A New Family Member

Our family is super excited to host Giulia from Italy. We took her to her first baseball game over the weekend and yesterday was her first day in American school...can you imagine!? She has tremendous courage and besides a few growing pains, it all went well.

Now describing the things she heard and saw on the back of the bus is another story.....

The girls love hanging out in her room and listening to her music. I know this will be a wonderful experience for all of us.

Classical Conversations

You will be reading many post about Classical Conversations in the near future.  This will be our third year of Foundations.  We are now connected to the blog carnival at Half a Hundred Acre Woods.  This is a wonderful site for all things CC, enjoy.

Homemade laundry soap recipe

It really works!!!! My quest is over for a perfect laundry soap recipe...for less than 2 cents a load...I'm sold.

I have been using this recipe since March and just today I am making a new batch. It cleans well and it has a fresh scent. My friend adds Pyrex crystals to her recipe for more scent.

Here's the laundry soap recipe:
1 box of borax
1 box of super washing soda
1 4lb box of baking soda or 1/2 big bag
1 small container of oxy clean
3 bars Feld-naphtha soap grated
1 big container to mix in- I mix it up in thirds so it combines well. I use the oxy scoop to add it to my laundry. 2 scoops per load does the job.

Let me know what you think.

Daughters are special

One photo says it all:

Space Unit

We are easing into school by doing a fun unit on space.

The girls painted this really cool glow-in-the-dark solar system. They learned about temperatures of stars and seeing the different colors come off the flame was a good visual.

The planet cards came from Montessori for everyone.

We have started moon observation journals and use an App on my phone to pick out popular constellations.

We are back!

Here is what we've been doing this summer...in photos.

We celebrated 2 birthdays, had a ton of company, and dusted off the canner for summer harvest.

We are getting ready to start school and another year of Classical Conversations.

How is your summer so far?

Strawberries & CSA

 What do you do with 25 pounds of organic strawberries... eat, dehydrate, and can!  It took me about 5 hours to work my way to the bottom.

I tried a new jam recipe that did not use Sure-Jell, just lemon juice, strawberries, and sugar.  It taste nice, but it's not as thick as some recipes that I've tried.  I dehydrated 10 pounds of berries and filled all 6 trays of the dehydrator.  It's amazing how much they shrink!  The strawberry chips are now stored in 2 freezer bags.  This is the dehydrator that we have, it's wonderful.

My girls call this lovely strawberry- 3 Sisters.
The strawberries were purchased in bulk from our CSA, Vollmer Farm, and they arrived in this box....it made me laugh out loud!

I chose this particular CSA because it was organic and is Non-GMO!  Did you know that 90 percent of all corn purchased in grocery store is made from Genetically Modified Seeds?
I also love the challenge of cooking with vegetables that I normally never purchase, like rutabaga.  Tonight for dinner I mashed them with butter and garlic...everyone loved them, even the baby.  Here are a few pictures from week 1 and week 2 of our CSA.

Girl's Garden

We've been playing in the dirt, pulling up weeds, and cleaning out a small space for a "girl's only" garden.  It took all day, but it was worth it!

The girls planted Marigolds, Sunflower and Zinnia seeds, Cucumbers, Carrots, and I have a little patch of basil in the middle.

 We even had a little visitor come and check out our new garden box....(we found this so funny!)

Hello Sunshine, thanks for visiting!

How are you getting your hands dirty this week?

American Girl Party Ideas

Well, my American Girl has been 7 for nearly a three months now, but I forgot to post our fun party ideas.  Above and (sideways) is a cute American Girl Bingo game that we played with her friends, it was a big hit.

Here is a photo of Kanani in Samantha's dress and my American Girl!  I also cut out the doll photos on the bingo square to tape on the party cups.

I decorated with American Girl store shopping bags and made little doll party hats with craft paper and pom-poms.
*Our American Girl Tea Party Menu included:
Kanani's Tropical Fruit
Kit's Lunch Bites
Samantha's Tea Cookies
Olive's American Girl Cake and Icecream cups

Easter Challah Bread

This is a lovely bread that I made in Fall that will be perfect for Easter.  I plan on braiding the bread to have with dinner and using the leftovers to make perfect french toast.

Simply Healthy Challah Bread
There isn't any bread maker required for this lovely loaf of traditional Jewish egg bread. It's perfect for sandwiches or french toast for breakfast. I usually do not make bread from scratch, but this recipe from All Recipes-here,  is so simple and healthy that I may just bake some every week. The recipe made two big loaves and my family loved it.