A New Milestone

We've reached a new milestone here in our family. Matthew went off to camp yesterday. He's been gone about 36 hours, and it's been very, very quiet. (That could be, in part, because Nathan has no one to fight with. I'm just saying.) He's up in South Carolina right now, so it's very weird knowing that my eight year old is in a whole other state without a single family member. He is with a group of rising 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders from our church. To be honest, while I miss him, I haven't worried about him. First, Matthew is very social. Just ask his teachers. :-) The chance of him being homesick is very, very low, because he'll be having too much fun hanging out with all of the other kids. Second, he is with a group of adults that I trust implicitly. I know most of the chaperones that are on the trip, and I know they will take care of him as well (or better!) than I would. And finally, he's old enough to be on a trip by himself without Mom or Dad around. At some point in time, you have to let your kids grow up. While I love having them around me (most of the time), I also know that my job is to help them learn to live without me hovering over them. So, I sent him off with $8 to buy junk food (plus snacks in his suitcase) and a reminder to listen to the leaders. He'll come back tired, dirty, with a pile of laundry, and hopefully with lots of wonderful memories. Isn't that what parenting is all about?

Yum!!

So yesterday I said I was going to try and make my own granola bars. After searching up and down the aisles at Publix to find honey (I hate shopping at new stores!), I finally found it and tried this recipe.

Homemade Granola Bars
Recipe by For the Love of Cooking.net
2 cups of old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup sliced almonds
1/3 cup of honey
1/4 cup of brown sugar
2 tbsp unsalted butter, plus extra for pan
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 cup of shredded coconut
1/4 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips

Butter a 9 by 9-inch glass baking dish and set aside. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
Spread the oats and almonds onto a baking sheet pan. Place in the oven and toast for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
In the meantime, combine the honey, brown sugar, butter, extract and salt in a medium saucepan and place over medium heat. Cook until the brown sugar has completely dissolved.
Once the oat mixture is done, remove it from the oven and reduce the heat to 300 degrees F. Immediately add the oat mixture to the brown sugar mixture, next add the coconut and chocolate chips then stir to combine. Spread mixture evenly into the prepared baking dish and press down, evenly distributing the mixture in the dish and place in the oven to bake for 25 minutes.
Remove from the oven and allow them to cool completely. Cut into squares or bars, wrap individually in saran wrap then store in an airtight container for up to a week.

I made them without the coconut (I'm not a fan) and accidentally used 1/2 cup of brown sugar. (That's what happens when the recipe is on the computer across the kitchen from the cook.) I also added some wheat germ (about 1/4 cup or so). Anyway, despite those changes, they turned out great! Nathan even gave them two thumbs up. I'd add a picture, but I haven't a clue where my camera is right now. They made 16 granola bars which will last us a week, and the only thing I'll need to get to make another batch is more oats (I'm almost out). Definitely a once a week recipe! Next time, I may make them with raisins (or peanut butter!).

Busy, busy, busy!

The last two weeks have been unbelievably busy around here! In the space of a week, I moved my entire classroom (just across the hall) and all of our stuff to a new house! That's right, we are officially in new digs. Our new house is in a neighborhood with a ton of kids. We haven't been out much to meet anyone since we're either unpacking boxes or it's raining (or too darn hot to go outside). Today, the next door neighbor stopped by this evening to say hi and tell us about the kids in the neighborhood. It looks like there are at least a couple that are Matthew's age.

I also picked up my first CSA share yesterday. A CSA is community supported agriculture. Basically, every week I will get a bag of produce from a local farm. I love it because I get fresh vegetables without having to grow (and kill) a garden. This week, I got red potatoes, vidalia onions, salad greens, spring onions, swiss chard, and . . .collard greens. (I need to find someone to take the collards off my hands. We don't eat greens.) I made fried red potatoes tonight for supper. I steamed the potatoes, chopped up a couple of the spring onion bulbs, and fried them all together with some mushrooms I had in the fridge. A little salt and pepper (and granulated garlic since my fresh garlic is still at the old house) and the onion tops at the very end. Yummy. The boys saw the onions and refused to touch them. That's OK, more for me!!

Besides the produce, the farm also sells eggs (from the chickens that are scratching around the farm) and lightly pasteurized milk from a farm near here. I got a dozen eggs, but I don't know if I'll get any milk. It's $5 for a half gallon, and we drink at least a gallon a week around here. They sell chocolate milk, so I may buy that as a treat for the boys. They also sell Greek yogurt, and a homemade veggie cream cheese which I can't wait to try. I'm so excited about the next 25 weeks!

Of course, having this fresh food is making me want to serve less processed food to the boys. So I went searching for a granola bar recipe. I think I found a really good one! I'm going to try it tomorrow (when I get my baking dishes from the house). I'm also going to make frozen banana pops too! It's going to be a delicious summer!

That is if I ever get the boxes unpacked.

Mother's Day

This is a total stream of consciousness that came to me during church this morning, so if it doesn't make sense, that's the reason why. :-)

Today was Mother's Day, and for some reason, I was missing my grandmothers more today than I have in a while. I think it started a couple of weeks ago when I heard an advertisement for flowers, and the announcer suggested that you could send the flowers to your grandmother. I don't have anymore grandmas, and it's a hole that won't ever go away. Today, our pastor preached about teaching your children their faith story and making sure that they know where they come from. For me, it's easy. I had a wonderful, godly great-grandmother who prayed for me (and all of her offspring) every chance she got. I got to keep my great-grandma until I was already married. And I'm selfish. I wanted the same things for my kids. Both of my grandmas were fantastic women. They each had their own way of living out their faith, and they would have been wonderful examples for my kids. They both got to meet and love Matthew and Nathan. (I will be forever thankful that we were able to visit my grandma in New York when Nathan was just a few months old. It was a rough trip with two babies, but those pictures are precious to me.) Andrew won't have any of those memories. I don't know if it will be something that bothers him, but it makes me sad for him. But it makes me realize that I have to work harder to teach my kids their history. My heritage was living right in front of me, so I couldn't miss it. I'll have to intentionally teach my boys their heritage. Sometimes I get so tied up in the here and now that I forget the foundation. I have three precious souls that I've been given.

On that happy (?) note, I hope everyone had a wonderful Mother's Day!

Happy Birthday Matthew!

Today at about 1:30 (or so) am, Matthew turned 8. He was sleeping at the time (and so was I, for that matter), but I like to remember that he is my one who arrived in the middle of the night. Doesn't every mom need one?

His birthday celebration started slightly off on the wrong foot. He didn't feel very well yesterday, so I let him stay home from church. By evening, he was back to his insane self. Of course, this morning, he was back to complaining that his throat hurt, and his head hurt, and his stomach hurt, and he just didn't think he was going to make it to school. Well, I didn't bake a huge batch of cupcakes for nothing! I was mean and made him tough it out. Strangely enough, he was healthy enough at 8:00 to ask me if he could go and get breakfast from the cafeteria. Hmmm.

He was supposed to have a baseball game today, so I made cupcakes for him to take to his team. Unfortunately, winter is hanging on by its fingernails here in Georgia, so no game. We ordered pizza instead. He did get a chance to play with the new Lego Star Wars set he got. (Suddenly, Star Wars is hugely popular in our house. There are worse things I guess.) This weekend, my parents are coming up, along with my brother's family, so we'll have a celebration then. It's even supposed to be warm!!

Poor, Neglected Blog

To my blog:

I am sorry I've neglected you lately. It's been a very busy couple of months. I've started new classes for grad school, and I'm doing a lot of reading about behavior management and intervention. Plus, I had conferences a month ago and report cards come out this Friday. Matthew's starting baseball, so there have been practices and his first game (which he won, by the way). On top of all that, I've been spending a lot of time writing my state senators as they try to pass a bill basing my salary on how well a seven year old does on a three day test in April. As you can imagine, that's gotten me pretty upset. Thankfully, some of our state legislators have decided that rushing into this is a bad idea, so it's being put off until next year. Hopefully, I will have more time to devote to you (and the three people who read you.)

Sincerely,
Me

What is there to share?

Over the last couple of weeks? Honestly? Not much. Our lives have stayed pretty boring. (Which is a good thing!) We started back to KidzLife three weeks ago, so that's brought our Wednesdays back up to full speed, but that's been about it. We do have colds going through the house. I kept Andrew home from church yesterday because he still had green goop oozing out of his nose and eyes. (He and Nathan both have the same quirk. When they get a cold, their eyes get all crusty and gross. Looks like pinkeye, but it's not.) Thankfully, it solved a major dilemma I had. I take the boys to church at 5:15 on Sundays so I can go to "Big Church", but the Colts played at 3:00 yesterday. They would be starting the second half just about the time we needed to leave, and the game would be over by the time we got home. I didn't know what to do! But with Andrew's cold, I could stay home yesterday evening without feeling any guilt. Plus, it was a monsoon all day yesterday too, so I didn't have to try and go out in it. I heard our pastor's sermon was fantastic, though, so I downloaded it to my iPod. I'm going to try and find time to listen to it sometime this week.

So that's our update! I know, you didn't know how you were going to live without it, did you?