Sweet Potato & Apple Soup

This recipe is going to become a favorite in my house! I am sure of it. I made it for my DD and I for lunch today, and it was so yummy! I was inspired by a blog post I came across at Happy Foody. As usual, I took this recipe and tweaked it to our own tastes (and to what we had in the kitchen).

I hope you try it, super easy, super good :)

Sweet Potato & Apple Soup

1 med onion (chopped)

2 T Canola Oil

2 1/2 C Chicken Stock

4 C Sweet Potatoes (peeled and diced)

3 med Gala Apples (peeled, cored and diced)

1/2 t Salt

1/2 t Pepper

1/4 tsp Nutmeg

In a large soup pot, saute onions in oil on medium high heat until translucent. Add other ingredients and bring to a boit. Turn down heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Take 3 or 4 ladles of veggies and 2 ladles of stock and blend in blender or food processor until smooth. Return to soup pot and stir together before serving. Makes 4 to 6 servings.

Meal Planning Monday

Monday: Garden Vegetable Lasagna
Tuesday: Leftover Lasagna
Wednesday: Asian Meatball Soup
Thursday: Vegetable Chow Mein
Friday: Lime Roasted Chicken with Spinach Salad and Sweet Potato Fries

This menu seems a little more ethnic than what we're used to, but I found some interesting recipes this week and happen to have most of the ingredients!

I am also making Sweet Potato and Apple soup for my daughter and I for lunch this week. I learned that sweet potatoes are ranked as one of the most healthful vegetables, even above SPINACH! :) So, I want to incorporate more of them into our diets. My DH isn't so sure about this, but perhaps I can sway his dislike for sweet potatoes in some new recipes........

Tot School #3

This week wasn't terribly busy... but we had fun anyways.

As always, DD helped mommy do LOTS and lots of things in the kitchen. We made a batch of pumpkin muffins one morning, and she tried cracking eggs, which she loved. :) I don't know if I will ever be able to crack another egg without her asking to do it herself now!

She also had fun washing dishes beside mommy. She has done this lots in the past, but this time, I filled both the kitchen sinks, and she washed in one and then passed her dish to me and I really washed it and finished up. She thought this was great! And I was so glad to have her involved in this very important chore!

I went to Bible study one morning, and DD spent that morning at a friend's house. They have introduced her to beading! She had help putting little pony beads onto a piece of pipe cleaner, which I thought was genius! It is so difficult to teach her how to bead onto a piece of floppy string.

We also visited the library! We now have a TON of books in our house to read, and I'm so glad DD enjoys listening to me read to her. We are enjoying the booklist that Sonlight recommends for the P3/4 level. We are almost through Snow Queen and we read the first story out of Mike Mulligan last night, which daddy and DS also listened to. (It was very cute)


Also, at the library there was a multi-cultural festival, hosted the the local home-school group. We visited that, because my friend had developed a display about Zambia and she was promoting her book Shadows of Promise there.

On Becoming Babywise

I am so excited because my second baby has reached an important milestone! He is now regularly sleeping 11.5 hours through the night. When he turned 15 weeks old we started his new schedule; it goes something like this:

7:00am Wake-up and Nurse
9:00am Naptime
10:30am Nurse
12:00pm Naptime
2:00pm Nurse
4:00pm Naptime
5:30pm Nurse
7:00pm Nurse & Bottle
7:30pm Bedtime

Not only is mommy very excited about this, but daddy is as well. This means that after both children have been put down for the evening, we can both go to bed as early as we want to.

I am well aware of the controversies over the book On Becoming Babywise, but quite honestly, my children and I are so much happier when we get our sleep! I firmly believe that this method has helped enable my two children get into a routine that promotes regular lengthy sleep patterns.

Meal Planning Monday

Monday: Roast Elk with Potatoes and Carrots and Dinner Rolls & Pumpkin Loaf
Tuesday: Sweet & Sour Meatballs with Rice and Peas
Wednesday: Roast Elk in Gravy with French Fries & Caesar Salad
Thursday: Chicken Cannelloni
Friday: BBQ Chicken Pizza with Salad

I am very excited about this week's menu. I hardly had to shop for groceries because the meals use items I have on hand already! $$$ And yes, I broke down last week and bought a family pack of chickens thighs.

Once again this menu has been adapted from Menus4Moms, but I have deleted and added some recipes. The Cannelloni was my own idea, because I still have pasta shells leftover to use from a few months back! The sweet and sour meatballs are on her schedule, as is the roast for Monday night's meal. MmmmMmmm.... I love having roast at the beginning of our week, that way I can reheat it in gravy and have french fries and caesar salad with it! Which is one of my mom's quick dinners, and one of my favorites too. :)

Meal Planning Monday

Monday: Tuna Helper and Salad

Tuesday: Roasted Cranberry Chicken, Baked Potatoes, Peas

Wednesday: Meatloaf, Green Beans, Rice Pilaf

Thursday: Chicken Chow Mein

Friday: Potato Soup, Bread, Salad, Apple Crumble

This week's meal plan was adapted from menus4moms menu that was posted for this week.

Tot School #2

We had a fun week! It was very busy though! Not too much time for tot school, but mommy is freshly inspired to do simple activities with DD. I also received my very first homeshooling resource in the mail this week. I ordered the parent guide from Sonlight for level P3/4. I decided against ordering the entire preschool curriculum because it is almost $300US. Instead, over the next three years I think I will slowly start to accumulate the books they suggest using.

Now a little peek into our week...

For a fun sensory experience, DD had fun pouring dried lentils and chick peas into different containers. This kept her nice and busy for awhile... she was also very good about keeping them on the tray I gave her... I worked away in the kitchen so proud of how nicely she was playing, until I suddenly found her flinging dried lentils EVERYWHERE :)

No, she is not taking piano lessons, and I have no intentions on starting her this young. Being a piano teacher once upon a time, I think it's worth waiting until they're older. Meanwhile, she has fun plunking away on the keys and listening to the demos that are programed.

DD played play-dough for hours, literally, this week! It was absolutely amazing. In the past I bought play-dough for her, but more recently I made some at home, and it is so much easier for her to play with. So much softer! I am also amazed at how long the play-dough has lasted.

I have been gradually trying to involve her in more of my daily jobs. And one day this week we were cleaning the bathroom. DD loved practicing using the spray bottle in the bathtub and then wiping up with a cloth. I didn't realize the hand-eye coordination that it actually takes. ;)

We have also spent lots of time reading aloud together this week. We got the book Horton Hatches an Egg from the library this week, and she absolutely loves the book. I even caught her convincing daddy to read it to her. Should have had my camera out. :)

My Floor Cleaning Solution!!!

So, if you're anything like me, you loathe cleaning your floor, yet you can't stand those sticky spots! One my biggest pet peeve is having a sticky spot on my socks from stepping in a spill or uncleaned baking mess on my floor. Even though I absolutely hated this, I always seemed to leave mopping my floor to very last. Sometimes a couple of weeks would go by without mopping up!

Anyhow, I have finally discovered the very best way to keep my floors clean. My spray bottle and dry swiffer duster has become very important for this job! First I crochetted swiffer cloths to fit over my swiffer duster that I purchased from the store. You can find the pattern for them at TipNut . Then I put diluted vinegar in a spray bottle. Now I can go through my house (which is all real hardwood flooring), and quickly clean the floors by spraying and wiping with the swiffer. No more buckets of dirty water, and cleaning the floor on my hands and knees!

Seeds of Hope

"None of us gets to choose where we are born or our families.
Shadows of Promise will challenge and strengthen your faith as you follow Mutinta's struggles to believe promises of hope when everything seems dark in a life she did not choose."
---- Back cover of Shadows of Promise

Seeds of Hope Children's Ministry is involved in bringing aid to orphaned children infected with HIV/AIDS in Zambia; Thailand; and most recently Myanmar.

Many people in my church have travelled to the orphanage run by Seeds of Hope in Zambia, Africa called Buseko. In fact, my mother-in-law leaves to go next Wednesday! One of the ladies in my church decided to write a children's book based on the story of one of the orphans at the home. After visiting Africa and meeting the orphans at this home, she was moved and wanted to share her experience with others; to try and show them how some of these children live, and under what circumstances they have survived and grown up. I had the privilege of helping her design a cover for her book, and now she has self-published it and is taking orders for sale. The proceeds from the sales of this book will go directly to Seeds of Hope and help further their aid efforts in these countries. Please visit Seeds of Hope website for information about their ministry and to find out how you can support a child! If you are interested in purchasing this book, please contact me or Seeds of Hope at their website as well.


I encourage you to read this story aloud to your child and experience it alongside them. This will be a wonderful resource for your homeschool library as well; the author has supplied study questions at the back to help you in furthering your research about Zambia, Africa.


Consider sponsoring a child today!

Meal Planning Monday

My hubby starts back to work this week after three months of paternity leave. So it's back to making things that will make great leftovers for his lunch! Here's this week's menu.

Monday: Soft Tacos
Tuesday: Roast Moose, Roasted Potatoes, Peas & Carrots with Dinner Rolls
Wednesday: Moose Barley Soup (Frozen) with Dinner Rolls
Thursday: Shepherd’s Pie with Salad
Friday: Deer Pepperoni Pizza

It's funny; we were over at a friend's house last week and she served us Cranberry Chicken (which was absolutely delightful!). I told her that chicken has become somewhat of a delicacy in our household as our freezer is full of red meat these days. Welcome to being married to a hunter. I am not complaining, by the way, it just seems odd that America's most common meat has become our specialty.

Tot School #1

I took pictures this week of those sort of intentional, (yet spontaneous at the same time, if that makes sense) teaching times that I had with my DD 2 and a half year old. She is eager to learn new things and be more and more independant. I have been surfing the net to find some preschool ideas, and I was so excited to purchase the Sonlight P3/4 Parents' Guide. I am eagerly waiting for it to arrive in my mailbox now.

We colored and pasted a picture of the human body. DD enjoyed pasting the neck below the head and the feet below the legs.

We also visited our little scallion garden. We have harvested a couple of scallions this fall, and have enjoyed eating them in salads. DD goes out and samples them every now and then.


We also practiced throwing this week! We rolled up socks and practiced throwing them into a basket. This kept DD busy for about 45 minutes! I was surprised.