My little Japanese Chin puppy, Yumi, and my youngest, Quinn.

The boys and I are off for a field trip to historic St. Mary’s City with our homeschooling co-op. It’s a long trip, about 2 1/2 hours to get there by car. I’m praying that Quinn will be a good boy…I packed a lot of books, toys and DVD’s for him. *smile*

Have a great Friday!

Here’s the soup recipe, Wanda!

Creamy White Bean and Spicy Sausage Soup

1 lb dried Great Northern Beans (generous 2 cups)

8 cups water
3 Tbsp. extra-virgin olive oil, divided
3 garlic cloves; 1 smashed, 2 chopped
1 large fresh rosemary sprig
1 bay leaf

1 large onion, coarsely chopped
(about 2 cups)
1 large carrot, coarsely chopped
(about 1 cup)
1 large stalk celery, coarsely chopped
(about 3/4 cup)
2 large potatoes, large dice
(about 1 1/2 cups)
2 1/2 tsp fresh thyme (leaves removed from stem-discard stem), divided
4 cups good chicken stock or broth

1 lb to 20 oz spicy (hot) Italian sausage,
casings removed

1/4 cup heavy cream
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Soak beans overnight in a large Dutch oven with enough water to cover beans by about 4 inches.

Drain and rinse beans; return to Dutch oven. Add 8 cups water, 1 Tbsp olive oil, smashed garlic clove, rosemary, and bay leaf. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, partially cover, and simmer until beans are just tender, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Season to taste with salt. (Can be prepared 2 days ahead. Cool slightly, cover, and chill.)

Drain beans, reserving cooking liquid. Discard rosemary sprig and bay leaf.

Heat remaining 2 Tbsp olive oil in Dutch oven over medium heat. Add onion, carrot, celery and potatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Sauté until vegetables are beginning to soften, about 10 minutes. Add chopped garlic and 1 tsp thyme; sauté 2 minutes. Add 2 cups reserved bean cooking liquid, 4 cups chicken broth, and beans. Bring to a boil; reduce heat to medium and simmer uncovered until vegetables are tender, about 25 minutes. Cool soup 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, sauté Italian sausage over medium-high heat until cooked through, breaking up lumps, about 5 minutes. Transfer to paper towels to absorb grease.

Using a slotted spoon, remove 2 cups bean mixture from soup; reserve. Working in batches, puree remaining soup until smooth (or you can use a hand blender and blend right in the pot). Return puree to pot. Stir in reserved whole-bean mixture, remaining 1 1/2 tsp thyme, spicy sausage and heavy cream. Re-warm soup over medium heat. Season with salt and pepper. If it gets too thick you can thin it with additional broth. Makes 6-10 servings.

Is a very special part of my day. I awake usually at around 3:00 a.m. I spend a half hour or so on the computer, catching up on world news, reading emails and browsing websites. A half hour later I venture downstairs as my eldest son, Sean, leaves for work. I love the quiet of the house. I let the dogs out, straighten the downstairs, dry mop the kitchen floor, put in one of my easy listening cd’s, turn the volume soft, light a few candles and then I walk for 40 minutes. My walking time is my praying time when I thank God for my very many blessings, ask the Blessed Mother’s help on a mothering issue, pray for our country, our president, the world, for peace, for babies in the womb, children everywhere and pray for my family with special prayers for my Momma and Daddy.

After I walk, I make a cup of coffee or hot tea, stand at the front door and watch the dawn arrive in a colorful hue of reds or walk out on the back deck and listen to the sounds of insects humming, the water lapping against the piers, the wind whispering through the leaves of the mulberry and plum trees and the faint tinkle of windchimes.

It seems so many these days are never quite happy with their lives…never enough time, enough toys, enough money. I feel so blessed to have what I do…a husband who loves me, my four beautiful children, a closeness of family, a strong belief in my faith.

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I recently got back in touch with an old friend and we made plans for her to come over yesterday for dinner. I cleaned like a person possessed (Michael always says this when I clean. Hey, I know I’m no June Cleaver but I do occasionally take a mop to the kitchen floor even if someone isn’t coming over! *smile*) and discovered that a sticky lint roller works wonders at getting in those hard to reach places that the vacuum cleaner doesn’t always fit in.

For dinner, I roasted a plump Perdue Oven Stuffer chicken, made a side dish of potatoes, carrots and onions cooked in the crockpot with a bit of broth, butter, fresh thyme leaves, salt and pepper, baked a fresh loaf of Honey Wheat Oatmeal Bread (if you have the Breadman Corner Bakery, in the recipe book, change the Honey Oatmeal recipe by substituting one cup of whole wheat flour for bread flour…tastes fantastic!), and for dessert baked a cream cheese pound cake. The house smelled wonderful and I didn’t even have to light a scented candle! *smile*

But life happens and my friend got sick and had to cancel. I coped with my disappointment by eating 2 slices of the cake first followed by 2 slices of the bread drenched in butter. The boys thought the dinner was great and lavished praise which made me feel better too.

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Quinn’s “I Can Do It” lapbook is finished! I think it really turned out nice and he really seems to like it. (The little book in the top left hand corner shows pictures of Quinn washing and brushing.) Instead of adding a poem I decided to do little Quinn-isms…funny things he says. All children say cute things but except for the ones that have stuck and have become family words or sayings they are usually forgotten. Now I have a documented reference to Quinn’s fondness of saying…

“You’re cute, Daddy!” Or his famous knock, knock joke…

“Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
I am!
I am who?
I am Quinn!”

Or calling our dear, sweet Msgr. Lizor a “dummyhead.” Thank heavens, Msgr. is hard of hearing! *smile*

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My brother-in-law was having high blood pressure problems and some chest pains yesterday…please keep him and my sister and her family in your prayers.

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Autumn Things/Blog Notes:

The 39th Carnival of Homeschooling: Autumn Edition is up.

Dana at Jaguarwoman.com has, on sale, beautiful autumn graphics for you to decorate webpages and scrapbooks.

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Autumn Wind

When autumn wind goes running
It does some magic things.
It gives the shadows dancing shoes,
It gives the bright leaves wings -
When autumn wind goes running.

It curls the bonfire’s tail of smoke
And shares a little whispered joke
With cornstalks who delight to prattle,
It turns a seed pod into a rattle -
When autumn wind goes running.

Today I’m watching my adorable little twin nephews, Hans and Erich, while my sister, Honey, volunteers at Hanna and Ellie’s school for lunch time duty. They are such little characters and watching them brings back so many memories of my own twins when they were two years old.

I found an interesting offer of pottery classes, at Kids ‘N’ Clay Pottery Studio, for toddlers called Mudpies not too far away from my home. I called the owner last Friday and talked with her a bit and made arrangements for Quinn and me to visit later this afternoon to see if this would be something that would interest him. He has a sensory thing about his hands being dirty which is why he doesn’t like to fingerpaint so I’m not even sure he will want to touch the clay but it would be great for his fine and gross motor skills so we’re going to go give it a look-see.

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We had a fairly quiet but busy weekend. The twins spent the weekend riding bikes and playing football with the neighborhood children, Sean spent it sleeping and Michael working on a paper for school. The twins had a continuous stream of friends come home with them…Buddy, Bubba and Brian. Seems “B” names are popular in our neighborhood. *smile* It’s good to hear the sound of little boys’ laughter but boy, are they rough when they play!

Quinn was still a bit sick so he and I stayed home while Michael and the boys went to church. I spent the time cleaning, cooking, and baking…pot roast, baked mac and cheese for Michael, Parmesan cornbread and Laurie’s Chocolate Crumb Bars. They were delicious though I did have to improvise a bit since I only had about 1/4 cup of the semi-sweet morsels left. I had an unopened bag of the milk chocolate and caramel morsels, so I used them and it turned out just fine.

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I made a lot of progress on Quinn’s “I Can Do It” lapbook thanks to the many links provided by Kim. Thank you again! I need to find some type of “I can do it” poem and it will almost be finished. Quinn loved posing for the camera and loves looking at it so I guess I can consider this a success in our joint homeschooling adventure.

Speaking of success, yesterday while I was standing in front of the washer putting the shower curtain rings back on the shower curtain that I had just washed, Quinn came up beside me and asked, “Can I help you?” as clear as could be. He really is making good progress in his speech and with helping Mommy! He handed me each ring and we counted them and commented on their “green” color with each one. Life’s teachable moments…this is what homeschooling is and I treasure each lesson that they’ve taught me.

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“Come, little leaves,” said the wind one day,
“Come o’er the meadows with me and play:
Put on your dresses of red and gold -
For summer is gone and the days grow cold.”

I finally got a chance to play (click on the thumbnail to view the image) a bit but only after clearing out all of the magazine clutter downstairs and donating it to our church, cleaning out the boys’ old school books/work and cleaning out the boys’ clothes closets!!! I’ve also started taking pictures for Quinn’s lapbook. I really feel like I’ve accomplished quite a bit this week. Feels productive, feels busy, feels good. *smile*

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The Creamy White Bean Spicy Sausage Soup was a winner and I’ll post the recipe in a bit.

Today is my Momma’s 65th Birthday…thanking the Dear Lord that she is with us to celebrate!!! I love you so much, Mommy, and I’m praying that we have the chance to celebrate many more birthdays together.

Taken during a recent visit to Chuck E Cheeses…doesn’t Cade look happy???!!!

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We were so busy last week that I had very little time (or energy left) for blogging.

I wanted to share poems written by Cade and Connor and some more photos of the boys’ classes at the Maryland Science Center. The poems were to be of autobiographical incidents. Cade chose sailing and Connor wrote about an incident that happened about 6-7 years ago. *smile*

Sailing

The air in my face
the sea by my side
I was safe in the sea
‘cause I was taking a ride.

The wind took a turn
and I fell on my side.
By the time I got up
I was blown to the side.
Mr. Steve came around
and he helped me up quick.
I got back on track
but I was too far behind.

I was dead in last place
but I was catching up quick.
I took a few turns
and I made up the time.
We all made it to shore
and I announced to the crowd,
I came in sixth place
and I’m not feeling down.
~Cade Forrest Michael Herring - September 2006~

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Swimmer Boys are We

Cade and I went swimming,
swimming so merrily.
As the waves made smiles
my Grandmother was sitting all the while
as happy as she can be.

Then as the waves got bigger,
I started to quiver.
Cade came around
and I started to drown.
I pushed him and he pushed me.

My Grandmother saw
and she dropped her jaw.
She jumped in
and started to swim.
Grammie pushed us ashore
as we dropped to the floor.
So grateful were we to she.
~Connor Patrick Carroll Herring - September 2006~

Quinn playing in the water at the MD Science Center.

Connor (back towards camera) and Cade participating in a Chesapeake Science Class.

Thank you for your prayers. I know they helped.

The meeting went great. The vice principal, Mr. Dvorak, and his staff were warm and welcoming and I think everything went just fine, only I had the wrong MONDAY! I was a week early; it was scheduled for the 25th. Still Mr. Dvorak was able to put together an impromptu meeting and Quinn will hopefully start speech therapy sometime in November. Anyway I’m still blushing, mortified even. I know they were all thinking, “Blonde! And she homeschools her kids???!!!!” LOL

I went home to recheck the calendar and I do see why I made the mistake. Since I had filled in the 25th with “Boys” meaning I’m watching my sister, Honey’s, twin sons on that day, I wrote the meeting with the school in the space above, on the 18th. Though I now remember discussing on the phone, when setting up the appointment, that I would be watching the boys on that day so I had to have an early meeting, I guess subconsciously I just wanted the meeting to be over and done with so I just took the visual cue from the calendar. Anyway, I’m blaming it on stressing about the meeting (I’m really not good around strangers) and short term memory loss. Now I can get on to more important things like creating lapbooks with Quinn and helping the twins start their fall ecojournals. *smile*

Speaking of lapbooks…Quinn did not like the autumn theme unit that I had planned so I’ve been trying to come up with different enriching learning ideas. I ran across the concept of lapbooking and since looking at books and having Momma read books to him is one of his favorite things to do I’ve decided to incorporate some of Montessori’s life skills suggestions (of which we’ve already been working on) into an “I Can Do It” lapbook for him. I’ll take photos of him washing his hands, brushing his teeth, etc. Maybe include a photo or two of his brothers doing it as well and we’ll put together a lapbook for him to look at.

To incorporate religion and because I’m still determined to do something along the lines of an Autumn theme, I thought that I would take from Charlotte Mason’s idea of Nature Journaling and create a Creation lapbook. I thought we could take a picture of Mr. Squirrel, who likes to climb the tree just outside of our kitchen sliding glass door, and then take some nature walks around the neighborhood and to local parks to add leaves, acorns and other things. Add a few pages of Quinn’s drawings, some autumn-y poems or some lines from one of his books, and a sticker or two and we’ll be set!

If the idea goes as well as I’m hoping I should have a whole library of them. Since Quinn is not at a “school” age where I can show actual written school work this will hopefully work very well come annual review time. I’m hoping to be able to get out today and buy the supplies needed. I’ll take photos as soon as we finish.

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Mom Brag: Sean made Manager of the Week last week at UPS!!! I’m so proud. *smile*

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Autumn Delight

Crunchy leaves; a coolness in the air;
Rich deep colors and branches so bare.
Clear starry skies; a harvest moon bright;
Pumpkins, haystacks and scarecrow’s delight!
~by Teri Anderson~

I have an appointment with the vice principal and speech therapist from our local public home school to see about Quinnie receiving speech therapy. Please say a prayer that God guides my words. Thanks!