Fall Days

We are serious about reading at our house!

*~~*~~*

Our neighborhood is not the best for trick-or-treating. Not many kids and the neighbors are far apart. For this reason, and a few others, we choose to take homemade treats to our immediate neighbors at Halloween. The children dress up in whatever costumes they can find around the house, and we go to four houses, carrying our cupcakes. They still get lots of candy from those four houses - and then we all go to Chuck E. Cheese for our annual outing there.

Isaac as a 'sheriff', Lydia as Mulan, Anna as Little Bo Peep, and Nathaniel - um, as himself.

*~~*~~*

This week, the older two have gotten into making "Homework Forts" in the living room during school.
They crawl in them and work on their school work while I read to the younger two.
Sometimes, I read to the younger two as they 'hide' in the forts with their siblings.
Today, I read to the older two while they 'hid' in their forts.

I love teaching my kids at home!

Adventures at Home

Honestly, I do have a ton of books to blog about. I was, in fact, going to blog about one today, but then Nathaniel, Anna and I made dinner.

It may look just like a dish we've dubbed in our house 'The Great Rice-Mix Up" - basically rice with a meat and a veggie. But it's not that dish.

We made an Americanized version of a Korean dish - Kimchi Fried Rice. We're studying Korea this week in school, and this was the project that both Anna and Nathaniel decided they wanted to do.

"Great!" I thought. "Automatic eager helpers for dinner prep!"

And they were. I didn't think to take pictures of Nathaniel browning the ground beef (decidedly un-Korean), or Anna stirring in the ground beef to the rice, onion, garlic and kimchi. So you'll have to take my word for it.

I am blessed to have a cousin married to a Korean, and doubly blessed that they live nearby. So, Tuesday night we visited them and she generously shared her kimchi, so I wouldn't have to buy five pounds of it at the Korean market (which isn't local) and her sesame oil.

When the dish was ready, I thought we had made entirely too much, so called my parents in a panic, "Come over for Kimchi Fried Rice!" But they were at Wendy's getting burgers. Decidedly American.

Well, the dish was a hit! Anna gave it a thumbs up, Isaac said it was 'just OK' (thus the sideways thumb), and Nathaniel's reaction was a clean plate, which is even better than a thumbs up. (Lydia still had to finish her soup from lunch, so she's getting some leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Still waiting on Dad to come home and try it - but he wasn't too thrilled with the idea when I told him what was for dinner.)

I have to admit, it was good. I probably didn't add as much kimchi as I should have, but I added most of what I had. And, as long as none of the Kimchi Fried Rice goes to waste, I'm happy.

Mom did say she'd take leftovers...

True Mom Confessions + Pictures

Over Labor Day weekend, we traveled to Ohio to visit family. I always have to have something to read when I travel, and that weekend, I picked up True Mom Confessions: Real Moms Get Real from the library.

Nathaniel thought the cover hilarious, pointing out the little blurb above the title, which reads: "I haven't taught my kids to tell time yet...that way I can say it's bedtime whenever I want."

I looked at him and said, "Oh yes. I did that too." He looked shocked. Good thing I didn't tell him that as a stay-at-home, homeschooling mother, I chose not to teach him to tell time until he was at least six so I could put him in bed at 6:00 or 6:30. I'm not sure he would have forgiven me. (smile!)

Even if you're not a big reader, you will enjoy this book. It's mostly quotes from real moms who write anonymously on the TrueMomsConfessions.com blog. The book is organized by chapters into topics, with an introduction from the author, Romi Lassally. Each chapter ends with a short essay from a real life mom blogger.

It is a thick book, but with few words on each page, so you can feel good about finishing 266-page book in little snippets throughout your day. A definite plus for moms.

And, as promised (better late than never!), pictures from our trip, courtesy of Ann or Isaac, with some slight editing by mom.