We Don't Let Schedules Get Us Down

I'll admit that when August rolls around, I'm not ready to start back to school.  It's not school itself that I have a problem with, but it's hard to give up our unstructured "free time" of reading, spontaneous baking urges, projects, pool, and regular outings with friends.  Even though we're often done our studies by lunchtime, it's an adjustment just the same. 

We're not letting the schedule dictate us, though.  It is still summer and we want to have our cake and eat it, too.

Which is a perfect (though corny) segueway into this first set of photos. We had a small family birthday party for Maddie and Owen the afternoon before school started.  That could have been a cause for stress with a million thoughts floating around in my head in anticipation of all I needed to do for the next day.  However, I spent time earlier in the summer laying out a detailed plan for the year and I jotted down some more specific lesson plans last week so I put my worries aside to enjoy the day.

Plus Maddie and Owen took over the planning of the party...from the decorations to the baking of the birthday cupcakes (from scratch!). 

with Gammy, their great-grandmother

with  Papa and Gran, plus aunts Kati and Bekah

with Grandma

our family with the birthday kids

On Monday, we completed our first day of school, threw together a quick lunch of leftovers, and headed out the door to a forensics class the three older kids have been taking at the library this summer.

Tuesday morning I made our own variation of these delicious weekday banana waffles in an effort to use up some overripe bananas.  After licking up every drop of real butter and maple syrup, we hit the ground running. 

We completed our second day of school and then headed out for a visit to friends' house for snacks and play.  Owen, our resident baker, made chocolate chunk cookies to share.

Between Monday and Tuesday, I made a slow-rise whole wheat baguette so even though we were gone most of the afternoon, we still had hot homemade bread with dinner.

Early Wednesday morning, I went for a 7 mile run and came home famished.  Maddie and I had been wanting to try a new recipe so I made a potato bacon frittata which we ate with leftover baguette.  It was worth starting 15 minutes late on our third day of school.

No worries about the delay, though, because we had plans to stay home until evening when we met up with Brian's sister and family at TCBY for 99 cent Waffle Cone Wednesday.

(Are you noticing how big a role food plays in my life?!)

These two enjoyed a deep conversation at a table to themselves.  When asked what they talked about, the answer was, "Girl things."

On Thursday was relaxed.  We are learning about architecture for the first few months of school and currently we are reading a biography of Frank Lloyd Wright.  The book includes 21 activities and one suggestion is to cook his favorite breakfast which was oatmeal with butter, brown sugar, and cream.  We plan to do that tomorrow so today we divided into teams to make our own butter and brown sugar.

The girls chose to work on the butter which was a longer-than-expected experience, but we yielded a beautiful stick of salted butter and enough buttermilk to make buttermilk pancakes for dinner!




The boys worked on mixing the brown sugar (white sugar + molasses).  They also achieved a beautiful result and it passed their taste-test, too. 

I guess this week proves to me that we can learn and have fun doing it...without neglecting our social lives or abandoning my love affair with the kitchen and food!

Psalm 126:3 

The Lord has done great things for us, 

 and we are filled with joy.