Nico: Mom, if I could become a very rich man, would you let me?
Me: It depends...
Nico: on what?
Me: Do you know what Jesus said about rich people? Do you know what the eye of a needle is?
Nico: Where you put the thread.
Me: You see how small it is, right? Well, Jesus said it will be easier for a camel to go through it than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of heaven. Do you know why?
Nico: Because rich people are greedy. But I will use the money to give my kids everything they want.Would you let me?
Me: Do you think you should give your kids everything they want?
Nico: Well, if it is food, I only will give them if it is good for them. Would you let me, if I give them toys? toys are good for you. Would you let me?
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
School and Life Planning part 3: Food
There is a Chinese restaurant here in town with a great long menu. If you look closely, the menu consists of beef with broccoli, chicken with broccoli, shrimp with broccoli, pork with broccoli,etc. The dishes are few but the variations are many. I decided to use a similar principle to plan my menus for this upcoming year. I needed something simpler than what I had. This is what I came up with: a general category for each day and variations within the category:
Lunch Rotation
Pasta
Mac and cheese (homemade)
Pasta with a red sauce
Sandwiches
Grilled cheese (various types with different breads/cheeses)
Tuna/salmon
Chicken spread
Grilled Chicken
Ham and cheese
Turkey and cheese
Quesadillas with various fillings (leftover beef, pork or chicken)
Soup
Hamburger soup
Tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches
Tomato soup with tortellini/raviolis and mixed vegetables
Rachel Ray soup (from Cooking Rocks!)
Rainbow Soup
Baked potatoes with fixings (some kind of meat, or bacon, cheese,etc)
Leftovers either as is or morphed into something else
Each lunch will have fresh fruits and vegetables with it.
Dinner Rotation
Ground Beef
Picadillo with brown rice
Tacos (plain tacos or taco salad or taco pie or taco over potatoes)
Tater tots casserole
Slow Cooker Meals (all these are from Allrecipes.com)
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
Zesty Slow Cooker Chicken BBQ (
Easy Slow Cooker French Dip
Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup
Awesome Slow Cooker Roast
*some side dishes that will go with these: cole slaw, sweet potatoes, baked fries, baked beans, different vegetables, chips-in a pinch-,egg noodles etc)
Pasta
Fabulous Fettuccine
Spaghetti Carbonara
Ravioli with tomato-cream sauce
Pasta with pesto
Tortellini
Pastina Chicken casserole
Stir Fry
Chicken, beef or pork cooked with fresh vegetables and served over rice or noodles (varying the sauce according to Allrecipes,com article)
Homemade Pizza
Saturdays and Sundays will be for grilling in large quantities that can be used during the week or freeze. Also for trying new recipes.
Lunch Rotation
Pasta
Mac and cheese (homemade)
Pasta with a red sauce
Sandwiches
Grilled cheese (various types with different breads/cheeses)
Tuna/salmon
Chicken spread
Grilled Chicken
Ham and cheese
Turkey and cheese
Quesadillas with various fillings (leftover beef, pork or chicken)
Soup
Hamburger soup
Tomato soup with grilled cheese sandwiches
Tomato soup with tortellini/raviolis and mixed vegetables
Rachel Ray soup (from Cooking Rocks!)
Rainbow Soup
Baked potatoes with fixings (some kind of meat, or bacon, cheese,etc)
Leftovers either as is or morphed into something else
Each lunch will have fresh fruits and vegetables with it.
Dinner Rotation
Ground Beef
Picadillo with brown rice
Tacos (plain tacos or taco salad or taco pie or taco over potatoes)
Tater tots casserole
Slow Cooker Meals (all these are from Allrecipes.com)
Slow Cooker Pulled Pork
Zesty Slow Cooker Chicken BBQ (
Easy Slow Cooker French Dip
Slow Cooker Chicken Tortilla Soup
Awesome Slow Cooker Roast
*some side dishes that will go with these: cole slaw, sweet potatoes, baked fries, baked beans, different vegetables, chips-in a pinch-,egg noodles etc)
Pasta
Fabulous Fettuccine
Spaghetti Carbonara
Ravioli with tomato-cream sauce
Pasta with pesto
Tortellini
Pastina Chicken casserole
Stir Fry
Chicken, beef or pork cooked with fresh vegetables and served over rice or noodles (varying the sauce according to Allrecipes,com article)
Homemade Pizza
Saturdays and Sundays will be for grilling in large quantities that can be used during the week or freeze. Also for trying new recipes.
Monday, August 9, 2010
School and Life Planning Part 2: Prayer Time and Morning Reading
"Con Dios me acuesto, con Dios me levanto" (with God I go to bed, with God I get up) says a prayer I learned as a little child. I want this to be true, not only in my life, but in the life of my children.
A couple of years ago I learned that I needed to make true the scripture "seek ye first the kingdom of heaven..." in our school lives. For many years prayer was the first thing that got sacked when our lives got hectic. Not anymore. Two years ago I made a commitment to our morning prayer time. It is part of who we are and part of what we do. And our routine needed to reflect this truth. This year we continue with this commitment.
There is a slight difference this year: our prayer time is going to be after breakfast and not before. I am trying to improve the quality of our prayer time by having the kids be more alert. There is something to be said for prayer being the first thing we do so before we make the switch, I am going to be talk to the kids about the Daily Rhythm of Prayer. I want them to be in the habit of turning their thoughts to God as soon as their eyes open. Most mornings before getting out of bed, I do a morning offering. I want to teach my children to do the same. Even something short like "Today, I will serve you, Lord" or "Jesus,I love you, I prefer you and I choose you" or something similar.
For our time together we will do the Angelus and/or the Morning Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. Then we will spend some time reading. We will work down this list:
Left to Tell
Percy Wynn or Making Boy of Him by Fr. Francis Finn
St. Francis and St Claire (Vision book)
Letters to a Young Catholic
Five Loaves and Two Fish by Fr. Francis Xavier Nguyen
Yes or No? by Peter Kreeft
St Anthony (vision book)
Citadel of God (de Wohl)
Planning our spiritual reading is always a challenge because I have such a range of ages. My solution is to alternate younger and older reading.
That part we have well established. This is the new part: to introduce a noon Angelus and a family prayer at night time. Last year I failed miserably at my attempt to incorporate more prayer into our life. It is important enough to try again this year. (I wish we had bells to call us to prayer each day!)There is one difference this year, we have a family adoration hour. If all else fails, at least we have a date with the Lord every week.
To get ready: prepare a basket with coloring books, pencils and quiet toys for N.
A couple of years ago I learned that I needed to make true the scripture "seek ye first the kingdom of heaven..." in our school lives. For many years prayer was the first thing that got sacked when our lives got hectic. Not anymore. Two years ago I made a commitment to our morning prayer time. It is part of who we are and part of what we do. And our routine needed to reflect this truth. This year we continue with this commitment.
There is a slight difference this year: our prayer time is going to be after breakfast and not before. I am trying to improve the quality of our prayer time by having the kids be more alert. There is something to be said for prayer being the first thing we do so before we make the switch, I am going to be talk to the kids about the Daily Rhythm of Prayer. I want them to be in the habit of turning their thoughts to God as soon as their eyes open. Most mornings before getting out of bed, I do a morning offering. I want to teach my children to do the same. Even something short like "Today, I will serve you, Lord" or "Jesus,I love you, I prefer you and I choose you" or something similar.
For our time together we will do the Angelus and/or the Morning Prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. Then we will spend some time reading. We will work down this list:
Left to Tell
Percy Wynn or Making Boy of Him by Fr. Francis Finn
St. Francis and St Claire (Vision book)
Letters to a Young Catholic
Five Loaves and Two Fish by Fr. Francis Xavier Nguyen
Yes or No? by Peter Kreeft
St Anthony (vision book)
Citadel of God (de Wohl)
Planning our spiritual reading is always a challenge because I have such a range of ages. My solution is to alternate younger and older reading.
That part we have well established. This is the new part: to introduce a noon Angelus and a family prayer at night time. Last year I failed miserably at my attempt to incorporate more prayer into our life. It is important enough to try again this year. (I wish we had bells to call us to prayer each day!)There is one difference this year, we have a family adoration hour. If all else fails, at least we have a date with the Lord every week.
To get ready: prepare a basket with coloring books, pencils and quiet toys for N.
School and Life Planning: Part 1
In past years I have used the Simply Charlotte Mason school planning ebook to help me plan for school. Since doing Classical Conversations, I don't have to plan all school subject but only a few. The biggest challenge then, is not the school planning itself but, the integration between life and school: what takes place when, who is responsible and how it gets accomplished. Having a scattered mind, I decided to force myself into order. I sat down with a big legal size notepad and set to write EVERYTHING that needs to be done on a regular school day. I divided the page in columns: time, activity, what I need to do the activity and what I need to prepare and what I need to buy. Armed with this page, I was ready to go.
The first activity is, of course, waking up. Waking up is always a chore around here and it can set all of us on a road to a bad day. The typical day finds me going around to all the bedrooms to wake kids up. More than once. Way more than once, getting louder with each subsequent visit. This year I am trying something new: alarm clocks. I'm going to get an alarm clock to each child and have them be responsible for waking up. It is going to take some time and some patience but I think it can work. The tricky part is going to be to make sure they turn their alarm clock on the night before (hopefully this won't be another too difficult battle).
While the kids are waking up (hopefully), I'll be in the kitchen making breakfast. Another change from last year. Traditionally, we have had prayer time immediately upon getting up: the kids drag themselves out of bed and unto their respective favorite places on the living room furniture and then prayer time begins. Usually after the first prayers and, by the time we get to our spiritual reading, they are mostly awake and... hungry. Then it starts the "are we almost done" and the "I am hungry" and "what is for breakfast". So, we are trying something new: to reverse the order. Breakfast will be ready to go upon their waking up. We will eat breakfast, do chores and then have prayer time and spiritual reading.
So alarm clocks go on my to buy list.
The second activity on my list is breakfast. What do I do to plan breakfast? a breakfast rotation that is healthy and easy but filling enough. Here is what I have come up with:
Mondays: Oatmeal (steel cut oats prepared on the crockpot)-this is going to take some adjustment since the kids (and I) don't really like oatmeal. It is good for you, easy and cheap-hopefully we will develop a taste for it.
Tuesdays: Eggs, bacon and toast (eggs are so versatile and so is bread :-) )
Wednesdays; Muffins and smoothies
Thursdays: Eggs,turkey patties(homemade) and toast
Friday: pancakes or waffles
I will also make sure we have granola on hand as well as some freezer items like breakfast cookies, bran muffins, oat muffins, breakfast sandwiches and breakfast burritos.
My next step regarding breakfast is collecting all my breakfast recipes and putting them all together in my kitchen binder together with grab and go grocery lists.
The first activity is, of course, waking up. Waking up is always a chore around here and it can set all of us on a road to a bad day. The typical day finds me going around to all the bedrooms to wake kids up. More than once. Way more than once, getting louder with each subsequent visit. This year I am trying something new: alarm clocks. I'm going to get an alarm clock to each child and have them be responsible for waking up. It is going to take some time and some patience but I think it can work. The tricky part is going to be to make sure they turn their alarm clock on the night before (hopefully this won't be another too difficult battle).
While the kids are waking up (hopefully), I'll be in the kitchen making breakfast. Another change from last year. Traditionally, we have had prayer time immediately upon getting up: the kids drag themselves out of bed and unto their respective favorite places on the living room furniture and then prayer time begins. Usually after the first prayers and, by the time we get to our spiritual reading, they are mostly awake and... hungry. Then it starts the "are we almost done" and the "I am hungry" and "what is for breakfast". So, we are trying something new: to reverse the order. Breakfast will be ready to go upon their waking up. We will eat breakfast, do chores and then have prayer time and spiritual reading.
So alarm clocks go on my to buy list.
The second activity on my list is breakfast. What do I do to plan breakfast? a breakfast rotation that is healthy and easy but filling enough. Here is what I have come up with:
Mondays: Oatmeal (steel cut oats prepared on the crockpot)-this is going to take some adjustment since the kids (and I) don't really like oatmeal. It is good for you, easy and cheap-hopefully we will develop a taste for it.
Tuesdays: Eggs, bacon and toast (eggs are so versatile and so is bread :-) )
Wednesdays; Muffins and smoothies
Thursdays: Eggs,turkey patties(homemade) and toast
Friday: pancakes or waffles
I will also make sure we have granola on hand as well as some freezer items like breakfast cookies, bran muffins, oat muffins, breakfast sandwiches and breakfast burritos.
My next step regarding breakfast is collecting all my breakfast recipes and putting them all together in my kitchen binder together with grab and go grocery lists.
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