Cranberry Mustard Salad Dressing

In an attempt to eat less processed foods and use up some odd mustard I have created the following. It is delicious over a green salad. I even added a little to what I loosely call guacamole (avacado, lemon juice, salsa all mashed together)it gave it a great flavor.

Cranberry Mustard Salad Dressing

1/4 cup Cranberry Honey Mustard
1/8 cup honey (I just used a big squirt)
1 tsp Celtic Sea Salt
1/4 cup lemon or lime juice
tsp of organic dulse granules - optional, I just add this to almost everything to get the nutrients from this sea veggie.
1/3 cup water

Blend in the blender, can store in frig for up to 2 weeks.

(this can also be made with regular Dijon just use 1/4 cup of honey and add about a tsp of poppyseeds)

I just made a fantastic salad with sliced strawberries and toasted walnuts with this as the dressing - yum!! If you like feta cheese I bet that would be delish also.

I think I will serve this with a salad when we row Cranberry Thanksgiving!


God Bless,
Christy

Cranberry Thanksgiving

Today at the St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store I found Cranberry Thanksgiving and I paid ..........$5.00 for 5o books and this was included! So very cool. Cannot wait to use it next year for FIAR.

God Bless,
Christy

Katy and the Big Snow

DD#4 and I are excited to get back into the FIAR swing of things. We will be doing Katy and the Big Snow. We read it tonight while we were waiting for dinner to be done cooking and we loved the book. I don't have any big plans but am certainly hoping for a snowstorm this week so she can go plow some snow with her dad or stinky oldest brother! Will keep you updated on the fun.

We have really enjoyed the FIAR method of learning. DD4 struggles to read and this is a nice way to still read picture books but not seem too babyish for a "3rd grader". Reading the book every day seems to really help her learn.

How to bake an Apple Pie and See the World

We are rowing How to bake an Apple Pie and see the World this week. We began today with map work, learning where the different countries are. We also went over some vocabulary words. DD4 dictated a recipe for apple pie, we will do another one at the end and see how different the two will be. We will be doing the following in the next week or so:

Graphing our favorite apples, after taste testing them.
Each of us will get a different apple to describe using as many adjectives as possible after learning about our apple with our 5 senses.
Play a game with pictures of the different ingredients - matching them to their country.
We MIGHT put eggs in a baggie and see how long they last - still deciding that one.
We will be reading about Johnny Appleseed and hopefully visiting his tomb at Johnny Appleseed Park in Fort Wayne, IN. (update - we looked and looked and couldn't find the tomb )
We will also go apple picking at an orchard down the road.
We will be doing an experiment about salt water.

Madeline

We did the cutest thing today. We made a Madeline out of a TP tube. Then we pasted a drawing of her insides to it which we got from EnchantedLearning.com . We all thought it was sufficiently gross!

6 weeks into school

Well, the best laid plans of mice and men get me in trouble every time. We are moving ahead slowly but surely but not according to plan. Sigh. I don't think I have ever followed a plan. I either have toooooo much planned or not nearly enough.

We just began Latina Christiana last week and the son of a friend is joining us. It is rather fun, I get to teach for real, something my kids think is funny but something I have been training for since I was 7 and played with my sisters in the basement. I took 4 years of Latin in high school but don't remember much. That is my only real credentials. We will see if we get past : amo, amas, amat, amamus, amatis, amant.

I have been using FIAR for my dd4 and we have really enjoyed it. First we "rowed" Ping. A wonderful living book about a duck that lives on the Yangste River in China. We learned about China, went to the zoo and learned about ducks and geese and what makes them different. We also learned that ducks don't get wet. It was great fun.

This past week we rowed Madeline and have had great fun with this book also. We learned about France and the Eiffel Tower, appendixes and other gross innards. We learned about things that are asymmetrical and symmetrical. We counted to 48 by groups of 6 little girls in 2 straight lines. We multiplied up to 6x6 with these little girls. We even learned the following fractions: 1/2, 1/6, 1/12, 3/4, 2/3 to name a few. We will end the week on Monday by watching a movie about families in France.

DD3 is smarter than a whip and is doing most of her work on her own. She does resist reading real, wholesome, living books -- she discovered teen books this summer and now rarely "wastes her reading time" with the good stuff. At least that is my opinion.

DS2 Is learning about the solar system, partly motivated by his desire to build a rocketship and go into outer space when he is older. A time machine is also on his list of things to do. He is reading American History about different Indians. He has asked some very serious questions about how the white man treated the Indians. Questions I am not sure I answered well.

DS3 Is also learning about the Indians and also wonders about how they were treated. He is learning about ants in science and we just got our ant farm in the mail. We have to send away for the critters. I wonder how they come??

DD5 is only 29 months old but she is also learning many things. She can tell all her colors - who taught her I am unsure. She "reads" Brown Bear Brown Bear What do you See?. She even has her puzzles she works.

All in all it has been a good 6 weeks. Maths we are behind but that is it.

God Bless to all who may read this.