A Day at the State Fair

Yesterday we met up with our homeschool group at the State Fair for a few hours. It was a perfect early Fall day for going and we had a great time! The kiddos really enjoyed the petting zoo area~the animals were really fun! Then we checked out the prized-winning exhibits and animals. I have to say looking at all of the farm animal entries is probably my favorite part. Then we had rode a few rides and had a little *fair food* before going.

Here are some of my favorite shots of the day:

I love this time of year, don't you?!

Eggs in Bologna Cups...Otherwise Known as Poor Man's Shirred Eggs

Yesterday morning I made something that I haven't made since I was a kid. I was reminded of this recipe last week when looking through one of my childhood cookbooks with The Princess: Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys & Girls. I've had it since 3rd grade~one look at the cover and you know immediately which decade I was born in.

It has some pretty cute recipes in it. I can only remember making a few of them. One of those was Eggs in Bologna Cups. As I recalled, it was pretty yummy. So we thought we'd try it again. I never, never buy bologna, but this week I made a special purchase (all-beef!) just for this recipe:) And they turned out great~a big hit with everyone! I told Vince they made me think of Shirred Eggs, just a *poor man's* version..heehee

Eggs in Bologna Cups

(Betty Crocker's Cookbook for Boys & Girls)

1. Preheat oven to 375F
2. Take as many pieces of bologna as cups you
are making. Fry them in a skillet on both sides
just until the edges brown and they puff up.
3. Place them fried bologna into greased muffin tins,
pressing the bottoms down to make a cup.
4. Crack one whole egg (yolk unbroken) into
each bologna cup.
5. Drizzle about 1 teaspoon of milk over each egg.
6. Sprinkle salt, pepper and paprika on the top
each egg.
7. Bake for 15-20 minutes @ 375F or until the
egg is set.
8. Remove the bologna cups by loosening them
with a knife and lifting them with a spoon.

One Thousand Gifts: Life

0301. the beauty of God's creation

0302. the joy of exploring creation with my kiddos

0303. the gift of another year


0304. the sweetness of my kiddos' love of giving


0305. handmade love notes from my children

0306. the first big hug from my hubby when he gets home from a trip

0307. listening to my son read for the first time from his reader


0308. watching my daughter overcome her fears


0309. the lovely cool breezes that Autumn brings

0310. enjoying warm cider on those cool Autumn nights

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1.03.01

Menu Plan Monday: Sept 27th

Since I pretty much took the week off from cooking last week, I guess I'd better be on top of things this week! What can I say though: my family spoiled me for my birthday (and I loved every minute of it:)!

My hubby and kiddos took me to PF Chang's on my birthday (I have got to learn how to make those lettuce wraps!! Has anyone tried it?). Then my parents and sister took me to my fave local Italian place a couple of nights later~so yummy and fun (I think we got pretty loud laughing at Mr. B's new *funny faces*)! If you count all the leftovers we brought home, that was a couple more meals! And let's just not mention all the meals that I just ate those birthday cupcakes and the cake my parents got me. I definitely must start working out again!!

This week I'm making a few new-ish things. I'm just ready for something different, especially now that the weather is cooling off. I'm trying out my homemade pesto with grilled salmon this week for a change. I'm looking for different ways to use all this pesto other than just with pasta. If you have a favorite way to use it, I'd love to hear about it!

Monday: Red Hot Chili with Buttermilk Cornbread
Tuesday: {moms nite out} Loaded Chili Dogs
Wednesday: Ranch Mac & Cheese with Veggies
Thursday: Grilled Salmon with Pesto, Baked Potatoes and a veggie
Friday: {small group} not sure yet...the menu has yet to be announced
Saturday: Slow Cooker 20-Garlic Chicken with Garlic Mashed Potatoes & Peas

This post is linked to Menu Plan Monday at I'm an Organizing Junkie.

Week 3: the Nile River, the Sun & the Autumnal Equinox

This has been a fun and full week! I love the weeks when we really have some great memorable moments and don't just *get through* our work~and this has been a memory-making week!

We are doing well staying on schedule with our subjects. In fact, Mr. B is a little ahead in at least one of his subjects and I'm thrilled with that. The Princess is right on track, too! Of course, this is only week 3~I get that~but still it feels good to be tracking well.

Our Bible lessons have been going very well. We are studying a character trait each month and this month's trait is loyalty. I am pleased with how much the kiddos are retaining~they seem to enjoy the lessons a lot.

In history we have been learning about the early inhabitants of the Nile River Delta and have just started talking about Egypt. We made White Crown King crowns to wear (this is a fun quick project using wax paper, just don't expect these to stand the test of time...haha).


We also created our own model of the Nile River. We *flooded* it and will continue to do that weekly until our *crops* start growing. I love these kinds of projects, I'm glad my kiddos do, too!

(our *ingredients*)

(potting soil for our *crops)

(creating our riverbed and lining it with pebbles)

(planting our grass seed)

(our *flooded* Nile River)

Our Language Arts are going well. The Princess does well with her Grammar studies and loves that we are reading through Robinson Crusoe (I'm enjoying it, too!). She doing very well with Spelling (A Reason for Spelling) as well, but I am wondering if that is a necessary subject for her. It seems redundant to me and while she's liking the workbook just fine, I don't know that it's a good use of her time. It just seems like extra busy work. I'd love to hear your thoughts on Spelling.

Mr. B is doing great with handwriting and also with his phonics lessons. We have just finished working through our short vowels and have just started our long vowels. Yesterday I decided it was time to start with his first reader (which was one of my own first grade readers). He did awesome!! He read the first 3 *stories*!! I am one proud mama:)

In science we have been learning all about the sun. We are all loving our astronomy study!! Each kiddo is also notebooking through this study. Mr. B is doing age-appropriate work and I am collecting it all in a notebook to make a lapbook at the end of the study. The Princess is using the Apologia corresponding notebook.

We did the whole burn-a-hole-in-a-leaf-with-a-magnifying-glass experiment this week:) I had never actually tried that and it was exciting to watch the leaf begin to smoke and then flame.

The most fun thing about science this week though was the rise of the Harvest Moon. You can read more about our backyard astronomy here. And I will leave you with a fun little video that my hubby made with footage from the autumnal equinox (I hope you like 80's music..heehee).

Super Harvest Moon from Vince Farrell on Vimeo.

Have a great weekend!!

This post is linked to the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

A Little Backyard Astronomy

I don't know if you've noticed, but the past couple of nights there have been amazing views of the moon. Really beautiful!

Two nights ago we got out our little amateur telescope~that we think is just too much fun!~ and took in the sight with the kiddos.

It's always so cool to see the moon up closer and SO big! The kids love to check it out.

Then just last night I read about something very cool. It was the first time in almost 20 years (since 1991) that the full moon~the Harvest Moon~rose at 100% illumination directly on the Autumnal Equinox. It won't happen again until 2029.

So we hurried and gathered our cameras and headed out to watch the sun set and the moon rise!

The sunset was really colorful and gorgeous, in the West.

It always amazes me how quickly it sinks!

At the same time, the full Harvest Moon was rising in the East.

Look at that surface! It's so clear!

Later on after the kiddos were tucked in and sound asleep, Vince and I went back outside in the backyard to gaze at the moon some more.

We took the telescope and found Jupiter (that little dot below the moon that looks like a star). That was so amazing to look at, even through a low-powered scope.

This was all even more interesting to us since we are in the middle of our astronomy study for our homeschool science.

What a wonderful world we are blessed to live in!

The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
Psalm 19:1

This post is linked to The Homeschool Village.

In Which I Ramble On and On

Yesterday was such a great day with my family! I was definitely a spoiled birthday girl: special breakfast, great gifts, cupcakes, messages from friends and cards in the mail, dinner at PF Chang's and lots of birthday loving from my kiddos! I am one blessed wife and mama!

Of course we also had a full day of school and I was pretty tired (the birthday girl got to bed too late, as usual). But I did get a short nap in, too. Yes, I played the "it's my birthday" card:)

Since school has started I have been making a huge (for me) effort to get up very early (6 am). Now, I am very much a night owl by nature and wake up naturally around 8 am. So yes, this has been killing me. It's not so much that I don't want to get up. I actually like being up for an hour or so (usually) before even my early-bird son. This gives me time to have my first cup of coffee, read my Bible and have a little computer time while the whole house is quiet and still. I even enjoy seeing the sunrise! Then I get the kiddos up (well, The Princess because Mr. B is already up by now) and feed them breakfast between 7:30 and 8:15 or so. Then we get started on schoolwork by around 8:30. I like getting started around this time because it gives us plenty of time to get our work finished by around 2 pm or so (including a couple of breaks and lunch).

The only problem is that by 10 am I am already needing a nap. And I know the answer: go to bed earlier. A big problem for me. It's easier to get up early than it is to go to bed earlier. Why do I have such a hard time with that? Then as soon as school is finished, it's time to hit my zone for the day~thus eliminating any time for a much-needed nap. It's a vicious cycle.

And speaking of my cleaning zones...let's talk about how that's going. Last week (the first week I tried it) it went very well. Not perfectly, but very well. I really got down and dirty with things, sort of Fall cleaning. I know I won't be doing all of that every week, so last week was a bit of extra work. I ended the week feeling really good about the house.

This week? Not so much. It's now Wednesday and I haven't even done the zones for Monday and Tuesday. Yeah. I've got a lot to do today, huh? In a perfect world dust would not exist!

So there you have my ramblings for the day. Feel free to toss me your suggestions for how to have more hours in my day to sleep~or how to need less of it!:)

Let the Celebration Begin!

Y'all know I like to party for at least a week or so for my birthday, right? I mean, what's the fun in getting older if you don't take the opportunity to really celebrate?!


This year is no exception. I've already gotten a couple of awesome packages in the mail (yea!) and my hubby and kiddos have made me...(wait for it)....CUPCAKES!!! From the Hello, Cupcake! book, of course!


They are SO yummy! He made them chocolate with a sweet surprise tucked inside: mini 3Musketeer bars~one of my faves! After baking in, they made the insides all gooey and delicious! Mmmm....


He was a little frustrated with the butterfly wing technique and had some problems which is why more of them aren't decorated with wings. I told him I didn't know of another husband anywhere that would go to all of this trouble to make his wife cake for her birthday and I think they're all awesome!! And he's awesome!!


So as you can see, my birthday is off to a wonderful and yummy start:) And I hear that I need to be ready for dinner tonight as Vince and the kiddos have yet another surprise for me. Can you tell they spoil me a little?

I like to be spoiled:)