Simply amazing Beef Stew

 

 

 

We are a larger family than most nowadays and a little unconventional. There are 3 adults and 4 children under 8. Recipes online are not normally built for us which means either doubling or tripling the recipe to make it work for us.

This beef stew is the best I have ever made, it fed everyone plus lunch the next day.

The big buns come in a giant bag from the Superstore.

What you need:

Onion 1/2
Stewing beef (about 1lbs) cut the beef into smaller pieces
Celery 6 stalks
Carrots 6 full length
Potatoes 6 med to large
Beef Stew seasoning from clubhouse (No joke this is my secret ingredient)
Flour (1/4 cup)
Salt and Peper
1 cup of water

What to do:

Step 1) Cut your stewing beef into small pieces

Step 2) Put beef, flour, salt and pepper into a bowl and coat well

Step 3) move stewing beef to frying pan and brown

While the beef is browning and stirring occasionally

Step 4) Peel and cut the carrots into bite-size chunks

Step 5) Peel and cut potatoes into bite-size chunks

Step 6) Cut celery into bite-size chunks

Step 7) Dice onions you can do more or less here I do as little as possible to get it past the kids.

Step 8) Put beef, onions, carrots, celery and potatoes into your crockpot

Step 9) Mix the water and seasoning package.

Step 10) Pour over ingredients in the crockpot.

Step 11) Cover and cook on low 8 hours or high for 4 hours.

Enjoy!!!

Now I am not kidding when I say this is by far the best stew I have ever made. I am pretty sure it's because of the seasoning package.  I happened upon it when by package gravy one day and decided to give it a try.

1/4 kids liked it (1/4 kids will eat anything the other 3 don't "like" much)
3/3 adults loved it

Speeding into Week 5

 I love when I learn something new like the world's smallest car fits one person is only about 8ft long and assembled by hand.

Week 5 was picked by H and she picked cars. This unit was one that I learned things from as well.

Most of the videos we watched were by How It's Made. I love their videos and the kids seem to enjoy them as well. Also, they are short so for littles, one short attention spans they are perfect.

We build cars from paper plates which were great for scissor skills.

How our days went with the car unit.

8 am breakfast, get dressed, hair put the dirty laundry downstairs.

9 am either workbooks or worksheets. I alternate each day so the kids don't get bored with doing the same thing every day.

15-minute break. On this 15 min break, I get everything ready for the next activity, put laundry in, hand wash the dishes that need to be washed.

930am Journals and a letter book. (We started the letter books to help H learn her letters)

15-minute break outside. I empty the dishwasher and answer clients.

10:30 am Snack

10:45 am Car activity or video I fold and put away laundry while they are watching a video.

11:00 am They have free time to do whatever they would like (this amount of time depends on how long things took us.

In this "free time" I work on client orders and make lunch

12:00 pm LUNCH

12:30 pm reading. They each get to read their book with me and do the sight word cards as well as the sight word board. (The books and the sight word changes every three days)

1:00 pm "Online learning" They each get a turn in the learning app on my phone called Khan Kids. They each have a profile and play what I consider one round. One round is playing until they get a prize.

1:30 PM They have until snack to free play. I sweep, clean up and work on client orders.

2:00 pm snack. I start dinner at this point.

15minutes outside.

Then they have until dinner to free play.

4:30 pm Dinner

5:30 pm walk dogs

6:00 pm start baths. When I start baths I get out the painting I have been working on and work on it while each child gets to play in the tub for 10mins.

7:00 pm snack, stories, teeth and bed.

At about 8:30 pm everyone is asleep, which means I get to work on client orders, cleaning, folding laundry and getting everything ready for the next day's schooling.

Here are links to the videos and activities that we did.

Plate Car

We did ours slightly different as you will see in the photo below

Video 1

Video 2

Video 3

How do you building learning around your children's interests?

A magical week 4

 

 

 

 

Pretty sure all children LOVE unicorns, yes both boys and girls. Even though most little boys in the mainstream school system won't admit it for fear of bullying.

L picked unicorns as her theme for week 4. This unit was harder than I had thought it would. Especially finding content that is educational about unicorns. So much so that I gave up and we watched 2 unicorn videos about loving who we are for the way we are and being kind.

We did watch one video about the mythology of unicorns but I do have to say that even I was bored with it.

We built unicorns and made unicorn masks. I even found a boy unicorn mask so that Blaine didn't have flowers and was different from the girls.

How our days went with the unicorn unit.

8 am breakfast, get dressed, hair put the dirty laundry downstairs.

9 am either workbooks or worksheets. I alternate each day so the kids don't get bored with doing the same thing every day.

15-minute break. On this 15 min break, I get everything ready for the next activity, put laundry in, hand wash the dishes that need to be washed.

930am Journals and a letter book. (We started the letter books to help H learn her letters)

15-minute break outside. I empty the dishwasher and answer clients.

10:30 am Snack

10:45 am unicorn activity or video I fold and put away laundry while they are watching a video.

11:00 am They have free time to do whatever they would like (this amount of time depends on how long things took us.

In this "free time" I work on client orders and make lunch

12:00 pm LUNCH

12:30 pm reading. They each get to read their book with me and do the sight word cards as well as the sight word board. (The books and the sight word changes every three days)

1:15 PM They have until snack to free play. I sweep, clean up and work on client orders.

2:00 pm snack. I start dinner at this point.

15minutes outside.

Then they have until dinner to free play.

4:30 pm Dinner

5:30 pm walk dogs

6:00 pm start baths. When I start baths I get out the painting I have been working on and work on it while each child gets to play in the tub for 10mins.

7:00 pm snack, stories, teeth and bed.

At about 8:30 pm everyone is asleep, which means I get to work on client orders, cleaning, folding laundry and getting everything ready for the next day's schooling.

Here are links to the videos and activities that we did.

Video one

Video two

Video three

Girl unicorn mask

Boy unicorn mask

Build a unicorn

What interests have your children wanted to learn about?

#parentingquote

 Falling in LOVE with Alfie Kohn wasn't something I planned. From the moment I picked up one of his books 3 years ago, one of his books is something I am always reading and loving his quotes.

Long before I ever heard of Alfie or had children of my own, I believed that children should be treated the same way we want to be treated. They should be given choices, etc. I always believed in natural consequences as I will say not watching your footing will cause you to fall, or if you climb that and fall it will hurt for when they climb things they shouldn't.

Children have thoughts and feelings too and are entitled to them.

What Alfie has taught me over the years is that I might have had the right idea and known in my heart that parenting the old ways wasn't okay and wasn't something I wanted to. I went out on a path of my own without knowing exactly that I was doing that at all.

He has also taught me over the years ways I need to improve my thinking and how to help navigate a path that I or anyone I know had gone down.


This quote is one of my favourites. I have always said you can not hit a child to teach them not to hit. Children behave how we show them, so we teach by example. You can't tell a child to shut up, or call them names and then get mad when they do the same thing.

Yes even as a parent you can be a hypocrite and it is just as bad if you are one to a child as if you are being a hypocrite to an adult.

I scream, you scream Jan 2021

 

 Week 3 is B's week to pick what he wanted to learn about. He decided on ice cream. I figured for this one it would be fun at the end of the week to get a few small containers of cool flavoured ice cream and do a taste testing!

I remembered as soon as he came up with the idea that there are a few "How it's made" videos about ice cream and ice cream treats! I don't even know if it is still on the air. Anyone else remembers that show?

Our schedule for the week:

The kids get up really freaking early EVERY day. B knows to snuggle or quietly do something. The girls, on the other hand, I swear start bickering the moment they step out of bed at 5:30 am. If I am lucky they sleep until 6:00 am.

I am the world's meanest mom and will not make breakfast until 8 am. Pretty much you want to be up that freaking early find something quiet to do. Growing up, I would dare not wake anyone else up that early.

Breakfast at 8. Get dressed. I clean up from breakfast.

School starts after that. With either worksheets or workbooks. I alternate each day so they do not get bored with doing the same thing every day.

15-minute break.

Now is journals, art, or science which are alternated days as well.

15 minute outside break while I make the snack.

10:00 am (could be a few minutes later depending on how long the last activity took) Snack

Learning video, game or activity based on that week's theme ICE CREAM!!!

15-minute break.

Reading. Each child gets to read with me individually. This may or make not take place after lunch depending on how long the morning activities have taken.

Lunch

After lunch is me spent working, starting supper or finishing up our morning activities. If they have finished everything from the morning then they are free to play or do whatever they would like.

2:00 pm snack

15 minutes outside break.

Work, finish dinner, clean up.

Dinner

Walk the dogs

Baths, snacks, stories, teeth and bed

Then I work on anything I need to prep for school the following day, work on client orders and tidy.

When the kids are on their breaks I am either making food, answering clients, working on things I can in a short period of time or tidying. If it is a day they watch a video for part of their learning I fold a basket of laundry in the living room while they watch it.

Even with all that, my house is still never clean enough and the kids still complain they are bored in their "free time".

Our schedule stays the same 7 days a week 365 days a year. It helps C to emotionally regulate if we stay on a known schedule.

These are the video's we watched:
Video 1
Video 2
Video 3

These are some of the ice cream activities we did. 
Activity 1
Activity 2

On the last day, we did an ice cream tasting because who can have an ice cream week without that.


Goal: Make your dream ice cream snack

My first time

 After months of staring at them, worried and intimidated, it took the lack of fabric to finally dive into it.

I have the type of personality that if I am going to do something it must be something I can "master". Failure is not something that I do.

After a few hours of setting up and asking someone who has done this for 35 years and temps. Because I was not going to screw this up. I got it all set up.

At this point, our local fabric land was finally opening back up after what felt like an eternity of being closed. Masks were in high demand and fabric choices were in low supply.

I went into fabric land and bought 10 meters of 100% polyester. I had confidence. I told myself YOU WILL NOT SCREW THIS UP. It cost way too much to get it set up to blow it.

I decided it's small, it's a mask I got this. For months I had been reading and researching I GOT THIS!

I printed off my first print, I put it in the press for 60 seconds, but had my press set for vinyl pressing and it wasn't enough pressure. SIGH

This is how it looked, it was okay but I wasn't happy. 

Okay, let's fix this issue, we have an older than dirt heat press which means it is a pain in the rear to change the heat setting on and almost impossible to change the pressure setting and I surely wasn't going to change the pressure setting every time I needed to switch from vinyl to sublimation.

Solution: Add a folded piece of flannel that I am never going to use again to the bottom of the heat press this way I can remove it when I need to put something thicker than a mask in the heat press.

Put the temp 5 degrees lower than 400 and the vinyl won't melt, it will be good to go and I won't have to change it!!

Okay, heat press 390-395 degrees. Extra flannel on press for the pressure we are good to go.

Step 1) heat the press fully

Step 2) put parchment (butcher paper) on the flannel

Step 3) put your fabric on the parchment then your image then more parchment (You have to change the parchment with EVERY SINGLE PRESS yes it seems like a waste but you can't use the Teflon sheets you do for vinyl)

Step 4) close the press and set timmer for 60 seconds

Step 5) open press give it a second because dang it's hot (Imagine that right?)

Step 6) love it!!!

Now we don't have to worry about the fabric shortage we can just do it!

Jan 2021 Week 2 homeschool

 C was next up to pick what she wanted to learn about this month. It was cooking. She loves helping in the kitchen so, this didn't come as much of a surprise.

Our days this week will go as follows:

Breakfast, get dressed, hair

Workbooks or worksheets (I alternate daily to keep them from getting bored.)

15 min outside break

Snack

A kids cooking video (I fold a basket of laundry in the living room while they watch the video)

15-minute break

Reading (They each read a book at their level one on one with me)

Lunch

I use the period between lunch and snack to work or if things took longer in the morning, we finish up what we need to.

Snack

15 minutes outside

Each day 2 children will be helping me make dinner as we are learning about cooking this week!

Dinner

Walk dogs

Baths, snacks, stories, teeth and bed.

I clean up and work until I fall asleep.


I found the most amazing cooking videos for kids! We watch 1 episode each day, not the full compilation.

On the kid's breaks, I tidy, put laundry in, do dishes, blog and answer clients.

Not every day is perfect. Some days the kids are not feeling it so, we might skip an activity or two or even the whole day depending on how they are.

I have days as well where I am not up to teaching because I am burnt out.

Despite the amount of tidying I do, it would seem my house will NEVER be spotless again :)