Air Show at Naval Base

On Saturday, April 14th we went to an Air Show at a nearby Naval Base.  We nearly didn't make it after Thomas wasn't feeling so great and we almost got hit by a car on the way there.  I was worried that we weren't supposed to be there and was paranoid about a plane crashing the whole time we were there.  But we survived and so did the pilots, so it was a success!

This was some award-winning pilot who pretty much flipped his plane all over the sky.  It made me really, really nervous watching him.

Next came what we were all waiting for, the BLUE ANGELS!

Their tricks were also impressive and loud, but not quite as scary as the other guy.

Kids with Daddy in a helicopter

Getting autographs from one of the Blue Angel pilots!

Proud of their autographed pamphlets!

Monday Motivation

Monday Motivation Review

10 Goals for April 16-22

 Prayer and Community

1. Continue reading Hallie's Book about Catholic womanhood (bought for myself for Easter!)

2. Read the daily mass readings or the Divine Office 3x this week.

3. Pray with the children at bedtime 2x this week and pray a morning offering in the shower 3x this week.

(Try some smaller baby steps for these prayer goals)

 

Health 

4. Attend three Zumba classes. (Zumba studio closes in 2 weeks so I need to use up my punch card!)

5. In bed by midnight and up by 7 on weekdays

6. Plan weekly meals:

Mon-Calzone, Tues-Fettucine with chicken and broccoli (Pinterest), Weds-Crockpot roast, Thurs-White Chicken enchiladas, Fri-Baked potatoes/salad or leftovers, Sat-grill, Sun-pizza or something easy (Ellie's party) 

ended up with some fast food a few times this weekend, must avoid this!!!

Home Management and Homeschool

7.  Homework-budget worksheet for Financial Peace University on Weds

8.  Decide if ordering books from Adoremus...last day for 20% discount!

9.  Party prep for Ellie's Art Party (she turns 7 on Sunday)

10. Buy/plan some special activities to keep SJ busy during school time. 

Monday Motivation

10 Goals for April 23-29

 

 Prayer and Community

1. Continue reading Hallie's Book about Catholic womanhood (bought for myself for Easter!)

2. Pick a scripture for the week

3. Emails about some volunteer things at church (Marian fair, VBS)

 

Health 

4. Attend two Zumba classes, and start looking into a new exercise program (Zumba studio closes this week)

5. Sugar detox after birthday cake is gone!

6. Plan weekly meals:

Mon-Cream Cheese Crockpot chicken, Tues-Chicken enchiladas with leftovers?, Weds-Spaghetti, Thurs-Baked Chicken and rice, Fri-Pasta Bake, Sat-Grill, Sun-leftovers from grill

Home Management and Homeschool

7.  Read Chapters for FPU

8.  Work on school plan for Steven Joseph

9.  Kids laundry beginning of week, our laundry end of week

10. Schedule dental appts

Easter Week

a few lingering photos from the week after Easter...

I finally allowed the kids to dye eggs.

Mary Clare's Masterpiece

I love this shot of SJ's eggs and his blue hands!

And here are Ellie's eggs!

Happy Birthday, Elizabeth Ann Marie!

My sweet 7 year-old!  I can't believe how big you are.  You kept commenting how you didn't feel different being 7 and how surprising it was to change ages while you were asleep (you were born at 4am) and wake up a new age!  I was so proud watching you open cards from the little girls and how you were so sweet asking them all about the pictures they drew for you.  You wanted to sit with them to paint.  You have always had to be a bit more patient and flexible than the others, and this continued today as we had to move the party inside (angry bees), "go with the flow" with party activities, and you've had to be patient waiting for your present from us.  Thank you for always being such a joyful and content child, Ellie.  You balance out those of us who aren't as happy-go-lucky.  I've been so blessed to be your Mommy these 7 years and I hope to spend many more joyful years with you!  

(more photos from the party coming, after I get through some lingering Easter and airshow pictures!)

Instagram

Okay, well Jill (sorry, I'd link her blog but it's private) has been inspiring me to try some more artsy photos with my phone.  I'm still trying to decide what to do about my regular camera "crisis," but for now I'm going to work with Instagram so I can at least have some photos that make me smile!

Here's a question for Jill and any other photo-app users...How to you handle the time it takes to load the app and the photos?  Do you take them with the normal iPhone camera option, and then load them into Instagram and edit later?  Because while I'm choosing the effects, I'm missing more photo opportunities!

Here's our day a la Instagram!

Donuts made from refrigerated biscuit dough.  Somehow I let Steven Joseph convince me to make these this morning.  This kid knows how to work his mommy!  He still makes me melt.  I watched him sleep just now, my sweet boy.

Tommy happily eating a donut (interesting how spellcheck is okay with donuts but not donut, sorry I just can't do the doughnut spelling, doesn't look right to me!).  I love his little smirk!

I was having a long morning and went to nurse Tommy down for a nap.  Precious Ellie brought me this picture.  I'm the mama bird up in the tree with my 4 chicks, while Daddy is down at the right, off hunting for worms!  I love it!

These Calzones were on the menu for the week, but since we were going to be at church tonight, I decided to make them for lunch.  Somebody really enjoyed rolling out the dough!

I didn't cut the strips very well and the finished product didn't look like the picture, but the kids didn't mind!  Tasted pretty good!

 They sang Happy Birthday to Ellie and some of the other birthday kids after the 4-H meeting this afternoon!

Finally, here's Thomas with his favorite toys at the rummage sale.  

7 Quick Takes

~~1~~

Only here in C.C. will you be stopped next to nuns in habit at the stoplight!  Awesome!

~~2~~

I'm on a Catholic Classical Homeschooling email loop, and this week there have been about 50 emails on the loop relating to Grammar and Latin curricula for the 6th grade.  It's making my head spin.  I've had a hard enough time with teaching Phonics.  How am I ever going to teach a child to diagram a sentence?  I'll definitely be looking into the virtual classes that Mother of Divine Grace offers.  And I like Latin.  I'm happy with the Seton English program.  It'll be okay.  No need to hyperventilate yet; we're just finishing 3rd grade.  Breathe in, breathe out.

~~3~~

Speaking of hyperventilating, Steven turned on the TV show "24" last night on Netflix.  I like action/drama movies, but they're what...2 hours long?  This season is TWENTY FOUR hours long?  And there are 8 seasons?  How am I going to keep from having a heart attack?  But now we've watched two episodes and I want to see what happens!

~~4~~

Mary Clare, Extraordinaire

So my sweet daughter somehow convinced me to let her start a blog yesterday.  She's thrilled!  She'd love for anyone to visit and leave a comment.  If any of your kids have blogs, let us know!  I think it will be a good opportunity to work on her writing skills.  We're debating whether or not I should edit her posts; I'm thinking it will be fun to look back at the spelling and grammar mistakes one day!  Here's her blog: A Day in the Life of

~~5~~

And here is some more "work" done by my little lady, that I found on my iPhone:

First we have an idea for a birthday cake for Ellie, done on the cake-making app on my phone.

 Next is her new idea at making covers and bows for pencils.  I love the backdrop, too!

 And finally we have a photo shoot with her brother and her doll.  She had him wearing a neck tie with all sorts of pictures throughout the house, some of just him and some with the baby doll.  I can't believe she convinced him to dress up and do this.  I wonder if there was bribery involved?

~~6~~

Back to homeschooling talk.  I came up with an idea a few years ago but never went through with it.  I was thinking of making a Catholic homeschooling blog where moms (or dads) write in with little reviews of different books/curricula.  That way, say someone is considering using Saxon Grammar in the 6th grade, you could look it up on the blog and find various reviews for that program.  I know there are some general homeschooling ones, but I'd enjoy to see the reviews from Catholic homeschooling families.  Would anyone else be interested in this?

~~7~~

While the girls were doing Classical Conversations with our friends this morning, the boys were playing outside, and I brought out a few of the Montessori boxes.  I need to make it a point to schedule some activities like this for Steven Joseph each day.  I just bought him some of the Golden Step Ahead workbooks and some Do-A-Dot markers and a workbook for those.  Gotta keep these boys busy, especially as the hot Texas summer approaches!

~~~~

Thanks for visiting, and thanks for hosting, Jen!  Hope you all have a great weekend.  I'll be making my first foray into fondant on Ellie's birthday cake.  Wish me luck!

Mary Clare's Blog

Mary Clare started a blog yesterday and wants to share it with you all!
Here it is:
 http://adayinthelifeofmcb.blogspot.com/

Easter Thursday at the Beach

Some friends from back home were able to come and visit since the dad had a work trip here in town.  We had a fun time at the beach and almost all of us came home with sunburns!  The seaweed is pretty bad right now, but hopefully that will clear up soon.  Thanks for coming to see us, L family!  We enjoyed the beach and having you guys over for dinner.  We hope to have more visitors as summer approaches!

Making it Count Tuesday: 5 Recipes!

I'm so glad that Sarah and Pam are going to continue their Tuesday link-up to inspire us to use our Pinterest pins, or other links we've found online.

I've been using lots of recipes that I've pinned on Pinterest the past week, so I thought I'd just post them all here, so I can go back and find the links easily. 

Thanks for continuing the link-up,  Sarah and Pam! As usual, please excuse my iPhone photos.  Maybe one day I'll learn to use the camera phone a little better!

***

I'll start with the Easy Garlic Chicken.  I followed the recipe except adding diced onions after seeing that suggestion in the comments.  It's a great option for a quick baked chicken dinner with a sweet taste.

I also tried to make these Ultra-Crispy Roast Potatoes with it.  As Steven said, "we're fresh out of duck fat," so I used butter instead.  And we were rushing out for our Dave Ramsey class and didn't have enough time to let the potatoes get "ultra crispy."  But they were still good!

This is Cherry Berries on a Cloud.  And it's heavenly.  It was recommended by an online friend and I made it for our friends from Houston who came over for dinner last week (Steven grilled fajitas).  It takes a bit of prep making the meringue and such, and calls for an overnight or 12-hour stay in the oven after baking.  I made the meringue that morning and left it in the oven while we were at the beach all afternoon (maybe 8 hours?).  The cream cheese topping is also supposed to sit for 12 hours in the fridge after being spread on the meringue, but I didn't have time for that so I just put it in the freezer for about half an hour and then let it sit in the fridge during dinner.  It was very, very yummy.

This was my second try at this Man-Pleasing Chicken.  The first try ended up tasting really mustard-y, so this time I used a suggestion in the comment section to cut the amount of dijon mustard in half and add BBQ sauce for the other half.  I also used cut-up boneless chicken breasts instead of thighs, since they were cheaper.  And I added fresh rosemary from the garden.  It was much better this time! We ate it with leftover mashed potatoes and salad.  Don't forget to line your glass baking dishes with foil with these recipes at 450-500 degrees or they'll be really hard to clean up!  Ask me how I know.

Finally, tonight was the Skinny Chicken & Broccoli Alfredo.   It uses Greek yogurt, milk, and chicken broth to make a great white sauce.  I cooked the chicken in the iron skillet and roasted the broccoli in the oven with garlic and olive oil.

You can see that Mary Clare couldn't wait; she enjoyed this recipe a lot, as did Ellie!  If half the kids, and Daddy, like it then I'll probably make it again.

Lots of successful recipes we'll be adding to our rotation.  It's nice to find quick and easy dinner recipes with ingredients I'm likely to have on hand.  I'm loving having the boards on Pinterest as a go-to a few nights each week to find something new to feed my family!