100% Whole Wheat Bread

I am terrible at posting on here. I just cannot find the time for anything lately. I feel like I spend all of my time homeschooling the kids and the rest of it trying to keep the house up and running. I have barely even touched my sewing machine! But now that we barely make it above freezing lately we do not spend as much time outside so I am going to try to post a little bit more!

But I have been trying something new around here. When I moved to the middle of no where I decided to try making homemade bread all the time. Bread is so expensive here and I have to drive forever to get to a walmart, so it seemed like a good idea. I also decided to do 100 percent whole wheat. Might as well make it healthy right? And it helps that I can get wheat from a local farmer here for a smokin' deal!

I have baked before, just rolls and sweet bread. I never really got into bread making, but now that I have been doing it every day for 4 months I think that I am getting the hang of it. I have had a lot of help though, this is the main recipe I use. You can find it here. She gives a lot of fabulous tips and helps with whole wheat. I have also included it at the bottom of this post.

I have to be honest with you, my first couple of loaves were about two inches tall and super dense! I tried alot of different recipes trying to get something to work, and when I did it was a pretty much a red letter day in our house.

This is what they look like baking:

And they slice up so nicely - and are soft even when they have cooled off a little bit. But i never let it get that far cooled. I love my bread warm right out of the oven with butter, because let's be honest that is really the best way to eat bread right?

Doesn't that look just lovely? Especially on those cold day that we have been having lately.

I just love it and my kids do too. We now go through about 5 loaves a week - and the kids are the only ones that eat it!!

Here is the recipe, I wish you all the best of luck. 

12-15 cups wheat flour
2 tablespoons instant yeast
1/2 cup vital wheat gluten
1 (1000 mg) vitamin c pill, crushed (I know, this sounds strange but apparently the acidic properties in the vitamin c or lemon juice, as some recipes call for, help the gluten to develop)
6 1/2 cups very warm water
2/3 cup oil
2/3 cup honey or sugar
2 tablespoons salt
In a large bowl (or stand mixer, like the almighty Bosch), mix together 5 cups of wheat flour, yeast, vital wheat gluten and vitamin c. Add the warm water and mix well. Add the oil and honey (or sugar) and mix again. Cover the bowl and let the mixture sit for 10 minutes. Add the salt and start the mixer (or mix by hand), adding the remaining flour until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl to form a soft dough. You may not need to add all of the flour! Judge the dough by feel not by the amount of flour you’ve used. It might be slightly sticky but should hold it’s shape. Let the dough knead for 7 minutes in the stand mixer (or 15 minutes by hand). Form into 5 loaves (for the 8 1/2 X 4-inch loaf pans) and place into greased bread pans. Let rise until the bread is 2 inches above the top of the bread pan. Bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes (I like to let the bread rise 1 inch above the top of the pans and then put the bread in a cold oven and turn the oven on to 350 degrees and bake the bread for 32 minutes).

A few Works in Progress

Do you ever just feel like you have a few projects and are never getting ahead on them?!

Well I have just a few of them - and I have been trying to make some real progress on them! Here are 3 of the ones on the top of my list right now.

This one I have had in the works for about 3 years -yes 3 years. It is a very scrappy quilt and so I have been collecting just the right fabrics to use. But I finally just decided to use what I have and get this quilt done! 

Now I have all the blocks done for it - just need to sew them together!

This one I actually just started. I had a jelly roll of yellow/gray/blacks and decided to finally use it!

This last one was another jelly roll that I had. I am really trying to use what I have and not buy any extra fabric - it is really hard!!!

All of these quilts have some great potential! I will be sure and share if I ever make any more progress on them!

2012-13 Homeschool Curriculum

Due to numerous factors I have decided that I am going to homeschool my kids this year. This is not small undertaking and I have been planning and researching forever. Today I thought I would take a moment and share what I am doing this year for my kids in school. I learn so much from reading what other people are teaching and using. Maybe I will be able to help you out in your curriculum choices. This year I am teaching 6th, 4th, 2nd grades and Kindergarten. I will also post what I think about each of my choices as we move further along in the school year - we started a couple of weeks ago so as to allow more breaks for mom throughout the year!

For my 6th grader we are doing the following:
We have moved around a lot and so I am teaching some things at a 5th grade level to just make sure he knows his stuff. I have found that there are some things he learned and some he did not. We will see if this is a good move or bad move on my part!
Math - Saxon 7/6 -
English - Following the Plan 5
Writing - Writing with ease
Spelling - Spelling Power - so far I love this program!
Handwriting - Handwriting without tears - cursive review.
History - Story of the World volume 2
Science - Scientific America bring science home experiments
Music - piano lessons
Art - Usborne Art Treasury and lessons

4th Grade:
I moved down a level in English here because I found that she just did not know the stuff from previous years.
Math - Saxon 5/6
English - First Language Lessons level 3
Writing - Writing with ease level 3
Spelling - Spelling Power
Handwriting - handwriting without tears - beginning cursive
History - Story of the World volume 2
Science - Scientific America bring science home experiments
Music - piano lessons
 Art - Usborne Art Treasury and lessons

2nd Grade:
This kid is mine is a little bit of an overachiever, and so we are doing some double lessons because he wants to get ahead. I just love that!
Math - Saxon grade 2
English - First Language Lessons
Spelling - Spelling Power
Writing - Writing with Ease
History - Story of the World volume 2
Science - Scientific America bring science home experiments
Music - piano lessons
Art - Usborne Art Treasury and lessons

Kindergarten: 

Math - Saxon math K
English - Sing, Spell, Read and Write. I have used this with two of my other kids and loved it. But he is getting a little bored with the cutting and gluing so we usually skip those pages - ah the joy of being able to custom fit our education!
Writing - I have him draw a picture of something he has done recently or likes and then write about it. He really has trouble with the writing part, and I am trying to get the older kids to just let him do it and not tell him how everything is spelled.
For History, Science and Art he does the same as the other kids but a simpler version.
Music - he is not doing anything right now, but will start piano lessons when he is in first grade.

You might have noticed that I am teaching the kids all the same thing for History, Science and Art. This is just to make my life easier. I am already teaching enough other lessons that I think it it fine to do a bunch together. I do make my 6th and 4th grader do more in depth study with these sort of things.I also do not have a set thing for PE, I think it is important for kids to just get out and play and ride bikes and so I just make them play for a certain amount of time outside. My kids do not do any sports because we live so far out from town, but we try to play a few every now and then in the evenings with the neighbors.

We don't really have a set schedule, but they just have to be started by 9 o'clock. They are not allowed outside to play until school is done. Somedays are longer than others, but I am trying to help them to prioritize and be self starters. We currently do school Monday through Friday, but we do take every other Friday off - or another day of the week if Conan is off.

I am writing this more for me, to help keep me accountable. I will post how I liked certain things for certain grade levels throughout the year as I get more experienced with them. I wish you all the best of luck in the next school year!

Tulip Quilt

Remember that quilt top I told you about the other day? Here it is all done except the binding, she wanted to do that part on her own. Well I actually sewed the binding on, but did not do the hand-stitching part.

I was so excited that she asked me to quilt this, especially since she sews and could do it herself. But machine quilting is probably my favorite part of the whole quilting process! So it was something that was relaxing for me to do!

I love the colors that she choose for this quilt, they are just stunning together. Here is a close up of the corner with the tulips in it.

She told me that she made this quilt when they were stationed in Germany and was inspired by a trip that she took while they were there.  To quilt it I did a simple all over design, per her request. This will later be a wall hanging when they move back to South Carolina when her husbands retirement is in full swing!

I have been working on getting a post up about my curriculum choices for homeschooling my kids this year, hopefully I will be able to share that with you soon! And I have a few quilt tops that I have been starting, and then not finishing because something comes up or I get started on another project!

Retirement Quilt

I know that you are all probably sick of seeing all these t-shirt quilts, but I have just one more for you today.

This lady's husband is retiring after over 25 years of service in the Air Force! That is something right there, and she is something else just for being his wife, and supporting him through every deployment and assignment!

This quilt is made from all of the shirts he has collected from different assignments all over the world. 

We then backed it with awesome Air Force fabric.

 

She was really excited about this, and was trying to keep it a secret from her hubby. Also, when she came to pick it up she brought me a quilt top to quilt for her, which I will share with you later this week.

Simple Job Chart

School is starting around here next week. For everyone else that is. I started my kids a week or two ago because I want to take some longer vacations during the year.

But I have a five year old that is starting Kindergarten this year. This boy is not very motivated when it comes to getting jobs done, but he loves to do school - go figure. But I am a person who likes to have the basics done every morning, so I knew that I needed a job chart or sorts to help him out.

I have seen a bunch of different ideas on pinterest and I am sure I saw this one as well, but I honestly don't remember. If you came up with this idea thank you for letting me steal it - I take no credit for it!

I did not want to buy anything to make a chart because I did not want to wait until the next time I am close enough to a store with something cool enough to use. So I went through all my stuff and found these awesome cardboard pieces left over from another project. I think these turned out pretty good.

We decided that Thing #4 needed the job chart, but we made one for Thing #5 as well because we knew he would want one too. I had Conan draw the pictures because he very talented that way. I then just wrote what the job was on a clip to help with learning our letters this year. All he has to do it move his clip from one side of the chart to the other.

Easy Peasy. The jobs my 5 year old has to do everyday are get dressed, make bed, eat breakfast (sometimes this one takes the longest!), brush teeth, morning job (we rotate through the different jobs that have to be done daily in the house), and read scriptures - he actually has Thing #1 read him a scripture story everyday from our scripture reader.

If he gets all of his jobs done in a certain time frame each day he gets a sticker, and after so many stickers a treat. Sometimes a sweet treat and sometimes an extra privilege.

I have to say that so far it is working great. We have gotten all our jobs done last week!

This is Thing #5's chart. He just has to get dressed, make bed, eat breakfast and brush teeth. I usually have one of the other kids helping him out and teaching him how to do the jobs correctly.

A couple of things that I like about these are they are sturdy and won't get bent too much, they can carry them around to help them remember what they we going down to their room to do, they can see from the picture what has to be done and don't have to keep asking me what other jobs they have and I let them color the pictures to help them be excited about the charts.

Like I said this has been great so far, I hope that it keeps us!

And another T-shirt Quilt

Here is just one more t-shirt quilt I have made recently. For this one the lady just wanted the t-shirts in a collage for the front. That is a little bit harder - it is like figuring out a puzzle without a picture. But I was able to make it work, and this is what we ended up with.

For the back she just wanted some flannel - with no batting in the middle.

This will definitely be a nice cozy quilt to snuggle under while watching a movie!