk and I found this leaf that looked like fire.

The boys spent a lot of time playing in the yard and eating outside. I LOVE seeing my kids enjoying nature. So wonderful. I also love when they make silly faces...

I was super proud of my son for saving up his money to buy Legos, his current obsession! He was so proud of himself, which made me even more proud. :o)

Hansi was proud, too.

All 5 kids together in Nashville :o)

My sister and I threw a personal shower for a friend and it was BEAUTIFUL. We did it outside on her deck in the evening and it was too dark to get good pictures, but this gives an idea of how lovely it was. 

We had wine, warm cider, chocolates, cheeses,  and other lovely foods.

                                      
                                      
                                                             Mmmmmmmm, cheese!
                                      

My Husband's Birthday

First off I have to say that I have the most wonderful husband. Ever. He is smart (working on his MS in hydrogeology), funny (no specific examples, but he really is), friendly (everyone loves him. if you don't, something is wrong), creative (he does awesome paintings that people pay actual money for), manly (he goes caving and takes out the trash without being asked), he is kind and compassionate (again no specifics, but its true), and is an amazing father to our son. And today is his birthday. I am so thankful to my in-laws for making and raising such a handsome and intelligent man.

He is in grad school and spent the day working on his thesis and teaching undergrads environmental geology things. He was coming home too late and tired for us to really go do anything today in honor of his birthday and he is never too big into having a party for his day, so instead, I fed him good food. And I have to say, it was seriously good. Plus, every single bit of it was from scratch. The beans were dried and the cake batter was *not* from a box, so it was a real labor of love in my 8.5 months pregnant mind.

Elijah helped quite a bit (it really is all relative I suppose, haha) and insisted on giving Mike his gifts first.

Then we moved on to dinner.

Besides the cucumber slices in vinegar with dill they were all new recipes for me and they will all be repeated. The spicy beans were per his request and definitely lived up to being called "spicy". For some reason I was under the impression that the mashed cauliflower would feel like mashed potatoes. They didn't. But it is still something I will make again, especially since our son ate a bunch of it. I also did a baked fried chicken that was REALLY good.

Then we moved on to dessert.

The chocolate raspberry ganache double layer cake was everything it should be. And the peach cobbler was... a good peach cobbler. It has never been my favorite, but I do like it. Elijah helped me pick out and make both desserts. Having the rich chocolate cake and the warm fruity dessert was kind of like the best of both worlds. It definitely satisfied my sugary cravings.

Tomorrow we have a couple of friends coming over to watch our son so we can go out on our own (hoorah!) and they will hopefully help us finish these sweets off so I don't make this baby any more giant than he already feels!

Also, sorry about all the random "frames" around the pictures. It is really starting to bug my OCD-ness and I am not sure how I didn't realize how much they dont match each other...

Happy Birthday Mike, I love, love, love you!

In the beginning...

I have been planning on starting a blog for the past... year? More for my own benefit than anything else. I like to keep track of things I do for "school time", which is my version of barely structured pre school for my 4 year old son, as well as food I make and things that inspire me. I had planned on starting it with my last birthday, hence the name, so I opened the blog and then never posted. Then I thought I would start when we moved to a new town. Nothing. Maybe we should announce our second pregnancy on here? Nah. So, here I am closer to age 27 than to age 26, 7 months pregnant, and starting with a post about food!

I have been all about using our Thanksgiving leftovers more creatively this year and of all the lunches and dinners we have gotten out of them (we had a lot since we had two Thanksgiving dinners with LOTS of leftovers) my very favorite is what I made for dinner tonight.

Lentil Shepherd's Pie. Honestly, I generally prefer it to have ground beef, but I have been wanting to attempt to recreate the vegetarian pie at The Family Wash in East Nashville. If you live in the area and haven't been there, you should! It is charming and quirky and I have never been disappointed in what I ordered. Even Gwyneth Paltrow mentioned this local treasure and their vegetarian shepherds pie in her blog.

I didn't see any recipes that looked appealing/called for my random leftover ingredients so I took ideas from different recipes and this is what I got... Enjoy!

Lentil Shepherd's Pie

Ingredients I used:

1.5 cups chicken broth (could easily use water or vegetable broth to make it safe for vegetarians)

about 1 cup dried lentils, rinsed and sorted

1 carrot, chopped

1/2 white onion, chopped

1/4 green bell pepper, chopped

about a teaspoon of minced garlic

butter or oil or more broth for the veggies

3 or 4 cups leftover mashed potatoes

about 4 or 5 ounces cheddar cheese, shredded

salt and pepper to taste

Do it:

preheat oven to 350degrees

Simmer broth and lentils in sauce pan for about 25 or 30 minutes or until nearly tender

while lentils are simmering, gently cook the chopped vegetables and garlic over medium heat. I used a little butter then added about 1/4 cup broth into the mix after a few minutes just because i had enough left over. When the colors are still bright and they are not too soft, remove from heat and add salt and pepper if you like. mix lentils and veggie blend together and put them in the bottom of a baking dish ( I used a 2qt dish I think). Cover the mix with mashed potatoes and top with shredded cheese.

Bake covered for 20 minutes then uncover and broil for 10 minutes. Voila!

It wasn't exactly like the version at The Family Wash, but it was really satisfying and used up random ingredients i had hanging out in my fridge and pantry. And for the best part? My recently picky 4 year old ate it all! His only complaint was that the "crust" gave him "spice" in his mouth... whatever that means. I am no photographer, but am posting these more to give you an idea of what it looks like. Also because I never even read a recipe if I don't get to see a picture of the finished product.

If any one has ideas or suggestions for variations of shepherd's pie, either vegetarian or not, I would love to see them!