Still hanging on...

We still have little things (illness things) hanging on to a few of the kids. Mostly we have the whole sickness beat and on the mend. We had our first real meal together last night since the illness started when we were eating in shifts it seemed, everyone eating something different. We had shepherd's pie. Mm mm. Everyone raved about it again. Kevin was especially pleased! Poor guy hasn't had a decent meal in a few days because of the chaos of sickness here. He likes to eat whether he is sick or not. Good news for us is that I have one kid that finished their math for the year!!!! Lots of jumping up and down here. I have 3 more kids that are a few days from reaching that goal. Getting math over with this soon will really free us up to do some other things. We started school early in August and haven't missed too many days. Even the day one of the kids was throwing up they still managed to do their school. That person said they have a goal date to finish and want to keep on top of it! :) More stamina than I'd have had when I was in school. Although I have to say I don't often get sick and that was true back in high school especially. I rarely missed. Have a good day!

Another sickness...

We don't seem to get sick much this year but here we are again with a virus. For a couple people in our house it has lasted nearly a week. Thursday night 2 kids came up the stairs and had to throw up and didn't make it to the bathroom. Gideon got sick later that day and did make the pail and then last night Bekah was sleeping on the couch because her stomach hurt and she threw up nice and neat on the blanket in front of her. While I went to get a rag to wash her hand off she laid back down and threw up all over her hair, the pillow, the sheet and the couch!!! Yuck! Kevin got up and cleaned all that while I helped her take a shower. She had thrown up down the inside of her shirt! Double, triple, yuck, yuck, yuck. Everyone feels pretty good right now. Movies, video games and books on tape are our fare for these last two days. I haven't had much for meal prep. Lena's had a fever though through it all and did throw up once yesterday. She wakes up several times in the night for a drink and for us to sleep next to her. We have not gotten much sleep. Looking forward to well children and a good night's sleep. If I had some blackberry brandy I would be taking some tonight.

More coupon goodies...

In the last week and a half I've saved over $80 using coupons! All useful things and I didn't pay out much to get that much savings. One Target receipt says $23 with a savings of $31! Last night I spent a little and saved $10 again at Target. It was so fun! Last night I got two fingernail clippers for free because if you go to http://www.target.com/ and scroll down to find the words get coupons and click on them you can find $2 off a Revlon beauty item. It is not a Target coupon as sometimes on Target when you print it will come up a manufacturer's coupon as it does this time so you can use it anywhere. You can go back and print another one. It always lets you print 2 per printer. Well, I bought a clipper at $1.59 and a clipper for $2.24 and used 2 coupons that said $2 off each. At Target, they will apply the extra savings to the rest of your cart if you are buying something else otherwise if I bought only the clippers I would not have gotten money back. Wal-mart and other stores usually adjust the coupons down to reflect what you actually spent on it. Then when you get your receipt at Target the machine will spit out other coupons to give you sometimes related to your purchase and it gave me a $5 off the purchase of two Revlon beauty products. Whoo Hoo! I can go get more clippers or a tweezers this time. Clippers disappear around here :( so I may seem a little too excited about a clipper but I'm most excited because they were FREE!

Also any Seventh Generation product users go here and find 4 coupons on those products. If you are a Target shopper they frequently have Target coupons for these and you can use two of them to get $2 off something! I often get the dish soap and spend only $0.69 for a full-size bottle, my other favorite is the toilet bowl cleaner. They are the two most inexpensive items.

We have been busy with a lot of things this week! Em and I cleaned once this week and then AWANA, Jordan taught lessons, babysat for friends, we went to town for errands and then Public Speaking Night for the kids last night. Today, I have kids with colds and headaches. It seems a viral thing because I've got 2 kids that have been on the couch all day! We'll see how it plays out. Kevin didn't feel good last night with similar symptoms. We were LAZY today, no chores just dishes and laundry and reading our history book. We are about to have movie night and eat a supper of baked potatoes, meatballs, Acorn squash (from our garden) and green beans (also from our garden). Have a blessed Sunday!

Lunch...

OK, so this doesn't look spectacular and isn't anything to rave about but today I made tuna hot dish with spinach linguine noodles, tuna in olive oil (we like the Starkist Selects in olive oil, they don't cost much more per can and they don't have broth in it like other tuna does, and broth can contain MSG and other things they don't have to label if they use the word broth) and it's made of a new cream of mushroom soup. Click on link if you're interested in checking out the ingredient list. If you usually use Campbell's you can get a can out and compare the ingredients. We love cream of mushroom soup in a lot of things. Over the last couple years, especially when Isaac got sick and was on special diets we avoided our usual recipes that called for it because those dishes were ones Isaac particularly liked and he couldn't have. Now, we think it gives some of us a headache because of the MSG in it and other things. Today, we tried Amy's brand. We have a Pacific foods in the pantry to try another time. The box is so small though I'm not sure what I'll make with it.

Tuna hot dish with carrot sticks.

The kids did like it and ate their whole helping gone! So, it will work as a substitute.

PS. We are tuna eaters. Since it is Lenten season my coupon inserts had $1.50 off if you buy 3 of the selects (the very ones we use) and it comes to more than 1 can free. Yesterday, I stocked up on 15 cans! I ordered 20 more coupons from ebay yesterday and will stock up on 60 cans of tuna if the stores have that many of the olive oil cans. I often buy 10 at a time and take all they have so we'll see what I find. The coupons cost less than $4 to buy and will save me $30 if I get to use them all! We don't eat tuna in a lot of things but like tuna sandwiches and tuna hotdish. I can't think of anything else we eat it with. Occasionally we eat it on top of a salad.

Breakfast...

No matter what I do it downloads this picture sideways. This is our ideal breakfast (from a few days ago); home made goat's milk yogurt topped with local honey and home made granola with orange slices and a glass of fresh juiced apple, carrot and beet juice. It is so nutritious. This is a rare breakfast for everyone to have. I used over 2 quarts of yogurt for everyone to have a bowl and we haven't had much milk to make yogurt with. Our goats are actually finished milking now until after they have their babies :) It is a nice break for the girls. They didn't get a complete break because they still go out every morning to give them their grain and mineral.

We have been juicing every morning now for this week and adding beets to help cleanse the liver! Rebekah is the only one who doesn't care for beets in it. This morning I kept it just carrot and apple.

Prayer Request...

Please pray for my friend "T". She was 19 weeks along and the ultrasound showed the baby wasn't alive last week and on Wednesday they induced her and on Thursday she had a baby girl who wasn't living. The whole ordeal has been difficult for her besides which this is her 3rd miscarriage in a row. She is questioning why and having a difficult time understanding God's purpose in this. Having been there three times myself but not quite so far along I know some of the things she is thinking. You start to question whether you are a good mom or not because God must not think you are since he won't let you keep any of these children. They don't sound like sane comments to you and me but it's what is going through so many women's minds at the time. Your body is changing so drastically with the hormone drop that you don't think clearly and then you tend to make up your own thoughts. It is important to keep trusting God is there and understands your pain but sometimes that is hard to feel.

Home school convention...

Thursday: Left at 6:30 a.m. to go to home school convention. Em and Bekah were enrolled in a writing workshop with Andrew Pudewa. He is an excellent writing teacher. Rebekah took me to his booth at the convention and picked up the book on writing style and said you need to buy this for me. It had 500 alternative ways to write said (declared, insisted, rebuked, sighed, etc.) Mr. Pudewa recommended it and she has been busy writing stories ever since we got home. Later that night we went to the civic center for the used book sale. I found a few items I needed. One was a math book I bought for $1. Yeah! Both boys are in the same book so every year I need to buy another since I already have one of all books up until 12th grade. They cost over $50 brand new so $1 was a great deal!
Friday: We were up early to get to the convention center by 8:30 a.m. We enjoyed the day visiting with friends, checking out books and listening to various workshops. We ended the day with a big potluck meal with a group of friends. The kids got to swim and enjoy fellowship with kids they see at these kind of events. We then went over for share night; you could share a song, testimony, skit, whatever for about 5 min. It was about 1 1/2 hours long and so entertaining. Afterwards we stayed and a bunch of kids got out their instruments and sang hymns together. Jordan got to borrow a violin and play a little with them and sing. We had a late night but it was fun.
Saturday: Again, up early to be at the convention by 8:30 a.m. There was a home school choir this year and we wanted to make sure we saw it. A full day again keeping track of kids (I brought the 5 girls with me), looking at vendor's wares, making final purchases, listening to workshop speakers. Mr. Pudewa is one of the best speakers at a home school convention yet. He had an excellent session about How to teach boys when they'd rather be out building forts. He really said a lot of things I knew about boys but many more things that explained a bit about how they are wired differently than girls and how to teach them. It was so excellent. I meant to buy that session on CD but forgot. We ended up doing the potluck by the pool with another large group of people and left for home about 10 p.m. getting us there about midnight! We had to stay up and share with Kevin and the boys all we had experienced so it was 2 a.m. before we were in bed! What a night! The Convention is one of my favorite things to do during the year!

Random happenings....

Here is Caleb doing handbook time in AWANA with his wonderful leader, Mrs. Scott.
Here is Moriah holding the AWANA flag during flag ceremonies one Wednesday night.
Gideon is off to the left in a red vest.

Here is Lena being the "cook" with Moriah's birthday present. Don't the cookies look good?

Here are my three ball goers after we got home. I had forgotten my camera at home that night. At the ball, they danced the night away doing the Scottish Reel, Patty-Cake Polka and other fun, lively dances.

Here is Gideon doing a nearly perfect cartwheel. He cartwheels everywhere he goes! See my double sink vanity in the background. Someday! Someday! Kev has more mudding to do in the downstairs bathroom and then it's ready to paint and then we can get the toilet and sink in :) Someday!