Homeschool, Food and Other Stuff

We started our homeschool year on August 3rd, so we are almost a month in. I am loving this year. This is my second year homeschooling the twins and they are in the third grade. They aren't loving it so much yet because it is a little more challenging than second grade. This year they have a lot more memorization type work and they have a lot of writing to do. Compositions and book reports. They are not liking that.One of them is more hesitant than the other to write when she has to make up a story on her own. I just encourage her the best I can and she has been doing pretty well with it and each time she writes a story she is so proud of herself for doing it and that is so good to see. And they are not a fans of learning cursive. I try to talk it up and show them how pretty cursive writing can be, but its yet to change their minds. I haven't decided how hard I am going to push it. I think they need to learn it but, we'll see it's too early to give up on it yet anyway. 

I homeschooled our son Nick from fifth grade until he graduated, with the exception of the eight grade, and I have never been this excited to teach before. I am not sure what the change is. I'm 12 years older than when I first started, could that be it? I don't know, I am just glad I am excited about it. It makes the days a lot better. 

So, I didn't do a great job keeping you posted on my menu plan for August. August was another month that I just blinked and it was gone. Just like that! Homeschool took up most of my time and I had several out of town appointments, you know how it goes. 

Here is a list of a few things I made:
Chorizo and Potato burritos (Mexican style chorizo)
Homemade Spaghetti Sause (My Grandma's recipe) A huge pot. Froze a bunch of it.
Spaghetti and Rotini with the sauce.
Pazole with pork (One of my favorite meals eva) 
A big pot of Chili Mac ( a new Pintrest recipe) It was a hit, it made so much it almost lasted too long. I froze the rest. 

And my husband was out of town for a week and I don't know about you but when the husband isn't home I do as little cooking as possible! While he was gone we ate one of those Viola frozen dinner meals, Beef Lo Mien one. The girls loved it, me not so much. I didn't like the texture of the meat. Anyway, I made another chinese frozen meal, cause I like Chinese food, the girls opted for PB&j's which was fine with me. We even had macaroni and cheese and hot dogs for dinner one night. 

I joked with Rab that I was going to be as lazy as possible while he is gone. I really was planning on weeding the front yard because it was horribly grown over with weeds from all the rain. The morning he left I went to turn on our evaporative cooler and it just made a noise and would not turn on. It was 105* that day. My wonderful brother and stepdad came over and fixed it for me. Then I was doing some cleaning and had my phone on the back of the recliner and when I was done cleaning I sat in said recliner and reclined. Yes, I did. I seriously cracked my phone. Long story short and 3 long trips to Walmart I have a brand spanking new phone that took no less than 12 hours to get working. It was a mess. Then the cooler wouldn't turn on again. My poor brother had to come over every day and get it going for me. Some other random chaotic stuff happened that I won't bore you with but I will say that I will never say I plan to be as lazy as I can when my husband goes out of town, again. Seriously, things are so much better when he is home. And when he got home he weeded the front yard because I never got around to it. 

Jen