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Friday, July 1, 2011

First Week Done (Recipe: Sweet Potato and Carrot "Mac and Cheese")

We made it through the first week of first grade homeschooling...oh man.  The first few days were rough, I can't lie.  We tried doing school in the afternoon, we tried doing school in the late morning, we tried doing school instead of nap time (ACKK!  Never again!)  In the end, it worked best to start after breakfast around 8, so we could be done by 9:30 or 10:00.  Haha, not that you need to know that level of detail!  Consider this as me decompressing.  Ernie loves her new curriculum, and we're both really looking forward to this year (especially since a few of her good friends are starting home school this year too.  Hooray!  Finding friends to play with is hard when everyone's in school and I teach in the afternoons a few days a week.)

I actually got my big camera out today- we had our cousin over (Ming Wai) and I wanted to capture the day.

This big girls came up for a dancing party- Jack Johnson was a great sound track for this!  All the girls are totally digging skirts right now.  Ironically, both of my girls were wearing skirts made by Aunt LoLo...and Aunt LoLo's daughter was wearing a skirt handed down from Ernie.

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Wonder Boy did what he does best in the middle of a room full of girls.

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Yeah, he's playin' it cool.

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If this kid naps or falls asleep, it's most likely in my lap after a snack (but that never lasts long) or he drifts off during blanket time, in the middle of everything.  If he just won't sleep in the evening, most of the time I'll stick him on a blanket and just do my own thing until he falls asleep!

Lunch.  I cut up TWO POUNDS of strawberries, and made 5 sandwiches.  The girls ate it all.  Lunatics.  I was going to make a pie with the leftover strawberries, who knew they could eat so much?

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Later in the afternoon, I saw our new neighbors had arrived...and there was a little girl carrying things from the truck!  We packed up a fresh loaf of bread, a gallon of homemade lemonade, and some cups, and trooped over to say hi.

I realized later that while that all sounds great, I actually stink at being nice.  The bread wasn't sliced yet, and now she has to remember to bring back my pitcher.  Smooth.  Plus, I think I scared the daughter.  She came back with us to play in the yard.  I wouldn't let them play in the house (mean!) and I kind of ripped into Ernie when I came outside and found they'd nearly stripped my strawberry bushes bare.  They'd even eaten the green ones!  So, I wasn't yelling, but I get the feeling she wasn't used to seeing kids being PARENTED in front of her.  Luckily, none of my kids got a stomach ache, I hope the neighbor girl was as lucky!

Ah, here we have Mimi basically collapsed, waiting for dinner.  How can these kids be so hungry?

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I totally scored with dinner tonight, thanks to Aunt LoLo.  I'll let you know when she posts her real recipe on the cooking blog, but I steamed two sweet potatoes and three carrots in the microwave, while sauteeing 2 onions with some oil, garlic, salt, pepper, and dried basil.  Once everything was nice and soft, I threw it all in the blender with a can of evaporated milk and whizzed it smooth.  Half went into the freezer for later, and the other half got added to a pound of hot pasta, with a few handfuls of Tillamook cheddar and some splashes of pasta water to smooth it out.  The kids all ate THIRD helpings, and my husband ate an enormous bowl of it (and he despises sweet potatoes in all forms.  I have found the only sweet potato preparation on this earth that he will eat.)

sweet potato and carrot "mac and cheese"

sweet potato and carrot "mac and cheese"

3 comments:

LunaMoonbeam said...

Om nom nom. I'm sure the neighbor girl was fine...and MW didn't get a stomach ache either. haha (So, I have a few dozen tiny green strawberries on my bushes out back. I'm not going to tell the girls about them. ;-))

Teresa said...

When my grandchildren come to visit....all my fruit and veg...are open game =)
Noodles looks great!

Unknown said...

You have your hands full!