Homemade Frozen Pizza

August 29th, 2010

Recipes, frugal eating on the go, large family shopping ideas, and freezer cooking kits all in one!

We’re learning to make the most of our Sam’s trips slowly.  Last week Matt hit on the best thing ever.  First of all, let me say if you have a membership to Sam’s you can not only get your diapers for much less you can drop into their cafe and get amazing deals on lunch or dinner.  You can get a huge Nathan’s hot dog and drink for about $1.75 or a large slice of pizza and a drink for under $3.  Y’all, for a family of 7 that is da bomb.  Last week while ordering our after-church hot dogs Matt ordered a case of fully-cooked 16 inch pizza crusts.  20 of them.  For, get this, $16.  Wow.  And we all know the hardest part of getting a homemade pizza right is the crust.  No more.  You ask for them at the food counter where you get your hot dogs, not in the frozen foods section in the back.  They come in a big box.  We set our box straight into the freezer and pull out however many we want to cook up at a time.  While we were at Sam’s we bought a mega pack of mozzarella, pepperoni, and sauce (those are found in the regular food section of the store).  When we got home (or in reality 4 days after they sat in the fridge waiting for me) I divided the huge packs of pepperoni and cheese into little freezer bags according to the amount we would need for each pizza.  And because we like to experiment with all kinds of pizzas we also bought some pre-cooked grilled chicken chunks (you could save money by doing these yourself, we just didn’t this time), barbeque sauce, alfredo sauce, bacon, garlic, black olives, green olives, and fruit.  We also want to try a chocolate chip cookie dough soon.

So far we’ve tried cheese sticks: frozen crust, melted butter spread all over, garlic (we love the huge pre-chopped garlic – we use it for everything) spread all over, and then cheese sprinkled on top.  When you divide your cheese if you put it straight into the freezer it will stay loose and not melt down into a huge clump.  Then when you want to make a pizza you can reach into the bag and put the frozen cheese you want onto the frozen crust – no thawing.  We bake all of the pizzas at 400 degrees for about 10 or 15 minutes – just check for a melty golden cheese on top.  Serve the cheese sticks with the pasta sauce you would normally use on the pizza.

Here are a couple we had yesterday.

The cheese pizza is the kids’ fall back favorite.  I should’ve used more cheese.  Oh well, they didn’t seem to mind this time.  The other is a chicken, garlic, tomato, alfredo.  Oh my, y’all.  The only thing that would’ve made this one better is crumbled bacon.  But we forgot to make it ahead of time.  I think the pizza made it into our bellies just fine without it though.  Chicken Alfredo Pizza: frozen crust, spread some chopped garlic on top, half a jar of alfredo sauce, a little salt, mozzarella, grilled chicken chunks, sliced fresh tomatoes, and a little more cheese just to hold the chicken and tomatoes on.  400 degrees for almost 15 minutes.  Oh my.

2010-11 Class Pictures

August 19th, 2010

It was the first day of public schools locally.  Which means Parker Crash school pictures and Not Back To School Celebration all rolled into one!

The Oldest who will be turning 9 in a few weeks and is beginning fourth grade.

The Middlest is 7 and starting 2nd grade.

My Girl is 5 and officially starting Kindergarten this year.

BigMan is 3 and in full-blown Preschool.  He passed last year’s sign onto his younger brother!

BabyHead is 10 months now and busy.  Busy, busy, busy!

Yippie!!

August 19th, 2010

It’s NOT back to school for us!!

We’re off to celebrate this day together!

We’ll be back tomorrow with our 2010-2011 Not Back To School Pictures!

Why I Night Parent

August 17th, 2010

In the middle of the other night my 3 year old came to my bed.  It’s not new.  We’re down to about 2 or 3 nights a week.  He climbs into bed next to me and goes right back to sleep.  It does make my night more difficult – I don’t sleep nearly as well when he does because I still nurse and cosleep with my 10 month old for most of the night too.  But I don’t turn him away.  I don’t fuss at him.  I don’t even have him sleep in the floor like I did my first 2 children when they were this needy age.  I just roll over.  And ask him gently the next night to try to stay in his bed until the sun shines through his window.  Some weeks are better than others.  It seems to come and go in phases.

So the morning after one such night this sweet boy said, “When I walked to your bed last night, my legs were wiggly.”  I asked what he meant, if he meant he was sleepy wiggly or scared wiggly.  “I was wiggly,” was all he responded.  A couple of minutes later he followed up with “Know why my legs were wiggly in the night, Mama?  I was afraid you wouldn’t wake up.”  I asked him if I had ever not awakened before and reassured him I’d be there to take care of him in the night if he needed me.  To not ever worry about that.

Boy, am I glad I parent gently this time around.  And how I wish I had followed my instincts to parent gently the first couple times around, to not always put me first.  To remember they need me.  Even in the middle of the night.

The Missing Piece

August 14th, 2010

My best friend from college came to visit this week.  Just like she does nearly every year.  Our visits somehow always just pick right up where we left off the last time we were together.  Her visit this time came on the heels of a very hard time around here.  It wasn’t planned that way.  At least not by us.  Isn’t He amazing?

We had no grand plans, just to live life together this week.  We survived the “big shopping trip” together.  A visit with Nana and Papa.  Three days worth of meatloaf leftovers.  Chores and homeschooling meltdowns.  Cold feet (we do keep our house 69 degrees at night), sleeping on the harbinger of death “sick bed mattress” and early morning wake up calls.  Matt compared our house to a week at a kid camp – dirty, loud, non-stop go, early mornings, late nights.

We talked of church problems, parents, husbands, children, friends, city life versus town life, ostentations, crashes, yoga, and math curricula.

Friday night we went out to eat and see a movie.  We watched the kids play under a gorgeous sunset as jets flew overhead.  It was beautiful.

We got up this morning, had bacon, egg, cheese bagels, said our long goodbyes, and cried quiet contained “I’m going to miss you more than words” tears.  What surprised me at this year’s goodbye was that my children cried.  Sat down in the grass and cried their own “I already miss her” tears.  Comforted each other with their own “It won’t be that long – Christmas is just a few months away and then it’ll be the new year and then she’ll be here real soon” words.  And my heart swelled and cried a new type of tears – tears for my children as well as for myself.

And as I stepped inside to change the baby, wipe my tears, wash my face, there in the first place she knew I’d visit was the socks she had borrowed and the money for dinner we had argued over the night before.  Hidden until she was gone.  I laughed and cried.  And smiled.

Jill, we had more fun than we could describe.  More laughs than we expected.  And we’ll miss you more than you’ll know.

Our Homeschool Room

August 10th, 2010

Welcome Blog Hoppers! This post was originally published exactly one month ago today. Weird. What can I say? I’m a woman before my time. That or I’m out of the loop.

We’ve tried numerous school room/school nook scenarios. They haven’t worked. They were out of the main part of the house where I couldn’t keep an eye on the little ones, with all their desks separate I couldn’t stack their school books by them, I didn’t have everything I needed at hand, or it was all so exposed on wire shelves that it made the room look not so great.

With 5 kiddos ranging in age from 4th grade to 10 months we had to get creative.

Here’s what’s working right now:

We keep all the art supplies where they can get to them at all times – on the computer desk. I separate them by type: all glue in one bucket, all paints in another, all chalk, all crayons, stamps, etc.

This is just one of the basket collections on the computer desk. It takes so many, you know. I keep one small handy bucket for everyday schoolwork so I can grab just one bucket and get us started right away. That little silver one up there with the assortment of supplies. Pencils, glue, scissors, crayons, chalk for me, pencil sharpener all in one little bucket to set in the middle of the table for our table time.

I keep all our paper in the computer desk drawer where even the 3 year old can reach it.

Here’s another handy tip we use:

When I open a new ream of paper I take a stack of it and cut it in half before putting it in the drawer. With all the quick scribbles of the 3 and 5 year olds – we go through a lot of paper. This way we go through it half as quickly.

I can’t wait for all the back-to-school supplies to be marked way down so we can stock up again! Did you know we’re still using some of the glue sticks we got last year on sale? Whee!!

So, how’s your school room look? What’s your plan for the new year? What works for you and what doesn’t? Do you also eat where you learn?

Broiler Cheese Burgers

August 4th, 2010

Here’s a recipe and another how-to on freezer cooking.

Once again, we ate it up before we got pictures.  Doh!

When you go buy your big pack of ground beef and brown it up all at once, you’re also going to buy another big pack of ground beef.  This one is for burgers.  After you brown all that other ground beef and set it in the fridge to cool, then turn your attention to the burger prep.

Dump the whole bunch of raw ground beef into a big glass bowl (use a metal pot if you don’t have a bowl big enough).  Mix in some burger seasoning mix – we’re currently using Emeril’s Bam! Burger Mix but we’re not partial.  Mix it in really well.  Lay out a long strip of wax paper on the counter.  Then patty out the ground beef however large you want them.  Lay them out lined up on the wax paper.  Then start tearing off plastic wrap (I don’t have a great method for this, suggestions?)  Currently I tear off the size I’ll need that will wrap one patty completely.  I start setting them all around on the counter tops – not touching so they don’t wind up all wadded up together.  I wrap each patty individually, stack them, and set aside.  When they’re all wrapped I stack them into my freezer – you can put them into freezer gallon bags if you’d like and date them, but we eat them up so quickly that I skip this step most of the time.

Now, to the cooking part.

When you want them for a quick dinner, pull out however many you’ll eat at a meal, unwrap, set frozen into a large casserole dish not touching.  Set your oven to broil.  Set them under the broiler (with the shelf halfway down – you don’t want them right under the broiler) and set the timer for 10 minutes.  When the timer goes off, squish ‘em flat and flip them.  Set the timer again for 10 minutes.  Squish, flip.  Set timer again for 10 minutes or less – depending on doneness.  You can tell they’re done when the juices run clear when you squish them.  Keep squishin’, checkin’, and flippin’ until done.  When they’re done add sliced or shredded cheese and set back in the oven until cheese is melted.

When serving this time we added precooked bacon you can buy in the store, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, mustard, mayo, and buns (toasted or not – your preference!).  We deep fried some Rally fries you can find in the freezer section (really good, by the way) and added shredded cheese to the top, sometimes we salt and sugar the fries instead of adding cheese – mmm!

Cook ahead meal and walk away, unattended burgers all in one!

Our 2010-2011 Curriculum

August 2nd, 2010

I’ll have 4 kiddos doing “school work” with me this year.  I haven’t filled out the Arkansas state required paperwork yet.  I’m a procrastinator (oh, just pretend you’d wouldn’t have guessed that, ‘k?), so I have yet to fill in all the blanks.  And since I start their “table work” with the rest of the kiddos whenever they show interest (usually just before 2 years old) “school” is just a way of life for us.  Therefore, while chatting with a friend last night it occurred to me for the very first time that I will “officially” have 3 “in school” – a Kindergartener, a 2nd grader, and a 4th grader.  “Officially” on a form, you know.  Officially, officially I’m already teaching all 3 of them and a preschooler too.

Here’s last year’s “School Picture”:

Because I’m a little verbose, and the word concise is obviously not in my vocabulary I’m going to make my list not all simple-like as I’ve seen on others.  I don’t know why I have to make everything so hard.  I just do.

As I’ve added more children to our school work, I’ve realized I need to condense them into as many multi-level unit/read-aloud kind of studies as I can.

Geography, World History, Bible Study – Mystery of History Vol 1- Creation to the Resurrection – 4th grader, 2nd grader, Kindergartner, and preschooler.  I’ll be using this curriculum mostly as a read-aloud and doing a few of the suggested activities at my leisure as reviews.

American History – A Beka’s History books.  I do not use the Teacher’s Guides or any extras just the student text.  I assign these as independent reading and have them tell me about what they read afterward.  My 4th grader will continue in the Our American Heritage, Grade 3.  My 2nd grader is excited to start his independent reading in  My America and My World, Grade 1.  I wait until they are able to read well to start, hence the level inconsistencies.  My oldest also likes to watch Liberty’s Kids – all of these things together (with our Little House series and other read-alouds it just makes history real).

Science - Exploring Creation With Astronomy (Young Explorers)- 4th grader, 2nd grader, Kindergartner, and preschooler.  We’ll also continue life and physical science lapbooks with the 4th, 2nd, and Kindergartener from Homeschool Share.  We also watch SO many Discover nature shows, MythBusters, How It’s Made, and any other science show we can get our hands on.  Which leads to discussions and “looking things up” on the internet.  Not to mention all that hands-on fun we run across.  Just Google kid science experiments and you’re all set to go!

For read-alouds – making lists from the Sonlight catalog.  We’re currently reading By the Shores of Silver Lake – the plan is to finish the Little House series this year.  All kiddos are included in the read-alouds for every level.  Nobody’s too young or too old – we just all sit together.  I’ll also be including other read-alouds that are younger focused along the way as well (also pulled from Sonlight’s catalog).  I’ve conquered the library for the first time ever so we’re rolling through some books now!

For art – I’ll be doing this independently again.  I’ll pick an artist and study them, their life, their works, where they lived, their favored medium and then create our own masterpieces in their medium.  We may incorporate some read-alouds with this as well.

For music – same as above.  We’ll pick someone or a style.  Study the time period, listen to it, and talk about instruments and styles.  We have lots of “pretend” instruments and make our own “music” way too often.

Reading (Phonics and Independent) – 4th grader is no longer doing any type of phonics (Yay!) he’ll be assigned and picking his own ability-based readers from Sonlight catalog (obtained from the library).  2nd grader will be continuing Hooked on Phonics: Learn to Read Second Grade System.  He’ll also start independent readers for the first time ever!  The Kindergartener will continue Hooked on Phonics: Learn to Read First Grade System (we’ve set aside Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons until she’s a little further along in the H.O.P. books).

Handwriting I really liked our Handwriting Without Tears last year, but I got a great deal on these three workbooks from one of my friends (thanks Tamara!) – 4th grader – Cursive Writing Practice Book (Flash Kids Harcourt Family Learning).  2nd grader – Italic Handwriting Series Book A.  Kindergartner – Handwriting Without Tears – Letters and Numbers for Me.

Spelling – No “official curriculum”.  I wasn’t happy with anything from last year.  Decided against buying anything.  I’ll be correcting their writing, assigning copywork, and playing lots of Scrabble Apple.  Not to mention the constant conversational spelling discussions (“Mama, how do you spell ‘fly’ like the bug?  Is it the same as when you ‘fly?’”  “Mama, how do you spell ‘Kit Fisto?’”  You know, the important stuff.)

Language Arts – After much debating I’ll be going light on this.  After considering Brenda’s reasons and hersuggestions, and scouring ridiculous amounts of workbooks and plans as well as what my kids already know – I’ll be using 2 workbooks we already own.  Starting with Harcourt Family’s Second Grade Language Arts workbook and moving into SRA Kaleidoscope Level A workbook.  I’ll be teaching the 4th and 2nd grader combined and assigning the same worksheet for both.  The idea being to introduce (and continue reviewing lightly) and make concrete the basic concepts without worrying too much about it at these early levels.  I’ll be supplementing with Wordly Wise 3000 online -I like going to the student section then to games – who doesn’t like a good game of hangman?! (thanks for the heads up, Brenda!)

Bible – A memory verse in the mornings.  Copywork of that verse.  Bible reading and discussion in the evenings as a family.  I want to really focus on virtues/character traits as a unit study soon (got some good suggestions for this one?)  And it is incorporated into our constant daily lives.

Math – Math-U-See.  This will be the first “official” math curriculum ever for us.  The plan is to start the Kindergartner in the Primer dvd and workbook – I’ll be working with her.  I’ll start the 4th and 2nd graders well-below grade level – in the Alpha level – they’ll watch the dvds and do their workbooks independently with support from me.  Just to make sure they have all the math foundations laid well.  We’ll move however quickly they need.  I’ll be ordering one Primer workbook and one Alpha workbook – I’ve heard there are enough pages to divide the work from one book between the 4th and 2nd graders.  I’ll also be supplementing with Timez Attack.