Comics in School!

We just finished up week 5 in Tapestry of Grace year 1 which included studying the Tower of Bable. Sarah created this cartoon as a picture narration of the Biblical account. It is the first time she ever created a cartoon. She truly enjoyed the assignment and showed her understanding of the event. The cartoon blocks are from a template I downloaded from http://www.donnayoung.org/art/comics.htm
If you are not familiar with Donna Young you will want to take some time to peruse her site. She has tons of wonderful forms to download for FREE!

Water Play!

This is Rebekah's new favorite pastime. She can spend hours pouring water from one cup to another. She does a good job keeping the water in the cups, too. It is still easier to put a towel down just in case. Makes clean up a breeze.

Oh, and she has to have ice too! I think she likes the way you can get it out of the fridge door.

Look at that face. She is concentrating so hard. I love to sit back and watch her explore. She is growing and learning so much.

Homemade Oatmeal Wheat Bread

Today was bread baking day. It has been a little while since I baked homemade bread. Quite a few of my routines were disrupted this summer. Boy did I forget how good the house smells when bread is in the over.

Here is our family's favorite recipe. It is a personal adaptation of Crystal Miller's and Catherine Statt's recipes.

Oatmeal Wheat Bread

• 2 cups warm water
• 1 T yeast
• Pinch raw sugar
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1/3 cup olive oil
• 3 T gluten
• 3 T wheat germ
• 2 t sea salt
• 1 cup oatmeal (whirl this in the blender or food processor)
• 3 cup wheat flour
• 3 cups bread flour

In my stand mixer, combine the water, yeast and raw sugar. Let proof for about five minutes until it is bubbly. Add the honey, oil, gluten, wheat germ, salt, and oatmeal. Mix on low until combined. Add three cups of the flour alternating between wheat and bread. I allow the mixer to knead the dough adding more flour a 1/4 cup at a time until the dough does not stick to the side of the bowl and does not feel sticky to the touch. Knead in the mixer or by hand for another 7-9 minutes.

When you have finished kneading the dough, place in a greased bowl and place in a warm place until it doubles in size. Punch the dough down. Divide into two pieces and shape into loaves and put into bread pans that have been greased (I like to use "pan-ease"). Let the loaves rise until they are about 1 inch above the side of the pan.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for about 30-35 minutes or until golden brown.

This freezes well, but it is so good that two loaves wont last you long.

Look What $10.00 Can Buy!

Hannah, Rebekah and I made a dash to the store on Saturday to snatch up a few bargains. This is what we refer to as a triple play. Every item was on sale. I had a coupon for every item. And on top of that I could use two store flyer coupons worth $5.00 each. So all and all, all these groceries only came to $9.16. Not bad for 27 items. That's about $.33 each. Now I know I can't feed my family on what I bought, but with the rising cost of everything, especially groceries, every little bit helps. I love shopping trips like these.

Getting caught up!

As a result of requests from my darling husband a wonderful friends I am going to give this blogging thing another try. It's not that I didn't enjoy or want to keep up with the family blog, it was truly a matter of time or lack there of. As most of you know our youngest is not the best sleeper. Her night owl tendencies have drastically cut into my time for planning, computer, reading, scrapbooking, orgainizing and all the other things crazy women like myslef enjoy doing when most are asleep. We are trying to but the little one on a better scedule and keep her in her own crib. Hopefully this will go smoothly and I will be back on track soon. Anyway, I am going to try and post highlights from the last year as there were some big ones. So you will have to look closely to know when things actually happened.

Blessings,
Elizabeth

Making Papyrus

Sarah received this kit as a gift a while back. It was perfect for your Tapestry of Grace year 1 studies about Egypt. We had hoped to have this made by our Egyptian Feast, however, it takes a lot longer to make than we anticipated. Above the reeds are soaking, this step lasted over a week and we had to change the water frequently.
After the reeds finished soaking, the girls laid them in sheets, overlapping the edges slightly. The reeds were quite waterlogged and fragile.
Next, we rolled the reeds between two pieces of cloth. The amount of water that gushed out of them was amazing. We placed the reed mat between layers of newspaper and piled a bunch of books on top. It sat this way for a couple of days, moved only to change the newspaper when it was too wet.
Here is what the mat looked like after drying for about a day. Unfortunately, mom moved the mat into the living room by the wood stove to speed up the process and all the reeds shrunk. Needless to say that was the end of the nice mat that the girls were going to decorate with hieroglyphics. We did get a pretty good idea of the texture the "paper" would have been as we did have a small section of reeds that had adhered. All in all it was a great project for the girls. The effort and time it took to make sure left an impression on them. Hopefully, they will think twice before emptying mom's printer tray for their daily sketch session.

Horses for Hannah

Hannah just finished up a two week unit on horses. In order to end things on a high note we went to visit friends of our who have a horse and a pony as well as a few new boarders. Their teenage daughter gave us a tour of the barn, indoor riding ring, and took us to see the horses out in the pasture.
The highlight of the visit was grooming their pony. Hannah was an old pro after her weeks at camp these last two years. What surprised everyone was how comfortable Rebekah was around the horses and pony. She was not going to be out done by her big sister. Just look at her groom that pony!
Watch out Mr. D! We could be in for TWO horses in the near future!