BOB Books

CLG has decided she wants to learn to read. She knows most of her letter sounds, and lately I've been hearing her trying to sound out words constantly. Between that and her nonstop questions about how different words are spelled, I thought it was time for her to try something new (I mean, seriously, the only time she stops asking how something is spelled is if she's sleeping or swimming! And when she's swimming, I betcha she's asking her swim instructor how he spells different words. I need a break from spelling!!!). So I introduced her to BOB... BOB books, that is!

We love these books! CLB used them to learn to read, and now it's CLG's turn.

These books are great! Just the right size for little hands, and the words that are used to tell the stories are perfect for little ones just trying to figure out how to sound out words. As kids work through the books, the number of words per sentence increases, allowing them to work on reading comprehension as well as sounding out words. And the pictures that are included help kids figure out what is happening in the story (This is not Shakespeare, people! Simple little stories with simple little words and simple little pictures!! Perfect for little people!!). CLB started to learn to read with them, so it's fun going through them again with CLG and remembering how much her big brother loved them. 

This time around, though, because of Pinterest, I've also found some fun sheets and activities to help CLG practice what she's learning. We did a couple today, and she loooved them! The site, 3 Dinosaurs, not only has some great printables for BOB books but also lists out a bunch of other sites with printables and activities.  I'm finding they're just enough of a challenge to satisfy CLG's curiosity, without overwhelming her (she's still little, after all!).

A word path for BOB Book Set 1, Book 8 from 3 Dinosaurs. CLG had fun with this one!

A tracing and stamping activity from 3 Dinosaurs. This was CLG's favorite! We didn't do the tracing, but she was all over the stamping!

CLG is really excited to be able to learn to read and to get to do school time like her crazy older brother. I'm excited for her, too! And for me! These books are a great change of pace from spelling out word, after word, after word, after word...

Time to Start Planning!

So as we start getting to the end of July, the Crazy Little Kids and I start getting antsy. We're starting to feel ready to gear up for the new school year! We're not quite ready to start our "official" school year, but almost. So in the next few weeks, I begin to start setting up an overview of the school year and giving the kids some clues about what's coming up. It helps build the excitement!

When we first started homeschooling, I had dreams of making up all my own activities and finding all these amazing books to read, all on my own. Yeah, that lasted about four months! I had a 6 year old to teach and a crazy 2 year old girl who was into everything. Making up my own stuff just was not an option! Fortunately, I found this series of books that have been an absolute joy for us! We love love love the  Learn at Home series! It really suits the crazy kids' learning styles, and it also suits my teaching style. A lovely fit for us! Thirty-six weeks of topics to study, possible field trips, activities and crafts for math, spelling, reading, science, social studies and language arts. It's all crammed into one lovely book for each grade!

Love love love these books!

There are only two issues I have with these books. First, they're not published any more, so the only way I can find them is on Ebay or discount book sellers. And sometimes, this means it's missing pages, which is a problem. Bleurgh! The other issue is there isn't an index of topics or books being read! So every summer, I've had to go through it week by week with CLB to see what he thinks he will enjoy and what he isn't so thrilled about and then tweak it all. For him, we usually focus on the books he'll be reading (the series suggests a book to read every week), so that I can start reserving books at the library. And if a book doesn't seem engaging to CLB or for some reason our library doesn't have it, I start looking for books to switch things up. It doesn't happen often, but for those few times it does, I want to be prepared for it. So then I end up writing up something that looks like this:

Am I seriously supposed to read this chicken scratch!?!?

I don't know what my problem is that I can't type my book list out. It always needs to be written by hand! Everything else, I can type and go, but for some reason, this gem needs to have the chicken scratch to make sense. And after I'm done with it, I want nothing to do with typing it out, so heaven help me if I lose this thing! It's our overview for the entire year, with dates and weeks and books and topics all written out.

What's tough this year is that CLG is getting added into the mix. And her list is crazy! Lots and lots of books for every week, and I STILL can't type it out while I go through it!

Well, at least it's a little neater!

So whereas one sheet of paper will hold all of CLB's yearly outline, one sheet of paper will only take care of 5 days!!! for CLG!! Seriously, I have to do this on the computer, right!?!? I'll be here forever doing this. I don't think I did this with CLB...I was too much of a newbie homeschooler to think of it.

I will say, though, that it is exciting to get a closer look at what we'll be exploring this year and all the new books and activities we have to look forward to. Once these lists are done, I'll have a good vision of how the school year will proceed. And once the school year starts, I'll spend time each week planning out the following week, but we haven't gotten that far yet. We are all starting to anticipate getting back into the swing of things, though! And if we can't wait any longer, well, we can always just start! That's what's fun about homeschooling!

Canning Update!

Ha! So I did it! It's 61 degrees here today, so, since there is no way in Heaven I'm going to make the kids go swimming, I decided to make and process some salsa! I followed the Zesty Salsa recipe from The Ball Blue Book, and I can't wait to eat it!

The only annoying part out of the entire deal was peeling those darn tomatoes. Yes, I know, score them, boil them, and then plunge in ice water! I know the drill with peeling them. But these tomatoes did not want to get naked this morning! Chopping the peppers and onions were a breeze compared to that. But it got done!

Everything chopped and ready to cook up!

After only ten minutes of simmering, this mixture was ready to process! So, once I got past peeling my shy little tomatoes and everything else was all chopped up, it went along pretty well.

Cooked down and ready to process!

After 20 minutes of boiling water, here are my three lovely jars! Yes, I know, only three, but I'm starting out small. I actually halved the recipe in the book (the book said it was okay to do that with this recipe, thank goodness!).

Yummy! 

I hope it tastes as good as it smells and looks! It was fun trying something new! Next step, canned nectarines!

Canning and Processing...Can I Do It?!?

When I was very little, my grandmother used to live with us, which was absolutely wonderful! Every summer, she and my mom would get us all together with buckets, and we'd head out to the field behind our backyard. Our goal? Berries!!! Lots and lots of berries! I don't actually remember what kind of berries we picked, but we always picked a ton of them! And then we'd head back to the house, overflowing buckets in tow, and my grandmother and mother would spend the rest of the day making jam and processing it all. To do this, they took out the biggest pot I've ever seen, added water, and boiled it over and over all day. Our kitchen was just filled with steam! My mom and grandmother made short work of those berries, and, if we were lucky, they'd also process homemade pickles from cucumbers straight from our garden! I used to love those days, but, unfortunately, I never learned the tricks of processing fruits and vegetables.

I've wanted to do it myself, but I've always been a bit tentative. What if I didn't process the jars correctly and I ended up inadvertently giving everyone food poisoning (can you tell I'm a worrier!?!). I asked my mom to show me how to process food, but she wanted nothing to do with it. I guess she had enough of it all those summers we were growing up! Eventually, I have gained some confidence in my ability to read directions out of a book (ha ha), and have made some different jams that were quite successful. So I finally decided that this is the year I'm going to try something a bit more complex! I'm going to do it this summer! I decided on making salsa, since we love the stuff and it's not too difficult to make. The tomatoes and peppers also looked fantastic today in the market, so that sort of helped me set my mind to it.

My future salsa!

As you can see from the picture, I didn't get tons and tons of vegetables...just enough to make a few pint jars of salsa to store away for the winter. I figure I'll start out small, gain confidence, and then maybe next year, really have at it! So cross your fingers that I know what I'm doing! I'll keep you posted on how it all comes out!

Mr. Literal

Me: CLB, go find the flashlights you were playing with last week (there's a storm a-brewin' here!).

CLB goes gallumping down to the toy room and then gallumps back up, sans flashlight. 

Me: CLB, where are those flashlights!?!

CLB: Downstairs in the toy room.

Me: (all exasperated) Well, why didn't you bring them upstairs?

CLB: You didn't tell me to bring them up! You just told me to find them!

I stare and bang my head against the wall! LOL

Snicker Bars!

One of my favorite candies to eat is a Snickers bar. I love these things! When I was a kid, I had a very difficult time eating first thing in the morning, and this sometimes caused issues when we were travelling. I remember getting up before it was even light out and piling into the car to take the long trip down to Long Island to visit my grandparents. It was so early that there was no way I would have ever been able to eat breakfast, so my mom threw a bunch of Snicker bars into her bag and handed them out as kids became hungry. Let me tell you, there is nothing like having a Snickers bar for breakfast! Fan-Freakin'-Tastic!!

So the store bought Snickers bars will always have a place in my heart, but I have to admit, they cannot even remotely compare to this handmade recipe from how sweet it is.

Drooool!

This recipe is AMAZING!!! Hands down the best candy recipe I've ever made. It has four layers, each of which is easy to pull together, but because each layer has to cool down in between, it can take a bit of time where you're just waiting. With bated breath! In addition, I have to admit, some of the layers involve dealing with sticky and messy ingredients. Not always fun for me to deal with but perfect for Crazy Little Kid hands!

So first, I melted milk chocolate chips with some peanut butter, and while I was doing that, the Crazy Little Kids unwrapped all the caramels (First step that I can't stand doing...unwrapping a billion caramels! But my two crazy kids love it!).

Unwrapping caramels...perfect for little hands!

I greased a 9 by 11 pan with cooking spray. I always use an aluminum throw away one, since it's easier to get the bars out of the pan when they're done. Then I poured the chocolate in the pan and the entire thing went into the fridge to cool down.

Melted chocolate!

Time to cool off!

While the chocolate was cooling off, we worked on the nougat layer. This is the only layer that requires cooking, and it's also the stickiest layer. It involves measuring out marshmallow FLUFF, which is, in my opinion, one of the stickiest materials ever created! I hate measuring it, but CLB always handles the challenge beautifully! 

CLB can do the sticky work!

Fluff, what a mess!

While he measured the fluff out, CLG and I gathered the rest of the ingredients for the nougat...butter, sugar, evaporated milk, peanut butter, vanilla and peanuts. Seriously, get everything measured and ready to go before starting to cook it. It goes fast and it's nice to have everything together in advance. Oh, and for the peanuts! I put them on a piece of wax paper and chopped them up a bit. The wax paper helped out later, and I just like smaller bits of peanuts in my bars.

For the next part, I sent the kids out of the kitchen. It involves heating up sugar and fluff, and it goes fast, so it's just better if they're not in there. I melted the butter, and then added the sugar and evaporated milk. 

Just about to boil

I brought that to a boil, and then let it bubble away for a little less than five minutes...just enough to get all the sugar melted completely and for it to change color just a bit. Watch it here, though...don't burn it! After it boiled a bit and changed color, I added the fluff, peanut butter and vanilla to the mix and stirred it up. Again, work quickly so it doesn't burn!

Mmmm, boil boil yum!

I took it off the heat and added the chopped peanuts.

Chopped peanuts on waxed paper...

...slide easily into the pot! See, I told you that wax paper would come in handy!

I mixed in the peanuts, and then poured the entire lovely concoction into the pan on top of the cooled chocolate.

YUM!!

It was spread about and then back into the fridge the pan went to cool down before going on to the next layer! 

The caramel layer is really easy (once all those caramels are unwrapped!). I just melted them with some heavy cream over low heat. Once the mixture was nice and silky and smooth, over the cooled nougat layer it went!

Caramel and Cream!

The Crazy Kids just needed to take a peek. I was right there with them while the heat was on the stove! If Hansel and Gretal taught us anything, it's never leave kids alone when they're near a stove!

Oooh, such wonderful stickiness!

The last step was to melt up some more milk chocolate chips and peanut butter to make the top coating. It's exactly the same as the bottom layer, so easy peasy lemon squeezy!

CLB couldn't stand waiting for these snicker bars! I held them both off with chocolate chips and tastes of fluff!

Seriously, how could you not make these! Look at that!

Once I had the top layer on, back into the fridge it went to get completely cooled and hardened.

I'll say it again...DROOL!!

Once the bars were cooled off, I removed them from the pan and cut them into bars of yummy goodness.

See what I mean about the pan! I think it would be tough getting this out in one chuck without using a disposable aluminum pan.

And there it is!

You get a lot of bars from this recipe!

This makes a lot of snicker bars, and I'm not sure if cutting the recipe in half would work out as well because of the timing with the nougat layer.  I usually try to make sure to whip them up when I know there'll be plenty of people to give them, too. But, on the other hand, the Crazy Kids and I agree that there's nothing wrong with scarfing these babies up all on our own!

Fabulous!

Recipe

Homemade Snicker Bars

slightly adapted from how sweet it is

Ingredients

For bottom layer

1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chips NOTE: I often use a bit more than this to get a                                                          thicker chocolate coat.

1/4 cup peanut butter  NOTE: If you use extra chocolate chips, just add a tad                                                more peanut butter.

For nougat

1/4 cup butter

1 cup white sugar

1/4 cup evaporated milk  NOTE: I have used cream for this, and it works out                                                     fine, but the evaporated milk gives it a better                                                   texture.

1 1/2 cups marshmallow fluff

1/4 cup peanut butter

1 1/2 cups unsalted roasted peanuts, lightly chopped

1 teaspoon vanilla extract.

For caramel layer

1 14 ounce bag of wrapped caramels

1/4 cup heavy cream

For top layer

1 1/4 cups milk chocolate chips (See NOTE from top layer)

1/4 cup peanut butter (See NOTE from top layer)

Directions

Spray a 9x13 disposable aluminum pan with cooking spray. Put the ingredients for the bottom layer into a glass bowl and microwave for about 45 seconds. Mix until all the chips are melted and peanut butter is thoroughly combined with the chocolate. Pour and spread it into the prepared pan and set the pan in the refrigerator until completely the chocolate is completely cooled and solid.

To form the nougat layer, melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium-low heat. Add the sugar and evaporated milk and bring to a boil, stirring frequently. Let the mixture boil for about 5 minutes, until it changes to a light tan shade, again, stirring frequently (NOTE, depending on your stove, you may need to adjust the cooking time for this). Do not let the mixture burn! Once the mixture has changed color and the sugar is completely dissolved, add the fluff, peanut butter and vanilla. Stir this all together, and then take the mixture off the heat. Add the chopped peanuts, and then pour and spread it over the chocolate layer and set the pan back in the refrigerator until completely cooled.

To form the caramel layer, melt the unwrapped caramels with the cream over low-medium heat. Once the caramels are completely melted and the mixture is smooth and silky, pour and spread it over the nougat layer and set the pan back into the refrigerator until completely cooled.

To form the top layer, again put the ingredients for the top layer into a glass bowl and microwave fro about 45 seconds. Mix until all the chips are melted and the peanut butter is thoroughly combined with the chocolate. Pour and spread it over the caramel layer and set the pan back into the refrigerator until completely cooled. 

Once the candy is cooled completely, turn it out of the pan onto a cutting board. Cut the candy into bars or bite sized pieces and enjoy!

Fancy Nancy

So a few months back, one of our libraries was having a Fancy Nancy party. My Crazy Little Girl was sooo excited to go! She wanted to dress fancy and her hair had to be fancy!! So in preparation for this, I started searching for fancy hair styles on Pinterest. There were so many! And so fancy! My daughter was thrilled! Her favorite styles came from the blog Simply Sadie Jane. This lady can do amazing work with toddler hair! CLG's favorite? The one where she made the hair look like little bows!

So I tried. I really did! But while I was trying, I remembered something...I can't even get CLG's hair into braids!!! Like herself, CLG's hair is just crazy! Straight in some spots and curly in others. And she just doesn't sit still! Or stand still! And, honestly, I am terribly untalented with doing up hair of any sort. I mean, you should hear the words that come out of my mouth when I'm trying to do my own hair! I keep them to myself when I'm doing CLG's hair, but seriously, I'm embarrassed by how long it takes just to put her hair up into a ponytail!

A ridiculous amount of time later, a CLG ponytail!

So I opted out of making CLG's hair into cute little bows. I made lots of ponytails and added lots and lots of clips:

If one ponytail takes x minutes to put up, how many minutes does it take to put 6 ponytails up?

Her hair was sticking out in every direction possible. I thought for sure she'd take one look at it and accuse me of ruining her day. But you know what? She thought it was the best hairdo she'd ever had! She loved it! Heck, she's looking at the picture now and ooohing and ahhhing and asking for it again. Turns out, as long as it has something pink, fluffy or flowery in it, she doesn't care how it looks. It doesn't need to be perfect for her to love it. So now, I try to breathe a sigh of relief when it comes time to do her hair. It helps to keep the cursing in my head instead of out of my mouth each morning as I look at her head.

Fun Little Math Problem

Just a cute little math problem to satisfy the geek in me. I thought I'd share :) The crazy kids like the different shapes and thought I was crazy arguing about my answer to someone else online. Can you figure out what A equals?

You can go HERE to find the original problem as well as a few others that are similar.

Who Said We Don't Homeschool All Year!

We generally start our homeschool year at the end of August and run straight through until the last week of May. Then we all breathe a sigh of relief and say, "Let's just take it easy now!" The crazy kids (and myself!) anticipate lots of time lollygagging around, doing nothing and just relaxing. And then we make a list of things we want to do for fun over the summer (field trips!). And then I start reminding the crazy kids they should maintain the skills they learned with some practice each day(math and language arts!). And then the crazy kids want to join the summer reading program at the library (reading...every day!). And then, this happens:

A HUGE bald spot gouged out of the grass

CLB thought it would be fun to secretly pull out a mass of grass while both crazy kids were playing in their little inflatable backyard pool. I don't know how he managed this without our noticing, because we were right there! I cannot even describe the condition of the two of them when they were done. Absolutely plastered with mud doesn't quite do it justice! We literally had to hose them off! Now, CLB knows better. He just isn't thinking lately! I mean, last month, we sent him up to the bathroom to brush his teeth and five seconds later there was a crash and a new hole in my wall. Apparently, he had decided to hang off the shower curtain and pulled it out of the wall (it was a fixture original to the house). CLB had to help his dad fill in the hole, and I was able to buy a new curtain, but still, he needs to think about what he's going to do before he does it!

My old curtain before CLB got hold of it!

My new pretty one :)

Anyway, back to the bald spot in my grass. To help him try to think ahead before he acts, I decided, hey, since we're basically homeschooling during the summer, why not add a research project to the mix. So that's what we did. CLB destroyed a big patch of grass, so now he's going to figure out how to fix it. On his own! If he needs help, he will have to ask us for it, but we'll only be guiding him, not doing it for him. He'll have to use what he's learned about researching a topic to figure this one out. And CLG will have a part in this, too, since she had a part in tearing out the grass. But it's CLB's job to determine exactly what part she's going to play (within reason...she's not quite four, so I don't see her hefting up bags of grass seed, yet!). I'll keep you posted about how this one works out!

Peanut Butter Cookies

So CLG decided she wanted to do some baking this morning. CLB was busy playing with his cousins who were up to visit for a few days, so it was just the two ladies in the kitchen this morning. We decided to make some peanut butter cookies! This recipe is super simple and perfect for an almost 3 year old to whip up (with assistance, of course!). So we donned our tutus and tiaras (well, CLG did at least!), tied on our aprons, and hit the kitchen!

While I measured out two cups of creamy peanut butter, CLG unwrapped chocolate kisses.

CLG decided to line up the chocolate kisses and count them, too.

We put the peanut butter in a bowl, along with 2 cups of white sugar, 2 eggs, and 2 teaspoons of vanilla extract.

Don't forget to smell the vanilla!

There's lots of peanut butter hiding under all that sugar!

Then CLG got to work mixing, while I finished unwrapping chocolate kisses.

Stir, stir, stir!

Final stir...I had to give CLG a hand at the end to pull it all together

Then CLG got a chance to show off her mad Playdoh skills! She rolled the cookie dough into little balls and put them on baking sheets lined with parchment paper.

Make that peanut butter ball, Girlie!

This is what CLG thinks I mean when I say spread the balls out.

So I have to help out a little bit with that. And yes, all the balls are very different in size. What do you expect!?! This is a 3 year old baker, after all!

We put the cookies in a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes. Then we took the cookies out, put a chocolate kiss on each one, and then put the pans of cookies back in the oven, just for a minute or so to melt the chocolate.

Mmmm, almost done!

We let the cookies cool on a cookie rack and they're ready to enjoy! I love these cookies! So fast and easy, and the lack of flour really gives them a nice chewy texture and a strong peanut butter flavor. CLG loves them, too, because not only does she get to eat them once she's done, but she can do most of the baking with only very little help from me. Yum!

Recipe:

Peanut Butter Cookies

adapted from a recipe on Punch Spoon

Makes 36 cookies

Ingredients

2 eggs

2 cups sugar

2 cups creamy peanut butter

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

36 chocolate kisses candies

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line baking sheets with parchment paper.

In a large mixing bowl, combine the eggs, sugar, peanut butter and vanilla extract. Mix it all up, and then form into approximately 36 balls, placing the balls on the lined baking sheets. Bake the cookies for 12 minutes in the preheated oven. Remove from oven, and then place one chocolate kiss candy in the center of each cookie. Return cookies to the oven only for a minute or two, just to slightly melt the chocolate. Cool cookies on a wire rack.

Pack Rat

When I was growing up, there was a door between our kitchen and dining room that was always open. When I was little, it never occurred to me to wonder why it was always open, it just was. And then one day, when I was a little older I noticed it, and decided to peek behind it to see what was back there. I was shocked when I took a look! Bags and bags of just stuff! Apparently, the door never closed because it was actually there to hold back STUFF!

When I bought a house of my own, I vowed that that will not happen here. NOT in my house! NO WAY! And of course a month into home ownership, there it was...my pile of things I just could not throw away but had no place to put. And even worse, this stuff grows. Slowly but surely, it sneaks up on you!  My primary "collection" areas tend to be our hallway closets. If there's something I just can't bear to part with, I stuff it in one of those closets! I found this out the hard way when I finally broke down and tore both closets entirely apart and reorganized them. I couldn't believe some of the items that I had in there. I mean, I found (stained) bibs in there from when CLB was an infant! Crazy! Apparently, I just needed time to forget that I had them, and then it was easy to throw or give away items that we no longer had a use for. I guess I needed the time to get over my emotional attachment to these things.

Closet number one! Yes, that's cleaned out! Any super neat people out there...don't laugh too hard at what I consider cleaned out!

Here's the accompanying bag of trash I dragged out of there! I have no idea how all this stuff fit in the closet in addition to what I left in there. What's sad is...

...here's closet number two, (also cleaned out)...

and it ALSO had enough stuff in there to fill another (huge) bag of trash!

Here's the kicker, though. I also have issues completely cleaning out the refrigerator! Okay, yes, I have issues with cleaning out the refrigerator because, uggh, who wants to clean the refrigerator. But it goes deeper than that! Crazy me likes the jars that some foods come in (especially pickle jars! I love the jars more than the pickles!) Why on earth I can't throw out jars is beyond me, but there they are, day after day!

Our refrigerator, stuffed to the gills!

Obviously, (since I just said it) I finally figured out that I like the jars themselves, so I am starting to clear some of them out of the fridge to be stored away and used another time. I mean, our fridge can only hold so much, right?!? Heck, our house can only hold so much, so something's gotta give!

Cleaned out and minus something like 10 jars! At least 3 of them pickle jars!!

My new goal is to continue going through EVERYTHING and not to hold on to items simply for emotional reasons. That's a good goal to have right? Whether or not it's one I can reach is another story, though! I mean, those cleaned out, repurposed jars are already starting to collect!

Just some of my jars, all being repurposed. Let's hope they don't take over the entire kitchen, now!