Warmer Weather

All of this unseasonably warm weather has me thinking/dreaming of swimming pools and beaches. Phil keeps reminding me that we are no longer in the warm belt of Bloomington.

Luke is fairly comfortable in the water IF he has his trusty lifevest!

This pool spoiled me! It was almost too hot on an even hotter day. Now I am longing for it!

Babies (especially roly poly ones with sunscreen) and sand are not the best mix.

Luke uses a real fishing pole for the first time.

The boys build a castle in paradise.

Ahhhhh, palm trees.

Kitchen Table Kind of School

Luke's favorite "school" thing to do right now is worksheets and workbook pages.

He LOVES it and I love that about him!

The worksheets have instructions at the top and I read them to him and then he tries his best to follow them. We work on writing his name at the top first. The instructions are fairly simple. An example of a worksheet would be: " All of these people are missing their shoes. Draw a line to match each person with their shoes" or "Draw a line from the frog on the left to the matching frog on the right." Drawing lines is definitely something that he is good at doing and he feels important and smart.

I try to focus on a letter and number for the week/month. I chose "T" for this month because November is all about being "t"hankful. We have been working on writing "T" but he is not quite there yet. It made me happy tonight that he formed a lowercase "t" tonight with his dominoes and daddy's help!

He really is getting it.

We have also been talking about numbers. This week is the number 5.

He took the time to color all of the fish lips in and stayed in the lines.

It took some serious concentration.

Luke is passionate about stamping! After we finish a worksheet I let him stamp the top as a reward. He is accumulating quite the collection of stamps.

He has a few stamps that have words on them and he has the words memorized. They say things like
"Boo"
"Bam"
"Pow."

His attention span impresses me. I bought him a workbook 2 weeks ago for ages 3-5 and he finished it in a week and a half. So for now I am trying to find free printable worksheets online for preschoolers. He likes to get them out of the printer and take them to the table.

When we are done he hangs our worksheets and other creations on the refrigerator so that daddy can see them when he gets home.

The parrot with the feathers is "Mr. Tweeters"

We met Mr. Tweeters last Thursday during storytime at Blackhawk Christian Elementary

He is a parrot puppet that was feeling gloomy and learned how to be thankful.

At the end of the storytime the teacher said something about Mr. Tweeters getting stuck in a tree.

After the story, there were tables set up with a craft for the kids.

Luke had fun gluing feathers to his picture of Mr. Tweeters and he repeated over and over to me "Mr. Tweeters got stuck in a tree"

He was VERY worried about Mr. Tweeters and is still concerned to this day.

I told him that we will go back this week to make sure that Mr. Tweeters is okay.

So now I am really hoping that Mr. Tweeters will be there?

During school time Micah is napping!

Usually he wakes up happy.

Luke would say "he is too little and too big for school work"

Even though he is too little and too big for "school" he is learning and watching everything!

9 Months Young

We have a crawler, clapper, and waver on our hands!

Baby Micah has 6 teeth!

He is a joy! I know that I am always writing this, but he really is SUCH a happy and fun loving baby! He especially loves to get his hands on things that he is not supposed to have.

Micah is fast and can get a hand full of chalk from the chalkboard in his mouth pronto without me even knowing! My life has become double the trouble seemingly overnight. Luke likes to say "watch out for the sneaky sneaky baby!"

He wants to do everything and be just like big brother.

He had his 9 month appointment on Monday and checked out perfectly!

weight: 25 lbs. 3 oz. (off the charts)
length: 29 3/4" ( 90th %)

Big boy with big thighs! He does seem to be slimming down though.

And his hair is filling in. It seems to be a reddish/blond/brown and his eyes are a dark brown/green. He likes to say mama and I like to think that he really means it! He loves all kinds of food except for bananas. His favorite food may be meat!

Trick or Treat!

We got our trick or treat on.

Luke had the BEST time trick or treating!

Tiggers like to bounce.

Baby Mikey found the candy dish...so did Sanibel.

Phil's firm had trick or treating on Monday!

Each floor had candy stations including the basement where we discovered an ancient hot tub. Now I wish that I would have opened the cover to see what was inside?

Micah likes to hold onto the candy and then try to eat it wrapper and all.

I know this is cheesy but I took this one of the screen of Phil's desk phone. Pretty fancy I'll say.

And then when Phil took Luke to the bathroom I took this one of the law library which is on the same floor as his office.

This is in the library too and over looks the lobby on the main floor!

Stay tuned for pictures of the bathroom (which have not yet been taken because how will I explain myself on that one but they are super fancy too! I have never seen so much cherry wood and brass?) You KNOW a place is classy with a hot tube in the basement? Actually it kind of creeped me out!

Easy Roast Chicken Recipe

I took a nourishing food ecourse this summer and learned some new cooking/baking techniques and I have not looked back!

This roasted chicken recipe is turning out to be my favorite recipe from the class and in my own personal opinion it is the EASIEST!

Ingredients:

4-6 pound chicken
4 tablespoons of ghee, butter, coconut oil, or palm oil
salt & pepper

1) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees, rinse off
your chicken and remove any gizzards or
necks found in the chicken’s cavity. Pat dry
with paper towels. Place breast side down
into your pan.

2) Melt 2 tablespoons of the fat in a small
sauce pan, and pour over the back of the bird.

Liberally sprinkle with unrefined salt and

freshly ground pepper.

I like to use a tight fitting dish to cook the chicken in so that the bird is cooking in its own drippings! I also like to fit as many pieces of carrots and potatoes that I possibly can around the bird. The carrots and potatoes cook deliciously in the drippings! We picked up this little tip in Paris. One of our favorites was the poulet (chicken) cooked rotisserie style with potatoes roasted in the drippings.

Have I told you lately about my new salt that I LOVE?

Celtic Sea Salt

I love it!

3) Place in the middle of the oven and bake for 1
hour.

4) Take out of the oven. Melt the last two
tablespoons of fat. Jam a wooden spoon
into the chicken’s cavity, and turn the
chicken over. Pour the melted fat over
the chicken and sprinkle again with
unrefined salt and pepper.

By now it smells heavenly! Resist eating it. Oh, and I forgot to tell you that I like to put a snip of fresh rosemary inside of the body cavity. It is worth it. And if you forgot to take out the organs that's okay...I accidentally left the heart inside last night so I ATE IT! Yum.

5) Bake for one more hour or until done. The
chicken should be nicely browned on the
top and the juices should run clear when
you cut where the thigh joins the body. The
leg should also feel lose when you wiggle it.
Remove to a serving platter. Let sit for 15
minutes (you can cover with aluminum foil
and place in a warm oven)


6) So now that you know how easy it really is...roast a chicken of your own. Your husband will fall in love with you all over again!

Check out Passionate Homemaking for ideas on how to stretch your roast into more meals.