Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 2 of 2023

Easing back into a normal schedule following Christmas break, including a $100/week grocery challenge!

Read all of the Large Family Homeschool Life!

MONDAY

Little Mercy woke me up this morning asking for oatmeal for breakfast, so I made her some oatmeal and myself some eggs and bacon.

While I ate breakfast, I listed to Scripture from the Bible App. Our church’s women’s group is doing the Bible Recap via the app this year. I’m behind, but the good thing is it is the Bible, so you’re never truly behind.

I also sat at my desk in my bedroom and worked on filling in my planner. This is the first time I’ve actually used a planner and stuck with it more than a week! I’m using Sue Hooley’s Homemaker’s Friend Planner.

I still use notebooks and note cards for various aspects of my life, but I put the everyday stuff in this planner, so I see it all at a glance.

Learn more about the Homemaker’s Friend Planner!

For Morning Time, we watched Genesis 1-11 from The Bible Project. This goes along with the Bible Recap reading plan, so I decided just to have everyone watch it this morning.

We finished our study of World War 2 and we also finished The Hundred Dresses – a short book I did as a read-aloud.

Then, the kids all worked on their independent school work while I talked to my 24 year old on the phone. We talked student loans repayment, January 6, and how to save the world, concluding with we all just need Jesus. This is usually the way our phone conversations go. We solve the world’s problems and then realize we can’t really solve the world’s problems.

For lunch, I had an Asian Bowl. I actually make it on a plate instead of a bowl. It usually consists of jasmine rice, frozen broccoli, chicken wontons I make in the air fryer, wonton strips, and orange sauce. It is my current favorite lunch!

After lunch, I stopped by the bank on the Fort to put my older kids’ tip money in their accounts and then walked the 2 mile path around the golf course with a friend.

Afterwards, I headed to the Commissary to buy groceries. I don’t usually shop the Commissary because much of the food is more expensive (except for meat deals), but for the month of January, we are doing a $100/week grocery challenge, and the Commissary doesn’t have anything extra I get lured into buying, unlike places like Walmart and Aldi. I kept track in my head as I walked the aisles and ended up spending $95! I chose not to buy eggs because of the price. We’ll just have to make do with the 2 dozen we have in the refrigerator.

At home, I mixed up some antelope meatloaf for tomorrow while I’m at my Titus 2 Group. I’ll put it in the oven before I leave so the kids have it for dinner. I always feel like Super Mom when I manage to think ahead like this!

In fact, with my word of the year being HOME, I am trying to think ahead better, run my home better, and take better care of the people entrusted to me.

Tonight is Mercy’s Special Night. She is having Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream and Dr. Pepper. She didn’t end up eating much of either but she sure had a good time hanging out in my bedroom, playing games on the phone, watching her favorite YouTuber – My Froggy Stuff – and staying up later than normal.

Before bed, I went through another module in Simplified Organization Homemaking. This is a very good course if you ever want to dig deep into managing your homemaking! I think I reference this class in my book Home Management for the Homeschool Mom.

I also watched a VICE video my oldest sent me on January 6. It was actually quite well done – not something I would have expected from VICE. For the most part, I’ve ignored politics for the past couple of years, but since Blake and I had been talking about it this morning, I thought I’d go ahead and take a look at the footage. Still don’t want much to do with this conversation, but I can at least say I’ve seen the footage. (By the way, it is graphic at times and there is language because it is all CCTV and phone footage pieced together in the exact timeline.)

TUESDAY

Went to Weight Watchers this morning with a friend. I needed to just bite the bullet and go back after the holidays. It wasn’t horrible, I can definitely tell I’m not on track and need to try to get back there.

For Morning Time, we read in Hurlbut’s Story of the Bible. (That link takes you to the free Kindle version!). In History, we read about President Truman and learned about the art of Jackson Pollock. We also started out new Read-aloud – Stuart Little.

After I helped the kids with their independent school work, I did my Bible Study and then looked over the final edit of my latest video on YouTube so I could get it ready to publish. It’s more about my Word of the Year and how that is already playing out in our home.

I took my 16 year old to work as a bagger at the Commissary and walked the golf course again. On my way home, I stopped by the library to pick up some holds.

Once back at home, I finished up my laundry and made a cream cheese and jelly spread for Titus 2 tonight. My 18 year old wanted to come along, so I brought her and we had a lovely time!

Lately, a friend and I have been talking about our young adults, and have found that we need to work at transitioning them to men’s and women’s ministries in the church so they can be a part of something. She and I ended up talking until 10 pm in her van outside in my driveway about such things. We always have such good talks!

Later that night, my husband called from the ranch in Mexico where he is hunting Coues Deer with an older friend of his. Years ago, Ty was this man’s guide on a turkey hunt, and they became fast friends. He’s a Christian too and such a gracious, neat guy!

WEDNESDAY

I made cocoa and toast for the kids’ breakfast. This is a breakfast I often had a child. I would dip my toast in my cocoa with marshmallow that got gooey all over the toast – so good!

For Morning Time, we read in Hurlbut’s, mapped out the Iron Curtain and learned about the Cold War, and finished with Stuart Little.

Both little girls have books they have to read to me. Aspen’s book is quite difficult. Mercy’s is about Benjamin Franklin.

That afternoon, I had Keian drive for his Learner’s Permit hours out to the bee farm. Then, I walked around the property with their boss – who just happens to be the friend I walked with on Monday.

When I got home, I worked on my Bible Study and then recorded a podcast. For dinner, I got Micah (14) started on making BLT Turkey Wraps. Then, we took down some Christmas decorations while playing Christmas music.

During the evening hours, I worked on transferring all of my herbal remedies from my old index cards to my Reader’s Digest Home Remedies book. I go to it before my index cards, so I thought it would be good to put everything in one place. (The link goes to the 2006 version I own.)

I had to smile when I added my old cough syrup recipe! It’s here on the blog – published back in 2012!

THURSDAY

We decided to take down the Christmas tree and put back the furniture instead of doing school this morning. Everyone feels a little sad because it always seems like the Christmas season flies by too fast for us. This year, seemed even faster than usual to all of us.

It is cold today after a string of days in the 50’s. The big kids went to work at the bee farm and I took 2 of the boys with me to the library and Aldi. I haven’t been in Aldi in 2 weeks, and I wasn’t there for a “real” shopping trip – just to pick up a couple of things I forgot at the Commissary (yes, that brought my total for the week over $100). I did notice eggs were $4.77 – the cheapest I’ve seen in town, so I grabbed a dozen.

When I got home, I started a batch of bread. We finally have a brand new oven after 4 months of doing without. (Unfortunately, by the time I am typing this out on the blog, our oven is once again not working. We are back to using the convection oven. I am frustrated, to say the least.).

I spent much of the afternoon inventorying our stockpile. Something this $100/week grocery challenge has made me realize is that I cannot try to keep my stockpile at full capacity every single week. I decided to use my Master Grocery List as a way to keep track of how many of each item I need to be “fully stocked” for about 6 months rather than a year, and then only restock every 6 months, rather than trying to maintain the stockpile at all times.

I also realized I had more than I truly needed in the stockpile. I have definitely been overspending on groceries and need to tighten up my meal plan and grocery list.

For dinner, we had Greek Bowls with rice, breaded chicken from the air fryer, artichoke hearts, roasted red pepper, black olives, cucumbers, tomatoes, and ranch dressing because I couldn’t find tzatziki and didn’t want to make it. The kids loved them!

We also had some leftover frosting in the refrigerator from our gingerbread house making, so I let the kids dip animal crackers in the containers for dessert.

It’s Thursday Bath Night, so I got the 5 younger kids through baths, and then worked on redoing the Creating a Homeschool Schedule You Love graphic and replacing the old ones in the shop and in blog posts. I also lowered the price to $24.99! I want everyone to be able to take the course and benefit from what I’ve learned about making a homeschool schedule flow smoothly!

FRIDAY

We ended up postponing Friday Home Blessing until Saturday because Lia (18) and I are going out with friends thrift store shopping. We hit several thrift stores, Hobby Lobby, and ate at a deli for lunch.

I was pretty tired that night and ended up dozing while the kids watched Meet the Robinsons. Hopefully, I get caught up on sleep this weekend!