First day back.

Today we had a high temperature of 45. That is 117 Fahrenheit. It is going to continue for the rest of the week too.

Now it is 9.30 at night and temps are still in the high 30's. The sun has set so it isn't as oppressive as it was when it was up. The low tonight is 28. (82). It was a bit of a long day but we did get all the home school work finished.

We also got our printer back today so we will be starting our virtue unit tomorrow. We are starting with the virtue of consideration.

All this week I am planning on having salad rolls for tea. It is just too hot to cook anything.

Catholic resources for home school.

I n the sidebar, I have a link to That Resource Site.

It is a great resource for anyone doing Catholic home school. They are not only for religious study though, they have all kinds of resources.

Over the last few weeks, I have been thinking about how can I teach our children more about the virtues and living them daily. I know that living them as much as I can is a help to them but I wanted something concrete to teach them.

This morning I got up early because I knew it was going to be very hot and one of the first things I did was google teaching Catholic virtues resource.

The top link was That Resource Site. and I thought, why didn't I think of there first?

They have some great work sheets that I have looked at. At the moment, our brother printer, is in being fixed but as soon as we get it back, I will be printing off all the resources to teach the children about virtues.

Abortion is always wrong.

Last week was The March for life in Washington DC. We don't have anything like it here so I wanted to do a post about it here.

Here is a youtube video of people marching past:



So many people standing up for the most innocent of all. Life really is precious and should be protected by all.

Most people I know, don't support abortion except they say when a women has been raped.

I came across a link today at Abba's little girl.

Pregnant by rape.

These stories are heart-wrenching.

Someone also commented at Patty's blog that allowing a women to have an abortion after rape is aiding and abetting the rapist and taking away the evidence.

Quick 7.

-1-

Next week.

On Monday we will all be back at school. I am looking forward to having a routine again.

-2-

Top 200 Catholic Blogs.

I found out today that I am in the top 200 Catholic blogs. I come in at number 115. Thanks so much to all the people that follow me in google reader.

-3-

Insulin Pump.

Christopher is counting down the amount of injections he has to have till we start insulin pump therapy. Here is the countdown calender we are counting down with. I am hoping we will have time to catch up with some people while we are in Adelaide but may be tied up at the hospital.




=4-

Reading Eggs.

This is an online reading game for children aged between 3 and 7. Although Tom is quite a bit older, he has enjoyed some of the games on here too. We will be using this resource mainly for Christopher this year.

The website is here.

-5-
One of my favourite Photos.

This is a photo of Tom with Joseph just after his bath this week. At least, that is why I am pretty sure he is naked. Definitely a picture to put up at his 21st.

-6-

Anniversary.

Steve and I went to the Golden Pearl for our wedding anniversary. It was a great night. I made a new tunic and leggings that day. Here is a picture of Steve and I before we went out for tea.

You cannot really see the full tunic but I am really happy with the look. It is good for really hot days.

-7-

Family History.

Steve has been studying his family history for just over a year now. He has made a book with information about the first generation that migrated to Australia. We are going to do a video of the book and it should be up here this weekend.

Have a great weekend. Don't forget to drop over to Jen's for other quick 7.

Wordless Wednesday: Happy Australia Day.

47 Celsius.

Today we had a high of 47 Celsius. That is 114 Fahrenheit. I went outside around lunch time and the heat hit me like a brick wall. It was insanely hot out there.

By 6.00 the wind had come up and then out of no where came the rain.

The wind has cooled everything down a lot and it isn't unpleasant anymore.

Steve has been working outside all week. We are landscaping the backyard and putting up new gutters. He was glad to have the wind and rain this evening.

Tomorrow the high is going to be 37 Celsius. That is 98 Fahrenheit. It is Steve's last day of holidays and our anniversary. We will be going out for tea to the Golden Pearl Chinese Restaurant for tea to celebrate.

Some OAMC recipes.

Here are some of the recipes I use when I prepare meals ahead.

Fish Parcels. We haven't actually made these since I posted the recipe. I just don't get to our fish shop much and the supermarkets don't have fresh fish often.

Pasties.

Schnitzels.

Tuna Mornay.

Spaghetti sauce:

2 onions
750 grams mince meat.
1 tin tomato soup
1 tin diced tomatoes
salt, pepper, oregano and any other spices you want.

Dice onions and cook till transparent.

add mince and spices and cook till mince is well done.

Add tomato soup and diced tomatoes.

Once sauce has boiled, remove from heat.

Allow to cool to room temperature and put in freezer.

I remove from freezer and defrost in the fridge for 24 hours. I cook our spaghetti for about 5 minutes and then do a layer of sauce, a layer of spaghetti and a layer of grated cheese. I finish with a layer of cheese and bake in the oven till cheese is melted. Usually about 15 minutes.

Lasagna:

I make the same sauce as the spaghetti and also make a cheese sauce. On cooking day, we do layers again but with instant lasagna noodles. I really hate lasagna sheets that need to be pre cooked. I just cannot work with them.

Quick 7

-1-

Summer holidays.

We have one week of holidays left. I wish it was another two. I have many things I want to do but it isn't practical to expect to get them all done. I have a habit of planning a lot of things and doing nothing till I realise my time to get it all done is running out.
That is what has happened these holidays.

I think I needed the break though. I do feel ready for school this year and like we have had a good break.

-2-

Little Athletics.

The children started little athletics last week.

Here is a picture of them getting into the car ready to go last Sunday.



This weekends forecast is for a high of 42 (107) and it may be canceled.

-3-

Marriage.

This Wednesday, Steve and I will celebrate 20 years of marriage.

Our marriage has been very blessed. I love Steve more today than I did when we first got married and I certainly loved him a lot then.

We are not really sure what we will do to celebrate yet.

-4-

oamc.

Since Joseph's birth, I haven't been able to do as much to organise our monthly main meals. I really need to get back to organising it.

Today I sat down and wrote out a list of meals to prepare for the next month. My plan this year is to do a big cook for main meals one fortnight and the following fortnight to cook and bake snacks.

Tomorrow we are cooking :

• spaghetti sauce,
• chicken chow mein,
• pepperoni rolls,
• pasties
• mini quiches.

-5-

Joseph.

Joseph on the way home from Adelaide.
He was not amused at the amount of time we spent in the car.


-6-

Carb counting.

When Tom first went on the pump, we started counting carbs differently to when he was on daily injections. Instead of working on exchanges, we started working in grams. It isn't all that different but with daily injections if Tom ate say 22 carbs we would do insulin for 1 exchange but on the pump, we put in the insulin for the 22 carbs.

I bought a book that was an excellent guide to all foods. It was put out by the Womens Weekly and we could look up pretty much anything in this book and it would tell us the carbs.

This book is no longer in print and we needed a new one since a few pages have fallen out. I was a bit disappointed when I found that.

I have found a good resource to replace the book called Collins Gem Carb Counter.

I am also going to start my own carb book with all our recipes in. I remember most of them and the carb ratio of many meals we have but it would be good to have it all written down.

Any other people have any good carb counting books out there?

-7-

Number block.

Just cannot think of a number 7 to write at the moment so will now close this post with the reminder

Go and visit Jen at Conversion Diary to read other great 7 quick takes.

Therese.

Trip to Adelaide.

On Tuesday we all went off to Adelaide to put Sam on the plane for summer camp at Campion college. He is still there and is enjoying it.

While we were there, I took Christopher to the Women's and Children's hospital for his pre pump appointment. I think the thought of having a pump is starting to overwhelm him a bit and he is getting frightened of it. I think going to the hospital really sunk the reality of getting it. He is definitely nervous and I did expect that but I know that the pump is the best way to treat his diabetes. He is less likely to have complications later in life if we keep his blood glucose in range now and we can do that much more easily with the pump.

Steve also took Tom, Amelia and Christopher to Dinosaurs alive while we were there. Here are a few photos that the children took.



Tomorrow it will be 10 days left till we start school for the 2011 year. I will be busy over the next few days getting the childrens program ready for the year.

This year Tom is in year 6, Amelia year 4 and Christopher in Reception. I am looking forward to a productive year.

Floods.

A lot of friends have asked about us and how close we are to the floods. I am thankful that I have so many concerned friends. We are safe and have no flooding in our town thank goodness.

My friend Jeanne from A peaceful day town has been flooded. The Avoca river peaked yesterday at 8.05 metres.

Please pray for my friend Jeanne and her family. I am sure she will welcome and word of support.

Campion College.

Tomorrow, Sam is going to fly to Sydney for Campion College summer camp.

This is a camp for students going into year 12 this year.

We have heard a lot of good things about Campion College and are really happy that Sam has the opportunity to go and meet other teens that will be doing year 12 also.

At home, I am sure everyone will miss him terribly (especially when they need to do his job).

Happy Birthday Tom

Today Tom turns 11. We are going to KFC to celebrate for tea.

Happy Birthday Tom. We are really glad you are a part of our family. You enrich our lives all the more.

Wordless Wednesday: Joseph clapping hands.

Joseph now claps his hands when we tell him too. I think he is very cute doing it but I may be a bit biased.

10 things in 101 days.

A blog I read had a post about doing 101 things in 1001 days.

I thought it would be hard for me to come up with 101 things to do but I thought I could do a list of 10 things to do in 101 days and break it down.

So I am starting today.

Here are the 10 things I want to do in the next 100 days.

1) finish sewing our curtains for the lounge room.

2) finish sewing Brigette's curtains.

3) Pray the rosary every morning for a week.

4) Go to bed every night by 10.00 for a week and get up at 6.00 am.

5) Reorganise our kitchen.

6) sew some new tops for me.

7) Take the children out for a family day.

8) Sort out our home school books.

9) write up menu plans for 3 different oamc.

10) write another 10 things to do in 101 days.

Start date is today, 11th January 2011.

End date is Friday 22nd April 2011. I will keep you all updated as I do each thing.

Skype.

This morning Steve went and bought a new camera to video me while on computer. We have had skype for a while but have had a few hicups with the camera and sound on our laptop. We have been talking for a while about buying a camera to use skype on my computer instead of the laptop and today while he was at the shop, he bought it.

We have a laptop that has a camera installed in it but we were having never ending problems with the sound. I then worked out we could talk through a microphone but found that while I was chatting with people, the internet would suddenly drop off and we would get cut off.

I started using Skype on my computer then without a camera. I could talk to people but they could not see me. Now that we have a camera, I can chat face to face. I love it.

So around midday today, I finally had a chat with a friend online. She could see me and I could see her. We also could both hear each other. It was great. Finally I am all ready for skype and online chatting face to face.

So if you have skype and want to chat sometime look me up on Skype. I am registered as Therese8972.

Pumping.

We have a start date for Christopher's insulin pump. He will be starting the pump on the 10th of February 2011. He is getting a medtronic pump just like Toms. He kept on insisting that he wanted a blue one too but I think I have talked him into getting another colour. I don't want to be getting pumps mixed up so they need to be different colours.

I thought we would need an inserter for the pump but the diabetes educator has informed me that they have different canula's with automatic inserters so I bought him this teddy to put his pump in each night instead.


We were hoping he would start in the school holidays but it couldn't happen. The timing is right for us though. Joseph will probably be weaned so Christopher and I will stay in Adelaide and Steve will look after everything at home. So looking forward to having some time away with just Christopher.

Yesterday at Ada Ryan Gardens.

This is a peacock.

I wish I was able to get a better shot but it was pretty hard through to shoot through the wire.

Joseph climbing the slippery dip.

On the see saw. This one fitted 4 at a time.

A Kangaroo.

A day ahead.

Today we had a family day. We drove to Whyalla to do some shopping. My favourite sewing shop is in Whyalla and I go several times a year. We went to Target, Spotlight and then took a picnic lunch to have at Ada Ryan Gardens.

The weather was perfect and we all had a great day.

On the way home, I was thinking about when to upload all the pictures and suddenly realised, today I did a post for Thursday and it is only Wednesday.

It all started back on Tuesday though. I did my tasty Tuesday post on Monday and I have been posting a day ahead since then. That's what holiday mode does to me.

I have lots of photos to upload from our day. I am just having problems getting the photos off the camera and on to the computer. Hopefully I will have it worked out tomorrow or else just load the photos up from Steve's computer.

Thankful Thursday.

Today I give thanks for the summer holidays. We are spending our days together as a family. We have been to mass nearly everyday.

I am thankful for Joseph. He will be 11 months old on Friday. Only 1 month till his first birthday.

I am thankful for all my online friends.

What are you thankful for today?

Wordless Wednesday:: Pepperoni rolls.

The dough

ready to go in the oven


YUM!!!!!!!!!!!

Tasty Tuesday: The perfect Pepperoni roll.

The perfect Pepperoni roll.

A friend posted this link last year on DCF forums and I was going to make them.

I book marked it but never got around to making them. I wanted to make some pizzas and remembered them. Since we have re installed windows since saving the page, I didn't have it anymore. At first I couldn't remember what they were called but after a search at DCF I came to the page. I am going to make them today so will let you all know what we think of them.

I am not only going to do pepperoni. I will also do some with sundried tomatoes, onion and cheese.

Happy Birthday Daniel.

Yesterday was Daniel's 19th birthday. It was the first one we were not with him for. At the moment, Daniel is holidaying in Phuket. We will have a celebration when he comes home.

Happy Birthday Daniel. I wish we could be with you but know that you are having a great time traveling.

Love mum and dad.