Seven Quick Takes: Blogger Conference, Gluten, and more Gluten

1. In case you have not heard, or just forgot, or are still thinking about it, registration for the Midwest Catholic Women’s Blogger Network conference is still open until March 11. The conference is in St. Paul, MN on March 25 with awesome bloggers speaking, such as Haley Stewart of Carrots for Michaelmas, Nell Alt of Whole Parenting Family, and Laura Kelly Fanucci, published author and blogger at Mothering Spirit. The link will take you to the conference Facebook page, on which you can find information about registration!

2. It has been a couple of months since I wrote quick takes. The family has all been well, just living life, enjoying an extended Christmas season. We make a point to celebrate all the way until Candlemas/The Presentation of Our Lord. This year I have really been able to relax with the season, as I wrote about for the Register yesterday. We *only* traveled to see family for 12 days over Christmas this year, and it was just the right amount of time to visit with family and friends back at our homes and not go too crazy being on the road. Because of that we had over three full weeks to get back into the swing of things before the professor started the spring semester. We also managed to get our winter stomach flu after the New Year instead of before Christmas this year, which was kind of the flu if one can call the flu kind.

3. One of my Christmas gifts this year was a pasta roller from my mother-in-law. At the beginning o my marriage, when I was homesick for St. Louis, I endeavored to make homemade toasted ravioli, and it took FOREVER to roll out that pasta dough. Now, it is easy peasy. We have been having a lot of homemade pasta. I really need to not push myself, and be okay with using the dried store-bought stuff when time is tight or it is supposed to be a “quick” dinner prep. Anyway, the fresh pasta is really good. The professor gave me the best compliment the day after my first attempt saying, “It is just like eating leftover restaurant pasta!”

4. We have been joking lately that we are anti-trendy-diets, because last weekend we actually bought GLUTEN by itself. We made our first attempt at Ezekiel Bread, and one of the ingredients was plain old gluten. The reason for needing it was that whole wheat flour has a low gluten content, so you have to ADD SOME to help the bread hold itself together. Plus, for those of us who can eat gluten, it really tastes incredible when prepared well. I have gluten-ridden pizza dough rising right now as I type.

wheat, barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt in a single vessel…

5. Ezekiel Bread is based on the bread that God had the prophet Ezekiel make and eat in the Old Testament:
And you, take wheat and barley, beans and lentils, millet and spelt, and put them into a single vessel, and make bread of them. During the number of days that you lie upon your side, three hundred and ninety days, you shall eat it.-Ezekiel 4:9

We went for the first time to our local co-op grocery (we take awhile to try new things) with all of the kids, and found all of our grains and the gluten in the bulk section. The professor and I worked on the bread all day, though most of it was waiting for things to rise and what not. This was my second attempt at homemade (not bread-machine) sandwhich bread. While it was really delicious, I think that I did not let it rise enough in the pans, because my bread was not nearly as tall as that of the blogger’s whose recipe I used.  So, we are going to try it again.  

6. I have a really picky eater in the house these days. Mr. T will only eat what he likes and will gag if you put anything he does not want to eat into his mouth. But he also likes the strangest things. His current obsession is with GrapeNuts. He eats (small) two bowls for breakfast everyday, and sometimes again after nap. However, since that cereal is packed with gluten and vitamins, I feel quite happy to give him however much he wants.

7. I leave you with a book recommendation: Silas Marner by George Eliot. I have read her Middlemarch and quite liked it, but I really loved Silas Marner. Maybe I just liked the simplicity of the main character, but I also really liked how Eliot demonstrated through her characters how to love one really is to will and act for their good. It is short as far as novels go. So, check it out, if you like a good novel. *links are Amazon affiliate links*

I am linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum for Seven Quick Takes!


Seven Quick Takes: Advent Times

My stock Advent wreath photo.. this is a few years old…but looks the same this year!

1. One of the goals I have in setting family traditions is for them seamlessly be apart of our days, weeks, and years. I think that our Advent ones are pretty well established. We have not changed anything from last year or the year before. It took me about 20 minutes to set up our Advent in the home: wreath, Jesse tree, wreath on door. We fit the Jesse Tree into our night time prayer time. We sing O Come, O Come, Emmanuel with the lights out a dinner. We pray for Jesus to help us prepare to receive Him in our hearts at Christmas.

2. I was just talking to some other moms at our home school co-op this morning about how easy the internet has made Christmas shopping. You can do it in a few hours plus you get the excitement of packages almost every day!

3. The main laborious part of Advent for us is Christmas cards. We still write them all by hand, even the addresses. We purchase our cards from the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priests, and the recipients of each card is enrolled in their novena of Christmas Masses, which I think is so cool. It is worth the card writing tradition to give this gift to all our family and friends. We like to spread out the card writing. The professor and I each do ten a night until we are finished.

4. The weekend before Thanksgiving I took the advice of a few Facebook friends and let my garden Brussel Sprouts brave a cold front. I harvested them on Tuesday in my last harvest of the Spencer Garden 2016 season. They were nearly frozen when I brought them in, so we blanched and froze them immediately for use on the Immaculate Conception. I am going to try them again next year, but plant them earlier and actually space them out so they get more sun. We had a small forest of plants, that only yielded 1.3 lbs of marble sized sprouts.

5. Yesterday, for the Solemnity, I made the Professor’s favorite pie, steak, stout, and mushroom, accompanied by the garden brussel sprouts braised in cream and served with bacon from our “happy” half hog. The “happy” beef is from the Professor’s aunt and uncle’s hobby farm; G even got to pick which of the beeves she wanted for our freezer. It was all delicious. My dear toddler son has yet to discover that Good Food is worth eating, so we had a leftover pie to freeze and eat at a later date. Maybe on the octave?

A little blurry, but perhaps that captures the mischievous glee he takes in all he does…

6. Speaking of toddler sons, I am pretty sure that God made toddler boys for the purpose of having cute haircuts. The hair cutting process itself it not cute: fussing on his part and my fear of cutting my own fingers off as he flops about. But the result is adorable. I am a little obsessed with his hair and eyes these days. But also so thankful that he naps and has an early bedtime as his favorite things to do are drag chairs around, turn lights on and off, and try to get at everything on the kitchen counters.

7. I had heard that there will be a new Rite of Marriage in the Roman Catholic Church soon, but I did not realize that it was so simple. According to my girls to get married a bride has to walk down the aisle to the singing of “Alleluia” and then “Kiss Lips” with the intended groom. When one daughter announced that she had married her balloon I informed her that she had the wrong matter to have the Sacrament of Matrimony and probably the wrong form as well…

Linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum for Seven Quick Takes. Please pray for the repose of the soul of a friend of hers, a husband and father, who passed away suddenly this week.

Seven Quick Takes: Cake, Planners, and Flowers

I am linking up, yet again, with Kelly for Seven Quick Takes.

1. We celebrated the Nativity of Our Lady yesterday, and the girls wanted me to make all of ours favorite cake. It was inspired by the peanut-butter cup cream pie I always order for my birthday. It is chocolate cake, frosted in chocolate with peanut butter frosting decorations and chopped Reese’s cups on top and on the side, and the middle layer consists of a thick layer of peanut butter frosting, chocolate frosting, and more chopped peanut butter cups. It is sooooo good. We figured if Our Lady was having cake with us for her birthday, this is the one she would want.

2. The girls devised a new way to elect a president while I was working on the cake.

The girls:
“We should have whoever can make the best cake be the next president!”
“Yeah, that would be awesome!”
“Mom makes the best cakes.”
“Mom, do you want to be the next president?”

Me:
“Not really, but I bet I can make a better cake then the people running…”

It might be time for the 28th amendment, but I hope someone else can make a better cake than I do.

3. I featured our house growing morning glories a month or so ago, but we also planted them all along the fence adjacent to the driveway. They are pretty stunning these days.

4. We also have some blue ones on the house, which are our particular favorite.

5. We sent the professor off to his first day of school this semester, and because we had already started school a month ago, I did not mind as much the fussing of a certain toddler-baby. He had been so cheerful all of August that I knew it was just him feeling unwell. The school week went fine after that, and we are peacefully anticipating the weekend!

6. Blessed is She made a liturgical planner for the school year, and I have been using it and loving it. It makes my life feel so much more ordered.

For some reason it is helping to have my day written down, instead of scheduled in my head. It is not that I am doing things any differently than I was before; I am just writing it in the planner. It is absolutely lovely as well, with a full two page calendar every month, notes for planning things at the beginning of each week, and hourly slots for each day.

So, so, nice. They are taking preorders right now for one for the 2017 Calendar year. Don’t miss out if you are interested!

My friend Anna is doing a giveaway of the 2017 one. So, you could take your chances over there.

7. Speaking of Anna, and our friend Jacqui, all of us were featured together in an article in The Catholic Spirit, the Archdiocesan newspaper for the Twin Cities. Check it out, mom-bloggers are so interesting… 😉

Seven Quick Takes: Home School Plans

I am linking up with Kelly, the hostess of Seven Quick Takes!

1. People have been asking me if we started school,
and I sheepishly admit that, yes, we have. We have been “doing” the Awesome School since August 1. We needed structure. We needed routine. And two weeks of no structure after our final vacation of the summer was too much. So we started right along with two weeks of swim lessons for the two older children. The first week, all I did was 2nd grade math with G and 100 Easy Lessons with L. G did her history audio CD, piano, geography and Latin studying on her own. The second week we added science and spelling. The third week we added catechism, and this fourth week, we added on English for G and 1st grade math for L.


2. This has been our basic schedule, which I have developed as we added subjects. When G can work independently, I work with L. It has been going really well. Not in the schedule are the twice a week school time they have with their father (Latin, Geography, poetry memorization) and the painting and classical music piece per week. We are planning on doing four day school weeks this year (which is also why I started early).

3. G (2nd grade)

We are mostly continuing with what we did last year, but added a spelling and science text. And note that she did her First Communion in first grade.

4. L (Kindergarten)

L spent most of last school year making paper dolls and resisting learning to read. This year she is discovering that if we do lessons nearly everyday, “It is easy!” She also has shown an aptitude for math beyond the kindergarten level, so we are trying out Singapore’s first grade curriculum and will take it as slowly or as quickly as she needs. 

5. F (Pre-K)
  • Printing: My First School Book from Handwriting Without Tears
  • Reading: If she has a desire for it, we will start 100 easy lessons once L is finished. This is a book I dislike in general to force on children until they are really wanting to read.
  • Nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and Beatrix Potter
  • Play!
  • Teach her baby brother what siblings are for

6. Fine Arts: The professor has been working with the girls on poetry memorization, but has also been teaching a painting and piece of music per week. He teaches them about the composer/artist and the period of art the work is from. We do this at dinner time. Here is the Fall semester list.

7. I am really glad we started the school year in steps. It has made it really low stress for me, and now doing a full day of school seems so doable. L is usually finished around 10am and G and I work until 11am. Then they can play until lunch. And now when September hits with the increase of commitments (piano lessons, Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, Little Flowers, Co-op) we will already be well-adjusted to doing school.

Bonus take: Yesterday afternoon, after I got baby T (14 months) up from his nap (who is so much of a toddler these days), his sisters were demonstrating their gymnastics skills. L showed us several cartwheels. Then F did a few somersaults. We clapped after each physical feat. Then T seeing the floor clear, climbed off my lap, lay on the floor, and proceeded to show us how he could roll front to back to front to back across the floor. So, of course, we clapped.

*Please be advised: Some of the links are to Amazon. If you purchase anything through those links, I will receive a small percentage of the purchasing price. However, I linked mostly to the websites that we actually purchase from and have found the best prices.

Seven Quick Takes: Garden Edition

1. Here is F to take us on a tour of the garden this year. First, note the wild flowers abounding in the lawn. We have switched from gangling dandelion stalks to patches of white clover. It is a visual improvement in my opinion. We like to be chemical free in our yard, so we let the wild things grow. We even have a pretty sort of wilderness growing around the primroses that a nice gardener left for free outside of morning mass one day. We do have plans for weeding and mulching in this spot soon, but for now the wild things abound.

 2. In a spurt of weeding about a month ago, I found this Easter Lily growing under my hostas. I planted it in the ground two springs ago and it did not even come up last year, so I presumed that it was dead. I moved it out amongst the daffodil bulbs and have hopes that it will flower one of these years.

 3. My tulips have all dried up and I switched over to annuals along the house. This year we have periwinkles and alyssum.

And L who helped me pick out plants planned her own spot of marigolds and these red flowers whose name I cannot currently recall. We also have a patch of morning glories not photographed.

 4. Onto the food garden. Here are my herbs for the year: mint, parsley, basil, oregano, and a small blueberry bush that is two years old. I think I will transplant the potted basil once our lettuce is finished to have more room to grow. We are all about pesto sauce.

5. The lettuces are ready for harvesting, and we also have some kohlrabi, broccoli, brussel sprouts, and a wide variety of weeds. The only brussel sprouts I have even enjoyed have been garden grown, and the only kind the professor has even enjoyed have been cooked in bacon fat, so we are giving them a try this year.

 Pictured below is the cucumber plant and the carrots. I am working on training it up the trellis, and it will be dominated.

6. Here we have the other garden box. The peas are taking off again, and the girls made a first harvest of tiny pea pods yesterday. I am hoping for some green beans to be climbing upward soon, though some insect is feasting on them ever since they came out of the ground. We put the eight tomato plants in the sunny garden box as well, and have high hopes for delicious tomatoes. I saw a few green ones already!

 7. Finally, here are some little apples on one of our apple trees. According to my research we should remove the young fruits to help the tree get established and to not weigh down the tender young branches. But I think we are going to leave a few just to see what the taste like.

Head on over to Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum for more quick takes!

Seven Quick Takes: Tulips, Broccoli, and Scissors

1. Happy Friday! Home schooling has made me love Fridays more than ever. It makes my weekdays fuller, and makes the weekends more of a break. It reminds me of how life was when I was in school, except, no homework! Perhaps that is how all working adults feel as well.

2. I am also sooooo ready for summer break, but don’t tell that to my daughter; we have at least 6 more weeks of math to do. I am half contemplating hiring a mother’s helper to watch the kids for a few mornings a week so that I can do a little bit more writing guilt free. That would be nice. Patio writing with a cold-pressed coffee. That would be the life.

3. Speaking of warmer weather, I planted some seeds last week. Everytime I plant seeds I think of the Frog and Toad story where frog plants seeds and then panics that they will not grow. He goes out and reads to his seeds, sings, brings light at night. Well these seeds got watered by me twice, and then the Spring began to do the rainy thing, which is so much better than the snowy thing now that it is almost the end of April. I planted some carrots, brussel sprouts, broccoli, and broccoli raab, lettuces, and snow peas. Once it is more consistently warmer I will do more.

4. Broccoli seedlings. Yay!

5. I love tulips; they are so happy.

6. My daffodils really are having the best year yet! I am glad I gave them another chance. I will have to find a good annual to throw in here once the daffodils are finished.

7. My three year old F informed me this morning that she is “going to cut off all [her] hair, and find some red hair, and sew it to [her] head, and make two braids” and be Anne of Green Gables. And to her sister L she is “going to cut off all her hair and find some black curly hair and sew it on her head and she will be Diana.” I think I better hide the scissors.

That’s all folks!

I am linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum.

7 Quick Takes: Sick Days and Snowmen

I have been trying to come up with something interesting to say on the blog, and nothing really seems that interesting about life lately. Here we are, two days into Lent, the beginning-middle of of the longest February we have had in years, and the kids are sick. I figured that I might as well do some quick takes even if they are not that interesting.

1. Baby T, or Mr. Tumnus as he is sometimes called, has been doing one of those sleep regression things again. We got a little reprieve after our three week tour of the Midwestern USA and then six teeth decided to come in right when he got the worst cold topped off with an ear infection. The poor baby. When the baby is sick, though, daily life does not change much. He just is a bit sadder and my left shoulder becomes his favorite tissue. But he also sleeps worse at night.

2. When the baby does not sleep well, Mom does not sleep well. It makes sense, but I find myself getting into a sleep deprived funk, where I obsess over every minute of sleep I did not get and every minute that I did get. I make calculations in my head every morning, and declare it will be a good day if my sleep added up to 6 hours total or I got at least one three hour stretch of sleep. I also down my new favorite natural wellness things, like apple cider vinegar and elderberry syrup, hoping that I will somehow not get sick even though I am covered in baby snot. So far, not sick, but ask me tomorrow how I am… 

“Mom, is this T’s FIRST Ash Wednesday?” L in the middle of Mass. #ashtag

3. I took the kids to Ash Wednesday Mass, sick baby (had no idea it was more than a cold then) and all, and G’s second piano lesson, courtesy of the lovely Mrs. Coyne. At any rate, it was the first time I took all four kids to Mass without another adult to help. We sat in back and did pretty well.

4. Yesterday, after a bad’s night sleep with T, I decided to bless the children with Lourdes water and call the doctor. Only later did I realize it was the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes. (The Lourdes water we have, M and I both brought back from Lourdes 10 years ago after our semester abroad.) T and I went into the doctor and got the ear infection diagnosed and now he is on antibiotics (and probiotics). The 24 hour mark is coming up when antibiotics are supposed to be working, and if it weren’t for teething I would have great hopes for tonight and getting better sleep.

5. At any rate, G and F both came down with fevers yesterday afternoon. As M had a talk to go to that evening, the girls got into pjs early, and we sat down to watch some Anne of Green Gables and eat popcorn. I love that they are old enough for me to share that movie with them; it has been my go to sick movie since I was a little girl.

6. Today the sick girls slept in while the sick baby was up at 6am, and rather than doing our normal Chronicles of Narnia radio plays for sick days, I searched my library audiobook app and found The Secret Garden. G has been following along when she has the energy, or just listening when she does not. F has mostly just slept. So, it has been a relaxing day despite sick children.  Hopefully, these girls will get over the cold faster than their brother, since they are better at taking it easy than a planking baby who can’t fall asleep without help.

All Spencer snowmen will be blogged about.

7. On a non-sick note, before the deep cold we have had this week set in, we spent last Sunday in the warm (30s) yard, building our snowman and rolling giant snowballs into a mini sledding hill for the girls. I think M and I had more fun than the girls playing in the snow. One of these days I will wake up and discover that I love winter, but I am not that Minnesotan yet. I will say that one of the things I love about home schooling is not having to leave the house in the winter if I don’t want to…

Testing the hill.
http://thisaintthelyceum.org/more-valentines-lead-loved-one-heaven/

Linking up with Kelly @ This Ain’t the Lyceum. Click on over for more quick takes.

Seven Quick Takes, Friday Oct, 2–Baby (not)Sleep(ing) Edition

1. In honor of seven years of the seven quick takes link up, I am spending naptime writing them. Kelly, the current quick take host, is asking a question each week in October to be answered each week. I like this a lot, because it is like a free quick take that I do not have to think up, and thinking has not been my strength this week because I have not really been sleeping much.

This week’s question: When did you post your first Seven Quick Takes?

Answer: Friday, August 24, 2012. But I did not link up that time…my first link up was October 26.

2. So, I have been thinking about blogs and blogging and the wide variety of blogs that there are and stating the obvious. But I realized something important for me about my blog. I love to read blogs that give 7 helpful tips or ways to do such and such in your life, especially from other Catholic bloggers, but my blog is more for me. I am happy to share ideas, but my primary reason for writing is to do something I enjoy. So, welcome to my blog where I talk about things in my life… I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

3. I wanted to post it on Facebook when it happened,
but I figured if I did all the kids would wake up. So, will post it now:

Hear ye, hear ye! Let it be known that I, Susanna Spencer, put ALL FOUR KIDS to bed BY MYSELF not one night but TWO NIGHTS in a row.

First night, we did a movie night and stayed up for the Super Blood Moon, and I got T to bed by 8:15pm, F to bed by 8:45, T resettled by 9:15, and then L, G, and I looked at the moon and I put them to bed.

Second night, all the bigger kids to bed by 7:45pm, T to bed by 8:30 (meaning I left the room then).

4. On top of that T has been pushing for an earlier bedtime for a few weeks now. Wednesday night he got really cranky at 6:30 pm. And we were like, really, you want to go to bed already? I was hesitant to do it so early. So, instead I put him in the stroller and let his sister push him around the backyard part of the driveway. And by 7, he was sound asleep. And we were like, um, let’s just put him in the room and see what happens. So, he slept until 7:45pm, at which time, I went in, put him in an overnight diaper, and spent 50 minutes getting him back to sleep. But he stayed asleep until midnightish at which time we got him back to sleep, soooo… Thursday he was ready to go to sleep by 7pm, and I got him down by 7:40pm, but he had to be resettled 10 minutes later by M after which he slept 4 hours straight… It was really strange to have NO KIDS AWAKE from 8pm on…

5. I think I am going to name this “baby sleep edition”
, because, that is all I am talking about. T is my first baby who will not nurse right back to sleep everytime. In fact, a lot of the times he wakes, I am not convinced that he actually wants to nurse. Let me backtrack a minute. Until last week, most nights he would sleep nice long stretches of 4-5 hours and wake up once, nurse back down immediately. But on nights he does not sleep 4-5 hour stretches, like, wakes every 1-2 hours, he won’t nurse back down. So, it turns into M rocking and bouncing and soothing him back to sleep.

The last week of nights has been the more frequent wake ups. I blame stomach upsetting antibiotics, two teeth still not coming in, and a lingering cold with congestion. This means we are getting even less sleep than usual. So, now that he is almost 4 months, seems inclined to an earlier bedtime, I am going to sleep train. I am so ready for this. Pray for us. Sleep training here is along the lines of the No Cry Sleep Solution and if that does not work we’ll step it up.

6. Are we the only parents who measure how settled a baby is in Hail Marys?
When M resettles T we speak in terms of decades of the rosary. “How many decades did you bounce him for?” “I bounced him a whole decade, and then laid him down and patted him a whole decade. He was still the whole time.” Or yesterday I told my mom, “I patted him for three Hail Marys and he stayed stopped fussing and went right back to sleep.” It is not just a time measure, it is a patience builder, and a prayer that the baby will stay asleep.

7. Finally, check out this carrot we grew. It was supposed to be all white, but half of it grew above ground level and ended up green:

She would not get in the photo below due to a tantrum…

http://thisaintthelyceum.org/sqt-link-toberfest/

Linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum.

Seven Quick Takes:Friday, August 21

1. This has been a great month for meeting up with internet peoples. A couple weeks ago, Nell (who lives a few miles from us) hosted Haley from Carrots for Michaelmas and some other awesome friends Jacqui, Laura, Anna, Nancy, and more at her house for a ladies evening. I haven’t had that much fun hanging out with ladies in a long time. T and I stayed out past my bedtime, and even then I did not really want to leave. But responsibility and limited time to sleep at night finally called me home.

2. Tomorrow, sweet Nell is hosting people again. (She is very generous with her awesome house.) The Blessed is She Minnesota brunch is tomorrow morning! There are supposed to be over 50 ladies coming! We are going to be doing small group discussion, and apparently I get to be a leader…so, hopefully I can pull that one off. I have not had to be a small group leader since college, but I was just telling M that one of these days someone is going to discover that I used to lead all sorts of things (like in college) and make me do it again…I am very excited for the brunch, especially since I am bringing watermelon, which I don’t eat very much since G is allergic.

3. It would not be a summer quick takes without a discussion of the garden. I made my first roasted tomato sauce. Turning these: 

Into this:

It was delicious. And in case you were wondering. Three pounds of grape and cherry tomatoes makes about a three and a half cups of sauce.

4. I was so excited about this sauce that I impulse bought a 25 lb box of Roma tomatoes at the farmer’s market last Friday and turned it all into roasted tomato sauce. We have 27 cups of sauce for the winter in our freezer. And my advice to you is, make sure you have some ventilation besides the A/C running if you are going to run both gas ovens for 2.5 hours on a hot summer morning. Otherwise you might set off your carbon monoxide detectors…

5. Speaking of freezer, we finally got around to buying that deep freeze. You may remember my photo of the packed freezer from before T was born. This was our normal upper freezer above our refrigerator. And it was packed full of freezer meals.

As we ate the meals, I started adding fresh summer fruit, and with the decision to buy a 1/4 cow this Fall, we knew it was time to get a deep freeze. Plus, we just had a boy and one day he will be a teenager and eat lots and lots.

 Lots of frozen fruit, and still room for the cow! Hooray!

6. There is a legend on my father’s side about two of my aunts. First, I have to provide a bit of background. On my father’s side there is Lebanese ancestry and Irish and Scots ancestry (and a number of others), so of him and his 6 siblings, 3 of them ended up looking more Lebanese and the other 4 had a more Irish/Scots look. Well legend has it on one day when one of his sisters was sick another one went to get her work for her, and the teacher was in complete disbelief that they were actually sisters because their complexions and hair color were so radically different. Well, I think the same thing might happen to these two:

She has all the Greek and Lebanese, and he has all the Scots/Irish/English. Those eyes of his are so light, but I am not sure they will stay blue.

7. We are doing a three day school week starting Monday, but are also in the midst of three weekends in a row of visiting family. This weekend is my father’s sister and her husband. Next weekend is my sister, her husband, and her three girls plus one boy. Labor day weekend brings in my in-laws. This will make up for the lack of road trip this summer! And then it will be school full time until Christmas (school full time means 2 hours a day…)…

http://thisaintthelyceum.org/sqt-if-you-cant-feel-your-face-seek-medical-attention/

That’s it for this week! Linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum!

Seven Quick Takes: Friday, August 7–Summer, never leave me!

These all came from the garden. Yum!

1. I am really soaking up summer right now. I don’t really want it ever to end: sunshine, warm days, garden fresh veggies, flowers everywhere, barefoot children, and squishy bare baby legs. It does not really get better than this… please summer, don’t go away, ever…

2. This guy is smiling and cooing, and as F (2) says, “He is talking at you!” That is probably the most apt way to describe it: “talking at.” And we are getting some sleep at night, at least six hours most night of interrupted sleep is all I need as long as I can have my cold press coffee mid-morning after I have had my hot coffee with breakfast.

3. We checked out a beach at a local county park last Sunday. (The Twin Cities has amazing parks). It was perfect. The water was not too deep, there were umbrellas for shade for the baby, and the bathrooms were about 30 feet from where we laid our blanket. This was our plan for teaching the girls to swim this summer, but we might just have to give in and do lessons at some point. Anyway, the beach was nice and I did some coverless public breastfeeding to kick off World Breastfeeding Week (because everything needs a week I guess) and showed less skin than most of the other women on the beach, so there…

Not a nursing picture.

4. We have had the following conversation at dinner about 5 times in the last week:

G (6): “I still am going to be a nun when I grow up.”

L (4.5, and who previously expressed a desire to be a nun): “I think I might get married instead.”

F (2.5): “I am going to be a PRINCESS!”

Of course you are, F; dream big. Be who you want to be. You can keep the Disney Princesses out of you home, but your can’t take the dream out of their hearts. Actually, we do a lot of princess stories here, just sans Disney.


5. G came out of her room dressed like this the other morning.

Me (wondering if she is going emo): “You know, G, you are wearing all black.”

Her response?

“Some nuns wear all black everyday!”

Me: “True. Good point.”

6. Back in June, M and my mother took the girls strawberry picking. They came home with 30 lbs of strawberries, most of which we cleaned, crushed and froze. Well, last Sunday (the one before we went to the beach), we made a whole bunch of strawberry jam. So much so that we canned it in quarts and pints. With four kids we have moved up to club size canning!

7. And in case you don’t follow me on Instagram, check out these morning glories:

I love them!

That’s all folks… I guess this was a photo dump post…

Linking up with Kelly at This Ain’t the Lyceum!

http://thisaintthelyceum.org/sqt-seven-people-sticking-it-to-sma/