A Homestead Workout, and Pantry Challenge 10-12

It's been a busy week here on the farm!!

Wednesday we continued on our CAT5 test and spent the afternoon on a field trip at The Evergreens, a Christmas tree farm owned by my friend and fellow homeschooler Jamie.  We learned about insects and creepy crawlies. (Did you know insects and bugs aren't the same thing??? Actual BUGS have an X on their back, everything else is an insect??)  I really wish I would have gotten some pictures, but we were having too much fun.  (And now I have to make the boys some insect nets to catch their own!) It was very interesting learning about the different ones too, like how to distinguish a female from a male cricket.  Thanks for the fun Jamie!!

Yesterday was a busy day as Thursdays usually are.  I spend the morning baking, then off to market in the afternoon. (It was a REALLY DEAD market day, unfortunately.)  My daughter also sold her car that the insurance company totaled (due to an accident in January... a lady was texting and driving and hit her.  The body repairs were expensive enough they totaled the car.)  Her dad bought it for a daily driver, so he came to get it last night so I had to be home for that since she was working.  (She has been saving up, and after she FINALLY got the insurance check, bought a REALLY NICE car - all by herself!)  Proud Mom moment!!

Fridays I don't work, and didn't have a whole lot planned.  Scrappy has been working on finishing his CAT5.  Monkey and I are working on letters and sounds.  He was really getting in to his favorite ABC YouTube video today!

We did some signing practice with Jack Hartman, which is another of his favorites.

We changed up PE a little today.  Mama needed a workout, so I went to split some wood.

And the boys got to stack it up.  It was pretty warm in the barn today!

It's not all work and no play, though.  We ventured out into field to see if we could find any pumpkins....

And we did!

And now on to the Pantry Challenge for the last couple days!!

Here's what we ended up with on Tuesday night....

I had leftover chicken thighs for later, and Hubs took one of the peppers to work for lunch.  We also had squash for leftovers.

Wednesday for lunch we had leftovers.  Hubs called me before he left work to see if I needed anything from the store when he stopped to get his Coke.  He remembered I was doing a budget/freezer challenge.  I said only if cheese is on sale!

He called me 20 minutes later - cheese WAS on sale... for $1.78/bag.  Around here, that's a GOOD price (he said the tag said "You save $1.61")  Since I had only spent the $2 earlier this week on the squash, I told him to go ahead and get 10 bags divided between colby jack, cheddar jack, and mozzarella.  He didn't tell me right away that he'd bought a loaf of bread.  That set us $2 over this week's budget.  But I guess it's OK since we were able to stock up a little on cheese (my family LOVES cheese!)

Supper was mock lasagna with rustic bread.  I was able to use an entire container of cottage cheese that was in the fridge, and some Italian sausage from my freezer.  My kids are LOVING this bread and eating a loaf a day when it's made!

With everything happening on Thursday we had leftovers for both lunch and supper.  Cleaning the fridge out.

Today Princess was home (staff workshop day at school to get ready for distance learning starting next week) so I cooked lunch.  Her boy was over too.  I had been watching one of my favorite YouTubers Christine at Frugal Fit Mom and was inspired for lunch.  I can't eat much pasta, and spaghetti is really difficult for me.  I had some frozen meatballs still from a spaghetti dinner a friend had sent when Monkey had his surgery. Christine was making teriyaki meatball bowls in the latest video, so I decided that would be fun but substituted the frozen meatballs.  I baked them for half an hour while I was making the sauce and rice.  Scraps really likes teriyaki anyway.  It was actually pretty good!  And I got a bag of meatballs and a bag of green beans used up from my freezer!

We have some leftovers for lunch this weekend too.

Yesterday I asked a friend for suggestions on how to use up a few containers of French Onion dip I got for free.  Other than for chips or on potatoes, we were both lost.  Google to the rescue!!  I looked at several suggested recipes but decided a cheesy hash brown casserole sounded best.  I used this recipe as inspiration, but made a few changes based on what I had on hand.  I didn't have any cream of onion soup, so I made some from scratch using this recipe.  The changes I made were 1) I shredded potatoes because I didn't have frozen hash browns (and I have a TON of potatoes I need to use), 2) I used open cheeses already in the fridge instead of a block of cheddar (chipotle cheese inside the casserole and colby jack on top), and 3) I used the rest of the bag of sausage from the mock lasagna on Wednesday, browned it up, and put it in the hash brown mixture.  

I had to put one of my bags of cheese in a tortilla bag cuz it had a hole in it.

It was a hit with the whole family!!!  But when can you ever go wrong with cheese and potatoes?!?!

Oh My! Monday

Today has not gotten off to a very good start :(  I have a list of things I would like to get accomplished, but so far, not so good.  About the only thing I've gotten done is Scrappy's treatments, but he's not being very cooperative about it.  We're supposed to go sign up for taekwondo today, but the way he's misbehaving, I told my husband that we may not.  We have to run to the bank and pick up Scrappy's MAC delivery before we do anything fun.  

Since today is Monday, Scrappy gets his new spelling list.  I really hope he catches on to this week's list as quickly as his did last week's.  He would walk around singing his spelling words and how to spell them - no, off, on, the, at.  I don't remember offhand what this week's list is. But he did get 100% on his spelling test!!

We took a little field trip over the weekend also.  About a week after our hometown electronics recycling day, our big old 32" TV died.  It's been sitting in the driveway since then.  I had seen an ad on TV saying that Refest was going on in Austin and they were offering electronics recycling for only $5!  Admission to Refest was free, and there would be stuff for the kids to do.

Of course, I didn't take my camera and couldn't find my phone (which had fallen to the bottom of my purse.  It is impossible to find anything in a CF Mama's purse since it's a walking pharmacy plus!)  Daddy managed to snap a few though!  The kids each got their pictures taken with their "environmental pledges."  These are supposed to be coming via email.  Scrappy said he's going to use less water.  Beau said she's going to walk more, use less water, and turn off the lights when she's not using them (which we've already had to call her out on! haha!)  We all got to hold a fox snake, even though we missed the snake and owl show since we were still waiting for the recycling line to move.  We did make if for part of the turtle show, which was pretty cool.  There was a baby turtle less than 24 hours old, a couple snappers, and a tortoise.  

I was a little bit disappointed by the "solar powered carnival" that was advertised - the rides consisted of 2 bounce houses and the refreshments available were only popcorn and lemonade.  Really glad we only bought $5 in tickets!  That got both kids into one bounce house and bought 2 popcorn and 2 lemonades.  We did buy some really good apple brats from one of the vendors though.

After a couple hours we headed home.  Hubby went to help a friend with a car project.  I had a sinus headache and pretty much napped the rest of the day away. 

Yesterday the kids started Sunday School again and Beau and I started Girl Scouts.  I am not looking too forward to this year because there is already a ton of drama taking place.  I really hope it doesn't continue because I honestly don't have the patience for it.  I don't need the drama in my life.  I'm seriously considering transferring my daughter to another troop if it continues.  I guess we'll see what happens...