(And All My) Work Be Praise

Two big break-throughs with Silas this morning: 1. He willingly told me the shape we were working on (square). 2. He jumped into the activity without a single protest. (Usually he complains for about thirty seconds that he doesn't want to, and then gets into it.) I'm beginning to believe that he just might outgrow his two-year-oldness after all. (That's easy for me to say right now, while he's sleeping. I might be singing a different tune, come dinner time . . . .) I sort of made this activity up on my own, loosely based on some playdough mats I printed from some site or another several years ago. I traced around a square out of our color tiles (from the manipulatives kit for Saxon math K-3 ), then used that as a rough template to make more counting sheets. Cheap paper, a marker, squares I already owned, one-to-one correspondence, number recognition, fine motor skills (in matching the tiles to the paper) . . . my kind of activity! And as a bonus, Owen d...

What I'm Cooking KFC Copycat Coleslaw , for a birthday party last weekend. I think I must be the only person left in the world who still loves coleslaw; most of it came home with me, and I'm the only person in the house who will eat it. But that's just fine with me, because I love  it! (I omitted the onions and was quite pleased with the results.) Crockpot spaghetti squash and meatballs . I'm on a mission to reduce starches and increase vegetables in our dinners, but spaghetti squash is not going to be the answer for us. Interestingly, Silas (who won't eat anything at all) and Toby ate it, and Isaac dutifully eats whatever I put in front of him, but the big boys and I just couldn't do it. I used this meatball recipe , and will use the rest of the meatballs for something other  than spaghetti squash! Seasoned rice as a side dish for baked chicken. I don't use bouillon, as most (if not all? haven't checked in a long time) contain MSG, but I cooked th...

After several weeks of doing a shape/color activity with Silas each week, I can say two things with confidence: 1. He knows all of his colors. (I knew this already.) 2. I have NO idea if he knows his shapes. Silas's two-ness is in full swing right now, and one of the things he's adamantly put his foot down about is identifying shapes. I got pretty good at tricking Levi into answering questions he didn't want to, three years ago, but Silas will not be manipulated. Now, he will tell me happily that a triangle is "a mountain," and a square "might be a diamond," but that's about it. Kid's driving me crazy. But, we persevere, and this week we persevered with the help of some sticky craft sticks my mom sent for him. About an inch or two on one side of the craft stick is sticky. She suspected peeling off the backing would be good fine motor practice for him, and she was right: the first one was a little hard, but once he figured out where to ...

What I'm Cooking Quick cinnamon biscuits . Very tasty. I subbed white whole wheat flour, as usual. Glazed orange scones . Because we needed some bright citrus on yet another snowy morning! Slow cooker cheesy spaghetti with turkey sausage . This was a huge hit in my house. It has the creamy comfort food feeling of lasagna, but with a fraction of the work and even fewer calories (thanks to cottage cheese and ground turkey). The recipe calls for only 8 ounces of pasta, but I think I could have used a full 12-ounce box. It was very saucy. Pizza using this crust , but with white whole wheat flour. I do not love whole wheat crust, but this was one of the better recipes I've tried. I use Ragu pizza sauce, because it doesn't have any sugar, and pizza sauce is one thing I still haven't gotten around to making myself. Poor man's steak . I really liked this -- an interesting twist on traditional meatloaf. Plus it made enough for four meals, for our little family! I us...

This post is woefully belated -- the Chinese New Year was February 19 -- but I didn't want our celebration to go unrecorded, especially since my brother moved to China just a few months ago! He has lived in various parts of Asia for several years, but this is his first job in China. I planned to celebrate the New Year before he even took the job, but knowing we were celebrating "with" Uncle Brian in a small way made it that much more special! We read one random non-fiction book on the Chinese New Year, thanks to the library's seasonal displays, and did two crafts: Chinese Hand Drum : paint the outside of two paper plates red (the lucky color in China, a fact Owen pounced on and declared about every red item he saw for the next three days). Attach something -- the site says small jingle bells; I used small beads -- to the end of some string; attach string to each side of plate (I taped and then stapled over the tape). Attach some sort of rod -- the site suggests a ...