...I am blessed!

As I listen to Super and Tutone downstairs "making their lunch" (translation "fooling around"), I wanted to take some time to appreciate my friends at the TLT group. If you are not part of a homeschooling group, I cannot stress enough how edifying it is. Of course, it has to be the right group. And the right group for me is not going to be the right group for you. But my friends at Tapestry of Grace Loose Threads are the right group for me! Maybe it has something to do with the fact that you are given some grace when you wonder off topic...

Thank you, Marsha, for all of the extra work you put into Secret Sisters!

Thank you, Molly, for coaching Coach Mom! Not an easy task I can tell you that!

Thank you, Siobhan, for going Irish with me once in a while!

Thank you, Anita and Sharon, for emailing me and checking on me when I go into my cave!

Thank you, Kelly, for always being quick to respond to my messages!

And all you other TOGers, thanks for all the great ideas and encouragement that you give me!

Love you guys!

...Stay Fit for Fall with these Slow Cooker Recipes

Chili Challenge

Do you have a great chili recipe that's tasty and healthy? I'd love to hear it!

Here's mine. And it's only 6 WW points (for a cup)!

Ingredients:
3 lb ground turkey, browned
1 sweet onion, chopped
2 cans diced tomatoes with jalapenos
1 can of black beans, drained
1 can of corn, drained
1 package of McCormick's new Slow Cooker Chili seasoning
1 tsp Hershey's cocoa powder

Stick all of the above in your slow cooker on an 8 hour setting. That last ingredient was a secret so don't tell anybody ya'll!


Sweet and Sour Chicken

I made this earlier in the week and it was fantastic! It felt like Chinese food to me!

Ingredients:
boneless chicken breast, cut into strips
1 can pineapple chunks, drained (save juice)
1/2 cup red pepper, chopped
1/2 cup sweet onion, chopped
1 rib celery, sliced
4 medium carrots, sliced

Put all of the above in the slow cooker, with the vegetables on the bottom and chicken on top. Now you have a choice, you can pour a jar of sweet and sour sauce over it and be done. Or you can make your own healthier substitute. I thought you'd make the right choice!

juice you saved from the canned pineapple
1/4 cup white vinegar
2 tsp lite soy sauce
1/2 c. brown sugar

Stir together and pour over the rest of the ingredients in the slow cooker. Put on the 8 hour setting. Serve over rice. I usually use a 1/3 cup of brown rice.

...Use your Slow Cooker to Save Time!

Fall is here and that means cooler temperature! Yes, we do get "cooler" temperatures in Texas. It's just that what we call "cooler" and what you call "cooler" aren't exactly the same thing.

With cooler temperatures, I am reminded of my old friend the slow cooker. Don't you just want to call it that other name? But I don't want to get into trouble with some trademark infringement attorney, so I won't. I also love my bread machine! You can use these two appliances to create both a healthy meal and save yourself time at the end of the day.

Now, before you start complaining (don't make me come over there!), let me explain how the slow cooker saves time. Yes, you still have to brown meat. Yes, you still have to chop vegetables. But, the difference is you do it in the morning, when you are still fresh. At this point in the day, you haven't fussed at, I mean taught, the kids all day. You will have valuable time leftover in the afternoon to grade papers or better yet, go to the gym!

Also, if you smart (and there is no arguing that we are both smart and beautiful, right?), you will use your kids to brown the meat and chop the vegetables, so there you go! Time saver! While you are fixing breakfast, have one child chopping vegetables and another child browning meat.

The bread machine is also a valuable asset. Many people get this as a wedding present and then don't use it. So if you don't have one, check Craig's list or garage sales. You might just be blessed to find one. You can make many healthy recipes with it including a great tasting pizza dough!

I promise, whatever it is your family likes to eat, you can find it in a slow cooker recipe. Don't believe me? Check on the internet. Just go to Google and type in the name of your recipe with slow cooker before or after. Go ahead. I'll wait. See? I told you!

Later, I will give you some of my favorite slow cooker recipes. Right now, it's time for school!

...Fall is here!

Today, we had our Fall Festival for one of our local homeschool groups. We are fortunate to live in an area of Texas where there are several homeschool groups. I know this will come as a big surprise to you, but I belong to more than one of them. And I am actually thinking of joining one more!

The festival was run like a carnival. There were many different booths for the kids to go to. Being Texas, there was a steer roping contest, of course! Even though the steer wasn't real, I still got a kick out of it.

I was pleasantly surprised to find out plans had changed and I didn't have to man the “Rocket Launcher” booth. Last time I had this booth. My friend Anita suspects it's because I have boys. Instead I got the croquet match booth, which I thought would be fun! I remembered playing croquet with my grandmother when I was a little girl. This was nothing like that.

Of course, it's not a secret I have boys. Other species have special calls that they use to call their babies. Human moms with boys have a special call too. Like when you go to the library, and in the distance you see one of them shove the other one into a bookshelf, that's when you use your special call. It goes like this...."KNOCK it OFF!" Then they have a special response, it goes like this..."What? He tripped." Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is how I always manage to get stuck with the rocket launcher booth instead of something cute like face painting.

But maybe...one of these days...I will have a granddaughter. Of course, my mother-in-law constantly reminds me that she was waiting for the same day. I don't know how that's my fault.

...You Like Me!..Homeschool Blog Award nominations

I've always wanted to do an impression of Sally Field! Well, since you can't see me, you'll have to use your imagination!

Thank you Molly for nominating “Coach Mom Says” as Funniest Homeschool Blog. Wow! When she first told me, I teared right up. I won't pretend that's not easy to do...but still! It's nice to know that people are reading this blog, and actually taking it the right way! You know what they say...if you don't laugh, you'd have to cry!

If you want to vote for this blog as Funniest Homeschool Blog, I mean, even if it's because you think it's the funniest looking, you can go over to the box on the right hand side and click on it. Follow the directions from there. And visit my friend Molly at counterculturalmom.blogspot.com to be really inspired as a woman! To get great homeschooling ideas you can visit her at counterculturalschool.blogspot.com. Many of us are voting for her as Best SUPER homeschooler. I am voting her counterculturalmom blog as best encourager!

I did not realize how long it had been since my last post! Coach Mom has been spending some extra time coaching the kids and herself! Although, you wouldn't know it from the house! Hmmm...maybe there is a direct correlation between my bossing you around (I mean, dispensing advice) and my getting things done around here. Yeah, that's it! The more time I spend blogging the more I get done around here. Justification. I like it!

Actually, we have been running like crazy between school, scouts, and sports, plus a recent trip out of state. In 9 weeks, we have taken quite the tour of the western part of the country...Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and parts of Texas that I had not seen yet! But now I am ready to settle down and stay at home in Texas for a while. Get back to normal! Well, as normal as this family gets anyway!

The email questions have been piling up and I hope to get to a few of those later in the week! Thank you so much for all of your support!

Don't forget to checkout the Homeschool Blog Awards! Vote for Molly! She rocks!

...It is a Vegetable Even If It Tastes Good!

Straight from the Coach Mom "E"-mail bag is this question...

"What about if the only veggie they like is one smothered in ranch dressing??"

Ahh...good question. Call me if you know the answer, ok? I'm kidding. Sort of. Listen, who wouldn't rather eat a vegetable dipped in ranch dressing which has 14 grams of fat per 2 tbsp. serving. Most kids try to put at least a tablespoon on each piece of celery! Tutone tries to rip the pieces of celery into three smaller pieces so that Super won't fuss at him about "double dipping"!

So what do we do about this problem?

There are a couple of solutions.

1. You could try a substitute to the ranch dressing. Buy fat free ranch dressing.

2. If your kids don't like the taste of the fat free ranch dressing. Buy a packet of ranch seasoning and mix it with fat free sour cream instead.

3. If your kids don't like the taste of that, have them stir it up. It's amazing how much better they think something tastes if they make something themselves. Tutone has been known to pronounce his tacos were the "best in the world", simply because he made them.

4. Try a different dressing altogether. I like to get the Italian Seasoning packets and mix that with fat free sour cream instead of ranch. My own version of "Cream Italian" dressing. Check out some online recipes. And once again, have your kids prepare it.

5. "Jazz" up the veggies. Have fun with it. Cut celery at the bottom in 1/4 slices and place it in water for a couple of days. Watch it fan out. Make it into a science experiment. Use a special ridged cutter for your carrots.

6. Have "Chinese" food night. Get out a pan and let your kids stir fry the veggies. Put in some light soy sauce and garlic. Serve it with chicken and rice. I have been getting the new Chinese dinner kits but only putting in a small amount of the sauce and not using the corn starch at all. Plus adding a ton of my own veggies. Presto! A Chinese food dinner that is a lot healthier than eating out and the kids cooked it themselves! It's bound to be a hit!

Family Fun magazine has lots of great ideas on how to make eating your vegetables fun. Check out their website for more ideas! They have a recipe section and a picky eater section!

That's my biggest advice for solving this problem. Whether you serve your veggies raw or cooked, have your kids be a part of preparing them. My kids have eaten some of the craziest things because they had fun doing it!

...Give them a Choice!

I find that pre-teens and teenagers are a lot like two year olds. Except taller...and heavier...and not as cute. But I digress...as usual. My point is that when your child was two, your pediatrician may have advised you that for your own sanity, you should give your child a choice. Would they rather have green beans or carrots with dinner? It's time to bring that trick rabbit back out of the hat again.

Notice that I didn't say you should give them a choice about whether or not to eat vegetables at all. I said to give them a choice about which vegetables. When you sit down to plan out your menu for the week (You are doing this, right? You can't afford not to!) , include your children in the process.

Everybody has vegetables they like and don't like. You would be surprised. You may think your child doesn't like vegetables. But if you really start to talk it out, you may find out they don't like vegetables from a can. Or they don't like cooked vegetables. There is nothing wrong with that. Just find out what vegetables they will eat and include those in the plan.

Listen I hate to get all "modern" on you, I mean we can do this old fashioned way if you want and tell your kids to just "do what you say and not what you do" if you want. But wouldn't it be better for everyone if they were enjoying the experience and learning that healthy food doesn't have to "taste yucky"?

My husband hates lima beans. He says that they are not food. He said God made them so that we could keep them in the freezer and use them as an ice pack if someone gets hurt. But that's pretty much the only thing he won't eat, so I can work with that. I don't like frozen vegetables unless it's green beans, which is fine because fresh veggies are better for you anyway. My kids don't like cooked veggies unless they are stir fried. That's easy! I usually just put out a big basket of mixed raw veggies with our meals. And they eat them!

But if I hadn't taken the time to find all this out, I would have spent 20 something years arguing every single night with somebody. Now is that the way you want to end your day? I sure don't.

True story. My sister hated lettuce when she was a kid. She probably still does. My Dad insisted that we had to have a salad every night with our dinner. It is really healthy to do that but it made her truly miserable. And my Mom ended being the bad guy. Of course, it didn't help that it turned into a power struggle. Every night the girl would sit over that salad and cry. It can't have tasted any better with all those salty tears in it.

One night, my Mom was completely fed up and she told her, "I don't care if you sit there until you are eighty, you are going to finish that salad!" My sister looked up at her with tears streaming down her face and said, "When I'm 80, you'll be dead." My other sister and I just stopped in our tracks. We seriously thought that girl was going to get it. My Mom just laughed and said, "Then I'll come back and haunt you." LOL!

Now I ask you...didn't you already have a hard enough day? Do you really want to put yourself through that? Just find out what vegetables your children will eat and give them those!