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When I ordered our preschool character curriculum, on an impulse I threw in Marilyn Boyer’s cookbook of favorite family recipes. I figured that a mom of 14 would have a few kid-pleasing recipes up her sleeve!
I wasn’t disappointed. It’s filled with many twists on Mexican-flavored meals (which we love!). The meals are in standard 4-6 servings by can easily be doubled or tripled.
Best of all (in my book) these are easy meals that won’t bust the budget. No steak recipes here! Just quick meals that have already been drawing rave reviews from my crew.
To keep the little ones occupied while I’m working with some of the older students, the older children take turns being “Buddy School” teacher. For more on Buddy School Table Time, click on the Our Day tab above.
I start with a schedule (shocker!). Each child has a set day of the week that they are in charge for 30 minutes. I plan 15-20 activities. On the pantry door is a chart where each activity is assigned a number that corresponds to the day of the month. That way, the activities aren’t repeated more than twice a month and the teachers only repeat activities a couple times a year.
Some of the new ideas for this year are:
Jumbo Stamps 
– The love the animal stampers and the jumbo pads are a breeze to work with.
Geo-boards – The boys pounded nails into squares of wood in the shape of circles, squares and stars. With a 40¢ bag of rubber bands from Walmart, the little ones string the bands over the nails.
Do-A-Dot 
– These are like BINGO markers but washable! Some of the children finished their schoolwork early so they could play with these!
Dry Erase Boards – We bought a multi-pack of dry-erase markers at Walmart. I didn’t want to spend $5 each for the boards, so Bryan took a larger one we already had and cut it into fourths.
As with Room Time, part of the magic is keeping the activities whisked away when it’s not Buddy School.
Tonight my dearest love turned, well... Let's just say he had a milestone birthday. He chose to celebrate this big day with a dinner at, where else? The local Chinese Buffet! We've got some fancy tastes in these parts!
The children have been excited and talking about it for DAYS! The oldest boys held back at lunch in preparation for the feast. All I can say is I'm glad I didn't have to wash all those dishes!
I think all that food might have gone to our heads?!
It doesn't seem possible that we're seeing so many signs of fall around! I just got back from the fabric store, and there were aisle after aisle of autumn decorations. I'm just not ready to go there yet! (True Confessions Time: I just took a little bunny decoration off my front door that I bought right after Easter.)
We'll celebrate Bryan's birthday this week. It'll be a fairly low-key event since we'll be celebrating big at the end of September. We met the summer before Bryan & I turned 20. And now we'll be both be turning another big number ending in "0!"
Check out the Turkey Ranch Wrap recipe. It's one of our favorites!! This week we will be enjoying:
Monday - Little Cheddar Meatloves, Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli
Tuesday (Bryan's Birthday!!) - Out to dinner
Wednesday (AWANA)- Easy Chicken Casserole
Thursday - Tacos
Friday - Creamed Hamburger on Toast
Saturday - Turkey Ranch Wraps, Potato Wedges
Our menus for last year can be found at our website. Breakfast menu is here; lunch menu is here.
Find more menus at:
If you garden in Indiana, you have an abundance of zucchini. If you don't garden (that would be me!), people bless you with their abundance of zucchini.
While most of my children will eat zucchini bread, few will touch it (willingly) raw or cooked. I made this recipe and then held my breath. It was a huge hit! Only Emelie knew it was zucchini - everyone else thought it was made from apples! Awesome!
Zucchini Crisp
8 cups cubed peeled zucchini
3/4 cup lemon juice
1/2 to 3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
TOPPING:
1-1/3 cups packed brown sugar
1 cup old-fashioned oats
1 cup all-purpose flour
2/3 cup cold butter, cubed
In a bowl, combine the zucchini, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg; mix well. Pour into a greased 13-in. x 9-in. baking dish.
For topping, combine brown sugar, oats and flour in a bowl; cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over the zucchini mixture. Bake at 375° for 45-50 minutes or until bubbly and the zucchini is tender. Yield: 12-15 servings.
During the 30 minutes each morning that I read to the school-age children, the younger ones are in "Room Time." For more on Room Time, see the Our Day page above.
We use Room Time year-round since we use that time to fold laundry while listening to history or a good story. I try to sprice things up in the fall by rotating toys that have been in hiding in the basement for several months as well as adding one or two new ones.
The big hit of the year are the Teddy Mix & Match cards
. It basically and adorable set of "Memory" cards so I'm shocked how often the older children ask for turns with these. The children have given all the bears funny nicknames, and Hunter often is caught walking around with the green gummy-bear pair.
The first night out of the box, Meg (10) challenged Ted (13) to a match. Emelie and I nearly fell off our seats laughing as Ted couldn't make a pair to save his life. Since the game is rated 2.5-5 years old, we just kindly reassured him (with tears of laughter rolling down our cheeks) that it was because he's further from the 5-year age recommendation.
Ted's since done better, but Meg's still the champ. I told Ted I'd get Heidi (3) to tutor him.
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