I make a little more at dinner and he takes leftovers. He'll also purchase bagged lettuce and fresh veggies and have a big salad.

While I'd love to be able to haul myself out of bed around 7, my body just doesn't budge until 8am or later. I'm a night owl, too, and find it hard to go to bed before midnight.

I've got a recipe from Bon Appetite that I've been using for years. It's long and it takes quite a bit of time, but it's worth the effort. I double or triple the recipe and freeze portions for later. I'm making a big batch tonight. :D Tomato Bisque with Croutons and Cheese 16 - 1/2 inch thick French bread baguette slices olive oil (this is for the croutons; I substitute store bought most of the time, 'cause I'm lazy) 1/4 cup plus 2 tbsp unsalted butter 2 large tomatoes, chopped 1 carrot, peeled and coarsely chopped 1 large celery stalk, coarsely chopped 1 small onion, chopped 1 garlic clove, crushed 1 - 28 ounce can crushed tomatoes w/puree 3/4 cup tomato juice 3 tbsp tomato paste 2 tsp brown sugar 1/4 tsp white pepper 1/2 pound mushrooms, sliced 1/2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley or tsp of dried 1/2 tsp chopped fresh oregano or pinch of dried 1/2 tsp chopped fresh basil or pinch of dried 1/2 tsp chopped fresh thyme or pinch of dried 1 cup whipping cream 2 cups chicken stock or canned low-salt broth 4 ounces shredded mozzarella cheese 8 thin slices provolone cheese Preheat oven to 400°F. Place bread slices on baking sheet, brush both sides with oil. Bake until golden brown, about 10 minutes. Cool completely. Melt 2 tbsp butter in a large saucepan over low heat. Add half of the chopped tomatoes, half of the carrot, half of the celery and half of the onion, and cook 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and sauté 2 minutes. Mix in crushed tomatoes, tomato juice, tomato paste, sugar, and pepper. Cover and cook over low heat 1.5 hours to develop flavors, stirring occasionally. Cool tomato mixture slightly. Puree in batches in a blender or food processor. Set aside. Melt remaining 1/4 cup of butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Add remaining tomatoes, carrot, celery, and onion. Add mushrooms, parsely, oregano, basil, and thyme. Sauté until vegetables are tender, about 8 minutes. Stir in puréed tomato mixture and cream. Add enough stock to thin to desired consistency. If you are freezing the soup, leave out the cream, add the stock, then cool and freeze. Preheat broiler. Ladle soup into 1.5 cup oven-proof soup crocks. Top each with 1 or 2 croutons. Top with mozzarella and provolone cheeses. Broil until soup bubbles and cheese melts, watching carefully, about 1 minute. Serve, keeping in mind the crocks will be quite hot to the touch.

I usually wear yoga-type pants and plain tee shirts. Target usually has plenty of styles instock and there is almost always something on sale.

We're having meatloaf, mashed potato pancakes and roasted asparagus. I'm making pumpkin cupcakes for our book club tomorrow, but I can spare a couple for dessert. :D

I have double piercings in my ears and a very old rose tattoo on the upper part of my left booK. Thanks to the march of time, it's now a long-stemmed rose. :D I've been wanting a nose piercing for years, but have put it off. I'd like some more ink when our finances get better. My husband has 6 tattoos and will probably get one more when he retires.

The Barbecue Bible by Steven Raichlen. It has tons of recipes from all over the world, including sauces and some sides. More importantly, it has the basics of grilling. Now I can make just about anything on the grill.

Thank you! Lori, your explanation was excellent and really helped my daughter to understand the function of a pronoun. She wasn't accepting my explanation of "It's not the same as a noun. I don't know why. It just isn't." :D Bill, I'm not sure to which sea R&S is referring, but since the other examples reference the Red Sea, I'm going to say Red Sea. :tongue_smilie:

I'm going over my daughter's LA test today and am having Monday Morning Fog Brain. :tongue_smilie: I need some help with this. We're using R&S for LA and I've noticed that R&S doesn't include pronouns when discussing the nouns in a sentence. For instance: Can you see how this sea between Africa and Asia got its name? The TM lists the nouns as: sea, Africa, Asia, and name. Why is "you" not a noun here? My daughter argues that it's taking the place of a noun and should a noun. R&S doesn't address this in the book that I can find, so I thought I'd ask the Hive. :) Is a pronoun a noun and if not, why?

My 2 year old niece and nephew are really into the Melissa and Doug food playsets. They would usually play with their older brothers' toys until my sister bought the pizza set - now they'll spend an entire afternoon playing pizza parlor. How about some dress-up clothes or costumes?

I can smell it, too, even before they are showing any symptoms. My husband thinks I'm weird, but has to admit I'm always right.

:iagree: This is the reason we make lists. Otherwise, there is no telling what will turn up under the tree.

My son finished ETC book 5 and took the first half of the Posttest today. He did very well with the reading portion of the test, but his spelling in the sentences has me worried. He misspelled several words, including baseball (basboll), three (tree), queen (qeen), meatballs (meat boll), mistake (mistack), and hunted (honted). He struggles a bit with spelling at all levels and often needs to be reminded to slow down and listen to the sound of the word he's trying to spell. Having said that, he reads very well. He's able to read on a third grade level (he's 6 and in first grade) and has good comprehension skills. He has no trouble sounding out words when reading them, it's only when he's asked to write them himself that he struggles. Should I move on to Book 6 or should we stay where we are and do book 5 1/2? Is the spelling trouble normal for this stage? Will more exposure and practice correct the problem? Or is this something that will continue and grow the further we go, if I ignore it and move on?

My avatar is me. Don't I look delicious? :D I'm usually the one holding the camera, so there aren't many pictures of me floating around. This one was taken in August of this year. That's my husband with the cheesy smile. [/img] There are a few others on my blog, but they're few and far between. :)

My kids don't like to play outside, either. I tell them they have to go out anyway and that I don't care what they do. The first day, they sat on the porch for 20 minutes before building a dam in the gutter with leaves and sticks. I still have to push them out the door, but they're quicker to find something to do. It may not be traditional playing (last week they had an earthworm rescue operation set up to re-home the worms after all the rain we had), but they're outside doing something.

I've seen several people wearing them, and a women in our co-op swears they're the most comfortable shoes she's worn and won't wear anything else for running.

I've not had any luck with roasts in my crock pot. I use this recipe and end up with an tender, juicy pot roast.

Vegetable soup and sandwiches. I'm not feeling well and this is a quick and easy meal for the kids.

Ack! I didn't want to spend money! :D The kits look great and I think I'll be trying one out. Thank you for the link and the link to your blog. :)

Thank you for the book suggestions! My library has a two of them. I requested the Pyramid activity book as we're working on pyramids this week. I'll be happy to have him involved and having some fun, even if he's not remembering names and dates. :)

Thank you for the link! I'm definitely going to use some of the lapbooking ideas and pages. Our science program incorporates lapbooking, but I can see how I could easily expand it and get Mac even more involved. Thanks for the tip on narration, too. I think that will make the whole process less intimidating (for the both of us).

I had to chuckle at your first sentence - I often joke that my one boy makes it seem as if we have a houseful of children. :D I really like your suggestions, especially the first one. I've noticed that he talks with his hands a great deal and uses them to act out ideas. I've been trying to get him to sit still while he works, but give him breaks to spin and jump around. I haven't had him moving while I'm reading, but I'll give that a try today. In fact, now that you mention it, he does seem to listen better when he's fidgeting. Last night we started on our Book Club book and he was wiggling all over the couch; I thought for sure he wasn't listening but was able to tell me a little about what I read. Hmmmm.... Thank you for the great ideas and insights!

We've been schooling for 5 weeks and I've come to realize the reading aloud to my son is not the best way for him to learn. We've been reading SOTW 1 and he's just not retaining anything. He can't answer the questions and narration, well, I gave up after the 3rd week. We sit in a quiet place while I read. I've read the material twice. I've had him read some of it to me. I've tried having him color while I read. He still cannot tell me anything about what I read. I gave up early last week and had him make a mummy at on the Discovery Kids website. He loved it and can tell me each step to make a mummy as well as the reason the heart is left with the body. I haven't been able to find any age-appropriate (he's 6) websites for the next few chapters, however, and movies, maps, picture books, and coloring pages just don't seem to hold his attention. Any ideas on what I can do to help him retain the material we're covering? Finances are limited right now, so I'd prefer not to buy a new curriculum, although I'm willing to switch if we just can't make it work. And if I'm expecting too much, let me know that, too. :)

Another vote for Land's End! And they now have extendable sleeves, so you can get more than one year's wear out of a coat (or the coat will last the whole season if you have a kid like mine who has a growth spurt in the middle of winter!).

We started cutting back on our trips to restaurants about 5 months ago and everyone seems happy about it. We were eating out 2-3 times a week. We're now eating out twice a month. I started by making a menu list for lunch and dinner. My husband teased me about it (asked why I hadn't made a menu for breakfast and snacks) but has come around to the idea - especially since we're saving so much money and we've all lost about 5 pounds. I use my crockpot and make double batches of several dishes to freeze, which makes making dinner easier. My husband gets home 45 minutes before we do two nights a week and makes sides to go with the meal in the crockpot or heats up whatever casserole is in the fridge.