Milo's Cowboy Themed 1st Birthday

Remember when I started this blog and I was going to post multiple times a week??? Yeah, me either. HAH. Real life happened and I decided blogging would have to be something to do in my "spare time". As a homeschooling mom of 4 (the baby was the one who threw me for a loop!) the spare time I have is very limited...so I guess I'll just be blogging when I get the chance. I wanted to share Milo's birthday party pictures though and a few from his actual birthday I took of him and his cousin Paige though, because both were such wonderful days!

I bought everything for the party from either Hobby Lobby or off of Amazon and made the backdrop by sewing cardstock together. His party was on a Saturday and I decided on Wednesday that it would be cowboy themed, haha!

Our Week in Photos

We've had a weird week. My middle girls came down with some kind of cold/sore throat/cough virus, the baby was just getting over a cold which now seems to be coming back (the snots flowing) and now my oldest has a sore throat and stuffy nose too. No one's been sleeping well this week and I'm feeling it. All that plus the freezing cold weather and lack of sunshine...well I've been a little grumpy and feeling blue. We're studying Philippians in our weekly bible study at church and I feel so convicted that Paul was content in any circumstance and I can't even be content at my (very) good circumstances. All it takes is reading Gods word to feel the weight of it and how much more of it I need in my life daily. So here's the verse I'm going to be meditating on and praying that I will think about these things! "Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me- practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you." Philippians 4:8-9
Here are some random photos from our week... My oldest took a few while I was reading to them, so you can see how I handle homeschooling with an active baby (haha!).

Learning Shakespeare

We use Ambleside Online as a guide for our curriculum. If you're a homeschooler who likes Charlotte Mason then you have probably heard of it. We started halfway through first grade and now we're halfway through third grade and I love it. It's a great fit for our family. If you don't know who Charlotte Mason is, do yourself a favor and google her. She had some radical ideas of how children should be taught and how they learn. One of the main points of her teaching is that children should learn from living books. "Living books" are books that make the subject "come alive".
One of the books on our list for the past few years is called, "Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children" (Edited by E. Nesbitt). I found it on Amazon for under $10. It has twenty adaptations from Shakespeare's plays.
My mom recently bought us another collection of condensed plays that are written specifically for children. They have a few direct quotes but it's written so that children can read them for themselves and really grasp what's going on.

Last week we decided to read about Hamlet. We first read the version from "Shakespeare Children's Story". It was about 60 pages and took about 20 minutes for me to read to them. They are short pages with black and white illustrations. After we read that one we read the version from "Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children" and while I read it the kids acted it out. They LOVED acting it out. They even went upstairs and dressed up for their parts and found props.

Later that afternoon, we found Denmark on the map (the oldest two are currently memorizing the European countries) and we copied a quote from Hamlet for some handwriting practice. 

I let the Kindergartner trace over my handwriting....and apparently she thought his name was "Hamtet". Haha. I love when our school days flow like this and the learning seems easy! 

Weekly Bread/Week 2: Basil Pesto Bread

I know I just blogged my first week of bread a few days ago, but we're in the third week of January and I actually have made 4 different types, so I'm going to go ahead and get caught up :) This bread is sooo good and it's pretty fancy looking too. Tastes great/looks great. Win/win.
This bread reminds me of a pizza that I used to get when we went to Atlanta Bread Company, back in the good ol' days when we still had one in the area! I ate that pizza on my first date with my husband, so the taste is a little nostalgic to me...and that's my reasoning for making it four times in the past 2 weeks. Hah.
Ingredients:

160 ml warm whole milk
7g yeast
1/2 tsp. sugar
300g flour
30ml oil (I've used canola and olive oil, the olive oil made it slightly more dense)
1 tsp. salt

filling: About 5 tbsp. of basil pesto
optional: mozzarella (I didn't use it this time but I have other times and I like it better with the cheese-of course)

Step 1: Measure your ingredients and mix the milk, yeast and sugar in a bowl and let the yeast bloom aka get fluffy and bubbly. (As you can see I went a little over on the flour and it was ok)

Step 2: add the rest of the ingredients, turn it into a dough and knead it for a few minutes either by hand or in your stand mixer with dough attachment.

(It may look like I kneaded it by hand...I didn't. Kitchen-Aid for the win!)
Step 3: Let is rise til it's doubled in size, about an hour or two.
Step 4: Roll out the dough into two long rectangles approx. 16x8 inches.

Step 5: Add the basil pesto being careful not to get too close to the edges. Not like I did, or else it will bust out...like mine did. It still turned out ok. I am no perfectionist.

Step 6: Roll up the dough! Then braid it and brush it with olive oil (I forgot to brush it with olive oil...I wasn't kidding when I said I'm no perfectionist!) Then cut some slits in the top so that the basil pesto can seep out and look beautiful.

 Step 7: Bake in a preheated oven at 360* for about 30 minutes. Wait at least 15 minutes to slice into it and enjoyyyy. And use mozzarella! You won't regret it.