Life on our corner

My sister asked for a post about our highly anticipated overnighter without kids this past weekend, and it has taken three nights to get past the exhaustion to write this!  We had a great time but stayed out waaaaaay past our bedtime and paid for it! A month or so ago my mom asked if she could have the kiddos each stay the night at her house for a little one on one time.  I joked and said yes, but I really needed them all to go there or her to come our way so that Jordan and I could go to the Needtobreathe concert.  To my delight she said "Yes!"  While we have had date nights without the kids for a couple hours this would be the first time in 3 1/2 Years that we would not have kids for the overnight!  CRAZY! Saturday morning I had to leave before 8:00 am to be in Ames to set up for the women's seminar so Jordan took the kids to my parents.  (They didn't cry when he left, or for bedtimes.  Elise didn't even reach for me when my folks brought them back. 29 1/2 h

I started blogging a couple of years ago, and I have really enjoyed it. One thing that surprised me was how many people were interested in the dairy free recipes that I posted. I have toyed with the idea of splitting off my family posts from the recipe of posts, but I never did anything about it until now.   I was asked to have a booth at an Ideas Fair for woman at our church. My booth is supposed to encourage woman with different ideas about homemade cleaning and personal products. As I was compiling recipes and info there was more that I wanted to say than I thought I could get on a handout so I branched off into a new blog. I am looking forward to having Simply Made Home be a fun place to write about being a real food nerd, making “Soft Scrub” or face wash, and other ideas I have about making things both simple and homemade. I am not sure how this all will develop.  I may end up privatizing Life on Our Corner for friend and family and just have Simply Made H

We have been working on a few projects, and Jonah asked me to put them on the Internet. (Crazy 21st century kids anyway!) We took a couple weeks off from his regular curriculum to do a unit based around the book Mr. Popper's Penguins. Jonah put together a lapbook of all his work.  Here he is with one of his favorite pages.  The one with the flap that asks "Would you like to be fed like a penguin chick?"  (You can ask him to explain why he said "No!") Jonah in penguin toboggan pose. Silly boy! I thought this was creative, on the back of his book he made the penguins look like they were walking away! We finally finished up his body.  This was a lot of fun because Audrey did it with us.  (Reuben thought that he did as well!)  I think that he really learned a lot about his body.  When I asked what he favorite parts were they included everything about waste elimination.

Elise and Jack Sister Snuggles "My, you haven't given me any coffee yet today." She was so quiet I was afraid of what I would find. She was just in her own little world!