Little House in the Big Woods

For more Wordless Wednesday click here.

Our tackle for this week is getting ready for the school year. Here is the list of things that must be done.

1. Send off Letter of Intent to school district
2. Tape all the binding on the school books. (This helps the book from tearing in the middle of school year.)
3. Check all supplies and buy items needed.
4. Prepare binders for each subject.
5. Make a school schedule for the children
6. Review teaching materials.

This is always a big tackle and one I get excited and dread doing. I am excited about the new school but hate all the work that has to be done before hand. We will be using A Beka this year. They have a correspondence courses. They keep track of everything (transcripts, grades and will issue an high school diploma once all courses are completed) It is a great program for high schoolers. For more information about Abeka click here.
Here is a picture of our school books.

For more tackles click here.

These last few days have been a crazy one for us. I had very little time to plan a menu but here it is.

Monday
Breakfast - Blueberry Pancakes
Lunch - Sandwiches and Veggies
Dinner - Pizza and Salad

Tuesday
Breakfast - Egg McMuffin Sandwiches
Lunch - Turkey Caesar Wraps
Dinner - Chicken and Rice with steamed broccoli

Wednesday
Breakfast - Fruit and Choice of Muffin
Lunch - Hot Dogs with Mac & Cheese
Dinner - Meatloaf with Baked Potatoes and Green beans (We never got to eat this last week)

Thursday
Breakfast - Fried Rice (I make a breakfast verse of fried rice)
Lunch - Grilled Cheese with tomato soup
Dinner - Grilled Chicken with Roasted Potatoes and corn

Friday
Breakfast - Amish Baked Oatmeal
Lunch - Leftovers
Dinner - Lasagna with Salad and Dinner Rolls

Saturday
Breakfast - Waffles
Lunch - Hamburgers with French Fries
Dinner - Crock Pot Potato Chowder

Sunday
Breakfast - Cereal/Instant Oatmeal or any leftovers
Lunch - BBQ Beef with Mashed Potatoes and Green Beans
Dinner - Cobb Salad

We had really strong thunder and lightening storms come through last Wednesday.  We lost power to our home for about six hours. When we final got our power back on, we realized we lost more than a few hours of electricity. We lost our phones and the internet. We have Vonyage phones. After the storm was over my sweet hubby ran to Wal-mart and bought a cheap internet modem. This gave us a temporary fix for the internet. My hubby works from home and he needs to internet to work. The next day my sweet hubby soon realized that we needed to replace all the electronics for the computers. The computers were not ruin by the storms but the modem, router, Vonyage box for the phones, the phones, and the hub were ruined.  My hubby decided it would be a good idea to protect these items. He bought a battery back up with surge protector.  Hopefully, this will protect us for any other power failures. Today, we went and got new phones for the house. Here is a picture of them.

Here’s the Four Things Tag:

Four jobs I’ve had:
I worked at Taco Bell (met my husband there)
I worked at storage center (sold space for people store their junk)
I worked in an office (accountant assistant, fancy name for file clerk)
I worked for answering service (what people used before cell phones)

Four movies I can watch over and over:

She’s having a baby
Mr. Mom
For Richer or poorer
Something’s gotta give

Four places I’ve lived:

Douglas,Massachusetts
Cumberland, Rhode Island
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania
San Diego, California

Four TV shows I love:

Wings
Reba
Anything on the Foodnetwork

Four places I’ve vacationed:

I don’t really take vacations, but we visited with friends in Pennsylvania on regular basis.

Four of my favourite dishes:

Tex-mex
Chinese
Apple pie

Four sites I visit daily:

http://www.lifeislikechampagneblog.com/
Moms of grace
5 minutes for mom
Rocks in my dryer (I visit this on Wednesday for Works for me Wednesday)
Biblical Womanhood
http://www.audrakrell.com/
Grocery Cart Challenge

Ok, I know that is more than four but I visit more than four.

Four places I would rather be right now:

Relaxing with my hubby
Visiting with my friends in Pennsylvania
Taking a family vacation

I tag the following people for this:

http://movingparts.net/
http://www.audrakrell.com/
http://kiwi.tribe.movingparts.net

And there you have it! Feel free to participate!

Yesterday, it was a raining day. I thought it would be a great day to make bread. It was not hot or humid. It was nice and cool. It wasn’t raining hard just a steady rain. I started making the bread and set aside to raise. Then all of sudden there was a loud crack. It was so loud that it shook the whole house. My daughter scream because it scared her. Then it happen all the lights went out. We lost power. I thought no big deal. We will get power in a few minutes. I was wrong it took six hours for us to get power back. So, I would let the bread raise to the point it was also out of the pan. It rose a total of four times before I had power in the house to bake it. The amazing part it taste good. If you want the recipe, click here.

Young hairdresser said “I need to make it more spikey.”

Young hairdresser said “Daddy, why did you trim your hair so short?”

This is one of many tackles I have to do this week. We have been so busy lately. I have been just dropping things off on my dresser and things have piled up.

Before

After

This week I had to buy groceries for two weeks. We will be very busy for the next two weeks. I really won’t have time to go to the store. I just hope the milk last for two weeks. I think I did pretty well but I am still having trouble limiting myself. I bought a lot of meats. Shaw’s (local grocery store) had a great sale on ground beef, roast, and chicken. This should last us for a long time. Here is the list of groceries.

Bananas 2.9 lbs @ $.69 per lbs = 2.00
Cantaloupe $2.50 each x 2 = 5.00
Cucumbers $.89 each x 2 = 1.78
Plum tomatoes 1.04lb @ $1.99lb = 2.07
Strawberries 16oz pkg @ $2.99 each x 2 = 5.98
5lb bag of russet potatoes = 3.99
2lb bag of Vidalia onions = 2.69
Whelch’s Mixed dries fruit = 3.79
Blueberries pints $2.50 each x 5
Mangos $1.00 each x 2 = 2.00
Baby Carrots $1.99 each x 2 = 3.98
Romaine Hearts = 2.99
Seedless watermelon = 3.99
80/20 Ground beef 6.3lbs @ $1.99 per lb = 12.56
Boneless Roast 4.05lbs @ $1.99 per lb = 8.06
Boneless Roast 2.36lbs @ $1.99 per lb = 4.70
Chicken Tights 9.22lbs @ $1.00 per lb = 9.22
Chicken Drumsticks 8.90lbs @ $1.00 per lb = 8.90
Smoked Turkey Ham 1.08lbs @ $4.49 per lb = 4.85
Agave = 7.09
5lb Caroline Rice = 4.99
Paul Newman’s Light Cesear Dressing = 3.79
Del Monte Green Beans $1.19 each x 4.76
Distilled vinegar = 1.99
Bread n’ Butter pickles = 2.29
Sunflower seeds = 1.89
Creamy Peanut Butter = 2.50
Hellmann’s Reduced-fat Mayonnaise = 3.99
King Arthur’s Bread Flour = 4.99
Smoked Paprika = 5.99
Heinz Ketchup = 5.99
Italian Bread Crumbs = 2.50
Lite Soy Sauce = 2.99
Mt. Olive pickle spears = 2.50
Hoisin Sauce = 3.59
Rice Chex $2.00 each x 2 = 4.00
Pasta $1.00 each x 7 = 7.00
Pam Butter Spray $2.99 each x 2 = 5.98
5lb Sugar = 1.99
Bird’s Eye Mixed Veggies $1.79 each x 2 = 3.58
Whole kernel corn $1.00 each x 2 = 2.00
Celeste Pizza $1.00 each x 10= 10.00
Mrs. Dash Italian Seasoning = 3.19
28 oz Canned tomatoes $1.00 each x 4 = 4.00
Kraft Parmesan cheese = 5.49
Fleishman Dry yeast $2.69 each x 2 = 5.38
Stonyfield Vanilla yogurt = 3.99
Whole milk = 3.99
Skim milk = 3.99
Heavy cream = 6.49
Shaw’s light sour cream $.79 each x 4 = 3.16
Sharp Cheese $2.50 each x 4 = 10.00
Eggs $2.99 each x 2 = 5.98
Cheesecloth = 4.19
Little Debbie Snack cakes $1.59 each x 2 = 3.18
Thomas English Muffin x 2 (buy one get one free) = $3.39
Tax = .21

TOTAL = $260.07

After a wonderful week with our friends, we are ready to get back to our routine. That starts with planning our menu for the week.

Breakfast
Monday- Cereal/Instant Oatmeal
Tuesday- Blueberry Pancakes
Wednesday- Bagels with Cream cheese
Thursday- Egg Muffin Sandwiches
Friday- Waffles
Saturday- Daddy’s Choice
Sunday- Cereal/Instant Oatmeal/or any leftover breakfasts

Lunch
Monday- Mac & Cheese and Hot Dogs
Tuesday- Pizza
Wednesday- Chicken Nuggets Wraps
Thursday- Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup
Friday- Leftovers
Saturday- Chicken Quesadilla
Sunday- Hamburger with Zucchini Chips

Dinner
Monday- Shepherd’s Pie
Tuesday- 2-Step chicken with rice and Green beans
Wednesday- Spaghetti with Meatballs with Salad and Homemade rolls
Thursday- General Tso’s Chicken with rice and broccoli
Friday- Meatloaf with Butter Noodles
Saturday- Roast Beef with potatoes and veggies
Sunday- Taco Bake with Salad and Corn Bread

For more Menu plans click here.