Montana Family Vacation, pt. 2

Our Montana Cabin

I know you all thought this would never come, but there are in fact more wonderful pictures from our vacation.  Those who know me can imagine that I was a bit unsure of this whole venture when we pulled up to this cabin.  It is TINY and simple, and as much as I want to be content with simple things when that is what I am given, in the moment that we arrived at the cabin, I faced the fact that I still need to adjust my expectations and responses. 

I admit that the sight of this cabin left me a bit worried. But there was no need to even think twice about it!  The cabin was absolutely perfect for our week of rest and relaxation.  It was small, simple and just barely held all of us and our rather small load of stuff, but it was just what we needed.

There is no question that one of the best things about the cabin was our view of the lake.

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Fun Christmas Links

Here are a few wonderful web links for the Christmas season-

Listen to Dicken’s A Christmas Carol in serial format from the BBC

Check out the daily freebie site for classic ebooks, online stories and teaching tips at the Homeschool Freebie of the Day site

A monthly online literary magazine with poems, classic stories, Victorian era illustrations, songs, and activities.  This one includes a read-a-loud version of A Christmas Carol, condensed by the author himself

The Latin lovers among my readers can enjoy a Latin Christmas carol for each day

Christmas audio-books for kids and Storynory-The Elves and the Shoemaker, The Snow Queen, and more

An audio-book adaptation of the Landmark book, The Winter at Valley Forge

Christmas notebooking pages from Notebookingpages.com

The most amazing Christmas sewing site- Sew, Mama, Sew!

Many, many coloring pages and activities from author Jan Brett.  These are truly beautiful resources!

One of my favorite Advent calendarswith daily Scripture readings, devotional articles, hymns, Christmas traditions around the world, art history lessons, book suggestions, daily movie suggestions, and more from Teachingmom.com

A detailed and very helpful stocking stuff site, full of ideas for every stocking, in every price range

From Veritas Press, scroll down for a down-loadable Christmas lapbook and Advent wreath project sheets

The Beach

I am sure we all have many goals, and many of them are very lofty and inspiring.  They are the type of goals that you would look at and think, yes, that is a wonderful thing to aspire to, something that will make a difference in the world.  Those goals are hard to meet, but we all make them.  This is all good.

I also have some not so lofty goals, goals that will not impress even one person.  One  of my recent goals of this sort has been to spend more time at the beach.  🙂  When I try, I can aim very, very high.

I haven’t been doing that great with this goal, but I do have my moments of accomplishment, such as this great day spent meandering up the coast with Erin and the two kiddos.  It was a crisp, clear day with a great breakfast, (I had to get up much earlier than I would normally on this Saturday do to the fact that the kiddos wake up early, even on the weekend-imagine!) time at the Ritz to see the gingerbread houses, and a stop at the beach.

 

My First Sock Monkey

I’ve been intending to make a sock monkey for months and months…

Here she is!

Spicy Grilled Shrimp

I am not quite sure what has happened, but I finally have another winning recipe to share!  If you even marginally enjoy shrimp, I urge you to click over to this recipe for spicy grilled shrimp.  It is everything you want in a shrimp recipe-only a few ingredients, quick to put together, and extremely tasty.  We had these little shrimpies yesterday and all who ventured to taste them loved them. 🙂 

(Meaning a couple of the boys weren’t brave enough to eat them!) 

I followed the recipe except for these changes-

     I hardly ever worry about what kind of vinegar I use, so this time it was champagne vinegar.

     I used red pepper flakes instead of red pepper sauce.

Bon Appetit!

Making it to the End

 

This can be a tough time of year for all of us-kids are tired of doing school, moms are tired of sticking to the routine, I am tired of creating lesson plans; the sun is shining, the beach is so close…But even with all of this and more, I think it is very important to finish the year strong.  We want to model to our children and students the value of commitment, perseverance and hard-work, qualities that are sometimes hard to find in our society.  We do want to keep this commitment to virtue balanced with our need to enjoy the life God has given us.  So how can we make that happen in the last few weeks of the school year?

Here are a few ideas to keep you going-

1.       Take school outside for part of the day.  Do your reading on the grass.  Take a walk and observe nature.

2.       Start the day with mom reading aloud.  This is such a nice way to ease gently into the demands of the day!

3.       Make a special breakfast and enjoy it together before starting the school day.  Sometimes we all benefit from being together and just resting, after we have completed the busyness of the morning routine and before we start our school day.

4.       Declare a pajama school day and make a really big deal about the privilege to school in pajamas (admittedly this only works if you make the kids get dressed every other day! J )

5.       Take some school to a coffee shop one afternoon.

6.       Make time for oral school work-oral spelling, oral Latin practice, memory work review, reading aloud to siblings.

7.       Excuse your child from some of their math problems.  That usually makes everyone very happy!

8.       Have a picnic for lunch.

9.       Plan a field trip.

10.   Plan a creative activity-have the kids put on a puppet show about something from history or literature, make a cookie dough relief map, or have them write a song about a key person you are studying…

And know when you are going to end!  I think it is so helpful for parents and children to know that the end of this year is in sight.  Your end might be a certain time, it might be a certain place in the books, but we all benefit from having a goal we can meet.  Remember that you will start school again, but you will probably start refreshed and renewed if you give yourself a break!

Creating Business Plans

This is what my youngest brother and sister were doing the other day.  Yes, at 7 and 9, they really did use the phrase “business plan” as they were telling me about this. 

 So the little brother came up with this list:

A.  Work at Dave and Buster’s

B.  Work at an Ice Cream shop that sells a lot of ice cream

C.  Own a shoe store

And the little sister came up with this:

A.  Own her own clothing line and store

B.  Attend Beauty school and work at a salon

Getting Smarter by the Night

Those who know and love me know that I had decided that organic, USA made cotton sheets where the way to go.  Of course, I never bought them as they can be a bit pricey…the amount of organic cotton is relatively small and of course, sewing labor in the USA is rather high.

 Thanks to some very wonderful people, I am now the proud owner of some wonderful organic, USA made cotton sheets. 🙂  I love them.  I love the fact that they were made after the order was placed, I love the fact that the tags are labeled my hand-no pre-printed labels on my sheets!

And I am sure that my brain now has the ability to work double time.  No more of those nasty pesticides that drench the average everyday cotton of the day.  My pores rest happily in chemical free sheets.

The Horse Show

Liz, Matt and Jacob have been taking horseback riding lessons and we recently went to their show.  The Lutz clan cleaned up with first place ribbons all around!  Check out these riders:

Jacob:

  

Elizabeth:

 

Matthew:

 

Christmas Eve Tamales

Our family has no long standing food traditions for the Christmas holidays-our meals have included everything from turkey to tenderloin to spaghetti to pizza.  But the tradition of making and enjoying tamales on Christmas Eve keeps popping up, and since we are getting better and better at it, I think this one might stick for awhile.

Everyone joins in on the fun-