School for Momma

As the last post hinted at, while teaching my children their ABCs and 123s I am also teaching them the love of cooking while exploring and experimenting. The other night i attempted for the 3rd time to make yogurt in a crock pot and was finally rewarded with success.

Thank you to Chickens in the Road for the wonderful recipe:
http://chickensintheroad.com/cooking/homemade-yogurt-in-a-crock-pot-and-yogurt-cheese/


Today I am experimenting with said yogurt by adding

And then placing it not into the fridge but into the freezer. Fingers crossed we will have Homemade Butterscotch Frozen Yogurt for dessert tonight.


As for experimenting with things that swim, my Little Emma has decided that fish is not all that bad after all. Especially after devouring

Baked Tilipia and Homemade Potato Chips.

Recipe is sooo easy and soo simple and sooo easy adaptable to your tastes:
Purchase enough tilipia for your family, then sprinkle some lemon juice over it, followed by melted butter, and topped with a sprinkling of fresh chopped garlic. Place in the oven at 350 and bake for roughly 20 minutes or until white and flaking off with a fork.

Potato chips I have never been able to master but a good friend suggested to use less oil. So we sliced the potatoes very thin, then placed 10 at a time into our frying pan with about 2" of  hot oil in the bottom. Allow then to turn nice and brown. Remove from fryer and allow to dry on a paper towel. While on the paper towel sprinkle with some salt and vinegar.

That's it. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezey.

You never know where or how you will learn

I love teaching my kids in part because I love to learn new and interesting things. My favorite things to learn is about things that affect my kitchen, from the food we grow to the food we eat there is always a new study, recipe, ingredient to try. As such I have taken on the challenge both to my kids and to my family to dedicate once a month to try something new. Well February was the month of chocolate in all forms to attempt to bake with and really challenge our taste buds. What an adventure this month has been.

We have made:

Chocolate gravy

And thanks to Hershey Chocolates we tried

Chocolate Sloppy Joes

http://www.hersheys.com/recipes/recipe-search.aspx?cid=30&urlMain-Dish.aspx

Of  course everything had to be fun as well

The absolute best thing was

Ok so it was not just those few dishes we actually tried cocoa chili, spicy cocoa pork chops, cocoa and black bean soup, chocolate chip muffins, and all sorts of dishes. February is not yet over and I still have a few surprises left.

But we are already planning for March where our theme will be Things that Swim

I am truly horrible with blogging

Autumn though has been working very hard on writing a report on Thomas Edison. I have always stresses to my children to dig to find the truth not the thruth they are taught to believe in.

So here is her report although it did not copy and paste over in perfect format:

Thomas Edison- Inventor

Thomas Edison is the person I chose to do a report on. As an inventor and innovator, his life and legacy has changed the lives of all generations, despite an uncooperative start.

Thomas Edison was born February 11, 1847 to Nancy Elliot and Sam Edison JR., a school teacher and a lumberman. Thomas Edison started his education in a grammar school in Milan, Ohio, although he only spent 12 weeks there due to a teacher that thought of him as confused and self centered. His mother decided to home school him; which lead her to discover that his hearing was very poor due to an accident with a train conductor, and he had Attentive Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. These discoveries convinced his mom to continue to home school him as best as she could periodically for five years, until he was twelve years of age.

After removing him from his initial school and the periodically home schooling, Tom Edison was never enrolled in a formal school environment. Instead, he got his first job as a salesman selling his own newspaper: The Grand Trunk Herald, as well as fruits, vegetables, and candy on a railroad platform and proudly, and as the Civil War started he signed up to become a powder monkey, serving his role model.

Thomas Edison’s role model was Abraham Lincoln, the sixteenth president of the United States of America, who helped put an end to slavery and believed in improving America, which fit with Thomas Edison’s own belief in striving for something better.

After the Civil War, Thomas Edison decided to find a safe and inexpensive light to replace the current gas lamps. Despite previous misconceptions, Thomas Edison was not the first to invent the light bulb, but he was the first to invent a light bulb using a carbon filament. It took Edison three years to invent a light bulb that would be a “safe, mild, and inexpensive light to replace the gaslight”. To do so he experimented with different threads of bamboo, string, and other materials until deciding that a carbon filament, placed inside a vacuum bulb not only lasted the longest but produced light without being a fire hazard. This allowed him to beat out his biggest competitors in inventing the carbon filament, Willis Whitnew, Joseph Swan, and William David Coolidge. In 1877, Edison also invented the phonograph “that would record and reproduce sound” accidentally while trying to figure out how to improve two other inventions, the telegraph and the telephone.

The phonograph took his mechanic only thirty hours to build but was the beginning of bringing music into peoples homes via recordings on a wax or tin foil cylinder. His two major inventions, one created from failure was only a small example of the brilliance of his mind. As a forward thinking man he met with failure often such as an attempt to design, manufacture, and sell concrete items such as cabinets and doors, and wanting to improve the status quote of mining iron ore he spent many years trying to find the illusive, quicker, and more practical way. This forward thinking, creative successes and failures created one of the largest corporations know today.

In Thomas Edison’s adult life he was offered the opportunity to join forces with British physicist Joseph Swan, an early competitor, to create General Electric in 1919. This company at the time allowed for both of their inventions to grow beyond their personal limitations. Today it is hard to find an appliance in a home that has not be influenced or made by General Electric.

Looking at the vast skylines of New York City lit up at night you are gazing at the illumination of general electric wiring. As more people take to the air and fewer homes out of the way of aircraft flight patterns General Electric is entering a new frontier of trying to find a way to make planes fly quieter, and emit fewer emissions. As his company and his personal belief that things can always be improved upon lead him to be an exceptionally caring person, wanting not only better things, but a better life for others.

Between his caring nature and financial success, he helped his family financially. His mother owed the hospital money from bills and his father was worrying that their house would be foreclosed because they couldn’t pay the mortgage. Tomas Edison who had earned $40,000 from an invention of a device that would find faults in the stock market ticker, and with the profits, he immediately rode home and paid off the mortgage and hospital bills.

Thomas Edison was one of the most famous inventors of all times. As an inventor and innovator, his life and legacy has changed the lives of all generations.

Well Williamsburg went Bust

Our wonderful car decided it wanted new tires and a new windshield. Unfortunately our bank account said ummm no dice. So we have put the trip off till spring, it will be warmer and a much safer drive to take.

In other activites in anticipation for the upcoming holidays we have decided to embark on 25 days of cookies. Sounds funny but making cookies for 25 days is an excelent way to learn how to multiply, time management, use all senses, and work on fine motor skills.

A peek at some cookies we have made thus far

Gingerbread

Homemade Oreos

Homemade Sunshine Lemon Coolers

Getting ready for Williamsburg

This is the book my son Ray is reading to get ready for our trip. As an 8 year old boy history can be really really dull, until Momma finds a super book.

So far we have discovered:

They have to hunt for their food

The children have to sleep on a wooden mat

Male servants had to clear the land by hand

Some servants could buy their freedom

The best way to travel was by boat

Some blamed witches for bad weather

The medicine didn't just taste bad it smelt horrible too

There was NO toliet paper you had to use corn husks or cobs

Harvest Fair at Longstreet Farm

To celebrate Mabon and throw in some history lesson we went over to Longstreet Farm for their Harvest Fair.

The kids learned the hard work of Potato Harvesting

Next we played some 1880's games

Then Momma showed them how to walk on stilts

Talk about fun so to finish off the day we entered 2 contest.
Emma and Momma corn Husking Champs

And all 3 kids decided to have a sibling pie off

Ok so lots of fun but we also learned about woodworking and believe it or not they found a bronze saw from over 3000 years ok that was almost identical to the hand saws we use today. Plus in the blacksmith shop we say how a small piece of iron can be turned into a spoon. Sometimes the best way to learn history is to spend a day playing with history.

Autumn's View of our Trip to Maine

A Trip to Maine
Written by Autumn Marie Rogers
Pictures Taken by Assorted Photographers

Raymond and I at the Costal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor, Maine.

Me playing veterinarian with Ray and Emma in the Coastal Children’s Museum in Rockland, Maine. I had so much fun there with my siblings enjoying hands-on activities, such as building and sawing wood at the Woodworking Shop, creating animorphs, putting on puppet shows, and so much more!

This is a picture of Raymond, Daddy, and I on the top of the lookout tower on Mount Batty in Camden, Maine. To get to it, you have to either hike or drive up the mountain, which is across the street from the Mount Batty campground. This was the first place we went to after setting up the camper to sleep in at night. Luckily this beautiful location was our campsite for the week we were in Maine.

This is a picture of Emma and me petting a stuffed moose at the Owl’s Head Transportation Museum. I enjoyed petting the moose because I love moose and have always wanted to pet one. I have been unable to get close enough or pet one because they are wild animals that are hard to get close to as they live in the forests near large bodies of water.

This is a picture of Emma and me in front of a Volkswagen Minivan in the Owl’s Head Transportation Museum. I love hippie memorabilia and I SWEAR that I am a hippie myself. I asked Daddy to please get me one for my birthday for now this picture will have to do until I get my license.

This is a picture of me walking the labyrinth at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, Maine. This is the first time I have ever walked a labyrinth and I found it to be very calming and I would like to have one at home to help my ground myself.

This is Emma, Ray, and me pretending to be bears in a bear cave at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, Maine. We had so much fun in the bear cave climbing on the inside rocks and growling, as we acted like natural bears. Ray even climbed on my back, embedding his ‘sharp claws’ into it. I’m just kidding about the ‘sharp claws’ thing but mom can certainly trim his nails.

This is how Ray and I looked when we were doing the wash. With a bucket full of water, washboard, and clothesline we pretended to be washing clothes during colonial times at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor , Maine. This is important because it gave us a hands-on lesson of the history of Early Americans. We were able to enjoy the full historical experience.

Here is a picture of me sitting on an all-wooden throne at the Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay Harbor, Maine. You may think this was uncomfortable but the workmanship that went into it made the chair nice and smooth and I would not mind falling asleep on it.

Here I am standing near the top of the Raven’s Nest at the Maine Discovery Museum in Bangor, Maine. At the top, there was a giant blue raven’s egg and when you went upstairs to another room, you could see out the wire windows, and the other people can see you as you sat in the nest pretending to be a baby raven egg.

The memorial of Jonathan Buck has many debates behind it. As the legend goes, the marking of the leg on the monument appeared shortly after creation. Here is an paraphrased version of the legend: The legend goes like this:

When Colonel Jonathan Buck condemned a woman for witchcraft lead he ordered her to death by burning for sorcery. Before the sentence was commenced, commanded she cursed him as said her mark will be forever on him. As the flames surrounded her, her leg fell off and rolled out the fire. Shortly after installation of the monument 60 years after his death , the outline of a leg appeared.

This is a picture of me getting ‘‘Fresh Roasted Peanuts’’ and ‘‘Buttered Corn’’. The doll lady in the trolley is so creepy!

While at Owls Head Transportation Museum I was able to get a very close view of the Write Brothers plane. I was interesting to see the plane that I studied and did a report and mobile on in 3rd grade. Based on that knowledge and the information given at the museum I was even able to physically see the distance that the first flight took place.

This is Raymond, Daddy, Emma, and I in front of a really cool car! It looked like the Duke of Hazard car, minus the big 01 on the sides and the roof. Dad though said that it was not even close, that the Duke of Hazard car was a Dodge Charger, and this car was a Pontiac GTO.

Let’s hop to the end!

Hey, look at the frog! Doesn’t it look cool?
I love you Mr. Froggy!