Welcome to another week with the Waterstrauts! I wasn't going to blog until Friday, but I have a lot of things scheduled this week, and the house to finish cleaning because I'm having a very special visitor on Saturday. My college roommie will be here! And in case you couldn't tell, I'm pretty excited about it.
This week we decided to do Waffles on Tuesday, because Asa was making his ever famous Alaska Salads for dinner. Not a new recipe, but I found a loop hole and decided Hayden and I would make blueberry waffle muffins to go along with it. And so, we prepared the muffin mix and cooked it in the waffle iron. It was yummy, and a great pairing with our salad (which did have arugula in it which was new for us, and a new staple for sure!)
Tuesday night the library was hosting a craft night for elementary kids. The theme was 100's of hats. I tried to convince Hayden to make this AWESOME shark hat, but he wanted to make the pumpkin and turkey hat. He's pretty excited about the holidays coming up, and the shark just didn't fit in with that, I suppose.
Speaking of holidays, on the way home he then started asking all the Santa questions, so we broke down and told him. So, I have no more Santa believers in my house. He took it pretty well with a 'I kind of figured' and then went extra good kid, when he spent the whole way home thanking us for all the presents we bought, eggs we hid, and money we gave him for missing teeth. We stopped and got some Sonic shakes on the way home to lessen the blow. Anythings better with milkshakes.
Around 10:30 that night, all the kids were tucked in and I went out to the kitchen to turn off a light that had been left on in the laundry room. I was met with this guy (the lizard, not the kid). I promptly screamed for Peyton. He came and collected the lizard and let him outside. It's certainly one of the draw backs of living in Florida. I hate when lizards get in the house!
A big shout out this week to Rachel Baker, who went snorkeling on vacation and took all kinds of awesome underwater pictures to send to Peyton, complete with riddles so he could figure out what they were (and an awesome answer key for me). He LOVED it. So, thank you, Rachel!
This week we practiced our Figurative Language in the driveway. There were all kinds of sayings and when I shouted out things (like simile, metaphor, alliteration, and personification) Peyton had to quickly find something that matched. After awhile, Hayden finished up his worksheets and came outside to take part. I mostly called Alliteration for him. He didn't really grasp the other concepts. But, we all know how this family loves a good alliteration. Hello, Waterstraut Waffle Wednesday.
We kept the alliteration going with dinner that night. We had Porkchops, Potatoes, Peas, and Pears! Asa has been cooking a ton this month, which is awesome because with everything I've got going on it takes one last thing off my to-do list. This is his golden porkchops (smothered in a mushroom sauce with onions so good), some yummy yellow smashed potatoes.
We also discovered last week our love for Pitas. They were buy one get one at Publix the other week ($1.45 for 10 whole pitas-- 20 halves!) You better believe theres a ton of those in my freezer. We went breakfast for dinner night with Scrabled Egg, Apple Chicken Sausage, Tomato Basil Laughing Cow Cheese, Salsa, and a bit of cheese to top it off. It was SO good. We all had some greek yogurt and watermelon to round out the meal.
We're big breakfast people here, and Mexican, we love our taco nights. But our newest obession: Chinese. Asa made General Tso Chicken with Broccoli and Rice. A few days later we had Chicken fried rice which was equally as yummy. And with Chicken buy one get one, really affordable!
Asa passed a class a week and a half ago, but it took us a couple days to get to the store and get the stuff for rootbeer floats. So, yay Asa!
Saturday was a cleaning day. The boys and I really cleaned their rooms. I'm talking under the beds clean! After doing that, and laundry, and making lunch all while Asa was working from home, I took Hayden for the Halloween crafts at the library. He made a bat, which we put magnets on so it could hang on the fridge, a candy corn clip (which I just realized I didn't take a picture of), and a Frankenstein mask.
I spent the afternoon working on November and December home school plans. I'm trying desperately to get all that done too before Emily gets here. Theres so many special events, visitors and such that it's a tough one to schedule. Asa's response: "Is it really a special event if theres always an event?" I did put dinner in the slow cooker and pulled out the other loaf of banana bread from the freezer that Hayden and I made the week before. We had Appley Kielbasa, fresh green beans, and mashed potatoes.
After all that on Saturday, Katie and Kevin stopped by. They had been up at her mom's house so they were in our area. I hadn't seen them since just before we went on vacation this summer. We've just been busy people, I guess. But thanks for stopping by guys, it was nice to see you!
Sunday was an away game for the Bucs. This week they played on Sunday, and they have the Thursday night game. Which means they can lose twice in five days. I pulled out all kinds of random things and we had a Pita bar. Hayden put apples, peanut butter, and granola in almost all of his. I liked the barbecued chicken ones with pickles. Peyton went with chicken, black beans, salsa and corn. Asa made a lot of salad like ones- some topped with a tzatziki I had made. Calib ate everything. I think he had like six pitas. Either way, this was a keeper. We'll be doing this again.
Then Sunday night we all got ready for the big Peyton Manning return. Peyton's old Colts gear was small on him. Fun note: The last time he had on the Colts #18, it was the last day Peyton Manning was a Colt. I think he looks much better in his Broncos gear anyway. Asa found a shirt last week that said 'All Colts grow up to be Broncos'. Peyton NEEDS that shirt for Christmas for sure.
Good news though, all that stuff fits Hayden. He only wore it for the picture though. He was the only one in the house who didn't watch that game. Peyton was pretty upset that Peyton Manning lost in his return to the Colts. But, he's thinking they'll meet again in the playoffs. Peyton is REALLY hoping the Broncos win it all, and Peyton Manning is the Super Bowl MVP. Because that means we can go see him at Disney World. We shall see.
Monday was a day off school for public school kids, as a teacher planning day. Hey, where are my teacher planner days? Anyway, Asa needed to study so I planned on taking all the kids out to Sweetfields Farm to enjoy the fall activities (even if it doesn't feel like fall weather at all! It was 90 degrees, with a heat index of 98!) You'll notice though, Calib is missing. He's come down with a cold and had to stay home. He actually even missed school today.
Anyway, we checked out the pumpkins and took some pictures with them, but we didn't get any. Pumpkins at any sort of event down here are ridiculously expensive. Small ones were only $8, but they didn't have any 'small' ones left. The next size was $15, and I just can't bring myself to spend that on a pumpkin. Especially when they last like a day after being carved here in Florida. Not to mention I have two kids who won't carve them. We might pick some up at Target for $3.99 this week, but we'll see.
The boys made their way through the spider web, and then had a good time with the other kids jumping on the bales of hay.
We played a little on the seasaw, in the treehouse, and on the tree swing before going over to pet the adorable baby goats. We also decided we're going to need some chickens.
We spent some more time at the farm, playing corn hole (or at least the boys version of it), shooting potatoes out the of the vegetable cannon, running through the hay stack maze, and going on a hay ride. We skipped the corn maze, it was just too hot to go walking through when none of the kids were terribly excited about it.
We stopped and made the scarecrow kids craft, and then headed into the barn and I let each of the boys get either a gored or a baby pumpkin for $1. It was way past lunchtime, so I told them to each pick out an apple to help their growling tummies.
We left the farm around 1, and headed home. I told them we could stop at McDonalds which is a real treat for them. They were so good and well behaved, even though it was so hot outside and they had a super late lunch.
That was our week. We've got a VERY busy one coming up. But, my busy is like, you know, Bucs games, Lightning Games, a game night, and the food and wine festival.
Next Up: See above!
