Weekly Wrap Up---Week 17

Go check out Weird Unsocialized Home Schoolers  to find out what everyone else was up to!
We started off the week with Emily's gym meet and practice for the kids Christmas musical at church next Sunday. I am getting costumes, camels and holders for Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh together!


Dave and Matt took apart a laptop to get stuff I needed off the hard drive... Matt is in charge of putting it back together, but not until he experiments with it a while!!!

Later we put the kids in the car, grabbed some hot chocolate from the corner store and set out to see some twinkle lights! We enjoyed all the musing of ELF on the way!

MONDAY---


Our ADVENT Frosty told us today is the day to visit Chuck E Cheese with friends so we did just that!  We busted out the coupons, pooled resources and the kids went to town with over 250 coins!!!!  We moms got to sit and chat for 3 hours!  Whoo hoo!!!

Then we met Truck Maw Maw at the store to shop for Katie girl new boots... after drama and heartache (mine not Kate's) we got boots... and I got a jacket thingy!

Yes, they are high... No I am not really sure I like my 12  year old wearing them and if she was at ALL prissy in any fashion she WOULD not be wearing them... but I am GLAD for any fashion desire whatsoever...
also the girl wears size 11!  Try finding "kid" friendly shoes!  :)

TUESDAY---

I actually slept in... I was feeling, well the term GOD AWFUL comes to mind but I really DON'T know what that means!  Anyway.. I slept, the kids did nothing.  THE nothing is important because they literally did nothing.  NOT a chore, not a responsibility... NOTHING.  Which just goes to show that what we have been working on is NOT HITTING HOME. Anybody else have this problem???   :)

After I got up, we ate and I got the kids going.  I still felt awful though.  Dave came home from work for lunch--- I did however get up to take him back to work though, because the kids had classes that afternoon.

The day wore on, me with the not feeling well and throwing out the THREATS... if you don't "x" you wont be partaking in your class this evening.  It backfired on me because one kid did and one kid didn't so I STILL had to go to the class.  : 0 )

Matt had a "parent gets to watch" class, he knows the names of steps and seems to be able to preform most of them pretty well UNTIL you turn on the music.  The boy has NO beat.  He gets this from his DADDY!  I will not take responsibility for this inability... I can catch the beat!  So we are going to have to work on finding the beat in like every song we listen to.  I see A LOT of head nodding in our future! 

We left to go pick up Daddy and came back home.. had french toast and bacon and mommy went to bed!


Wednesday...

Woke up feeling so much better than yesterday!  Took Dave to work, dropped off NETFLIX-- I would like to take a moment and recognize publicly the awesomeness of NETFLIX!  I mean the DVDs are great in them self but the streaming.. GENIUS!

We got home and everyone bathed!  No baths happened last night!

While the kids worked on their baths and chores I sat down to re do our chore charts!  I updated them to current day and added some things that were needed... like reminders to brush their teeth!  : (  Then I took off some chores that weren't working how we had them assigned. I will have to think through that!

Finally we sat down to start some school work!  But that didn't happen either... Becky brought Mary Faith by because she had to give blood and the kids started playing.  I could not stop them!  I don't mean OH I kept them busy with crafts or scheduled activities, I mean full fledged pretending. NICELY!

 SO I dusted, cleaned up, reorganized the book shelves, took school work from the last semester out of folders, washed clothes, baked brownies, made a meal for tomorrow dinner or lunch, worked on grading math (that stupid math always needs to be graded), finished the chore charts, read some blogs, Kate and Matt sat on the bed watching Punky Brewster and folder the PILE of clothes that needed folding.  VERY fruitful couple of hours!  WHEWWW!

Basically what my pile had become... ever had this happen?

 Volleyball is NOT happening today.  The last of my threatenings yesterday--- BTW these are not yelling threats, they were in a calm family meeting where we sat down and said THIS is not working for our family... we have to put home and school above outside activities so if you don't get stuff done, we wont go to the outside activity.  We have to put stipulations on MY going out with the kids for fun stuff and stipulations on the kids being allowed to participate.  We will be unable to 100% enforce this for the next week or so just with some Christmas activities being set and my having no control but we will do our best and it will start full force in Jan!  I am at the end of my little short rope.  : 0 )

TWO more days of school work and then I have  a GUILT FREE break until Jan 3.  I have lesson planning to do out the wazoo, meeting dates to plan, field trips to set up, books to request from the library.... but that will wait until the week between Christmas and New Year.  This next week is all about my kids and Jesus and FAMILY!

Thursday...

Another day of waking up feeling great!  I have a tinge of a headache but NO WHERE near my personal pain thresh hold---- which is high BTW!

Got up at 6:30 and started making MONSTER COOKIES!

Recipe:

1 stick butter
1 c. brown sugar
1 c. white sugar
1 tsp. vanilla
2 tsp. baking soda
1 3/4 c. flour
3 eggs
1 1/2 c. peanut butter
1 c quick oatmeal (not instant)
1/4 lb. chocolate chips (4 0z)
1/4 lb. M&M's (plain) (4 oz.)

350 degrees, 12 minutes or until slightly browned.  Mix all ingredients together in order... YOU WILL BE UNABLE TO STIR AT SOME POINT.  :)  Husbands who want cookies are useful here!

As is the recipe (using a ice cream scoop) makes about a dozen cookies, maybe a few more.   I doubled it and made 28 cookies total.  My MOTHER IN LAW-- the Monster Cookie queen... does like quadruple this recipe and she makes dozens!

This being my first time though I only doubled it.  But I shall make more!  Vickie when you pass on, Monster Cookies will live on for another generation or two for sure!

For a reference point because you have ALL seen an  I PHONE....

After packing up our cookies we headed out for volleyball...

We went to the DREADED mall to pick up something for my sister (whom I clearly love!)

We left out to pick up Hubbie and we were off to see...

THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER

WOO HOO!!! It was fantastic!  Not for the faint at heart--- had to take Emily out for a few minutes, it got too intense for her.

Friday---

Got up early again and cleaned the kitchen.  Still no headache.   YEAH!

I made sausage balls this morning!  IT took me FOREVER to find a recipe for this that worked!  IT was always too dry. 

Sausage Balls

1 lb sausage (cooked and crumbled)
3 cups bisquick (or baking mix)
4 cups cheese
1/2 cup parmesan cheese ( I have used both cheap and more expensive grated, both work)
1/2 cup milk (after you mix it, it everything comes together and feels slightly wet you are good, if still dry add milk a little bit at a time until moist)

350 degrees for 18-20 minutes or until browned

A lot of the time I "cook" up a few lbs of sausage and freeze it in 1 lb bags, that way if I throw it in the fridge at night it is thawed by morning and I can cook with out the mess of cooking sausage. 

YUMMY!

My mom came and picked up the kids at 9:30... I got to Christmas shop.  I had bought a total of like 5 things.  But by tonight everything was bought, PAID FOR IN CASH!!! I will wrap it tonight!

Now it is off to Dave's work Christmas Party!!!