It’s the Little Things Friday 9/30/11

 

Good Morning friends! Today I’m linking up again with Lindsey from the Aisle to Aloha blog.

Here are my ‘little things’ that I’m SO grateful for this week:

Apple picking with my two sweet girlies.

The colors of fall … I LOVE the bright richness of orange pumpkins!

This view of the lake from last weekends Women’s retreat … every time I would look out the window I would marvel again over the beauty of God’s creation.

Flowers in my garden that are still blooming, these flowers were given to me by a wonderful friend WAY back in May and have just blossomed like crazy this year. I think of my dear friend Julie every time I see them!

This song was new to me when I heard it at the women’s retreat but I just can’t get it out of my head now! Listen and enjoy friends!

“My God will come through always, always!!”

 

 

Have a great weekend!!

Sugar Free Raspberry Green Tea

Lately I've been trying to drink a lot more Green Tea ... it has many health benefits and since I've always liked Iced Tea it was an easy switch for me to make from regular tea.

That being said, I also like my tea sweet, or even flavored. One of my fave iced teas is the Iced Green Tea from Panera ... it's just sweet enough but also very light and refreshing. It has a bit of a fruity flavor that makes it SO delicious!

At home these are the only 2 things needed to make your own yummy tea. I buy the decaf tea bags so that I can drink it all day and afternoon without worrying about staying up all night. And I get the flavored sugar free syrup by Torani. The flavors in my local stores are pretty minimal, but I figured Raspberry would taste good in iced tea and I was right.

First heat up a pot full of water until boiling - I do a 2 quart pot so that it will fill my 2 quart pitcher. Then I put in 8 tea bags and let it steep for a few minutes.

Pour the tea into a pitcher and add as much or as little Raspberry syrup as you like. I would start with less and then add more if it's not sweet enough for you.

I put the pitcher in the fridge to cool and later bring it out and enjoy over a glass full of ice!




"More than a decade's worth of research about green tea's health benefits -- particularly its potential to fight cancer and heart disease -- has been more than intriguing, as have limited studies about green tea's role in lowering cholesterol, burning fat, preventing diabetes and stroke, and staving off dementia."

If you're still not a believer in Green Tea google it and you'll find lots of great articles on all the health benefits of it.

A girly Weekend

Last weekend was my chance to get away ... this weekend is my hubby's ... and so my girls and I have many fun things on the agenda in order to enjoy a girls only weekend to the fullest!

First, we have many baking/cooking projects planned. I LOVE a good Home Ec lesson! We are planning to make:

* Banana Bread {with all my old, brown bananas in the freezer}
* Pumpkin Bread {because it's FALL after all!}
* Pumpkin/Caramel Butter
* Homemade applesauce with apples we just picked today
*A new soup recipe - done in the crockpot all day {and maybe a loaf of homemade bread to go with it!}

We also plan to ...

Have a spa night at home, watch movies, sleep in Mommy's room, go to Hope's soccer game, go to church, go to our Bible study group, and if I still have time I might try to work on my current organization project which is my basement/craft area.

I have a feeling we'll have just as much fun at home as he does while he's away!

PS. It's my 3rd day of NO Facebook and the longer I go without it, the less I miss it! This has been a wonderful change for me!

September ~ What we’ve been up to!

WOW, what a busy month we’ve had so far! Please excuse my long absence from blogging … it’s honestly so hard just to keep up with the day to day stuff let alone try to work blogging in too!

I thought I’d give a quick glimpse at what we’ve been up to over the past month. I can hardly believe that October is only a couple days away!

Most days are filled with school work during the day and some type of activity in the evening. The girls LOVE doing their spelling lists on the white board.

 

I got my hair chopped off! I am loving my shorter style!

In History this year we’re studying the Early Explorers … the girls made timelines for all the Explorers we’re studying.

 

We often do snack and reading time together. We’re reading about all kinds of influential people this year like Jackie Robinson. We discovered these Nutella to go and all LOVED having it for a snack one day. Beside that is my Sugar-free Raspberry Iced Green Tea which I drink gallons of while we do school work! It’s so yummy but also good for you.

Soccer season is here again! We have practices 2 evenings a week plus a game on Saturday – I’m glad she loves it so much cause it’s a big time commitment! She has already scored a goal in each of her first two games – woohoo! Our younger daughter is doing swimming lessons this year – so far she’s doing great too {no pics yet, I’ll try to take some soon.}

Our oldest daughter turned TEN! Whoa, where did the time go?? She chose 3 close friends to come sleep over and they made lava lamps, ice cream, pizzas and watched a couple movies, it was a FUN night!

Turning 10 is kind of a big deal to me so we took her to get her hair cut, then to a local shopping village to take a bunch of fun pictures of her … she really enjoyed her personal photo shoot and was a great subject!

We went to the HUGE New England fair last week – it’s enormous and it represents all of New England. You can find the CRAZIEST foods there!

 

I LOVE walking through the state buildings where they represent things that are unique to each of the New England states … this was the display outside the NH building and it was gorgeous … it really got me in the mood for FALL!

Here are the girls and I … even though I live in {and LOVE} New England now … I’m still a Canadian girl at heart!

We are LOVING Total Language Plus and Teaching Textbooks – I am SO, super happy that we made the choice to switch our curriculum this year! The girls are doing so well with both Language Arts and Math and school is just so much more enjoyable this year!

Just a typical day … getting stuff ready for snack time – cucumbers and applesauce!

One morning for our snack we made Hardtack – which is the kind of thing the sailors on Columbus’ ship would have eaten … it was pretty bland and tasteless, so we jazzed it up a little with butter and jam. I LOVE living history lessons!

A typical day with the girls working on their Geography.

This past weekend I had the extreme pleasure of getting away for the Women’s retreat at a Christian camp in NH. I went with 5 other wonderful ladies and we had SO.MUCH.FUN! Right outside the cabin/unit we stayed in was this GORGEOUS view of the lake!

A couple of my fun, silly girlfriends! {Bethany & Joann}

{Heather and myself – no, we didn’t plan our outfits to match!}

We have also still been enjoying the beach from time to time. The weather has still been quite warm here. We DID close our pool though, the water just got too cold and it was pretty green after the hurricane and just never really got clear again so the girls weren’t using it anymore so we closed it. The other day as we sat on the beach {which was mostly empty now that everyone else is back in school} I just drank in the warmth and the feeling of sand between my toes … knowing full well that in January I will be LONGING for beach days again!

 

We are FINALLY almost done with our science books from last year. We are on the final chapter in our Astronomy studies, then next month we will begin a whole new study.

Sorry these pics are in kinda random order – with our new Language Arts program the girls are supposed to write their spelling words on flash cards every week … I wondered what I would do with all those flashcards or how I’d keep them in order, until I came up with THIS!

I hole punch them and put them all on a big ring – and I add a tag that says what week it is. That way if we need to reference any words we can easily flip back to them.

I’ve been trying to make some of my own salad dressings lately … this one I tried the other day was definitely a winner – it’s a poppy seed dressing and tasted great on my salad! Also pictured is the 12 grain bread that we have all been loving lately … but I’d love to make my own so if anyone has a great recipe please share!

And I’ll leave you with one final photo … I’m proud of this little pup … about a month ago we had to give her crate away {long story} so we decided that maybe she was old enough to go without one. So for the past month whenever we go somewhere and leave her home, or at night when we’re sleeping – we put her in the kitchen with her doggy bed and a baby gate closes the kitchen off from the rest of the house. And she’s been doing SO well! She’s only peed in the kitchen TWICE in that whole time and she does so well at night. She sleeps on her bed and doesn’t whine and even stays on her bed until I get up in the morning. She’s still a feisty, crazy puppy at times … but I’m so happy to see that she’s doing well even without her crate.

If you’re still reading at this point all I can say is thank you! I know this was very long winded and I hope that my updates will be more frequent now. I’ve decided to give up facebook for a few days and it’s amazing how much more I’m accomplishing around here! I don’t know how long I’ll give it up for … or what rules I’ll set in place when I’m done fasting from it … but I know that it feels so good to finally be gaining control over this addiction. I honestly don’t even like all the new changes they’ve made on there, so giving it up was easier than I thought. I just don’t want to get rid of it for good because it’s the only way I stay in touch with a lot of people that live far away from me. Anyway, I really should wrap this up … bye for now!

MYO Ice Cream

 

In our science book the other day we saw a recipe for making your own ice cream … now I don’t know about you but that is MY KIND OF SCHOOL WORK!!

Here is what you’ll need:

Powdered sugar

Sea salt

Ice

Half and Half or Heavy Cream

Vanilla

Large and Small ziploc bags, one of each for each person making ice cream

First take the small ziploc bag and pour into it 1/4 tsp vanilla, 2 TBSPs powdered sugar and 1/2 cup half n half.

Next, take the large ziploc bag and fill it about half way with ice, then add 6 TBSPs rock salt/sea salt to the ice.

Seal the smaller bag {filled with liquids}, then place the smaller bag into the middle of the ice in the big bag, then seal the big bag too.

Now comes the fun part … a great way to get the kiddos to shake their sillies out … they need to shake and shake and shake the bag vigorously for about 6-8 minutes! We found that our hands were FREEZING, so we wrapped a light kitchen towel around the bag while we shook. {And yes my kids are in PJ’s in these pics, it was shortly before bedtime!} 

In about 6 minutes you’ll know it’s done because all that cream mixture will have turned into ICE CREAM!

Take the smaller bag out of the ice bag, rinse it quickly to get any salt off the bag, then open it up and pour your ice cream into a bowl.

We ALL loved it, it was VERY yummy, creamy and delicious! We threw some chocolate chips over it to add a little flavor but even plain it was very good. I told the girls, I may never buy store bought ice cream again!

 

My daughter is having her birthday party this weekend and this is another thing we are planning to make with the girls. I’ll have some fun toppings for them to add {as well as brownies!} and it will make for a fun, memorable party dessert {just something different instead of the traditional cake and ice cream}.

Here is another variation of the MYO Ice Cream that we are hoping to try in the near future.

Have you ever made your own ice cream? What method do you use?

MYO Lava Lamps

We are in a MAKE YOUR OWN mood around here lately! The other day we made some Lava Lamps and it was super fun! Take a look around your house, you may even have all the items to make these! If not, they could easily be found at Walmart.

This is the link to the site where we found this idea in case you want to look it up. I think it takes a little trial and error because ours ended up a little cloudy and the ones in the tutorial look really cool and clear!

Anyway, here we go … you will need:

* One water bottle per child – I found these at the grocery store and loved the cool, curvy design of them. Either drink the water in them or pour it out into a pitcher to use later.

* Oil – just buy the cheapest kind you can

* Liquid food coloring

* Alka seltzer tablets

Fill your bottles about 2/3 of the way with oil.

Fill the rest of the way with water, notice that the water sinks!

 

Drop about 10 drops of food coloring into the bottle.

 

Then break the alka seltzer tabs into fourths and one at a time drop them into the bottle. Each time they go in they will make colorful bubbles fizzle up!

Notes: It does NOT bubble on it’s own, or continue to bubble after the alka seltzer is done. Also too much alka seltzer will make it cloudy {which was probably where we went wrong!}. However, even after it’s done bubbling you can turn it upside down over and over again for a cool lava lamp type look. Because the oil and water don’t mix it still looks pretty neat!

We are planning to make these {with smaller bottles} for Hope’s birthday party this weekend, each girl will get to make one and take it home as a favor.

If you make some, be sure to let us know so we can see how they turned out!