Enjoying the Weather

One of my last post was about Joanna's bike ride, well I wanted to share with you some other happenings while we were outside. Isaac was shooting basketball and I wanted to include some pictures of my slam dunker! He got some basketball cards a few months ago and one of the cards was Michael Jordon. He was going through the cards and reading the players names, when he got to Michael Jordon he read it like "Some guy named Michael Jordon" and then moved to the next card. Of coarse Bryan and I were "Michael Jordon! We know who that is", ok so that shows that we are getting OLD! I found a book at the goodwill of a biography of Michael Jordon and got it for Isaac. He has loved reading it and every day he comes to us and tells something new he has learned about him. This is Isaac's "Michael Jordon" picture! HA! :)Sarah loves riding her bike or scooter. She just wants to be outside playing!This little man is a fast one! He has really took off with riding his bike. Timothy loves riding his bike!!And then it is that time again.....grass cutting! Thought I would get a picture of all the kids on the lawn mower! They all love to ride the "tractor". I love the look of a freshly cut lawn!!

Make up for Read Day

Last year when we celebrated Read Across America Day our neighbor, Mrs. Sarah, came over and read to the kids (I blogged about that), so this year I wanted her to come one day last week and read. Since we had been sick and I didn't know if our sickness was over I asked her if we could reschedule. We decided to have her come yesterday and she did. Mrs. Sarah brought two books that she had and it was great. She brought The Giving Tree (which we have only read once) and she brought The Lorax (which we have never read) and then my kids pulled out a few of our books for her to read. Mrs. Sarah and her hubby are expecting their first child and we are so tickled! Can't wait to see that little blessing! So thankful that she got to come and read to the kids, they loved it!!

Joanna's bike ride!

The weather was very pretty this past weekend and so we got out the bikes and took a ride. This was Joanna's first bike ride with Daddy. All the kids have had their turns in the seat and now Joanna is enjoying it. She loved it and had so much fun riding with the other kids. I have blogged about Timothy's first bike ride and included pictures of the other kids on their first ride (you can take a look at that post under Timothy, wished I knew how to inset a link here for you but I don't :( The date on that post is February 1, 2011). It is sweet to see them all on their bike ride together, Isaac was playing basketball so he was not in the group picture.

Blueberry Cinnamon Muffins

Wanted to share another recipe that we have made. It comes from the cookbook that was given to Sarah by Mr. Jim and Mrs. Pat. The same cookbook that the Bacon and Egg cups (see post under recipes) came from.

These are sooo delicious! Just posting about them makes me want one right now! :) The recipe calls for Cream of Wheat and I have never used that before so I was a little worried, but all turned out really good!

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup Cream Of Wheat cinnamon Swirl Instant Hot Cereal

1/2 cup sugar, divided

1 TBSP baking powder

2 tsp ground cinnamon

12 tsp salt

1 cup of milk

1 egg

2 TBSP oil

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

2 TBSP apple juice

Preheat oven to 400. Grease 12 muffin cups. Mix flour, Cream Of Wheat, 1/4 cup sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt in bowl; set aside. Beat egg, oil, milk and vanilla with wire whisk in seperate bowl until well blended. Add to dry ingredients; stir just until moistened. Gently stir in blueberries. spoon evenly into prepared muffin cups, filling each cup two-thirds full. Bake 18-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted into centers comes out clean. Remove muffins from pan. Brush tops of warm muffins with aple juice; roll in remaining 1/4 cup sugar. Serve Warm.

Read Week (Day 5)

The theme for Day 5 was "Dr. Seuss Day" since it was his birthday. The kids and I read 6 Dr. Seuss books which included: The Foot Book, Green Eggs and Ham, In a People House, Inside Outside Upside Down, Horton Hatches an Egg, and Hop on Pop. They watched two Dr. Seuss beginner book videos that read books to them: Cat in the Hat, Are You My Mother?, Go, Dog, Go, and The Best Nest. Then to top off our "Dr. Seuss" day we had green eggs and ham (a.k.a balogna) with green biscuits for supper. It was too funny to see Elijah's face when I announced that we were having green eggs and ham for supper. He quickly let me know that I didn't know how to make that, boy was he surprised when he came to the table for supper.
Here is a picture of our supper. What a FUN week! Next week we will start an Easter Unit Study that will last for 4 weeks. I am super excited about this and look forward to the kids and I learning about and celebrating Easter! I will try and blog at the end of each week what we have learned and studied that week. So hard to believe that Easter is right around the corner! This year Timothy's birthday falls on Easter!! Fun, Fun and more Fun!!

Read Week (Day 4)

I had planned this Read Across America Week a few months back and had really intended to have someone come and read to the children each day and enjoy lunch with us. But because the kids had been sick that didn't happen. :( By Thursday we had been fever free for over 24 hours so the lady that I had asked to come and read on Thursday was able to still come! We were so happy to have Mrs. Jenny come and read to the kids and eat lunch with us! Mrs. Jenny is a lady that we go to church with, she fills in for the office secretaries when they are out and she is Isaac and Sarah's piano teacher. We have just fallen in love with Mrs. Jenny. She is a very special lady and so dear to us! We had chosen for her to read The Little Red Hen, Berenstains' A book and Dr. Seuss's ABC. The theme for Day #4 was ABC's and 123's. We also read Thomas's ABC book, The Berenstain Bears No Girls Allowed, Amelia Bedelia, No Matter What, and Baby's First Book.

We plan on getting the other's that we asked to come and read to come another time. Last year our neighbor came and read, our plans are for her to come next week and read to the kids and have lunch with us. I think it is good for my children to have others to read to them and for my kids to be around other adults.

Read Week (Day 3)

Sorry for the delay! Things get pretty busy around here and with the beautiful weather I just haven't had time to post day 3.

Day 3 of our Read Across America Week theme was "Christian". Most of the books we read (not all) were about Jesus, God or Christian. I chose this theme on Wednesday because it is our mid-week service at church. There are a few small books of the Bible that I felt the bigger kids could read during the day and then 2 of them we read together. Those included Jude, 2 John, Obadiah, and Haggai. Something I discovered as I read Haggai is that sometimes we worry so much about things of this world and we neglect our relationship with the Lord. Such a good "little" book, I encourage you to read it. We also read Ruth: Woman of Courage, My Bible Colors, Poky Little Puppy and The Fire Cat. We have had such a great time with our reading together.

Looking forward to sharing with you guys about our last two days of Read Week!!