Today I noticed a concrete mixer pull up across the street from us. When I got to the window, I noticed that there were three city trucks out there as well. Last week the city had done some work under the street and hadn't repaired the hole in the concrete yet, so it didn't suprise me. I told the kids that we were taking a break from school and we all threw shoes on and stood on our front walk to watch the concrete work. The whole thing took about eight minutes, 7 city workers, three city trucks, one concrete mixer truck, two concrete rakes, four 'hand held smoother things', some white liquid in a sprayer, and a piece of heavy white plastic. All to fill a piece of street about 4'x6'. My tax dollars at work! :)

The kids thought it was pretty neat. (even though I should have grabbed jackets on our way out the door, so we were all a little chilly.)  :)  And as the whole caravan drove off, the last truck (the one with the only lady worker in it) honked and the people inside waved to the kids. It was a nice little distraction and a learning opportunity besides.

Hope you all had a productive school day as well! :)

Jack has been playing in our playpen for awhile now, but just recently started having a fit if no one was close by. I had asked one of the kids, a few times, to go and talk to him, or to go and sit by him while they did ________. I caught Noah playing by the playpen completely on his own the other day. It was sooo cute! Jack was having a blast watching what he was doing and Noah would look up and comment to Jack every so often. I just had to get it on film and share it with you all! :) 

This is another recipe I made up. I love barley, so that had to be included. This recipe also has a "secret ingredient." It's not really so secret since I'm going to tell you, but the ingredient that I think sets this hearty soup apart from all the rest is cinnamon! :) 

All this talk is making me hungry for it, so I've gotta go get my stew meat out of the freezer! :)

Hearty Beef Barley Vegetable Soup

1 ¼ lbs beef stew meat  - ground beef can also be substituted (90% lean would be best)

1 sm – med onion

16 c. water

1 (generous) c. pearl barley

12 bullion cubes

3 tsp. dried parsley flakes

3 tsp. thyme

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. garlic powder

1 can diced tomatoes with the juice

1 can whole kernel corn – drained

10 oz. frozen green beans

Lightly brown stew meat (or fully cook ground beef). Fry onions at the same time in same pan – ‘till translucent(I add a little olive oil to the pan).  Combine water, barley, bullion, and spices in 8qt. pan add meat and onion with juices, when ready.  Cook for about 1 hr. Add vegetables and cook only until beans are tender crisp.

Enjoy! :)

Last night as I was getting the kids ready to pray, before bed, my oldest asked me when he could do some "first grade stuff."  This was a bit confusing to me, because he already reads the science book to the two younger ones and has started reading a children's history book (no pictures) about 5-7 pages a day. And he may do the same math as his sister, but it is technically the first grade level. We don't want to make a big issue out of grade levels, though we do say that he is in 1st grade and his sister in kindergarten, but I would like to continue to do some of their subjects together without someone feeling bad because they think they're "behind." 

So,  I said that we could talk about it in a minute and went on to pray with the kids. After I sent the other two up to get in their beds (I was nursing the youngest, so we had prayed downstairs), I turned to him and asked what he meant by "first grade stuff." Did he think that the work he was doing now wasn't hard enough? He said that he wanted to do something harder than phonics. "Well, on the days that you have that page full of sentences that you have to write, how many phonics pages do you think you should do?", I said. He thought he should only do one page those days (that's what I thought!), but on the days that he had easy phonics pages, he thought 6 or 7 pages would be good. :)  So he and I talked a little longer about what he would like to do, and we figured out that he really likes informational type books with pictures. you probably know what kinds of books I'm referring to, the kind that has the different pictures all around the pages and has lots of little words telling all kinds of cool information about the subjects in the pictures. He has a book kind of like that on dinosaurs, one on alligators and crocodiles (both have some pretty heavy information in them and he just drinks this stuff up!) and recently we were given a book called My First Atlas. Because of this newest addition to our book collection he now knows what most countries flags look like (and those are just the the pages inside the front and back covers).

We decided that he would start reading through the atlas book (it teaches not only about different parts of the world, but how to read a map and a lot more) and after he gets done reading the page for the day, he would come to me and tell me 5 things he learned. One thing I talked to him about, was that if he has another book for school, he'll be doing school longer than Jenna. He thought that'd be OK, "'cause it would be more like first grade." We'll see how all of this goes. :)   

I shared the recent 6 month portraits I took of Jack a few entries ago. Well about a week later Toby and I went to Webber Park and took portraits of the rest of the kids. Here are some of my favorites!

Mexican Bake

Serves two large families

5 c. raw rice

11 c. water (to cook rice in)

salt water before cooking

1 lb. ground beef

2 packets taco seasoning (two - ¼ c. servings out of a jar of Taco seasoning)

1 1/3 c. water (to add to taco seasoning and meat)

1 palm full of dried minced onions

2 cans tomato paste

4 tomato paste cans of water

1 bag frozen corn – thawed (not cooked)

1 can chili beans

1 can black beans - rinsed

1 tomato – diced (mine was not quite all the way ripe – stays together better that way)

1 Anaheim chili pepper - green

1 Ancho chili pepper - green

Add all of the above to meat and let simmer just until a slow boil. (Be sure mixture is still juicy enough for 5 cups of rice!)

Cheddar cheese - shredded

Sprinkle enough shredded cheddar cheese over casseroles to cover tops. Cover casseroles and let stand for cheese to melt. Set in warmed oven instead, if preferred. Serve with sour cream and/or guacamole if preferred.

Makes two 9x13 pans