Friday Finale

Anders and Mean Ol' Mama attended a meeting together concerning migrant health care in our county. He's working on a project for 4H competition next month. They were shocked to discover that this white-hair/blue-eyed boy speaks very good Spanish. Go figure... The Girl hosted a Nursery Rhyme Tea Party with 3 of her friends. We enjoyed Little Miss Muffins... Georgie Porgie puddings and pies and A Gift from the Man in the Moon (string cheese)... Little Humpty Dumpties (boiled eggs) and Little Bo Peep's sheep (butterscotch candies)...

Little Red Riding Hood's Basket (full of chocolate chip oatmeal cookies) and 3-Little-Pigs-in-a-blanket (sausages en croute)...

The ladies enjoyed themselves, the moms yakked for hours, and time passed along just nicely, thankyouverymuch...

Our special friends are spending Saturday afternooon with us. We're grilling hamburgers topped off with 8 fried onions and bell pepper. Tomorrow we're hitting the streets somewhere, bringing the hope of Christ to a really messed-up world. Brethren, pray for us...

What's New / What's Cooking Wednesday

The Girl went to her crochet lesson and decided to work on a puzzle instead. They had a delightful hour searching for one small piece among 1,000 others. We attended the monthly homeschool meeting and enjoyed art class together. Our family will be presenting individual performances next month at the meeting .

ChubChub was one of the first to identify this famous man. He was quite pleased with his picture.

We went as a family to Silver Lake for the afternoon. ChubChub found a nice pinecone for a sweet memory.

Branch was showing Poppins some bobcat tracks he discovered near the water.

Mean Ol' Mama admired this tree's fortitude and stark beauty. We had a pleasant afternoon together, and it only improved in the evening when Poppins asked a certain harried Mama out for dinner. Yuki's Japanese Restaurant was quite a treat...

Tonight for "Dinner-At-Our-House", we're having Italian Onion Roast, baked potatoes with all the fixin's, corn, beans, Southern Spoon bread, chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, and Martha Stewart's Buttermilk Vanilla cupcakes with Butter-Vanilla frosting. Yummy!

We're sorry for the delay in posting this past week, but we have been very, very busy. Mean Ol' Mama has Spring Break at the College next week, so we're hoping to catch up on love and life...

What's New / What's Cooking Wednesday

The Girl shared a funny story that she had been reading earlier in the day. We received some early-1900s books from Mean Ol' Mama's great aunt's estate, and the stories are sweet and good. For "Dinner-at-Our-House-Tonight", Mean Ol' Mama made two huge pans of potato/carrot/chicken enchiladas, refried beans, stir-fried onion with green pepper, cabbage, corn, sweet potato quicky pies, and choco-peanut butter cookies. Everything was hot and yummy! ChubChub chose the cookie he thought was particularly appealing.

There isn't anything new right now-- although Caleb purchased 5 new baby goats-- but we've decided that The Girl desperately needs a new soul. Sole, that is...

Tuesday Tour

This is The Girl's baking area, complete with her own mixer. Mean Ol' Mama has been known to make forays into this "stash", especially into the bags and bags of different chocolate chips...Part of our "daily use" bulk items are in convenient storage underneath the baking pans.

These are some of Mean Ol' Mama's baking pans. Disordered, yes...well-used, but-of-course...Call it an addiction. She can't pass up a lonely pan that just needs a loving home. These baskets conveniently house baking supplies such as spices, different sugars, and extracts. The zip-lock bag to the right houses extracts that Mean Ol' Mama doesn't use very often. Mexican vanilla (bought by the 24/case) rests in the place of honor. These "quick grab" supplies make it easy for Mean Ol' Mama and The Girl to whip up such lovelies as Oatmeal Muffins (today) and Whole Wheat Banana Muffins (today) and...

Monday Muses

Isn't that basketful of eggs just gorgeous? And isn't Branch a sweetie pie? Mean Ol' Mama used her hand for size comparison to show just how much shredded chicken is in the pan. What's so special about that? Well, this is from 2 drumsticks and 2 breasts of ONE rooster. Thanks to Josiah for his 7-pound (dressed) rooster. Lotsa casseroles coming up soon...Poppins and Anders began cutting up seed potatoes for the boys' gardens. Stennes was outside tilling and harrowing. Mean Ol' Mama just sat around being lazy...

Weekend Wrap-Up

The boys panned for gold during Thursday's class. They seemed to enjoy this activity more than 4th declension Latin and their Greek work. Hmmmm... We've been working on English/Spanish/Creole songs for when the migrants arrive next month. We're slowly learning all the words.

The Girl spent some time at an assisted-living home, trying to learn how to crochet. Mean Ol' Mama desperately tried to finish grading stacks and stacks of essays while The Girl enjoyed her class.

Snow?!!! In south Georgia?!!! Yep, and it was wonderful. The kids thoroughly enjoyed the hour of kisses from above. The kids enjoyed playing "bells" made from clutches for small engines. They turned and attached wooden handles to make scrapers for Saturday's hog butchering day.

This dapper gentleman chooses to remain anonymous...It had been a long, rainy day; he was out of dry clothes because the boys had to set everything up for butchering, and they were completely soaked multiple times.

Now for the butchering...Not very pleasant, perhaps, but certainly part of life and a very necessary skill for vision-minded young men.

The ladies wrapped and labeled meat, trimmed fat and skin, and mixed sausage with seasonings. We also cooked the tenderloin, sweet potatoes, fried potatoes, and peach cobbler. Broccoli salad, cookies, and brownies rounded off the delicious meal.

Grinding sausage...

Check out Mean Ol' Mama's peach cobbler. It was good, good, good and gone, gone, gone...

Anders celebrated his 11th birthday after the butchering was all wrapped up (pun intended). He asked for rootbeer floats instead of a cake, so we put a candle in one of two sweet potato pies that Mean Ol' Mama had just baked.

We'll be heading out to preach later on today, so pray for us. Another very busy week is heading our way, too...