Meanwhile, Back on the Windswept Plains...

Downtown Denver- Convention Week

Abby's Handwork

Abby laid out her quilt squares (after a long time of them wallowing in a dark corner of her room...) and has decided to start stitching them together. However, she realized that she will need to sew more yellow and blue squares to be able to complete the next five lines in the quilt.

She has been knitting a skirt from yarns Grandma gave her earlier this summer. However, she also needs to get more of this yarn to finish it. It seems that this is (almost) always the case- running short of materials for a project. Grandma bought the yarn in Alabama- hurray for on-line shopping!

A close up of the skirt. All those different textured yarns make it so interesting. I'm glad leggings are in style again because that would be perfect under the skirt which should come just to the knee.

Hannah's Drawings

Here are three (of several) drawings Hannah has done these past weeks during our group reading time. I think some of these ladies look mad or very concerned. I'll have to ask Hannah what they are thinking!

This week I am attempting to work on quilting this quilt top I bought on ebay about seven years ago. It is impossible to understate how much I *greatly dislike* machine quilting on my machine, so this task is being done because I really, really want another quilt for the family room this winter. We always scramble for the quilts on cold days and we need a few more so everyone will be warm.

My memory quilt top is finished and it turned out bigger than I thought it would. It is a good queen-sized (none of the beds in our house is queen sized, but we'll make it work...). It will probably be years before it is quilted, but in the meantime I will hang it over the upstairs railing and be happy looking at it.

We are into our second week of school. We decided that "A Day No Pigs Would Die" was not a good choice of a book for our family, so we didn't finish it and returned it to the library.

We are enjoying "The World in Ancient Times" history series as a group read-aloud. Jacob is reading "The Mystery of History" and I have checked out another popular homeschooling history book, but for now, "The Ancient Roman World" (and next, "The Ancient Egyptian World") has been great for our history studies.

Finally- wow- what an exciting Olympics! We look forward to evening when we can turn on the tv and cheer for our gymnasics teams and of course, Michael Phelps and the men's (swimming) relay teams. It's always incredible to watch the talent of these athletes from around the world.

School Days

We started school this week even though not all of our curriculum has arrived yet (we are hoping it will come by tomorrow- the company we order from ships its packages by turtle express).

We are enjoying the book "The World in Ancient Times- The Ancient Roman World". It's a very well written history book for elementary/middle school (depending on the child). We are reading it as a group each morning before our other history books come, although we may continue with this series for awhile.

We are also reading "A Day No Pigs Would Die" by Robert Newton Peck. So far it has been good (although needing an edit of a few swear words). Since I haven't read it before, I skimmed over the last few chapters and found them to be on the intense side. I'm not sure how I want to handle those chapters- they deal with death and of course that is a part of life, but this book is pretty blunt in an old-fashioned farmer type way that we are not used to. I need to think about how we'll finish this book. I already know of one chapter we'll be skipping...

We are continuing our math program from last year and it is still going well (Math-U-See).

Looking forward to watching the Olympic Games starting tomorrow...

Place the State

http://www.sheppardsoftware.com/states_experiment_drag-drop_Intermed_State15s_500.html

If you cut and paste the above link in your browser, it will take you to the Sheppard Software site where there is a nifty USA "Place the State" game. There is a blank outline of the US and they give you the shape of each state, one by one, for you to drag over its location.

I admit that geography is one of my worst subjects (there are others... geometry being even worse) but playing this game has helped me learn the location of each state more than anything else I've tried thus far. My children also enjoy it and we have had competitions to see who can get the best score in the fastest time.

And best of all- it's free!

Muppet Show- I've Never Harmed An Onion

We like to sing this song while chopping onions! I especially needed to sing it today while I cut into the world's most eye stinging onion ever!

Honey Mustard Salad Dressing

3 Tablespoons cider vinegar
3 Tablespoons honey
6 Tablespoons mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon Dijon Mustard
1 Tablespoon onion, finely minced
1 1/2 Tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped (we used dried parsley because we're not THAT fancy)
Pinch of salt
3/4 cup salad oil (we used canola)

Heat vinegar and honey in a small heavy saucepan over low heat, stirring constantly until honey dissolves. Pour into bowl. Cool. Whisk in all other ingredients except oil. Mix well. Gradually whisk in oil. May be prepared 3 days ahead, covered and refrigerated.


We tried this new salad dressing recipe this week and it was good. It would be especially good on a raw spinach salad- we often eat salads with half leaf lettuce and half spinach, so I think we'll be making this again.