The Chronister Family

Lemon Citrus Green Tea

Lemon Citrus Green Tea:

In a medium sauce pan bring to boil:

4 regular green tea bags

4 cups of water

Once it comes to boil pour over in a pitcher filled with ice cubes add 1 cup of sugar and 1 cup of lemon juice concentrate.  Enjoy!

Blessings,

Sherry

Strawberry Pie

Happy 4th of July....

Wishing everyone a safe and fun filled Independence Day!

Thinking about our School Year

Last week when we went shopping the library was having their annual book sale, it's by donation.  I stopped to look and picked out a nice box of children's books!  Some of them are for the Before Five in A Row and Five In A Row program we use.  I was so excited about that!  I also found some nice history story books.

We happened to be back in town a few days latter and they were still having the sale.  So I just had to peek again.  LOL  I found another book to go with the B4FIAR and some nice children's farming books!  I'm planning to do a farming unit this fall with the kids.  The International Plowing Match will be in our area and we are planning an all day field trip there.  Dh is really looking forward to that to.  I also picked up some wonderful animal videos for the kids and some documentaries for us.  Dh also picked out a encyclopedia set on natural history.

I'm hoping to get to a homeschool book store this weekend.  My shopping list has been gone over and over..I'm still tweaking it.  So far I'm thinking of getting this:

• Christian Liberty Nature Readers 1 & 2
• Bob Books #1
• Leading Little ones to God
• Canadian Colouring book
• FIAR Christian supplement
• Before FIAR
• Canada My Country
• Ecoutez! Parlez! (beginner French)

Our plans this year are:

2 year old.

I'm going to use B4FIAR with her at a slow pace.  Should be fun!

4 year old PreK

• Teach Your Child to Read 100 Easy Lessons
• Bob Books
• B4FIAR
• FIAR
• Leading Little Ones To God

6 year old, grade 1

• FIAR
• Math U See Beta
• SOTW 1 (we started this last year and put it on hold for a bit)
• God's Design for Science, The plant kingdom and human body
• Leading Little Ones To God
• Canada My Country
• Nature Study
• Copy Work
• CL Nature Readers

DD6 and 4 will also be starting on some hand crafts, keep working on crochet and maybe simple sewing.

Busy Times & Sick Littles

Well I haven't had much posting time or time for anything that is.    The crazy weather patterns of baking hot then cold and damp have made the kids sick.  Two are ok now, 4 year old is still miserable and baby girl is on the mend.  I've been fighting it also, but it's not easy to do when your up all night with sick littles.  I sure hope they are all feeling much better soon, it's so hard on a mothers heart when her babies are sick!

When things settle down I have a huge list of to do's.  I need to reclaim the house again lol.  I was JUST caught up on most things when we all got sick.  (sigh) Seems to happen every time LOL.  I have a ton of sewing to do.  I need nursable maternity clothes.  This is the longest into a pregnancy I've ever nursed a baby.  So most of my things don't fit.  The girls also need new skirts etc.  And I need to sew pullups and diapers.

I'm working on a major decluttering and planning our new school year also.  I'm thinking of starting that soon to instead of waiting until fall.  We mostly school year round, just taking it a bit lighter in the summer.  When morning sickness hit bad I scaled down to just reading and math.

Got a call last night....

Canada Day Photos

Yesterday was Canada Day and despite the littles still being some what sick we had a nice day.  Dh had some errands to do but after supper we took the kids for a walk at the park.  They got to see all the animals (birds and deer) and play for a while. 

Then we headed home and dh surprised them with a few fireworks!  They LOVED it we'll have to get some more before summers over.

Little dd2 wasn't to sure about it!

Have any of you.....

Have any of you ever wrote articles for magazines and have them published?  I am just curious.  I have submitted a couple and just waiting to hear from them.  Also have any of you ever entered an recipe contest or cooking contest?  This has always intrigued me and I am just wondering how difficult it is.  Please tell me your experiences. 

Got news....

I got news that the youth group made it down just fine.  They also had their first day of working on the site yesterday.  As for as my daughter I heard that she is doing fine.  Yes, this momma called to check on her.    What mom wouldn't want to know how their child is doing.  I am so proud of her to follow through her work for the Lord and not wanting to let her sponsors down.  It just shows that my little girl is growing up into a responsible adult.    I never thought I would see this day, because she is my little girl that I was just holding in my arms caring around and now she is growing up.  She will always be my little girl and I am so proud of her. 

Monday on the Homestead

For the last few days I have been cooking with my crockpot.. or should I say crockpots.. I have 2 of them a big 6qt and 2 or 3 qt..  I think that is the size. It is an old one that use to be my moms many years ago, but it works like a trooper. I love being able to put both of them to use for a meal. One day I put a beanless chili in the big crockpot and cooked pinto beans in the small one. When the beans were done cooking I drained the liquid and added a little more salt and some butter and smashed them up right in the crockpot to make refried beans (not that they were fried at all..lol..).. Sierra made a salad and the combo was delicious. Another favorite combo is meatballs in the big crockpot and mac and cheese in the small one and serve with a fresh green salad.   I have been taking the crockpots out to my husbands shop to plug in and cook for the day to keep the house from getting hot. It has worked great! I make the meal while it is still nice and cool and then enjoy the day working around my home and the afternoon swimming and sunning with the kids..  dinner is ready to go when the family is hungry. 

 

This last week my daughter Carolyn and her hubby Jonathan and my grandbaby Caden came to town for a visit.  They are still here. I have seen them a couple of times and over the weekend they headed to the Oregon coast with Jonathans family. This week we plan to get together again. The highlight of the visits so far was when my little grandson Caden called me “grandma”.. just melted my grandma heart..    Another highlight was going out shopping with all my girls, except for Leanne of course, and she was very missed by all of us!  But it was a fun afternoon and it was cute to get a couple of baby belly pictures of Carolyn and Hannah my two mommies to be. Here is a pic of all of my girls:

 

Tobin and the boys have been working like crazy around the property. They have been trimming trees, mowing, clearing out weeds and I have to say the front of our property is looking like a park! And the great side benefit from this work is that we have about 1/3 of our winter wood already. Jacob has done a lot of cutting and Isaac has been helping with the stacking and clean up. Tobin split all the wood that needed to be split and it is all stacked neatly in the bins… we all smile at it as we walk by.. knowing how important that wood is to our winter time comfort (even in the midst of summer heat ).    Here is a pic of our pond and some of the surroundig area..

Tomorrow Tobin and I celebrate our 24th wedding anniversary!   We are going to go out to dinner tonight to celebrate. I have to say that the more years that go by the better marriage gets and the more in love and committed I am to my man.  Maybe I need to follow the lead of my friend Laurie (Abundant Blessings Farm  blog and mod of my board and very loved friend of mine )… she takes the number of years married and lists that many things she loves about her hubby.. if I have time I may do that and post it tomorrow!  

That is all for today. I need to get some laundry going and get think about getting ready for my evening out with my hubby..