School has begun!

Well we had a wonderful weekend. We packed up and went to Ohio to welcome home my brothers. We left Friday morning and got back very late on Sunday. It was a very full but very fun weekend. Of course we had to take lots of pictures. I've posted some on here, but for more, you can go to my myspace page. If your not a friend and want to be, send me an email.

In addition to the party, we camped at my SIL's parents home. Her mom is awsome!! We got together and had a hot dog roast, and breakfast together. Of course since we were all there (except for a last minute car trouble cancellation) we had to get family photos. The last time this will happen I should add, way to much trouble in getting us all in the same spot at once. It still didn't happen since one sibling couldn't make it. But anywho we got what we could. Some of us went to Dawes and got some really great photos. School pictures for us, much cheaper than professional and still look great (better I think)

So now we are back home, mostly unpacked and today is our first day of school. First order of business is downloading our homeschool tracker program. I know, I'm not very prepared but I have good reason. I switched computers and it was on the old one. So I downloaded it onto my laptop. For those who have no clue what I'm talking about, if you homeschool it's a HUGE help. It's a scheduler and helps you keep track of lessons, grades and reminds you what your suppose to be doing. Best of all, It's free!

http://www.homeschooltracker.com/

There is a plus edition that offers more valuable features, for I believe $49. I've found the free edition to have enough for me, but many have found the plus edition to be even better. Check it out if you homeschool.

This year we are getting on a schedule to help us keep on track. I am attempting to turn us into morning people. Hubby used to be on a night time job, so now matter how hard I tried during the week, we stayed up late, so I gave up. Now he's back to a morning job, so we are finally going to adjust. We are using A Beka for math, Rod and Staff for Phonics, English, Reading and Spelling, Discover Science by Scott-Foresman for Science and the kids get music as well. This is the first year I've actually bought a curriculum, so we are pretty excited to use it.

So here are a few pictures from our weekend, with more on myspace.

Getting everyone to look at the same camera at the same time was quite a feat. I don't think we actually got a perfect one, but oh well.

A quick hello!

I wanted to send a quick hello before our super busy and exciting weekend. I will tell you all about it when we return, but for now I'm preparing our trailer and truck and hopefully leaving the house clean. It's much nicer coming home to a clean house after a busy weekend.

So we're off for a few days and I'll tell you more about it next week!

My Hibiscus

I wanted to post some pictures really quick. This is my Hibiscus plant on our patio. Oh how I love Hibiscus, they are sooo pretty. This is one of my favorite colors, (cause it's on my patio lol). The flowers are so big. I have a white one in the front as well, I'll have to get some pictures of that one too. Just wanted to share. It's doing so well this year, we just planted it last year.





I also wanted to share my new shirt. I went to Vista Print and designed it, and only paid for shipping. I LOVE it. It's my new theme!!

Flour!

I found this link on another site I check out. It's very interesting for those of us who use flour. It explains the uses and the differences between the many types of flour there are.



http://whatscookingamerica.net/Bread/FlourTypes.htm





This photo makes me cry, she looks sooo adorable. I took the picture on my patio yesterday and emailed it to my SIL to play with. I LOVE it!!! She's 6 months old today!

I'm here! Really!

Our peaceful retreat in our back yard.

So a friend reminded me that people really are looking at this and I should post something (uh um, you know who you are!). So here's an update on us! Oh and a few cute pictures.



Well we have been on a quest lately to "go green". I'm not turning into a fanatic or anything, but it's amazing the way to you can find to help out the environment if you only look.



For started, pay $1 and get a cloth bag. I've been collecting one each week when I do my shopping, I'm up to 4. Walmarts are black and seem to be the strongest, but I don't shop there much. I feel kinda funny taking a Walmart bag into say Meijer, soo I noticed that our local Spartan store has green ones. They don't say a store name, just "green bag" LOL. They aren't as heavy, but do just as well. They hold way more too, I'd say 2-3 plastic bags worth of groceries. So now I have the bags, the trick is to remember to use them lol, with 4 kids to drag in, they are usually left in the truck. So I put them in the front seat with my purse and am more likely to take them.



Another way is recycling. Start small. When we we're doing a newspaper route we started recycling the extras at Grangers. After we quit the route we realized it really wasn't that difficult. I now have a tote in our kitchen to collect our plastic, cans and such. I printed a list for our fridge from the website on what they take. The hard part for most is, out here we don't even have a place to recycle. The closest places I know of are 45 miles away,not a very earth friend area. So we collect them until we are making a trip to somewhere that is.



In my attempt to declutter I've had lots of papers to throw out. Instead of just tossing them and filling my plastic trash bag, I shred them and make more room, OR burn them in our fire pit. Just a little less trash to go out to the landfill.



Collect rain water in buckets to water the flowers. This one is tricky thou. Leaves and stuff gets in the bucket. I've been thinking of maybe making a screen to go over it. We'll see if that gets done.



Well here are some pictures of my cuties. We are getting family photos done in a few weeks, can't wait for that. Our baby is 6 months old TODAY eyie, yie yie. She's trying to crawl, not quite there yet, but she gets around for sure. She loves being on the floor, the play pen is just to small for her, as far as she's concerned. So our office is dog free, and has a rug on the floor, perfect for her. Until she discovers under the desk.



I've got to get a picture of my Hibiscus too, oh it's soo pretty, Huge flowers on it. Our tomatoes are green but growing. And we got a HUGE zucchini from the garden. The animals are getting the rest. Sneaky buggers, even with the live trap right there, they eat the fresh ones on the plant instead. hmm gotta try something else.



Well gotta run, got lots to do.


This is my precious yesterday, my favorite picture so far.

Thankful!

What are you thankful for? No I'm not going to go into some long message about being thankful, really. But I am going to tell you what I'm thankful for. I'm sure you all know of all the troops away from there families over seas. Well I am thankful that my brothers have both returned safe and sound. Yesterday they both arrived back home. They had been gone since May and June of last year. So now there deployment is over and they have come home. I'm very thankful to all those who serve our country and sacrifice limb, sanity, family and sometimes there lives for our freedoms, and I'm thankful most of them come home safe.

SO Thanks to all who serve!!

The thing left is to celebrate!! Can't wait to see you all soon!

Grilled pizza

YES it is delicious!! MMmmmmm.

I've been wanting to try some, but hadn't yet. Now my hubby he could eat pizza every DAY, but not me. Soooo I spread it out and manage to stretch it to a few times a month. Usually we do the same old oven route, the crust is getting thinner and thinner each time. Sooo I decided yesterday I was going to do it on the grill. I'd gotten an email about grilling and decided it was time. Here's what I did YUM!!

I made our basic bread dough and added some pizza seasoning to the mix for crust. I leave it a little wet so the dough can be rolled thinner. I think I have a previous post on making bread, I'll come back and link it if I can.

Anywho, I turned on my grill, warmed it up so it was about 400 degrees. I use a cloth BBQ brush to rub oil on the hot grill. Inside I rolled out some dough, not to big of a piece, but any size will work. I covered one side with melted garlic butter (just some marg and some crushed garlic). I than put it on the grill butter side down and left it for a few minutes with the lid closed. after it was brown with grill marks and mostly cooked I manuverd a cookie sheet and spatulas under it to flip it over. My first attempt was to large, so it was quite a site I'm sure.

Once it was flipped, I decorated it, rather quickly. Sauce, fresh sliced mushrooms, ham and pinapple than cheese. Closed the lid and walked away. I checked it about 10 minutes later and it was almost done. Once the cheese was melted in the middle of the pizza, the dough was done on the bottom. Than i slid it onto a cookie sheet and took it inside.

It was really good. My hubby, who frequents Chicago pizza joints, said so!!
After almost 11 yrs of marriage, he tells me if its not! LOL

So today I am enjoying left over grilled pizza. i didn't get a picture, cause we were to anxious to eat!! But you should try it, it is a keeper.

One thing I would change, not make so much dough. It starts raising to much and makes the crust thicker. Usually we get 2 huge cookie sheets of pizza and a 9x13 of bread sticks. It's better the first time, so I'll half the dough next time. But it was still yummy!

Using your grill like an over opens a whole new ballgame for baking. Hmmm homemade bread on the grill, now that's an idea, in the pan of course