Final Analysis Friday: Copy Cat

I decided to copy my friend Pam from Everyday Snapshots. On Mondays she does a neat post where she gives a quick overview of her week and calls it Monday Musings. Since imitation is the best form of flattery, I’m doing the same thing, but putting it on Fridays.

Around the House

I've been working on teaching the kids more chores. This week they learned how to clean out the refrigerator. I despise, loathe, abhor cleaning out the shelves and bins in the fridge. However, my children love it! <insert happy dance>

I also managed to get the Master bedroom under control. With Thanksgiving travel and having way too much stuff in too small of a room, it had gotten pretty bad, but I was able to finish that room up today.

Christmas decorations are still not up however, so that must become priority number one this next week.

From the Kitchen

So far this week, I've made pot roast which I brown on the stove in some oil, remove from the pan, pour in some red cooking wine (about ½ cup) to loosen all of the cooked on bits, add a packet of dry onion soup mix, put the roast back in the pot, surround it with carrots and potatoes, cover it, and bake it at 325 degrees for three hours. The smell is indescribably good!

Tomorrow I’m making a pork roast rubbed with spices (What can I say? Roasts were on sale at the grocery store this week!) with celery, carrots, and potatoes all cooked in apple juice in the crock pot.

Homeschooling

We started out with a bang, but fizzled badly when the girls got sick with stomach viruses on Friday. Plus our minivan’s ignition went out so we missed our home school group’s field trip to the state capitol on Friday as well, but since I wound up cleaning vomit for most of the day that was definitely a blessing in disguise. I would have hated to have been on the road or at the capitol with that happening!

Up this week we will be studying leprechauns and finishing Encyclopedia Brown (Chipette), doing extension activites with Corduroy and continuing our reading lessons using the beta version of Logic of English’s Foundations Kindergarten program (Magpie).

On the Blog

Hoping to get something published every day this week and finish up a review on Chipette’s main math program, Math in Focus. There have been quite a few people that have asked me about it, so I need to respond.  If I get super inspired (and have time!) I will finish my planning series, by finally publishing the How to Plan a Subject.

Fitness

HA! HA! HA! *gasping for air* HA! HA! HA! *snorting*

We’ll see how it goes next week.

Reading

I just finished up The Tiger’s Curse series by Colleen Houck. It was a very action-packed, fantasy YA series. Pretty much all I read anymore is YA fiction…I just enjoy it more. Up next, the first book in the Trylle trilogy by Amanda Hocking that my friend Stephanie recommended to me.

Plans and Schemes

Well, Chipette was supposed to have a sleepover this Friday for her birthday, but with the stomach virus in our house, it was postponed for a week. This is the second time we've had to cancel it because someone in our house was sick. We’re hoping the third time’s the charm! She’s already informed me of the menu: Chicken Parmesan with salad and garlic bread and blackberry cheesecake for dessert. No problem, your majesty! ;)

A Memory

Aunt Lydia gave Monkey a Shrek ‘do when we went out to eat after the wedding. He loved it and wouldn't let anyone even touch it until we got back to the apartment.

Wrapping our week up in Pam-style in the tree house,

Chelli