Oh the last few days have been busy busy busy! I haven't had busy days like this in months! It was sort of nice to be more in the old routine of things but I have to say I think I kinda like my new life style of just staying home more and being more mellow and really enjoying my days rather than enjoying half of it in the car!
Wen, was a pretty relaxing day for the most part but a busy evening. We had our monthly FRG meeting for the unit to go over some of the upcoming deployment stuff. You know the usual, how to be prepared for it, what to expect, what numbers to have, got our little deployment folders, etc. Basically all the stuff that I already know and just reminded me even more how close this deployment is coming way to soon and feels like he just got home from the last one! But useful for those that maybe have never been through a deployment before. We picked the boys up from wrestling after and headed over to the food court on post where there's a Baskin Robbins to have dinner and enjoy the $.31 ice cream scoop night! Who can pass up a savings like that!
Thur, was my son Keagan's first day at home from school and my oldest son's last day in public school. He had a field trip to the zoo so he stayed an extra day. Made a trip to the Education store and picked up some posters for our classroom wall. A little juvenile for my oldest son but more geared for my 2nd son to remember things by or my oldest daughter to learn from. I plan to go back and pick up some of the older charts for my oldest later. Sadly I think I might have just found yet another place to have a bad spending habit at. There was so many neat things in there! I could have been in there for hours! But I only had 20 minutes before we had to get my daughter to her dance class and it was on the way there. So I got some posters, had some laminated, got a few work books and headed off to dance class. I sadly had to drop her summer class because they may not even be around much this summer between all the visits home and my surgery that I just don't think it's going to work out. So we're just going to take a break during the summer.
Thankfully my friend Kim took her back home with her so I could knock out getting groceries while I was out. That's always an adventure. I swear with a family the size of ours I don't think I can ever get in and out of the store in less then two hours it seems! And you know you have bought to much when someone at Walmart helps you out to your car! I of course had two weeks of groceries in two baskets all for $200! Finally picked up a printer since we will be needing this for home school and well this will just make my life even easier when I can print postage from the comfort of my own home and have the post office pick it up rather than taking all the kids down to the post office and standing in there forever with as often as I need to mail things! I sell a lot online between my little home business and resell items and I usually do one run a week and just save everything for that day and go during my daughters dance class but it would be much easier to do from home! We had a printer but it wasn't comp with vista or something and had problems hooking it up so we gave up. Also got the kids a bigger pool for this summer at a pretty good price and hubby got all of it set up last night when a piece of the faucet broke off! What a let down that was! And even more so seeing that it's going to rain all weekend probably!
Came home and did our first day of home school which was a light one since it was only one child home but got a start none the less. I really don't think I saw my floors for half of the day between trying to feed the baby, put groceries away, school one child, cook dinner.. you name it! It was complete chaos most of the day but I managed to get everything done in time to enjoy Greys Anatomy at least! haha
So then came today! Today was our first "official" homeschooling day with both of my children home. Now my oldest daughter isn't going to be preschool age till fall of '11 with her birthday missing the deadline but I plan to start her in prek here at home this fall. I think she could really benefit from it and I always did light prek at home with the other children as early as 2 and 3. I
am including her in some of it right now since we have already been doing some things at home like crafts, flash cards, learning to write, etc but nothing to major just yet. So I'm including her in bits and pieces but not expecting her to sit down at the table just yet and be involved. The biggest tasks for her is that she has got to learn she can't come in the "classroom" and chatter all morning long with her brothers and needs to leave them alone and if she wants to be in there needs to stick to her little tasks given. I think this is going to be my biggest struggle of them all in all honesty.I think the first day went pretty well for a first day at least. We started out with Keagan practicing writing his name like he has been doing in public school (which he obviously has down ) and Aidan's normal spelling words, then moved on to some phonics and worked on letter sounds, reading flash cards and sounding out the words, then on to math, reading, and science 
where we did rock observations today. That's something we defiantly have plenty of in our yard so we took some time out to hunt rocks and look at them carefully and write down and discuss our observations about each rock and how different they were.
where we did rock observations today. That's something we defiantly have plenty of in our yard so we took some time out to hunt rocks and look at them carefully and write down and discuss our observations about each rock and how different they were.Then we had a little break and had our recess time which today happened to be a social event and a play date I had planned with the playgroup I and another friend run. The even better part to that is we now have a couple of homeschoolers in the group, one in which lives around the corner from me so the older boys were not the oldest kids in the group but had some other 
homeschoolers to visit with as well. We had a play dough play date today. Who would've thought you could get so many things for play dough! We truly have collected just about anything you can think of for play dough it seems! We have a tub full of play dough toys alone! That is one thing the kids can play with for hours! Course the moms played with it quit a bit today too haha
homeschoolers to visit with as well. We had a play dough play date today. Who would've thought you could get so many things for play dough! We truly have collected just about anything you can think of for play dough it seems! We have a tub full of play dough toys alone! That is one thing the kids can play with for hours! Course the moms played with it quit a bit today too haha 
After the play date was over we finished up our school day and had computer time, did our daily Bible devotional, history and then ended our day with baking some cookies! Some yummy chocolate chip cookies for desert!
Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups of all purpose flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 cup butter softened (2 sticks)
3/4 cups granulated sugar
3/4 brown sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 large eggs
2 cups chocolate chips
Directions: Preheat oven to 375
Combine: flour, baking soda, and salt in small bowl. Beat butter, granulated sugar, brown sugar, and vanilla extract in large mixing bowl until creamy. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually beat in flour mixture. Stir in morsels. Drop by rounded spoon fulls on ungreased baking sheets.
Bake for 9-11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool for 2 minutes.
Can someone explain to me how those cookies came out of the oven half eaten? I mean one minute I removed a batch of cookies, turned around to put the 2nd batch in and when I turned back around half the plate was gone? I believe the little cookie Nome's came running through my kitchen with their neighborhood friends and ate them! I had to hide them before daddy didn't get any and was a very unhappy daddy haha
I'm hoping to get a movie I've been wanting to see tonight. I've been wanting to see It's Complicated and it just came out this week. So hopefully the hubby will be up for watching that tonight and it's a good pick. We rented Gamer last weekend and wasn't the least bit impressed with it and shut it off half way through!
He's finally on his way home from work. So I need to go get the diapers in off the clothes line and
I'm going to go finish up the meatloaf and sides for dinner! I might not be the most beautiful housewife in the world after 4 kids or a long day at home but I know the best way to a man's heart is through his stomach and when he comes home to meatloaf (his favorite dinner) and cookies I can pretty much guarantee myself that I'm getting to pick the movie for the night because I'll have one happy husband haha 
South Dakota Meat Loaf
Ingredients:
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup evaporated milk
2 tbs worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup quick-cooking oats
1/4 cup chopped onion
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp rubbed sage
1/8 tsp pepper
1-1/2 pounds ground beef
1/4 cup ketchup
In a large bowl, combine the egg, milk, worcestershire sauce, oats, onion, salt, sage, and pepper. Crumble beef over mixture and mix well.
Press into an ungreased 8in x 4in loaf pan Bake, uncovered at 350 for 1-1/4 hours, drain.
Spread ketchup over meat loaf Bake 10 minutes longer or until meat is no longer pink
Spread ketchup over meat loaf Bake 10 minutes longer or until meat is no longer pink
Let stand for 10 minutes before slicing.
