Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 19 of 2025

The week started off with an engagement ring!

That’s right! Our 3rd born is ENGAGED TO BE MARRIED!

Our two families have known each other for 17 years and have spent countless hours together, so it wasn’t a massive surprise when both of our 3rd borns decided they saw each other as something more than friends, but it has been interesting to see how all the siblings have responded. The little ones are over the moon because they are gaining a super fun brother, and the older ones are finally adjusting to NOT seeing him as a brother!

Both families were together for the weekend and on into Monday. The guys worked on house projects and the HMMWV (Humvee). Us moms went plant shopping and chatted – we didn’t have a lot of projects to work on this time. The kids played football, video games, and cooked dinner together on Monday night – bacon, eggs, pancakes, and fruit salad – while the parents went out to dinner at a local Irish Pub.

Our temperatures have begun to climb. At night, we run the attic fan to get the heat out and run it again in the morning to pull in as much cold air as possible, then we shut down the windows and close the blinds before it climbs above the inside temp so we can make it through the day without it getting too hot inside. But I can tell the day is coming soon when we won’t make it from day to day like that because it will get too hot outside. At least I made it to May without turning on the air conditioning!

I pulled my sourdough out of the refrigerator this past week and have been feeding it up. When life gets busy, I pop it in the fridge and let it be, only feeding it occasionally. But, this week I’m not so busy and thought I’d make some Sourdough Discard Oatmeal Cream Pies and some rolls.

Tuesday was a really weird day here. I took my daughter to the dermatologist in the morning and then stopped by the pharmacy and by the time I got home, it was 2:30 pm. I ate a quick lunch and then did Morning Time with the kids because we didn’t do school on Monday due to having friends over. The rest of the day seemed to fly by. Before I knew it, it was 6pm, and I just told everyone to everyone to eat leftovers, cereal, or sandwiches. We still had Mexican Casserole leftover from last week, so that’s what I had.

That evening, we watched Homestead on Vidangel. I’ve watched a lot of Prepper type videos on YouTube and the message of this movie was quite different and something worth mulling over. My husband had a few thoughts regarding the military presence and how they handled it in the movie. (The movie made them seem a little over the top, but my husband agreed with most of their calls.) I’d be interested to hear the thoughts of anyone who has seen the movie!

On Wednesday, I grocery shopped. I had quite a bit that needed to be restocked from both Aldi and Walmart, so it was NOT a cheap trip! I seriously need to choose a certain day to grocery shop. Some day I’ll get a working schedule that actually works!

On the topic of grocery shopping, our Aldi recently rearranged the entire store, and I STILL haven’t gotten used to where everything is. I always arrange my grocery list according to the layout of the store, so it has really messed with my grocery gettin’ game!

Watch an Aldi restock I did a couple of years ago…

On the days I grocery shop, I have to keep dinner simple, so we had grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup and I made Pecan Pie Bars from the Amish Cook. The crust for these bars is super simple – 2 cups of flour, 1 cup of brown sugar, and cut in 1 cup of butter. That gets layered in a 9×13″ pan and baked for 10 minutes before the filling gets added. Pretty easy way to make something that tastes remarkably like pecan pie!

We started a fun project in school this week that will have to be finished next week. My 20 year old made us black glue and I found a bunch of old photo frames and took off the backs and glued the glass into the frames. The kids used the black glue to make an outline for a “stained glass.” A couple of the kids made Spiderman, one made a mountain scene, one made a dog, and one made a cross. They watercolored in the rest to make the stained glass effect.

Here are the final results that were completed the following Monday:

As I mentioned earlier, last weekend while our friends were here, I purchased a bunch of herbs at a local garden center, so after delaying much longer than I had planned, I finally got them planted in the lovely wooden rectangle boxes I have used for my kitchen herbs over the years. I also got the coleus planted in the front porch barrel and the Wandering Jew plant (I feel really weird calling it that) in the hanging basket.

I had made plans to take my Mom out to a local coffee shop on Saturday for Mother’s Day, but she wasn’t feeling up to it, so after a quick trip to the Farmer’s Market for strawberries and green onions, I stopped in at the coffee shop and bought a couple of slices of their famous cheesecake and brought it home to have coffee and cheesecake at home with Mom. We had a very nice time!

On Mother’s Day, I realized I had exactly zero photos of me and my mom on my phone, so we snapped this one:

Speaking of Mother’s Day, my oldest daughter surprised me by driving in for the weekend, and the rest of the kids surprised me with flowers, a fruit pizza, gifts, and lots of love! I am blessed to be their mama!

And finally, my latest “kitchen” gadget…

I am sooooo excited! I’ve had my eye on Blackstone griddles for 3 years – ever since my son’s father-in-law cooked all weekend on it for our family when we visited!

Oh, the joy of cooking on a 36″ griddle! Over the weekend, I made a breakfast of pancakes, hashbrowns, bacon, and eggs in 30 minutes! It took me about the same amount of time to make a huge batch of stir fry!

My 14 year old is my side kick for grilling, and its been so fun cooking alongside him! We have a huge list of things we want to try, but up next are Smashburgers!

I hope all of you have had a lovely week!