Large Family Homeschool Life – Week 42 of 2025

A few weeks ago, we headed back to the mountains for one last vacation before our cabin is closed for the season. Since then, we’ve been full-bore wedding planning! In fact, this weekend, we are moving most of our daughter’s things to her new home 2.5 hours away!

Her room feels so empty and sad, and I feel as if everything we do is her “last time.” In fact, this Thursday was her last Special Night.

This was her all those many years ago when we began Special Nights…oh how things have changed!

We are in the thick of Autumn Homeschooling, and it has been a delight so far! Something new for us this year is Fine Art Mysteries from Tea Time Together!

We work through the lesson, talk about the art and the mystery surrounding each lesson, read a poem, and listen to music. I also assigned the kids literature selections from this curriculum, and so far they are loving them! It is so out of their norm, and it has been a blast. In fact, as I’m typing this, the kids are hovering over the Art Fraud Detective book trying to figure out “whodunit!” (Seems very fitting considering this week’s heist at the Louvre!)

These lessons are very well done and engaging, and would be a great addition to your Morning Time for Fine Arts or as a “special” school like our Autumn Homeschool. Tea Time Together also has History lessons, Civics lessons, and an Advent series I’m already planning on using this Christmas!

Use code: RAISINGARROWS for 10% off entire order!

Also part of this year’s Autumn Homeschool are the cooking lessons from Kids Cook Real Food.

Rather than separate everyone by Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced, we are working our way up from Beginner and doing most of the lessons. There are definitely things to be learned in ALL the lessons! The kids are really enjoying it, and I feel good about FINALLY working through this curriculum with them (especially with my right hand gal moving out in a week to start her own household and me needing new helpers in the kitchen!).

By the way, your kids can do these lessons on their own with the Kids Cook Solo lessons!

LEARN MORE HERE!

For Bible, we are using videos and lessons from Right Now Media. Many churches have subscriptions to this amazing service for their parishioners to use for free, so ask at your local church!

I’ve been needing to organize my inside refrigerator better, so I started watching the video below and got quite a few good ideas. I really like her information on storing food!

I’ve been shredding our cheese lately to avoid the extra fillers and just to make a nicer product for melting, but I was only shredding what we needed each time. In this video, she talks about shredding cheese into a glass jar. She says to close with a metal lid, but I used one of my plastic mason jar lids.

I shred our cheese with the slicer attachment on my Bosch. It makes quick work of shredding things! You can learn more about my Bosch in the post below, and if you ever buy a Bosch or other appliance from the Nutrimill website (where my Bosch came from), be sure to use the code: RAISINGARROWS for $20 off the higher priced products.

On Monday, Ty had the day off and kindly offered to do ALL the grocery shopping WITH me! You have no idea how happy that makes me! I got my Walmart delivery order in, then we went to the Library , the Commissary, ALDI, and finally Sam’s for a few things we’ve been needing for a while.

We tried the Scan & Go at Sam’s for the first time. It was great, and I was glad to skip the line! In case you’re curious, I bought fall plates, black trash bags, natural peanut butter, sushi (another “last” for our 21 year old), kale salad, parmesan cheese, feta cheese, imitation crab meat, a black pepper grinder, gum, chocolate covered raisins for my boys (they paid me for them – $20 a container!!), rotisserie chicken for Bible Study on Tuesday, and dog treats.

This week’s menu is:

MONDAY – Creamy Beef Enchiladas, frozen corn and kale salad – This enchilada recipe is a favorite here! It comes from the Mennonite Family Recipes and is super simple. I especially love these with the Authentic Flour Tortillas from Walmart. So much tastier!

TUESDAY – Frozen Pizza for the kids and Ty, Potluck at Bible Study for me and the 21 year old – My mom (who lives with us) likes to buy frozen pizzas for my Bible study night.

WEDNESDAY – White Pie and Crab Rangoon Pizza – I started making White Pie after hearing about it on Blue Bloods. I started making Crab Rangoon Pizza at home after we ordered if from a local shop for nearly $30 a pizza and I decided I could do just as good at home. I use my quick pizza dough recipe and salad wonton strips to make this a quick meal!

THURSDAY – Chicken Noodle Casserole and raw veggies with dip – I can’t find the original recipe site for this casserole, but I don’t always make it as a casserole anyway! Often, I simply cook up the egg noodles, add the chicken and frozen veggies along with the soups, sour cream and cheese and call it good. But this time, I did turn it all out into a casserole dish and add butter and ritz crackers. For the dip with the raw veggies, I made one of the dips from The Dip Lady.

Then, on FRIDAY, we had a full-blown Fall Fest! Breakfast was Apple Fritters:

Then, we spent the afternoon at the Pumpkin Patch. My husband and our oldest daughter both had the day off work, so we all got to go together!

That evening, we had Grandpa’s Vegetable Beef Stew and Scotcheroos (if you look at the recipe, you’ll know why Scotcheroos and Pumpkin Patches go together!).

This week, I also made Skorpor – a Swedish rusk (think biscotti) that is absolutely delicious dipped in coffee.

I also put together 5 Freezer to Slow Cooker meals. I had used my last one last week, and decided to buy a few ingredients and get some back in the freezer for these busy weeks coming up! I made BBQ Meatballs, Lime Pork Chops, Chicken Corn Soup, Italian Sausage, and Creamy Onion Pork Chops. It will be super helpful to pull freezer meals out this upcoming wedding week!

The younger kids and I rearranged a part of the nook at the top of our stairs this week while our 21 year old and 16 year old were away at work. It all started when my 14 year old decided to attach the arm for his new monitor to the desk only to find out that it couldn’t be attached without putting the PC itself (the “brains” as my Dad liked to call it) on the shelf of the desk. That meant moving the desk forward, so we could slip the entire thing in without detaching too many cords. Of course, once we moved the desk forward, it became apparent we were going to need to clean back there, so we did that, but then I figured I might as well get rid of the kids’ school cubbies that have become an eyesore and replace them with something smaller. (This became a serious “if you give a mouse a cookie” moment!)

For a few years now, I’ve been using a rather large, 9-hole wooden organizer I found on the side of the road to hold the kids’ school things. In theory, only 5 of the cubbies should be full with only 5 of the kids homeschooling, but all 9 holes, plus the top were always strewn with paper and stuff (most of which belonged to the 8 year old we found out!). So, we cleaned out the cubbies, moved the monstrosity downstairs to await removal from the house, and put a white vertical bookshelf in its place. It looks a lot cleaner and neater up there now!

Eventually, I hope to move my sewing table, that also stands in the nook (you can see the corner of it in the lower right of the above photo), into the soon-to-be guest bedroom at the top of the landing to tidy things up even more – even though I am told one day my 14 year old plans to build another PC to put up there in its place…oh goodie.

In all actuality, the electric piano from the living room will need to go up there so we can move the full-body mount muskox into that corner of the living room when it arrives in January. (yes, you read that right…and in case you don’t believe me, here he is…)

Toward the end of the week, our friends and our daughter’s soon to be in-laws came down to move her stuff to the new apartment and to decorate the wedding venue.

Our daughter chose black and emerald green for her colors and has been gathering and drying flowers for the past 6 months to make dried arrangements for the tables and the arbors.

I wasn’t sure how the dried flowers would turn out, but they are absolutely gorgeous. For the arbor, she and a friend rolled chicken wire and arranged the dried flowers in the chicken wire for a corner arrangement. We also created hanging bouquets for the arbor.

The table decorations are black tablecloths, green gauze runners, silver trays with various colored glassware and dried floral arrangements. They are so fun and funky, and SO her!

As we go into this last week of having our daughter home with us, I am finding myself crying more, missing her more, and praying more. She’s been my right arm for a good many years (her boss says the same thing!) and she will be greatly missed here in our little community. The Bible study ladies have cried over her soon-to-be absence. Her boss has cried over her soon-to-be absence. And yes, her Dad and I have cried over her soon-to-be absence. I know there are new and different memories to be made just around the corner, and for that we are happy and blessed. It’s just that different can often be hard in the beginning because…well…it’s just different. So, pray for all of us as we adjust over the next few weeks to one less child in the house.