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Hopping to It: April 2010

Thursday, April 29, 2010

A Turkey Burger??

I want to try to shake up meal time.  Try some new, healthier things.   So I knew I wanted to make burgers tonight.  Was going to cheat and buy pre-made frozen ones.  So well at the freezer I saw a box of Jennie O Turkey Burgers.  And all I heard was Bob and Jillian say, get those, get those.  Now I have use ground turkey in many things, but never as a burger.
In my mind I wanted to kinda recreate a burger I saw on the Food Channel, but not as big.  It had red onions, American Cheese on a toasted sesame bun.  But how would that taste on turkey and not yummy beef??

So I fried the red onions and put them aside, then fried up the turkey burger in the left over butter (Ok not healthy).  Then toasted the buns.  Put burger, onions, but cheese on top, a little catchup.

Very yummy.  Every one ate them and that was key.  Served with strawberries and beans.  This will be put into the rotation of dinners!!  Once I get the rotation going!!!!

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A New Carpet Cleaner

So the secrete is out, I have five kids and one cat.  And our carpets look clean all the time.  Ummm NO!!  It has been driving me crazy.  It has been about a year since we had them last cleaned.  Then we had construction done and I kept saying I will have them cleaned after it was done.  Then that finally ended and well I don't know what happened.  The carpet got worse and worse.  When the new cat came at Christmas time, she has had many accidents.  Our carpet got worse and worse.  I hated to clean cause it just looked dirty.
So I finally looked at Stanley steamer.  Every room needs cleaned.  It was going to be alot.  It was time to break down and just get a carpet cleaner.  So today while at Target getting Leila's medicine I saw the carpet cleaners on sale.  Hmmm  I compared and finally broke down.  Two times having the carpet cleaned would pay for it.  But the real question, will it really clean.
I got home and like a little kid at Christmas time, I opened the box up and the boys helped me put it together.  I was eager to use it, so we cleaned part of the living room floor, vacuumed and I was set to go.  This was the worse part of  all the carpets.  Highly traveled it had many black stains and spots.  I had play dough on some spots, hot pink.  And I started to clean.  And I was AMAZED!!!  It really cleaned the carpet.  About as well or better than Stanley steamer.  They never could get play dough out.  This got the hot pink play dough out!!!!
I was so excited that we continued to the next part of the living room.  Then to the worse cat spot.  I bought special soap for the cat.  While not ever stain came out, it looks great!!!  Now I am excited to clean the rest of the rooms and keep the carpets clean!!!

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Tuesday, April 27, 2010

Handmade Home

Ok so you all know I love books.  I can't help it.  There is so much info out there and while we can find much on the internet, books are classic.  So when I get new books I have read or used I want to review them and let you know more about them.
I recently used a gift card from my birthday and bought this book by Amanda Blake Soule called "Handmade Home."  I am always looking for ways to do things differently, new from old, simpler.  This book looked liked it had some great ideas in it!
The first project that caught my attention was the "Family Art Table Runner"  Using scanned in art projects she has created a awesome looking table runner.  I am going to use this idea for Thanksgiving.  What a great tradition that will be year after year.  I figured Summer was a great time to get some of these started.
Having many headaches the second project that caught my eye where the "Silky Eye Pillow" (no pun intended!:))  Since I a beginner sewer, I like simple projects right now.  These look easy and plan to use some as gifts.

Her assortment of ideas for bags are great and I love beach blanket idea.  All these ideas use old fabrics, scraps  of fabric or even old table cloths and sheets.  She has ideas for cloth diapers, slings and even mama cloths.  I look forward to sewing more of her ideas and creating my own from hers.  When I get them done I will share with you!

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You do all that? You MUST be super mom!

I find it funny when people say that to me. Super mom. Ha! Yes sure, we are raising 5 kids, sure we foster care some and adopted some and birthed some. Yes we home school the younger ones while our oldest attends our local High School. But super mom I am not. Any super strengths I get through out the day comes from God, my husband-far or near, my friends and family. Oh and coffee, lots of coffee.
While I stay pretty much busy through out the day, here is what we do and don't do just to make it through.
We don't:
  • watch TV doing the day time on most days. Most mornings they don't watch TV, but some mornings we need it. If I have a headache we use it. When the kids are napping Robby may watch one of his shows that are not suitable for the little kids. Not having the TV on doing the daytime leaves us to be more productive with school and other things.
  • no video games doing the week. Once or twice I have had special evenings with video games. As school ends this will change.
  • always get school work done on that day. Things happen and what I have planned does not always happen. That is what tomorrow is for. So we don't stress about it even though I do sometimes
  • ever have the house clean. No matter how hard I try it is never cleaned at the same time. Although a goal to keep organizing and cleaning I have come to realize that it will always be something to strive for.
  • always get dressed right away. Sometimes we stay in PJ's till we need to get dress.
  • always have meals planned. Life is much smoother when they are planned, but we do eat out more that we should.
We do
  • have fun and dance around and be silly sometimes.
  • learning everyday, no papers need.
  • have to keep up with the dishes or the sink fills in two days. By day three nothing is left.
  • watch TV in the evenings.
  • read lots of books
  • story time at the library
  • Little gym twice a week, once for Isaiah and once for Robby.
  • send the girls to a child development center three days a week-girls love it
  • We do try to stay home on Thursday
  • We have adventure Fridays
  • Math, spelling, science, latin, reading, bible, writing and history
  • hands on learning
  • and self guided learning
  • play in the rain
  • at least three loads laundry a day but we are never caught up
  • have to send Dan off a lot for travel so we do a lot on our own
  • go to church every Sunday
  • pray
  • and sing
  • and read the bible
  • facebook
  • paintings
  • and finger paintings
  • and water paintings
  • shopping at Target, Publix and Costco.
  • sometimes use plastic bags and sometimes reusable bags
  • use cloth diapers and disposable diapers
  • eat cereal for dinner sometimes
  • and pizza for breakfast (well not mommy)
  • stay up late sometimes
  • but wish we could sleep in!!
Well all these things just make us who we are. The Gehrings!! and I am no super mom, just doing the things a mom does, be the keeper of her family. If I have any super strength then I give credit to the Lord, for it is Him whom I get my daily strength from.

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Saturday, April 24, 2010

Seeing new things






On Fridays we normally have "Adventure Friday's!" Work wise we normally have some test, but nothing heavy. Some Fridays we have planned field trips with our homeschooling group, others we do on our own. This last Friday we had a homeschooling field trip. We were heading to Tuscumbia Al. A good 1 1/2 hours away. We were headed toward Helen Keller's birth house.
To get ready Robby and I did research on Helen Keller and then I got the movie, the Miracle Worker.
As we got into the car that morning the two little kids didn't know where we were going- but Robby told them to close eyes and put their hands over their ears. "The place we are going to was were a little girl lived who couldn't see or hear."
While there we saw the house were she grew up, the cottage next door where she was born and was taught many of her lessons. The kids got to see the well pump were she felt and spelled water. They thought that was cool. We got to see the kitchen, and the were the cooked lived. It was all out side. The grounds were beautifully kept. It was a nice visit. We ended it with a picnic lunch at a near by park.

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Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Almost to an end!

Well 5 more weeks and we will be done with homeschooling and school!! Yea!!! We are so much looking forward to summer!!!

Jeremy our oldest has almost made it through 9th grade. He is in the need to get some grades up, but he is going to tutoring and working on getting missed assignments made up. Next year he is going to tec school to learn how to cook. I am very much looking forward to this.

Robby is finishing up his class work!! This year he is reading!! It is so exciting to hear him read with out sounding out each word. He loves to read to the kids and he is reading chapter books. We studied the space and planets this year. Math he conquered Multiplication!! Writing, spelling, a little latin, music, art, the list goes on!!! Hard to believe that soon I will have a 3rd grader!!!

AnQuenette is doing fine. She is always singing or dancing! She goes to our CDC at our church 3 days a week. She loves her friends which is why I kept her there this year. She loves to play with her brothers.

Isaiah is into everything. We just got over having a bandage stuck up his nose. So with him you never know what is going to happen!! He is home with me everyday and loves being with Robby. He is very lost with out his siblings!!!

Ms. Leila our sweet one year old foster daughter is into everything. When she wants something she lets you know!! She has discovered the toilet and tries very hard to get into it when ever someone goes potty!

And so we soon close up this school year and look forward to summer days of exploring, lazyness, swimming and a little traveling!! And before we know it it will be time for school again!!!!


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Monday, April 12, 2010

Books, Books, Books






So I admit it. I love books. All kind of books. I want my kids to grow up surround with books. I have selves and selves of books. Sometimes I know I have too many books. But I love them. Todays task was to organize the kids books which were in boxes due to all the moving around we have been doing. So I took all the kids books and made them in piles on the school table. I had piles for:
  • Board books
  • Bible Books
  • Learning books
  • Hardback story books
  • Hardback school story books
  • Paper backs
  • Chapter books
  • and Readers
Plus any book that was torn or damaged we threw a way.

When I was done I had the board put in a little selves just the right size for the little kids. I put the Learning books, school story books, chapter books and readers on a self by the school room area. I put the paper backs, story books and Dr. Seuss books and all the bible books on two selves in the living room. Now all our books are organized and I can use the boxes they were stored in for other things.

I keep books for older kids on our built in selves in our living room. We are this much closer to finishing up moving rooms around.

List of other tasks that need done...
  • Get Christmas boxes ready for Dan to put away.
  • Clean out garage and organzie it. Maybe get car in.
  • Finish getting room switched
  • Put small clothing put away, or give away
  • move dressers around
  • too many more things!!
So I will just focus on those things


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