What a Tackle!

In the middle of the project:

After the project was done:

This project became a family project. Our dining room chairs desperately needed recovering. The old country plaid was beyond cleaning and starting to get holes on the edges. The project involved removing the seats from the chairs and then removing the old fabric. This was a huge undertaking - the manufacturer used a kazillian staples which were not easy to remove. While the chairs were apart, two of our boys helped clean the wood frames with Murphy's Oil Soap and my husband made sure they were tight. After removing the fabric, my husband beveled the edges of the plywood and then I cut out batting and fabric that was left from when I made our curtains several years back. After recovering the seats, my husband scotch guarded them and reassembled the chairs. All three of our boys helped with this project which took the better part of Saturday and a couple of hours on Sunday afternoon. I forgot to take the before pictures of the really ugly seats.

Thanks to 5 Minutes for Mom for hosting Tackle it Tuesday! Check out their blog for more completed projects and inspiration to Tackle it, whatever your "IT" is.

A Day Late

Here is my menu for this week:

Monday: Beef Taco Bake (easy dish and everyone loves it)

Tuesday: White Beans and Ham Soup (starting up soup days again)

Wednesday - Chicken Parmesan

Thursday - Dinner out at King's Buffet (to celebrate my birthday, which is actually on Wednesday - but our daughter is off on Thursday and I wanted her to be able to join us.)

Friday: Pizza Fish (this is a Prism recipe that we haven't had for a long time)

Saturday: We are going to visit the Museum of Flight - maybe soft tacos when we get home or maybe fast food.

Sunday: your on your own

I am still working on our breakfasts. Coffee Momma if you read this, could you post your breakfast cookie recipe? I have some Canadian Bacon in the refrigerator and so I will probably do some sort of breakfast casserole this week. Last week we did baked oatmeal, pancakes and scrambled eggs, strawberry & yogurt smoothies with instant oatmeal, waffles and the old standby: cold cereal. I found a website called Mr. Breakfast that looks interesting, I hope to have some time to investigate it more fully this week.

Thanks to Organizing Junkie for hosting Menu Plan Monday! Be sure to check her blog for other great menu ideas!

Laura over at I'm an Organizing Junkie hosts Menu Plan Monday. You should go check it out. You might find some fresh recipes to spice up your menu.

I had a busy weekend, mostly away from home and thus my menu got planned late. Here is what I have so far:

Monday: Tuna Noodle Casserole (it had been ages since we had this and everyone liked it)

Tuesday: Chicken Noodle Soup (out of the can - with home made muffins)

Wednesday: Grilled Burgers for the Kiddos, Steak and Potatoes for mom and dad

Thursday: Stuffed chicken (was on last weeks menu, but we substituted a different chicken dish as we didn't have all the ingredients for this one)

Friday: Baked Salmon, Brown Rice and steamed veggies.

Saturday: Youth Program Dinner at church

Sunday: Your on your own - usually burritos or sandwiches.

I am also trying to work on our breakfast menu. We have fallen into the rut of boxed cereal most mornings, which is less than healthy and also expensive. Last week I got up early and fixed baked oatmeal one morning, scrambled eggs one morning, Fruit smoothies & whole wheat toast once and plain old oatmeal once - we still fell back on cold cereal the rest of the time. What kind of breakfasts do you fix for your family?

Taxi Mom

I never thought that I could be described as such - but alas it is so. Our family went from over a year of almost no outside activity to CHAOS! It started with son #2 wanting to play football. We went ahead and let him go out for the local middle school team. He has practice every weekday from 2:30 pm to 5:00 pm. Son #3 is signed up for swimming lessons that take place every Tuesday and Thursday for the next four weeks at 7:00 pm. Now son #1 is taking Drivers Education classes on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm for the next 5 weeks. So this is how my afternoon goes:
Leave the house at 2:15 pm and drop son #2 at the Middle School for football practice. Return home at about 2:45. (luckily everything is pretty close). Leave home at about 3:35 pm to take son #1 to Driver's Ed. Return home about 4:15. Leave home at about 4:50 to pick up son #2 at the middle school. Return home about 5:15pm. Leave home at about 5:45 to pick up son #1 at Drivers Ed. Return home at about 6:15. (on Wednesdays we will leave from Drivers Ed to go to bible class) On Tuesdays and Thursdays - Leave home at 6:50 to take son #3 to Swim Lessons, return home about 7:45 pm. Hopefully I will be able to stay on top of all of this - add to it, parent meeting for football, and scheduling drive time with the Drivers Ed school. Swimming stops in 4 weeks, drivers ed in about 5 weeks and football at the end of October and then we should be back to our normal hum drum schedule.

Homeschool Carnival Week 37

Don't forget to jump over to Principled Discovery for this week's homeschool carnival. I haven't had a chance to delve into the posts yet but it looks as if it covers a full range of topics.

Tackle it Tuesday

BeforeAfter

On 5 Minutes for Mom they have a Tackle it Tuesday encouragement post each week. The idea is to pick a project that needs doing in your home and then to do it. On Tuesday, blog about the project when it is done. The project that I picked is to clean up the floor along my side of the bed. This area tends to catch all of the mess that has no real home or that is in process for some other project. I was able to get the area cleaned up and even dusted the furniture. Over the weekend we shampooed all of the carpets in the house.

Frito Pie

This recipe is so EASY! My family loves it.

Ingredients:
Chili (canned or homemade)
Fritos - Original or other (we like the chili cheese)
Shredded Cheese

In a 9 x 13 or larger pan - Cover the bottom with Fritos. Over the Fritos add your Chili - you want enough to fill the pan and then top with the cheddar. For a 9 x 13, I use about four 15 oz. cans of chili. Bake for 30 minutes at 350. We usually serve with a green salad.

Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie started Menu Plan Monday. I think this is a great idea, hopefully it will help me to keep planning menus. Having a menu plan helps with the budget as well as keeping the dinners on time. My husband works swing shift and so we have to get dinner by 12:00 or 12:30 pm., which can be a challenge as we are also homeschooling our three boys and have very busy mornings. Here is my menu for this week.


1. Frito Pie
2. Stuffed Chicken
3. Quick Chili Rice Casserole
4. Tuna Wedge
5. Beef Stroganoff

Around the blogosphere

The folks at Wittingshire always have beautiful photography from around the Pacific Northwest region and currently have a wonderful tribute to Steve Irwin, Crocodile Hunter - the post is dated Sept 5.

The Common Room family have a couple of funny posts about their new puppy - the probably Irish Wolfhound, Donovan here, here and an adorable picture here. That family is so much fun!

Athena in a Minivan has a great video that you must watch!

Free Admission Thursday

There are several museums in the Puget Sound area that offer free admission on the first Thursday of the month. I plan to visit some of them this school year. Let me know if you know of any others.


Museum of History and Industry in Seattle

Burke Museum at the University of Washington - Seattle

Washington State History Museum - Tacoma (free from 5pm-8pm)

Seattle Museum of Flight - Seattle (free from 5pm - 9pm)

Seattle Asian Art Museum - Seattle (free on First Saturday too)
(the Seattle Art Museum usually has the First Thursday free too, but they are currently closed for remodeling.

Wing Luke Asian Museum - Seattle

Burke Museum

Today we took our first field trip of the new school year. We went with some dear friends to the Burke Museum at the University of Washington. This museum contains a great variety of items from geological finds to dinosaur skeletons to cultural displays. The lower floor contains cultural displays from the many diverse groups of people living in the Seattle area. These included Native Americans, Japanese, Korean, Polynesian peoples, Laotian and others. They don't allow photography in the museum so you will have to go to their website to see the exhibits. The children enjoyed the trip as did the moms! This museum is well worth the time!

September 30th, Museum Free Day

I received the following link for the Smithsonian Museum Free Day. The link will take you to the information page and it contains a link to museums all over the country that are participating with the Smithsonian. This is a great opportunity to visit a museum that might otherwise be financially out of reach. Make good use of the day!

Homeschool Meme

How Great a Debtor and JavaMom both tagged me for this meme.
1) ONE HOMESCHOOLING BOOK YOU HAVE ENJOYED.
Educating the Whole Hearted Child by Sally Clarkson

2) ONE RESOURCE YOU WOULDN'T BE WITHOUT
Email groups and internet search engines

3) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH YOU HAD NEVER BOUGHT
I can't really think of any off hand - I try to be very careful with my purchases and have used most of the items that I bought enough to justify their expense.

4) ONE RESOURCE YOU ENJOYED LAST YEAR
Ourselves by Charlotte Mason

5) ONE RESOURCE YOU WILL BE USING NEXT YEAR
Notgrass American History

6) ONE RESOURCE YOU WOULD LIKE TO BUY
CadCam student program

7) ONE RESOURCE YOU WISH EXISTED:
Someone that could come in and organize our family room area for a nominal fee. ;D


8) ONE HOMESCHOOLING CATALOGUE YOU ENJOY READING
I like Rainbow Resource catalogue

9) ONE HOMESCHOOLING WEBSITE YOU USE REGULARLY
Ambleside online and many other blogs

10) TAG FIVE OTHER HOMESCHOOLERS:
1. I tag whoever that wants to play that hasn't yet.

5 Things Meme

This is a very belated answer to a tag by Cindy at Dominion Family.

Five things I have in my:

Freezer:
1. Chicken Breasts
2. Bread
3. Pepperoni Hot Pockets
4. Salmon
5. Popsicles

Closet:
1. Shoes
2. Fabric
3. My dad's slides and slide projector
4. Craft Supplies
5. Clothes

Car:
1. Tissues
2. Power Invertor
3. hair brush
4. Mozart CD
5. Green Apple gum

Purse:
1. Burt's Bees lip balm
2. Wallet
3. Advil
4. Calendar
5. Cell phone

People that I am tagging:
1. Beth Spera In Domino
2. Our Blue Castle
3. Any others who would like to participate