You Are a Homesteader!

I am very excited to be hosting next week's edition of The Homesteading Carnival.

A homestead can be defined as a home and the adjacent grounds which are occupied by a family. So whether you live on two-hundred or .2 acres, you can homestead! :)

The Homesteading Carnival features articles about recipes, gardening, homemaking, meal planning, sewing, barn animals, homesteading tips, and the great outdoors.

So let's fill up this edition with lots of helpful and interesting posts from all around this little corner of the blogosphere. If you've blogged about anything related to the above mentioned topics and would like to share your post, please submit it here. The deadline for submissions is this Sunday (1/1) at 9 pm (EST). Your post does not have to be recent - it can be an oldie if you'd like! :)

Thanks so much for your help, and I can't wait to read all of your entries!

Geocaching: An Educational Adventure

I heard about geocaching for the first time a year or so ago, but it's been around since 2000.

I'll give you the Wikipedia definition:



Geocaching.com is the main website for geocachers around the world. There you can type in your zip code and all of the geocaches hidden in your area will pop up. There are maps, driving directions, and the coordinates that you need to download to your hand-held GPS. You will also find a helpful "Getting Started" section that has info. for beginners.

Kurt got a GPS for Christmas, so a few weekends ago we decided to give this hi-tech hobby a shot. What we learned is that geocaching can be exciting, frustrating, adventurous, and educational!

Our first few searches yielded nothing, but just as we were about to call it a day we ran into a veteran geocacher who was more than happy to share some tips with us that resulted in us finding our first cache, or treasure.


Setting out on our first hunt at a local park


Everyone had a turn being in charge of the GPS. Sweet Pea thought it worked well as a cell phone too.:)


Our first find! (FYI: Ski goggles are not required for this hobby, but Giggly Girl enjoys wearing hers everywhere. :)


See how tiny it is? It's called a nano cache and was hidden up under the lock of the wrought iron gate. Not all caches are this small or difficult to find. There was only room inside of this miniature canister for a tiny rolled up piece of paper to initial and date.


Before we headed home we decided to try for one more cache that was listed as easy on the Geocaching.com site. It was located in a family cemetery that we drive by everyday. We always thought this place was some sort of memorial but had never stopped to check it out. While we were searching for the "treasure" we stopped to look at the gravestones of these early settlers of our community. Some of them dated back to the 1700's. We had no idea that people had established a small pioneer community here back in the 18th century, and it's less than a mile from our house!


This is one of the older markers we found. "Sarah" was born in 1767. Since we've been studying the American Revolution, I was able to explain to Superman that this lady was about eight years old when the war started. A neat little history tie-in that we weren't planning on finding.


This was one was in a film canister and stuck in the knothole of a tree. Superman found it and was thrilled.


Inside the canister was the log that we had to sign and date.
Before we started our adventure I was under the impression that all "caches" were large enough to contain small toys and trinkets that kids would enjoy. We now know that a good portion of them are like the ones we found, containing only a logbook. The kids were excited just to find these, but I have since learned that you can find descriptions of the different caches that are listed on Geocaching.com. Usually they will tell you if a cache has toys or trinkets that you can trade out for little items that you bring with you on your hunt. Next time we'll try for one of these. :)

After you've found a "cache" you can go back to the Geocaching.com website and log your find and even leave a note for the person who hid that particular cache.

As I mentioned already, this first outing provided us with an unexpected history lesson. There were also other teachable moments that popped up during our treasure hunt:
-Geography: learning to read and use the compass on the GPS
-Math: measuring distance and comparing that to the GPS data
-Nature study: What caused a knothole in this tree?, What kind of tree is it?, Why is the sky that pretty pink color?, etc.
-Writing: Of course if you really wanted to extend the educational value of a geocaching trip, you could have your child narrate the adventure after you return home. We didn't do this, but we'll give it a try in the future.

And of course, just being outside in God's awesome creation making memories with your family is the greatest benefit of all.

Now if geocaching sounds fun to you, but you do not own a GPS, there is an alternative called letterboxing, which only requires a compass from what I understand. You can find more information on letterboxing here.

I hope this has piqued your interest in a fun outdoor hobby you can try with your family. It could make for some memorable field trips!

If you decide to give either geocaching or letterboxing a try or if you're already a fellow treasure hunter, please leave me a comment. I'd love to hear about your own adventures!

Geocaching is an outdoor treasure-hunting game in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers (called "geocaches" or "caches") anywhere in the world. A typical cache is a small waterproof container containing a logbook and "treasure," usually toys or trinkets of little value. Currently over 800,000 geocaches are registered on various websites devoted to the pastime. Geocaches are currently placed in over 100 countries around the world and on all seven continents, including Antarctica.

Tools for Tackling the List

I've spent quite a lot of time the last couple of weeks tackling two particular items on the household portion of my 2009 list of goals. In the process I found some great resources to help me, and I wanted to share them here.

*Developing a weekly meal plan (#2 on the Household List):

A couple of great blogs that have helped me in this area...
Five Dollar Dinners gives meal plans and recipes for economical, tasty dinners.
The Org Junkie is the home of Menu Plan Monday, which has provided me with some meal-planning accountability. (She also has some great organizational tips.)

I've planned out meals for the last two weeks and stuck to the plan - no last-minute calls for pizza delivery or quick trips to the grocery to pick up just a handful of ingredients for one meal. This has saved me time and money - woohoo!

*Clipping Coupons(#3 on the Household List):

Andrea at Mommy Snacks has been a huge resource for me. She has great tips for saving money, maximizing the use of coupons, shopping sales, and other great money-saving tips. She also highlights the weekly sales and coupons for several major store chains - this has been extremely helpful and time-saving for a newbie like me who is learning the ropes in the world of couponing. (FYI: I've saved close to $80.00 on groceries in the last ten days by implementing what I've learned on her blog.)

Off to make out my grocery list for shopping day tomorrow.

Have a great week!

Menu Plan Monday

I kept on track with last week's plan, so I'm going to try it again this week!

Here goes...

Monday: Meatloaf, Mashed Potatoes, Green Beans

Tuesday: Chicken Noodles, Broccoli

Wednesday: Italian Sausage w/Peppers & Onion, Skillet Hashbrowns

Thursday: Taco Casserole, Spanish Rice, Chips & Salsa

Friday: Crockpot Chicken-n-Dumplings, Salad

Be sure to click on the graphic to see lots of other menu ideas. :)

A Photographic Alphabet

I decided to join this fun meme over at The Homeschool Post. The assignment is to take a photo of something beginning with each letter of the alphabet. The idea behind the meme is to motivate you to take pictures of the everyday things you love and make some fun memories in the process. Click the graphic above if you'd like to join too.

Rules:

1. Post a photo for each letter of the alphabet of anything that starts with that letter.
2. Write a few short explanatory, quirky, or witty sentences about each photo you post.
3. Only post one photo at a time (the meme can take as long as you want - a month, three months, whatever… you aren’t being graded). You can link them later in a blog post so they are listed in order if you are the list-making type.
4. If you want to join the meme, sign the Mr. Linky and use the “A B See Photo-Meme” graphic in your sidebar. Link your graphic to this post and announce that you will be joining us.
5. When you post a photo, come by and add it to the weekly A B See linky that we’ll be posting on Foto Fridays for those who have some alphabetical photo to share. You can sign it each week as many times as you have posted photos - one time for each photo linked post. Make sure you link back to the HSBA on your posts, too - so others can come and join the linky.


This meme will be a great way for me to learn more about photography and my camera, which is one of my goals for 2009. With that said, I kind of cheated on this photo because it was taken last year, but I really wanted to use it for my first one.

It marks a very special occasion...


A is for ANNIVERSARY - OUR TENTH!

My parents graciously kept the kids for a few days, and we headed to the beautiful Smoky Mountains in Tennessee. Kurt actually took the photo. Don't ya' love the black and white setting on your camera? It hides some of the, ahem, shall we say, "flaws". :)

We've had our bumps in the road, but God has blessed us with ten happy years together.

We're looking forward to at least fifty more.

It's Carnival Time!

Three new carnival editions up this week with some real gems that you won't want to miss!







Grab a hot cup of somethin', click on the buttons, and enjoy!

Menu Plan Monday

I am so excited to be participating for the first time in Menu Plan Monday, hosted by I'm An Organizing Junkie.

I have had periods of being consistent with writing out a menu plan for each week, but lately I've fallen by the wayside. When I saw this meme today I thought it would be a good motivator to start menu planning again. And...I am so glad I found the Organizing Junkie blog - so many great tips and resources! I can't wait to browse around over there some more when I'm not crunched for time.

My Menu for This Week...

Monday: Pot Roast, Hashbrowns, Green Beans

Tuesday: Easy Ranch Chicken, Rice, Broccoli

Wednesday: Tacos, Spanish Rice

Thursday: Ham and Potato Soup, Salad

Friday: Philadelphia Pepper Pot (to go along with our current school unit)

I typically only plan five days of meals, and we do leftovers for the remaining two days.

Next week, I hope to have enough time to include some recipes with my menu plan.

Winter Nature Fun!

This may seem odd, but I'm finding that winter is one of my favorite seasons for nature study. Maybe it's because we live in the Midwest where it gets pretty cold and snowy (brrr!), and I need a really good reason to bundle everyone up and go outside during the school day. Unfortunately, this fall a busy schedule kept us from doing much nature study. When I look back at the fun we had last winter, though, I'm excited to make time for it again.

Here are a few nature activities we enjoyed during the cold months last year...

Birdwatching
Winter time is great for watching our feathered friends (and squirrels and raccoons). They absolutely flock to our backyard feeders, and it's easy to see their color and detail against the snow. Of course, some days can be just too cold too go out, but there's no need to let that stop us when we can still explore nature from our family room window. We can see our backyard feeders from the window, but we can't get up close and personal for photos and sketching in our journals. To remedy this we purchased a couple of window feeders last year, and they have been a tremendous asset in our nature studies. I'm always surprised that the birds don't seem to mind the three little wiggly people pressed up against the window watching them. :)



We also enjoy whipping up homemade treats for our visitors. A few favorites we like to make are pinecones smeared with peanut butter and rolled in birdseed, stale bread (prepared the same as the pinecones), popcorn and fruit pieces strung on a garland, and homemade suet. Here's an easy suet recipe we've used:

Piecrust Suet
Mix 1 cup flour, 1/2 cup shortening, 1/4 tsp. salt and just enough water to form a ball. There's no need to bake it. Just put the treat out near your seed feeders, and watch it disappear.

Last year we participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count. It motivated us to keep a birdwatching log, and we look forward to it again this year (Feb. 13-16). (They also have a kids page with some fun activities and information.)



Animal Tracking
We tried this for the first time last year, and it was a blast! You may think of this as more of a warm weather activity, but we have found that it is much easier to find tracks in the snow than in the mud.

The kids enjoyed being "detectives" as they searched out tracks and followed them through the snow. This was a great activity for honing observation and problem-solving skills. We found bird, raccoon, and rabbit tracks. We even followed the rabbit tracks until we found the entrance to its burrow. We found Crinkleroot's Book of Animal Tracking by Jim Arnosky to be a fun resource for tips on tracking and track identification.

If we find some good tracks this year, I plan for us to try making casts of them. I know this sounds like a messy, summertime activity, but we're going to bundle up and give it a try. I got the idea from one of my favorite nature activity books, Outdoor Activities for Kids by Clare Bradley, but here is a link with good directions.

Owling
We went into the woods behind our house one cold, snowy night in search of a great horned owl that we had heard on several occasions. We didn't find him, but it was an outing we won't soon forget. Owl Moon is a memorable story to read before setting out on an owling adventure.

We also dissected owl pellets that same week. At first I was a tad grossed out at the idea of doing this, but the pellets we used were thoroughly sterilized, and I have to say that this was a highlight of our school year. The kids still talk about dissecting those pellets.

These two activities along with reading some wonderful living books ignited in the kids a strong desire to learn more about these amazing birds of prey. I imagine that we'll touch on owls again this winter, and we'll be on the lookout for our elusive friend in the woods again too.

Star (and Moon!) Gazing
During the warm months, we love to go out in our front yard and enjoy the stars. In the winter, we are more apt to do our stargazing from our front bedroom windows. We did make an exception to this last February when we stayed up late to view the lunar eclipse. Thankfully it was a clear night and well worth our effort. Most of our viewing was done indoors, but we did go out a few times with the binoculars and camera in hand. This year we have a telescope, so we'll hopefully bundle up and put it to good use, since darkness comes so early right now.


This site has a calendar of celestial events for 2009. (You'll have to scroll down a bit.)

I recently learned that our local parks department has some wonderful winter nature programs for homeschoolers (including a screech owl hunt, a bird walk, and a beaver watch), so we'll plan on donning our gloves and caps to participate in a couple of these as well. I encourage you to check with your local parks department or nature center, and you might be pleasantly surprised at everything they have to offer right now.

I hope that this winter you and your family will find ways to enjoy the winter wonderland that is God's beautiful creation.

Ornaments, Carols, and Other Traditions

In spite of the nasty case of strep throat that attacked me the week before Christmas, we still managed to enjoy a few of our traditions on Christmas Eve and a couple of days after Christmas.

Ornament making, reading lots of Christmas books, cookie-baking, and candy-making are staples in our home each Christmas. Below are pics. of some of the ornaments the kids made. These were part of our mini-unit on Christmas symbols. We only managed to get to three symbols, but for each one we read a Scripture, talked about the symbolism, made an ornament for our tree, and read a picture book. I hope to expand on this unit next Christmas because the kids really enjoyed it, and I did too. :)

Beaded Stars


Handprint Christmas Trees


Stained Glass Tissue Paper Silhouettes




We also got to bake some traditional Christmas sugar cookies - the kind you roll out and cut into all those fun Christmas shapes. No photos from that day, but here is the recipe we used. I think it's the quickest and easiest homemade sugar cookie dough recipe I've found. (It doesn't have to chill overnight, which is good when you're winging it!) The final product was pretty tasty too. I left them in the oven for exactly 7 minutes and pulled them out, even though to me they didn't look done, and after cooling they were just right.

Easy Cookie-Cutter Cookies (from Cooks.com)

Ingredients:
1 c. butter
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. baking powder
3 c. flour

Beat butter and sugar until fluffy. Add the egg and vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder. Gradually add to butter mixture. Do not chill. Roll half the dough 1/8inch thick. Dip cookie cutter in flour. Place shapes on ungreased baking sheet. Bake at 400 degrees for 6-7 minutes. Repeat with remaining dough.

My Mom and I made some of my Grandma's Old-Fashioned Chocolate Fudge. It's not like the smooth, chocolate marshmallow fudge you see in a lot of cookbooks. It has a grainy consistency, is very chocolate-y, and very rich. A little bit goes a long way, but it is delicious - especially with a cold glass of milk. Yum!

Grandma's Fudge (Don't try to double this - it won't turn out!)

Ingredients:
3 c. granulated sugar
2/3 c. Hershey's Cocoa
1/8 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. milk
1/4 c. butter
1 tsp. vanilla extract (I only use 1/2 tsp.)

•Butter a dish or platter. (I like my fudge kind of thin, so I use a large platter.)
•In 4 quart saucepan (or any large boiler) stir together sugar, cocoa, and salt.
•Stir in milk; then put over medium heat.
•Stir constantly and bring to a rolling boil. (If using a candy thermometer, 234 degrees.)
•Continue stirring and cooking until mixture reaches soft ball stage.
•Remove from heat.
•Add butter and vanilla, stir slightly to mix.
•Then cool for 3 or 4 minutes (to 110 degrees if using a candy thermometer).
•Beat with a wooden spoon until fudge thickens and loses its gloss. (This part can be kind of tricky. You'll be beating it and beating it, thinking that it's never going to thicken up, and then all of the sudden the mixture will feel noticeably thicker. That's when it's time to pour it out on the platter. Don't wait, or you'll have a boiler full of hard stuff that won't pour out!)
•Immediately pour out onto platter.
•Let completely set up; then cut.

You can also use this to frost a cake. This is what we used for our Happy Birthday Jesus cake.

One of my favorite Christmas traditions is singing Christmas carols together, either gathered around the piano, at the top of our lungs in the car, or with the radio on in the kitchen. This year it seemed the kids were constantly singing carols and songs no matter where they were or what they were doing. Some that I heard repeated over and over...

Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer
Santa Clause is Coming to Town
Put One Foot in Front of the Other (from Santa Claus is Coming to Town)
Frosty the Snowman
The Little Drummer Boy (They love to do the "pa-rum-pum-pum-pum".)
Away in a Manger (Giggly Girl's favorite)
Silent Night (Sweet Pea's favorite)
Go Tell It on the Mountain (Superman's favorite, sung in a country-western style!)

And one day, while in my sick, feverish fog, I heard the strains of a certain one of Handel's melodies floating up the stairs to my bedroom. It was Sweet Pea singing "Ha-le-you-yah, ha-le-you-yah" at the top of her lungs. :)

Thanks for letting me ramble on about my memories of this year's Christmas. This is one of those posts that was written mainly to keep me from forgetting all the sweet moments. These three kids are growing up so fast, and sometimes I feel like it's all going by in a blur. One day it will be good to be able to look back and remember.

If you made it this far, God bless you for sticking with me!

Have a great weekend,

Christmas Day in the Morning

I know, I know...it's 2009, and I'm still finishing up Christmas posts!
Only one more after this, I promise. :)

This one is actually from Christmas Eve. My Mom always gets the kids matching Christmas jammies. :)


Star Wars toys and stuffed animals were favorite gifts this year. (I don't think my girls will ever outgrow their love of soft and snuggly animal friends!)




Singing Happy Birthday to Jesus! This is a tradition we started a few years ago, and the kids really look forward to it.


Hope y'all are enjoying your New Years holiday!