Weekly Wrap- Up: The Week with All the Baking!

We knew we were going to have a pretty rainy week and early on decided we'd stay home, clean house, work on schoolbooks, and get a lot of our holiday baking out of the way.  Around this time of year with fresh apples abound we tend to make at least 3 or 4 pies and freeze them for Thanksgiving and Christmas.  We also have a few parties we're hosting this weekend and we made apple spice cupcakes with butterscotch frosting and some rich chocolate cupcakes with whipped chocolate gnache!  While we were already baking and making a mess of the kitchen we decided to use up some bananas that were going bad and made some banana bread too!



Friday we kept our schoolbooks put away and headed off to the Ecotarium with our homeschool group.  We were so excited to see the otters this time (though we were still bummed not to see the baby).  The kids had great fun playing with all the exhibits and their friends. Alec went on a train ride with most of our group while the other two boys went with me to go eat lunch.  We all sat and watched a planetarium show called Passport to the Universe and even got to enjoy a little bonus lesson! The woman running the planetarium show offered to show us the constellations in our night sky at this time of year for anyone who wanted to stay a few extra minutes; of course our group did and we learned a lot about the constellations and the north star.  Once home from the planetarium the boys and I payed a few games of Uno Dare (played like regular Uno but in place of the pick two cards you can choose to do the dare listed on them!).  Alec frosted all his cupcakes and we offered to taste test them for him!







Alec and his friend work to create a city that keeps cool in the hot summer sun 

Evan decided to take the assignment in a different direction and see how hot he could make the city



Chocolate mint cupcakes! 

Snickerdoodle cupcakes 


Evan's latest Lego set
Ian headed off to work early on Saturday while the younger boys mostly laid around watching TV all morning.  We had a family memorial service to attend in the afternoon and while the weatherman was predicting rain we actually had a beautiful day!  The sun was shining and it was even warm enough that a few brave souls went into the water swimming, kayaking, and boating.  While it sure had it's sad moments, we had a wonderful day spent with family remembering a man who had a great life and lives into his 90's.


Alec was thrilled to see that Caesar Salad made it onto the menu!

Isn't this bouquet amazing?!  
Ian headed off to work again on Sunday and the younger two boys went out to breakfast with their father.  I was still feeling full from all the food we enjoyed on Saturday and elected to enjoy a nice quiet house instead.  Sweeties that they are they brought me home some wonderful muffins for "later."  The boys played Legos for quite some time in Evan's room.  Ian came home around lunch and in the afternoon all three boys settled down on the front steps/ walkway to craft with the loom bands.  Alec made an adorable jellyfish and Ian made a necklace.





Monday morning the boys tackled their schoolwork quite early.  By 11 they had all finished their grammar assignments, math, reading, and we had managed to read two picture books for our civil rights movement lesson.  We decided to squeeze in a last minute science experiment and learned about air molecules; how and why they shrink and expand.  Alec pulled out the computer and the loom bands again and made a baby duck and he started on a pig but it fell apart when he dropped one of the bands during construction.  After lunch we headed out to the apple orchard and the library.  Once home all three boys worked together to clean the upstairs and then I let them watch movies since it was a rainy dreary day.








The younger boys had karate on Tuesday and I never thought we would ever get our schoolwork done before karate.  We got a late start to our morning but somehow all three boys finished their cursive work, 2 pages in math, two geography workbook pages, and their reading in just under an hour.  After karate we ate lunch and read two more civil rights movement books as well as a couple of chapters in our family read aloud; Treasure on Superstition Mountain.  The boys pulled out their loom bands and worked on some more bracelets while I was reading.  Once they were done all three took off playing together for 3 full hours!  Ian finally got bored with their made up scenarios and asked me to play rummy.  After one round Alec asked to join in and the three of us spent a good hour playing cards.  After dinner the whole family all worked together to make some apple pies using my mom's pie recipe.  Of course we kept one out for eating; we had to make sure they tasted good!







Wednesday was another rainy day and my boys all quickly completed their work.  They each finished up math, reading, and grammar/English work before taking off to enjoy their own pursuits.  Alec has discovered a new book series and found that there was an on-line game built around it so he spent some time playing The Magnificent 12.  Evan and Ian played out for a bit in the rain and then headed inside.  All three boys cleaned the bathrooms and then Alec made some apple spice cupcakes with lots of shredded apple in them.  Evan claimed that since he was reading a Terraria book he should get to play Terraria and I agreed; as long as he read me a couple of pages from his book.  The older boys and I played several rounds of Scattegories and then Ian and I played two games of Rummikub.  Evan and Ian worked some more with Loom bands making matching bracelet/ ring sets.



We were having our driveway re-sealed on Thursday so we spent another quiet day mostly at home.  The boys completed their schoolwork and cleaned the house a bit.  Alec made chocolate cupcakes; and while it took three batches to get it right this time they were well worth the wait.  Alec attempted to make another couple loom band charms but when he missed a band on the pig and another band snapped on the turtle he decided to give up for the day and try again another time.

The pig all laid our and ready to be banded together


We had enough batter left from the cupcakes to make one chocolate cake;
 we'll freeze it for use on a Trifle cake at a later date.


We'll frost and serve the cupcakes over the weekend and I'll post pictures of the completed desserts next week.

Linking Up With:


Homeschool Coffee Break



Comments

  1. I love all the activities you do with the boys!!
    Jodie
    www.jtouchofstyle.com
    #FabFridayPost

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! I sure do try and keep life interesting for us.

      Delete
  2. Your kids are so creative! Love those silly band creations. And love the cute otters...my favorite zoo animal!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My boys love the otters too! They are so fun to watch.

      Delete
  3. Wow! That is a lot of baking. We need to set aside a week to do that too. I love apple pie. What a fantastic week of learning.
    Blessings, Dawn

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you! It sure was a lot but I do find that every now and the it's fun to have a baking week or a cooking week.

      Delete
  4. What an Amazing week you all have had! I can never do looms. I don't think I have enough patience for it. lol! Those cupcakes looks delicious too!

    Thank you so much for linking up with us on #FabFridayPost

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Share Our Lives: 5 Items I Can't Live Without

Prime Purchases in February 2023

Let's Look At... Our Grocery haul