This was the very end of my month for groceries.  I had a frozen lasagna and pulled that out to bake it for dinner.

I served it with some green beans.  I forgot how nice it is to just take out a frozen dinner and bake it–no fuss..  This was good for two meals.

Then we wanted to make these pumpkin pudding dessert cups that we had eaten years ago.  So we made them in phyllo cups.  Very easy to make and they all enjoyed eating them.

Then we had plenty of pudding mixture leftover so we decided to make a pumpkin trifle out of the leftover pumpkin cookies we made last week–they were getting a little stale and the pudding mixture and some candy Butterfinger pieces.  It was good.

Then I picked up some nacho chips and we had nachos for a meal. We then made a pot of cheeseburger soup

We served it with chicken ranch sandwiches.  My girlfriend said they were called “crack chicken”  I didn’t understand why, until we tried them:) They were good. I then had a meal already prepared for my day of shopping. It was chicken chunks and I put some boxed stuffing over top with a cream soup base.  I served it with some cous cous, broccoli, and cottage cheese.

Then I did shopping the next day, but we opted to order take out and bring it home. My family enjoys Hot Dog World–so we got that. Nothing beats a Carolina Hot Dog:)  I also tried their taco salad and that was very good.

Now that I have all of my food for the month, I am going to do something different that I haven’t done in a few years—I am going to make all of my meals for the month and then freeze them—no worries about what to make, it will already be done:)  Keep watching to see how I do…..have a blessed day!

Last week, we had our monthly homeschool gathering at our local library.  We plan one gathering at the library each month and then do a couple of field trips throughout the month. This month we are going to head to the Greenville Zoo and the Cradle of Forestry in Pisgah Forest.

What we did for our October gathering was to make a step book based on Me on the Map.

It was to show how you can incorporate step books for any class.  You can do one for science, history, or even based on an autobiography of a person.

We started out the step book by each child’s room, then their home, their street, their city, their state, their country, their continent, and then their world.   We used regular printing paper and cut them so that we could get two books from each page.

The older girls then made some yarn pumpkins.  We showed them how you could make them and then make more to tie onto some twine to make a fall garland.  You basically wind orange yarn around your two fingers about 150 times.  Then tie a separate piece around the middle.  Puff to make a pumpkin shape.  Use a green pipe cleaner for the stem. One of the girls cut the loops and made more of a puff ball pom pom pumpkin–it was cute.

The younger ones did some sticker pages from Johnny Appleseed that I bought from Oriental Trading.   

We had some apple slices and heated up some caramel in the microwave for a  snack.

The younger ones also made a slice of pumpkin pie.  Take  a paper plate and cut it into 5 pie slices.  Each child colored the plate brown to make it look like pumpkin pie. Let them glue on a cotton ball and sprinkle on some cinnamon.

We also gave away some Harvest snack mix.  It was a yummy mix of salty and sweet snacks. 

We ended our fun afternoon at the park for a couple more hours of playtime for the children and some walking time for Mom’s:)

If you feel alone in this homeschooling journey, start with something small, I started this group a couple of years ago after moving here from out of state.  It was just one other mom and myself for almost the first year.  The second year, we had a few more moms come, and now this year, we are growing even more.  It takes time to grow with relationships and meeting new people.  Stay encouraged, pray and ask God  something that you can do, to help expand your group of friends:)  Be blessed today!