Baking Day!

Wednesday is baking day at our house. I usually make a batch of bread (3 loaves) every week and also often a dessert and a breakfast bread for Thursday. Today I made Whole wheat bread, Zucchini bread, Chocolate zucchini cake and zucchini crisp. I plan on freezing 2 loaves of the whole wheat bread, 1 of the zucchini bread, and part of the cake to use later. I like to do all of my baking for the week at once because it cuts down on the number of dirty dishes as well as the amount of time my oven is on. I was able to run the oven for only a little over an hour this morning. The way I do it is to stir up my bread fairly early in the morning and let it rise. When that is ready to go into its pans to rise again then I will stir up the next item (this morning - cake) in the same bowl( I don't wash it, I just scrape it out good), using the same measuring cups (a one cup measure for dry ingredients and a 2 cup measuring cup for the wet), after I got that in its pan and in the oven, I again used the same bowl for zucchini bread and then following that I made the crisp. I am able to get that much in my oven at one time but the bread was pretty much ready to come out when the crisp went in. We love baked goods and doing it all at once like that really saves me time and energy.
Here is my recipe for Whole Wheat Bread:

1. 8 cups Whole Wheat flour (I fresh grind mine using a "Whisper Mill" and grain that we buy very cheaply from a grain elevator)


2. 2-3 cups of White flour


3. 2 tablespoons yeast (or 2 packages, I buy mine in bulk as it is a lot cheaper)


4. 31/2 cups warm water


5. 1/3 cup of sugar


6. 1/4 cup oil


7. 2 teaspoons salt

In a large bowl combine 4 cups whole wheat flour, yeast and sugar. Then add the warm water (around 120-130 degrees) and oil and mix well. Add the salt and start adding the rest of the flour a cup or 2 at a time. When it gets to hard to stir put the dough on a lightly floured surface and knead in enough of the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough. Knead 6-8 minutes. Place in greased bowl and place a cover over it and let it rise until double. (1- 1 1/2 hours). Then punch dough down and place in 3 greased bread pans and let rise again. Bake in a 375 degree oven for around 35 minutes or until bread is done.

This has been a staple at our house, I hope you enjoy it too!

A timeline of History

I have been wanting to make a timeline to hang up that as we read books (my oldest on her own, or my husband or I to the kids) we could draw a picture to go with it and place it on a timeline. That way we would be able to get a picture in our minds of how everything fits together in history. We are getting ready to move our girls into a bigger room and I think the wall in there will work well for hanging up a large timeline. I found one that I liked at this site. I printed it out and now maybe I will go have it laminated at Office Max.
I also plan on hanging a world map that we have up on the wall. With that we can make note of where the places are that we are reading about.
Have any of you ever done something like this with your kids? How did it work and do you have any other ideas to suggest?

Bounty from the Garden!

I love gardening, all of it: pouring over seed catalogs, starting seeds inside, planting in the lovely dirt, weeding (though believe me that doesn't mean my garden is weed free -usually far from it.), and then the most rewarding part of all- Harvesting!!
Tonight we enjoyed yummy, straight from the garden corn on the cob. We have also been enjoying lettuce, cucumbers, peas, radishes and flowers and are looking forward to much more.
Gardening is economical (if you don't count all the time put into it.) and it is the best way to have very yummy tasting food.
One of the fun things we have tried this summer is salads with nasturtiums in it. My family was a little sceptical but the kids all tried it (my husband let us have the honors). They taste fine and look very pretty in the salad.
I hope you are enjoying gardening as much as I am. What

are you eating from your garden this month?

7 tips for a more musical home

I was very blessed to be raised in a musical home. Everybody played at least one instrument and we enjoyed playing and singing together at home and with others at church and at the nursing home. It was a joy for us and I am hoping that my own little family will be a greatly blessed by music. I am going to list some of the things that I have seen in both my family growing up and as I raise my own kids now that have helped to make us have musical homes.

• Motivation. For anybody (child or adult) to want to spend time to learn an instrument there needs to be a motivating reason to do it. Most people aren't motivated by the fact that they will be able to play to entertain themselves. For me growing up my biggest motivation was getting to play for church. I wanted to get good enough at playing the piano that I could play for the song service. When I was in my teen years I would spend an hour or so every day practicing for that purpose. We were very blessed to be a part of a congregation that encouraged everybody that was able to take turns playing. We also used our other instruments in church when we would sing bluegrass style or using a praise band. The church also had frequent singsperations/music nights where people would bring special music. Other motivation that has worked for us or others I have seen work for my students is: Playing at nursing homes, playing at the fair, desire to be a music teacher and playing in an orchestra.


• Inspiration. If a child gets to see and be around others playing (especially playing well and in a fun style) they are much more likely to want to play as well. Family members are a great source of inspiration. Concerts are great especially when they have kids playing. We recently attended a Bluegrass festival that had families performing. My kids thought it was very cool to see other little kids up on stage.


• Environment. If you want music than create an environment for it. Have musical instruments that your kids can play, ( most of ours they have to ask first and I usually monitor but things like the piano they can play on at any time.) Buy musical toys (not the battery powered ones but things like xylophones, drums, recorders, maracas, etc.), let them play (I have heard many parents complaining about their kids playing- the noise, the screeching etc., that doesn't help the environment. Turn of your TV noise and let them play.).


• Appreciation. Teach music appreciation by listening to good CDs and others playing.


• Lessons. Lessons are very helpful though not totally necessary. I don't encourage starting your kids in lessons unless they really want to however and unless you and the child are willing to spend time practicing, it is a waste of your money and everybody's time to take lessons and not practice. If you spend the time practicing, lessons can help you learn much faster than working on your own, they also help to keep you motivated.


• Play Together. This is even fun with very little kids. As I practice my instruments, they all like to get out some too and we play together and sometimes they sing or dance. It is a great time even if they don't really know how to play. It is even more fun to play together once they do know how to play.


• Be Organized. Playing an instrument does require practice and in our busy lives sometimes that is hard to fit in. What has worked for us has just been including it as part of our homeschooling, practice is another things that has to be crossed off of the list every day. We set the timer during practice to make sure we get a good amount of time in. Little kids cannot usually handle a long time. Start with around 10 minutes a practice session and then keep increasing your time. Another thing with being organized is making sure if you are taking lessons to actually get to them.

I hope this helps you to have a more musical home!

"Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; Break forth and sing for joy and sing praises. Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn shout joyfully before the King, the Lord." Psalm 98:4-6

Buying bread on a budget

I have long been a fan of day old bread stores. You can really get a lot of good food for not much money. However on Saturday I was extra impressed with the deal I found. I went into the bread store and found they had 100% whole wheat bread bagged up with 4 loaves and priced at $2.99 a bag and then I was able to use a punch card for $5 off of the purchase. I bought 16 loaves of bread for less than $7. I freeze the bread to use later as obviously we don't use 16 loaves at once. I do also bake bread weekly but we prefer boughten bread for sandwiches.
Yeah for bread stores!