Movie Night

On Tuesday one of our daughters asked us if we could look into getting the movie Passage to Zarahemla.  We have always like the Tennis Shoes Series so we told her that we would look into it.  Well my husband went to our favorite place to look for for great deals first, KSL.com classifieds.  He came across a copy that was N.I.B and a great price, only $7.99.  Not only was this new but signed by the author/director himself.  So we thought yeah that sounded great and to go ahead and call and get it.  My husband then realized that the name next to the phone number was Chris, hmmmmm.  And sure enough it was Chris Heimerdinger-author, director himself.  It was great to meet him for my children, since they learned how down to earth and real writers can be-regular house in Draper with a yard that looked like ours, swingset and bikes on the lawn of different sizes.  He was gracious and let us come in he signed the DVD, and then he signed one of our copies of Tennis Shoes among the Nephites books on tape, and posed for a picture.  We watched the movie and it was a good movie for families, and an all around good experience for us.

Lessons I have Learned from Homeschooling

When someone usually says homeschooling no one really realizes the enormous responsibility you have taken upon yourself, and no one realizes at first how much you will learn.  Most peole just think that you are going to replicate a public school system at home, with desks, chairs, a lot of paper work and memorization.  But for the everage homeschooling parent this method of homeschooling does not fit your family or lifestyle.

So things I have learned are this that the homeschooling classroom is vast it is everything around you for this family it was a summer adventure that made memories and learning experiences along with coming closer together because we had to depend on each other.  We learned a thing or two about tending a big garden and reaping the rewards.  We learned more about fishing and how 2 little boys love to do it and can sit in a boat for 6 hours waiting.  We learned that when you take on the responsibility to raise rabbits and care for them then find them good homes you feel accomplishment and then get to have a little spending cash that was well earned.  We learned that dinosaurs are in all sizes, daddy's are really silly with a bike and a lake, and that a dirt road can take you to many places and make many memories-without money. 

I have learned this about homeschooling, my children are great and have finally embraced this lifestyle with both hands.  They have learned now to look at things very differently and ask why either aloud or with those eyes that you see the wheels turning.  My eldest has done great she is doing online charter school, she is also running a online shop and has kept the responsibility great. Her time management skills are great.   She is keeping a 3.7 gpa and is the VP of her class.  My second has overcome a hurdle in her life and now has a goal to attend the online school as well and learning all that she can.  As for my boys I have learned how free they are, they do learning time every day and then they have their chores, but they do have play time-real play time-
not just 15 minutes in the morning and afternoon to go home to a mountain of homework.  The are reading, exploring and becoming best friends.  They interact and love their sisters and there is no competition. 

I have learned that my patience is great but my love for them greater and that I would not have my life anyother way because I would be missing to much.  I like to see their reactions when they learn something new and it clicks, I like to reward them and make them feel important.  But what I like most is how my family has come together and how much I can see that we love each other, and that makes my heart so full.

Reason My Dining Room Table will never be free of Clutter....

I have a Dining Room with a large 8-10 person Table.  It's great everyone fits and room for company when needed.  But today I decorated the table with scriptures of Thankfulness that I printed up and framed, and then I put them out for display-
Well my Dining Room table is always a gethering place and not just for food but for learning, games, chit-chat, reading and art.  Of course we all help out when it comes to meals for the clean up but it all seems to make its way back there.

My little Bogan has been carrying around paper and crayons for weeks and his favorite drawing place is the chair right by the window at the Dining Room table, despite that there are desks and other places available. So the table will always be cluttered with art or for the other children-books and what needs to be there-but I don't mind because I get to see and hear about what is going on and at the end of the day an uncluttered table just seems empty and mine has family togetherness and just makes me smile and feel all loving and warm inside.

Great and Quick Cold Weather Soup Recipe

I came across this recipe and then decided to make it turned out great although I did modify a little, instead of rotel I used fresh tomatoes I had and used S&W Chili Beans that had garlic, onion and chili in them. And I threw in a few more veggies when sauteing the onions, I had peppers and celery in there too.  Here is the recipe I hope you try it and enjoy!

Willy Strange's Good Soup

Several years ago, our church congregation did a community service project and cleaned up an overgrown cemetary in Rockwall, Texas.  The care-taker, an elderly woman, couldn’t afford to pay for our services but gave us something much better.  This recipe came from her.  It was an instant hit with everyone who took a copy, and has continued to be a family favorite which we share with our special friends.  I’ve decided that it’s just too good to keep under wraps.  So, sometime when you need to make a main-dish in just 10-15 minutes, give this a try.  You won’t be disappointed.

Ingredients:

• 2 cans Campbell's Minestrone soup
• 1 can Ranch Style beans *
• 1 can Rotel diced tomatoes (Mild or hot - you choose) *
• 2 cans water
• ¼ cup catsup
• 1 lb. hamburger
• 1 small diced onion
• * Rotel and Ranch Style are brand name products of ConAgra Foods. Their web site has a search feature to help you find a retailer near you that carries these two products. It's worth your time to find them.

Preparation:

Sauté the diced onion in a dutch oven.  Add the hamburger and brown.  Drain off the excess fat.  Add the remaining ingredients, heat and serve.

We sometimes add an additional can of tomato soup with an additional ¾ can of water.  You can control the spiciness of the soup by using the spicy Rotel tomatoes.

Harvest 2009

Well it finally froze and so with the move I decided to go ahead and pull all of our Winter squash and anything left in the garden we could take.  As you can see we came out a little too well.  Those darn plants not all where supposed to live, I had actually planted them a little close together because of my homegrown transplants not all usually make it.  I didn't loose any, until the deer ate 3 of them.  All of the seeds are ones I have saved from last year, I have learned how to do this it's easy and an essential garden know how.  I did however buy Connecticut field pumpkin seeds and my sister gave me some pumpkin seeds as well.

My winter squash included;
Australian Butter Squash
Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck, mine never seem to crook though
Hubbard
Spaghetti squash
and Pumpkins, Connecticut and white

And other things in my garden;
Corn,(deer and grasshoppers got it)
summer squash:
  sunburst patty pan
  yellow straight neck
  zucchini
Cucumbers
  Slicing
  pickling
  Lemon
beets
carrots, red, orange, yellow and white
tomatoes
dill
Onions, red and yellow
watermelons
canteloupe
green beans (deer got them)
swiss chard
peppers, bell, banana and Anaheim
red potatoes
okra
broccoli
cabbage
turnips
rutabega

I was so glad to figure out that we pulled more than a thousand pounds of veg from the garden, a lot more than I was expecting-but then again you never know what you are going to get!

One turnip I pulled from the garden was 15.5 inches around!

Salmon Running up at Strawberry

Well we went into SLC for Labor day and got there on Sunday.  It was great I got to move some more items into my garage-making the move easier.  And on the way we got to see the salmon running up the river in Strawberry.  It was great the water just looks pink.  They have a discovery trail which you can walk on and look at the scenes with trail markers, and over looking the river.  Some of the kokanee salmon go to the hatchery and are milked and some salmon get to go on and run naturally.

At the hatchery they were just jumping all over the place.  So if you have a chance and are up by Strawberry Reservoir between August and October you should check them out.

Yeah my DH did it most all of the pics where recovered!

Weekends not over, the 25th of July!

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On Saturday we took them on the Auto tour at Dinosaur National Monument, which was very informational and fun they got to feed antlions, they are very sneeky and ruthless and I had never heard of them before. O remembers feeding them when he had visited as a child so the fun has been passed on.

left;Green River

right; Feeding the ant"lions"

We also got to see an old cabin that lies in the bottom of the canyon in dinosaur a Miss Josie Bassett Morris lived there(thats the end of the tour).http://www.utahoutdooractivities.com/josiemorriscabin.html

After then we stopped at the Visitor center in

Jensen and while the children and I picked the wild strawberries in the flower beds O got a crazy idea to go to Fantasy Canyon, which was cool but very far out there. After getting there they all followed each other in a line and explored reading the posted signs, that was great. http://www.blm.gov/ut/st/en/fo/vernal/recreation_/fantasy_canyon.html

Needless to say we got home late and had to finish packing the girls for camp Monday morning. But it was a great fun-filled information packed family weekend.

July 24th, Happy Pioneer Day!

Well the 24th was great day for us here. We took all the kids to a huge Scout pancake breakfast, big here in Vernal. And it was $2 per child good price and great fun because they had a bouncer slide(I think thats what it is called?) a buffalo bladder toss(balloon toss) sack races and coloring and then a park to boot to play on. The smaller kids loved the bouncer, all loved the balloons and almost everyone fell over in the sacks.

At the same park was The Moving Wall, a traveling veterans memorial, http://www.themovingwall.org/. We walked through and observed, that part of the park was surprisingly quiet. A lot of names facts and pictures. If you have a chance I recommend seeing it.

After that was the parade, we didn't stay at the parade instead we went to Dinosaur National Monument. All the children became Jr. Paleantologists, they had to do book work and take the oath, the smaller ones loved it. Unfortunately the larger Quarry Visitor Center was closed, we did drive by it to do the hike and see the bones that have been left on a trail to see how they are found. The Quarry will be opened I believe they said in 2011. http://www.nps.gov/dino

Then of course we ate our picnic lunch we packed on the way home. Then we took 4 children over to the IFA and they where having a grand opening, new store, and the boys did the mutton busting they thought that was neat and received stick horses as prizes. L gets very nervous around animals so this surprised me a lot.

After that fun we took them all fishing, and PT pulled 4 or 5 fish out with the same 1/3 of a worm that we put on his hook. The fish didn't swallow the whole hook so O was able to get the worm back and about a minute after PT cast out he would pull in another one. L, KT, and S all where having fun the teenagers just hung out in the car. We did some great fishing that night.

I have posted the website links of places we went so if you are curious you can just link over.

PT's Birthday

Hey there we have been busy and I have not posted since the 23rd of July, so I am going to do a lot of catching up this week so stay posted!

Well For PT's Birthday I asked him what he wanted to do and gave him a laundry list of choices and the one he chose was the park. So I called M and had her meet us there with her cute daughters and all.

We made sandwiches, bought chips and instead of ice cream or cake, we had sno-cones, we packed up our snocone machine and brought that and luckily there was power at the pavillion. That way when ice melts it's not that big of a deal, or near as messy as ice cream.

We opened presents there and he got a football and a softball set so the park was a great setting for the gifts as well! When O got home that night, he gave him his gift, a box of 22 bullets and later that week took him and B shooting, PT has wanted to do this since last October when the girls and I went through hunters education and had to practice.

When I asked him if he had a good birthday he said it was the best and very fun.

Great Healthful Recipe

Had this great recipe I found on the web that I made for lunch the other day, and I am making today! I love it because the kids eat it up and it does not heat up my kitchen! Yay for fresh garden eating!

Raw Peperonata

Ingredients

1 red, bell pepper
1 orange bell pepper
1 yellow bell pepper
1 green bell pepper
1/2 red onion
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
2 cloves garlic, pressed
1 Tbsp. fresh minced oregano or 1 tsp. dried
sea salt to taste

Directions:

Combine olive oil, red wine vinegar, garlic, and oregano and set aside. Core bell peppers and cut lengthwise into 1/4 inch slivers then in half. Cut onion lengthwise and sliver and then in half too. Combine peppers and onion in a large bowl and add dressing and salt to taste. I find it best to refrigerate for a few hours, stirring occasionally to work the peppers on top down into the dressing.

Today I am adding mushrooms to marinate we will see how they taste
UPDATE: Added mushrooms and they worked out great! I think most anything will work, just try what you like!

Makes: 6 - 8 servings, Preparation time: depends, Cooking time: n/a

Happy 7th Birthday P.T.!!!

What I love about PT;
He loves to be silly
He loves to look at things and wonder what else he can do with them, inventive or otherwise!
His Laugh
He is very gentle
He will dance wherever he is just because he feels like it
His brother is his best friend
He loves his sisters but loves to play tricks on them!
I hope you have a great day, and wonderful year!

Our page title

In case you were all wondering what is up with our title, it's quite simple
McParry is what my DH called me after we first got married so I have always wanted to use that for him, and Croft means;A small farm, especially a tenant farm. And since we are tenants and have chickens, rabbits and a decent size kitchen garden we thought that would be fun. So there it is if you can follow, I'm only explaining once.

Independence Day!

Happy Fourth of July all, and we hope you had a great one! We had a fun day here as well, lots of family, fun and fireworks to top it off. My DH went into SLC on Thursday night with the girls to take back his Dad's Blazer (our Truck is not finished and waiting on parts). And then they came back with my parents, a niece and nephew, and my youngest sister on Friday night.


After a quick breakfast we all headed out to the parade route to see M's little one in our towns parade for the 4th. So we sat there and watched the parade. We sat across from the city offices and there is a Memorial in front, so at the beginning when the Vet's arrived a flag was raised by national guard, they took a moment and got out and saluted the memorial. And then the fun began with all the floats, a lot of water squirted and candy. We caught a glimpse of our little Ladybug she was facing the other side, but after being picked up by her Daddy she was cute as ever. The kids had great fun.

After the parade O and I went to the farmers market and got a few things, I really love farmers markets! It's nothing compared to downtown SLC. But I think the small size a bit more manageable. We got there right before and as it was ending so we will see how this weekend goes.

When we got home we packed up all the kids in swimsuits and went to red fleet reservoir, the section we ended up in was great for the older children but not younger. They went cliff jumping we weren't there long but had some great laughs!


H holding her flag



At the BBQ, SZ brought her karaoke, too bad she didn't have a whole lot of music the kids knew, but it was just a lot of silliness!

M bought a new BBQ and that afternoon we broke it in, we did BBQ on Sun. too which was great because there were a lot of leftover salads-not any prep at all. Sunday we also had a birthday, my niece who was here, she turned double digits it was fun.

Then after the BBQ of course what else ends a 4th but fireworks-we went and saw the display by the town and it was enough fun for the kids. All worn out most were asleep by the 10 minute drive home. All in all it was a good 4th!