A disadvantage of homeschooling

Most of the time, the advantages of homeschooling far outweigh the disadvantages. You can go on vacation any time of the year you want, stay in your jammies all day, and take a month off for Christmas vacation if you feel like it.

Today, UPS brought me a box containing 3 items: a cow heart, a cow eyeball and a fetal pig. So now I have this box sitting in my living room and it smells just like you remember your 9th grade biology class smelling.

Someday soon, Alyssa's going to need to actually open one of these vacuum sealed packages and perform the dissection for her Advanced Biology class. She was able to take Biology at a co-op and I got to miss all this the first time around. I'm actively looking for a tutor to talk her through the whole ordeal because I just don't think I can handle it. Any volunteers?

Baby, it's cold outside!

We started with freezing rain yesterday, then had a mixture of sleet and snow all night and last time I checked at 5 pm it was still coming down.

School was out today and has already been canceled for tomorrow. Since we used our snow days before Christmas, we're now tacking on days to the end of the school year which is infringing on my potential vacation the last week of May. The kids don't care now but they will when they're going to school after Memorial day.

Zac tried to make a snow ball but it was too powdery.

Katelyn took Nathan for a 'walk' on the sled. Nathan got this sled for Christmas last year and is just now getting to use it.

Belle wasn't sure what to think of the ice.

Zac needed a new profile picture for facebook and this is what he got...

Our driveway is sloped so it makes the perfect place to sled.

Zac used the sled like a snowboard and landed on his butt. Unfortunately I didn't get pictures of that because I was laughing too hard. I'm going to have to work on holding the giggles till after the evidence has been captured on the memory card.

Ice....Again?

We're having yucky weather yet again. I'll sheepishly admit I kind of like having bad weather as long as we don't lose power like we did for 5 days last year. I never want to repeat that experience again. Today's schedule was supposed to include Kevin leaving for a 2 day conference, basketball practice at the church tonight for Nathan, and me working from 12 to 5 to cover for someone else who is out sick. Instead, Kevin stayed in town, basketball practice was cancelled, and everyone was home for the day by 2:45.

Now we have a relaxing afternoon and evening ahead of us. Kevin is coordinating some disaster relief stuff via phone from the recliner, Alyssa is using her In Style magazine to decide what swimsuit shape she is, and the other kids are battling it out with guitar hero. I'm trying to decide if I'm going to spend my surprise free evening making curtains for Alyssa's room or scrapbooking pictures from our vacation in April 2006. (I'm just a little behind on this whole scrapbooking thing.)

Sassy Sixteen

Alyssa's birthday isn't until Sunday but we partied with her friends tonight. She declared it her "sassy sixteen" since "sweet sixteen" is too cliche. We started the night at Macaroni Grill, all dressed up.

This is what's left of Alyssa's chicken parmesan after she'd eaten a good portion of it.

This is Elliot, singing Happy Birthday in Italian to Alyssa. Elliot was lots of fun as a waiter and I think he could successfully moonlight at Forever 21. (If you don't know the interpretation of that statement, just ask any teenage girl.)

Here's everyone in Alyssa's room before they changed into sweats to eat ice cream cake and watch 27 dresses.

One of Alyssa's friends gave her a Zac Efron notebook as a gag gift! Her real presents included jewelry, 2 wallets, money, itunes, and leg warmers.

Alyssa doesn't like regular birthday cake so we got a chocolate ice cream cake with peanut butter cups mixed in from Marble Slab. Yumm!

Is it just me?

Last Saturday, the kids and Kevin cleaned house for me. They thought they were throwing away trash from the living room when it was really my stack of coupons which I had planned to clip while watching a Lost episode. It should have been obvious that it was not trash because 1) I don't leave trash laying around and 2) Duh! It was coupons! When I realized they had been thrown away, I dug them out from the bottom of the trash can, totally unaware of the fact that they were laying on top of a paint tray from Alyssa's room. I know some you may find that totally disgusting, that I would dig coupons out of the trash, but they had the potential of being worth $20-$30. So after sitting on the couch for a few minutes with my treasured coupons, I discovered paint on my sweater and my pants! Aaagh!

Things like this make me wonder if I'm the only person on earth that these goofy things happen to. I mean, who else in this universe has gotten paint on their clothes from clipping coupons?

It's a small blog world

On Saturday, I got an email from a friend telling me about a friend of hers who had just had a baby who was in critical condition and being transferred to St. Francis hospital here in my town. She asked if someone from our church could go visit the parents. She gave me a link to Kelly's blog so I could read all about Harper.

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Later I was checking my friend Cassie's blog and read about how Cassie had found out about Harper through Kelly's blog and had already gone to the hospital to see them. Cassie's husband is the youth pastor at our church.

Today Cassie and I went to the hospital to see Kelly and Scott (Harper's parents). It was truly a blessing to meet them. We talked with them for a little while and the "small world" connections were almost endless..the people we both knew, schools we had both attended, etc.. We even discovered that our sr. pastor used to be Kelly's parents' pastor when they were young marrieds. I guess when you're all from Arkansas, the family trees and stories all bound to intersect!

Check Kelly's blog for updates and pray for their family. This is their first baby and they are 2 hours from their home. Pray for us to know how to minister to them in the days to come.

Get cookin': Fettucine Alfredo

In the past few weeks, I've had several conversations with moms who admit they don't cook....at all! It seems to be more and more common for us to feed our families out of the frozen food section. This is not only ridiculously expensive but also incredibly unhealthy. In order to inspire you to cook for your families, I'm going to start posting some of my quick and easy recipes.

Today I made fettuccine alfredo for lunch. We have enough leftovers that we'll eat it for the next several days for a total cost of around $3.

Sauce:
8 oz. cream cheese
1/4 c. butter
3/4 c. Parmesan cheese
1/2 c. milk
1/4 c. olive oil
minced garlic or garlic powder
salt to taste
1 tsp. parsley (opt.)

Combine all ingredients in a saucepan on low heat until melted. Stir into cooked pasta and you're done!

Options:
The amounts above are enough for 8 oz. pasta. I add 1/2 c. chicken broth to make it enough for 16 oz. pasta, making my food budget go a little further.

Add grilled or baked chicken or imitation crab meat for variety and some extra protein.

Worried about fat? Use fat free cream cheese, skim milk, and you can eliminate the butter and increase the olive oil to 1/2 cup.

Now get cookin' and let me know how your family likes it!