German inspired deliciousness!

Around here Thursday means a top speed day always! (Notice I didn't say busy, trying to avoid that word! We are blessed to have lots of things we can do!) We have a heavy load of classes for both boys and Conner has piano lessons Thursday afternoon and my Thursdays have a heavy work load.

Thursday morning Conner made breakfast because I was working and hadn't broken away to make it yet! Good kid! He made scrambled eggs and bacon and heated up English muffins.

 

 

Thursday lunch was grilled cheese sandwiches, baked Lays chips and Apples.  Simple and light but the boys don't mind that lunch once in a while.  I add some turkey or ham to the sandwiches before gilling them. 

When we left for piano lessons Keenan got the potatoes ready for mashed potatoes and rinsed and drained the sauerkraut. He did a great job and got the potatoes cooked without even boiling them over! He is doing better than his mom since I learned from my mom that in order to make good mashed potatoes you MUST turn them on high and walk away until you hear them boiling over and then you have to run into the kitchen saying "Oh, Oh, Oh!!!" and grab them off the burner until they stop boiling over and then turn them down to low! :) Tradition is what it is!

To put dinner together all I did was mash the potatoes with some chicken broth as the liquid. Then we make pork and kraut with gravy. This is another use of the leftover pork shoulder.

Pork and Kraut over Potatoes

2 cups of cooked leftover pork shoulder

3 cups of sauerkraut from a can, rinsed and drained

1tsp Greek seasoning or seasoning of your choice

Cook over medium heat until the moisture is gone and the Sauerkraut starts to brown a bit. Serve over mashed potatoes and top with simple chicken gravy. (My gravy was just chicken broth with a bit of cornstarch added to thicken it).

There was enough left over for at least one person to have that for a leftover meal later, so there was just about enough for 5 people here.

One other thing that I did Thursday night was make the Pico sauce for Friday. We all love Pico but it is one of the most time intensive food products that I make. So I chopped the tomatoes, jalapenos, cilantro and onion and added kosher salt to it all and put it in the fridge so it would be ready to use for breakfast Friday. I don't really have a recipe for this and how hot it is just depends on how much membrane you leave in the your peppers and how hot they were to begin with!

Wednesday

This always seems like a hectic day for us! We seem to rush all day and then supper time sneaks up on us before we know it and we have to be out the door to meeting by 6:40. Because of this tendency I always have leftovers for supper on Wednesday. In the past though, we have been scrounging around trying to find some leftovers for supper but today we had enough for 2 different meals of leftovers.

For breakfast I made scrambled eggs and biscuits. The biscuits take a bit of time but not too bad. I am not a biscuit recipe kind of person so I just dump and mix and sometimes they are great, other times not so much! I always make a bigger batch that I need and then cut them all out but only bake enough for the one meal. The rest go on a sheet in the freezer until they are hard and then into a bag so we can pull out frozen biscuits, pop them on a baking sheet and have hot biscuits that are much better than the canned kind!

For a quick lunch I microwaved a couple chicken sausages from the freezer (we get them at Costco) and the boys had those with the leftover baked beans (which were still not a favorite)! Conner told me he likes the kind grandma makes better...you know, open a can of generic pork and beans and add ketchup, mustard, Worcestershire sauce and brown sugar? Yeah, that is what we will do in the future for Baked beans I guess! Mom and dad had the leftover orange pork and sweet potatoes from Saturday with a green salad.

For supper it was leftover soup. We still had beef stew and the Chicken Taco soup. After supper I put the rest of the leftover soup in smaller containers for the freezer since we have had each of them for a couple different meals and I don't want people getting sick of them. We can pull those out for lunches as time goes on.

Total time spent in the kitchen on Wednesday - about 40 minutes the whole day. The kids do most of the dishes and have for quite some time but yesterday we were getting snowed under so mom took a turn cleaning up the kitchen for a while.

It was much warmer here yesterday and I did get outside for a run but it was still pretty cold! It is always so beautiful though when there is snow on the mountain and snow on the foothills! I love living so close to such beauty.

Tuesday - pork shoulder roast

Some humor to start the day! :) I love this picture....because it is so true!

So.....Tuesday was pulled pork day. Breakfast was very simple, just fried eggs, bacon and cinnamon toast. I threw the pork shoulder roast in the crock pot while I was making breakfast and sprinkled it with some Herbs De Provence and poured a Pepsi over the top. Turned the crock pot down to low and cooked for about 6 hours. In the early afternoon I rounded up the kids and we pulled the pork. Each of us used 2 forks to kind of slide the fat off the outside and then pull the pork apart. That took about 15 minutes with all of us working together...if I had done it alone it might have gone more quickly than that and there surely would have been less cleanup! After all the fat was removed the 5 pound roast yielded about 3.4 pounds of meat for the next few meals!

Lunch was leftover Beef Stew from Saturday and grilled cheese sandwiches.

Actually putting the meal together took about 20 minutes, including everything!


Recipes for dinner:

Barbecue Pork Sandwiches
2 cups of pulled pork
1/2 cup barbecue sauce
Heat together and put on sandwich buns.

Fake Baked Beans
3 15-ounce cans of pinto beans
1/2 cup ketchup
1/3 cup molasses
3T apple cider vinegar
2T spicy brown mustard
splash of Tabasco sauce
fresh ground black pepper
1t liquid smoke
dehydrated onion flakes
Put beans and their liquid in a pot and mix everything else in. Simmer for about 30 minutes or so until thickened.

Disclaimer - This recipe came from "The Wednesday Chef" and I tweaked it a bit for our tastes. We didn't LOVE this one. There was enough for dinner and enough left over for the kids to warm them up and have a Chicken Sausage from the freezer with it for lunch today.

Cole Slaw
Cabbage/dressing. That one is pretty much a "how your family likes it" thing...All I do is use the Marzetti low fat Slaw dressing on cabbage.

Blueberry Honey Greek Yogurt
1 cup Greek yogurt
Drizzle with honey, sprinkle with blueberries (I used frozen) and about a T of sliced toasted almonds.



There is enough of this pork left over to make at least 3 more meals!

Monday - It was a soup kind of day!

Breakfast was leftover breakfast enchiladas from Sunday, and they do rewarm quite nicely.

Lunch was a quick chicken salad, which is a favorite with my kids. It takes a bit of chopping but it is very yummy and healthy!

Chicken Salad

2 cans of chicken breast drained and broken up

2 green onions sliced thin

1/2 red bell pepper diced fine

1/4 cup craisins

1/2 apple diced

1 stalk of celery diced

about 10 snow peas sliced

2T-3T light mayo

Mix it all together and serve in a pita pocket half with a sliced apple and some taro chips for a healthy lunch that doesn't make the kids fall asleep in the afternoon!

Keenan was mostly done with his school stuff in the morning and spent the afternoon cleaning off porches and walks for the older ladies in our neighborhood. He came in very red cheeked and cold but he enjoyed it and got to count it for PE!

While I was chopping things for lunch I put the boys to work opening cans since supper was an easy crock pot soup. I did find out one really great trick! Put the broth and all the fixings in the crock pot and throw in 2 frozen chicken breasts for the meat. After 3-4 hours pull the chicken out and shred it and it is done!

Taco Soup

2 frozen chicken breasts

1 large can of diced tomatoes (I think it was 24 ounces) with juice

2 of those cans full of water

1 generous scoop of chicken bullion (I use the paste)

1 can of Black beans

1 can of garbanozo beans

1 can of kidney or white beans

1 can of pinto beans

1 can of corn

1 pack of taco seasoning

1 pack of ranch dressing mix

1 can of diced green chilis (6oz)

1 small onion diced

Rinse and drain the beans and corn. Throw everything else in the crock pot on high until there is condensation on the lid, then turn to low and cook for 5-6 hours. After 4 hours shred up the chicken with a couple forks and throw back in.

We served this with these tortillas that are uncooked and you cook them 30 seconds on each side on a skillet. They are from Costco.

The best thing about this meal is that there was easily enough left for one more meal for our family of 4! My kids are also learning how to eat leftovers!

An easy breakfast

Sunday was Castle Rock Special Meeting and I wanted to do an easy breakfast since I would be fixing lunches etc. and trying to get out the door. I put together a caserole the night before that turned out to be pretty good but was one of those "sort of" disasters. It took much longer to cook than the recipe indicated so we were waiting on our breakfast, but I believe I will make it again on a work morning since breakfast is the hardest part of those days.

Breakfast enchiladas
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
¼ pound chopped ham
1/3 green chilis from a can
1/3 cup chopped onions
8 small tortillas (corn or flour)
4 eggs
1 cup milk
¼ cup salsa
1 T flour
Ripe olives sliced
Combine cheese, ham, onions and peppers. Place cheese mixture into open tortillas and roll up. Place seam side down in 11x7 baking dish. Beat eggs, milk, salsa anf flour together and pour over tortillas. Cover with foil and refrigerate overnight. Bake at 350 for 45 minutes or until firm (It took over an hour for ours). Eggs will be inside of the tortillas!

These were really delicious and there was enough for 2 breakfasts for our family of 4. I made it a bit more healthy using low fat cheese and whole grain tortillas but it was quite good.

I am sorry that I don't have any pictures of this meal.

Saturday...some delicious food! :)

I have a bit more time to spend in the kitchen on Saturday so I thought we would go a little more elaborate, except that it didn't take very long at all!

I had gotten out some pork chops for lunch but wasn't sure what I was going to do with them but then came across a delicious sounding recipe for orange pork chops. Dinner is going to be Crock Pot Beef Stew.

I got the boys in the kitchen and they started peeling potatoes and carrots for stew while I started cutting things up. Then Keenan Zested the orange while Conner made Corn Casserole for lunch and it all fell into place, including the kids loading and unloading the dishwasher, in about 45 minutes!


Recipes for Lunch

Baked Sweet Potatoes
Wash and cut spots from sweet potatoes and wrap in foil
Throw in the oven and bake at 350 for an hour.
We like to serve them with a little bit of Moooove Over Butter (a light whipped buttermilk spread) With about 1T of brown sugar and a lot of cinnamon mixed in 1/2 cup of the spread.



Corn Casserole
1 can of creamed corn
1 can of whole kernel corn drained
1 package of cornbread mix
1/2 cup of light sour cream
2 eggs
Mix it all together and bake covered at 350 for 1 hour

Seasoned Green Beans
2 cans of green beans
2T dehydrated onions
1/2 tsp pepper
1 slice raw bacon sliced over the top
Simmer on low for 1 hour

Honey Orange Pork Chops
1/3 tsp zested orange peel
1 cup orange juice
1T soy sauce
1 1/2 T honey
1/8t pepper
2 cloves of garlic
4 thick pork chops
Remove as much fat as possible from the pork chops. Mix marinate together and pour over pork chops in baking dish, bake covered at 350 for about 20 minutes, turn over and baste with pan juice. Bake covered another 20 minutes or until internal temp is 165. Then pour pan drippings into sauce pan and add 1T cornstarch to make sauce to pour over chops.

While we were working on all that I was throwing the stuff in the crock pot for Crock Pot Beef Stew for dinner. There should be plenty of leftover Corn Bread Casserole to go with that and hopefully a lot of left over stew for lunches this week!


Crock Pot Beef Stew
2 medium onions, chopped
5 stalks of celery, diced in 1/2 inch slices
6 carrots peeled and diced in 1/2 inch slices
1 red pepper diced in 1 inch pieces
5 med size white potatoes peeled and diced in 1 inch pieces
1 1/2-2 pounds of steak with fat trimmed and chopped in 1 inch pieces. (Use the cheapest steak you can buy!)
1 envelope onion soup mix
1/2 cup dry white wine (cooking sherry)
1 can tomato sauce
3 cups beef broth
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp bay leaves
1/2 tsp rosemary
Turn Crock Pot to high. Throw in all ingredients and cover. As soon as there is condensation on the lid, stir and reduce heat to low and cook 7-8 hours. 1/2 hour before eating add 16 ounces of frozen green beans that have been thawing on the counter. Serve with corn bread or biscuits.

I think I can get this cooking thing figured out to where I am only in the kitchen really once a day except to tie things together! I have been researching a lot of recipes and have decided that if my kids are going to eat here they are going to help with meals!

Thursday's lunch was leftover potato soup for the kids and the last baked potato with a can of chili over the top for Dad. I got to go out for a "girls lunch" with some of my friends and have to admit that my lunch was a very small salad and a very large slice of gingerbread cake with eggnog sauce on top!

For Dinner Thursday night I left Keenan with instructions for getting the chicken in the oven when we left for piano lessons. All he had to do was take it out of the package and dump the half bottle of balsamic vinaigrette on it and put it in the oven at 300 for a couple hours. Then he peeled 5 carrots and washed 5 stalks of celery so when I got home I could make steamed veggies. Added a package of Pasta-Roni and there was dinner.

Recipes for Thursday Dinner -
Chicken
5 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
1/2 bottle of Newman's Own Light Balsamic Vinegrette salad dressing
Bake at 300 for 2 hours

Veggies
5 carrots
5 stalks of celery
1 medium onion
1/4 head of cabbage sliced
1 head of broccoli
All veggies are sliced on the diagonal into about 1/2 inch thick slices.
1 cup chicken broth
Greek seasoning
Saute onions for a few minutes on medium in some Pam. Then layer the rest of the veggies in a large flat skillet or wok. Pour chicken broth over the top, sprinkle with seasoning and cover tightly with lid. Turn to high and steam for 3-5 minute until veggies are just warm through


We had enough chicken left over so lunch the next day was chopped up chicken and cheese and onions in tortillas, either rolled up or quesidilla style, whichever they wanted. I didn't want the fat of all that cheese so I simply had a repeat of the night before.

With about 1/2 of one chicken breast left - breakfast will be coming from that.

Dinner Friday night was just Taco Bell as mom was tired and had work to do and dad offered to buy! :)

Our life....when I have time to update! :)

Lately my biggest challenge has been how to create enough hours in the day to get everything done. The one thing that seems to suffer and frustrate me the most is creating meals for everyone 3 times a day and still have time to get to the kids schooling, my work etc.

I have been working to try to create meals that have components that can be used for the next meal. One thing there is never a shortage of in our freezer is a variety of soups and chili that have been left over previously.

So....here was my first attempt at that idea, trying to spend less time in the kitchen but still have healthy meals. -

Yesterday before my run I threw 10 medium sized potatoes in the oven and made baked potatoes.

Lunch recipes:
Loaded baked potato
1 Baked potato
Cover with leftover chili or canned chili
Top with shredded cheese and diced green onions.

Baked potato soup
3 baked potatoes diced
1/2 onion diced
1 head of broccoli plus the stem (peel it to get to the tender part) diced up
6 ounces diced ham
4 cups chicken broth
Dill weed
Boil together until broccoli is tender
Add 1 cup of milk
2 ounces of velveeta cheese
Top with 1 slice of crispy bacon.

Serve with biscuits - you can make and freeze them before baking, then just pull out of the freezer and pop on a pan and bake them.



There are still 4 potatoes left so breakfast this morning is going to involve dicing a potato up and tossing it with an onion and frying it in Pam, then we will mix eggs in and scramble it all.

3 meals without too much effort, all from tossing potatoes in the oven.

In other news: School is going well this fall.

Conner is a 9th grader and using a program that uses NovaNet and has concurrent enrollment for college credit (he starts those classes next fall). He has finished Algebra I, English 9, American History I and is currently working on Geography and Earth Science. They work in modules and have to finish an entire years worth of work and take the semester test in about a month. So far he really likes this way of doing things and is doing very well. His final semester test grade for Algebra was a 92, which just blows me away considering how hard that class was for his mom!

Conner and his dad had a project this fall with an older laptop computer that the charging port quit working on. Conner found out that YouTube can teach you how to do anything and he was able to get the computer completely deconstructed and then put back together and it all worked! Sadly, the charging port was not the final problem and there was a short on the mother board so that computer is now in the graveyard! The project was surely educational though!

Keenan is in 7th grade this year and is flying through his curriculum. He loves science and is doing VERY well with that. He recently got to dissect a clam and find all the important parts of that. He has almost finished all the literature component for the year because he loves to read so much. His challenge project for this year is to write children's books explaining math concepts. He has finished one and is starting on the 2nd.

Have a wonderful Thursday everyone!

A little interruption....

Then back to catching up.

Sometimes, especially on a Sunday where we don't have a lot going on in the afternoon, we will allow the kids to take turns picking out, shopping for, and making something different from our usual diet.

Today was Keenan's turn. I was a little surprised when he picked Tabbouleh salad, Roasted red pepper hummus and Naan flat bread. So...off to Google and All Recipes and I found what I needed.

Tabbouleh is a Middle Eastern salad that is made of Bulgar wheat (a kind of cracked wheat) that is boiled in chicken broth, 2 cups of broth and 1 cup of Bulgar. Then you cool it down and add a LOT of fresh parsley chopped up, a couple sprigs of fresh mint chopped up, the juice of a couple lemons, some chopped up cucumbers and tomatoes, a bit of garlic and a couple tablespoons of olive oil. Toss it all together and let it marinate for a couple hours in the fridge.

The roasted red pepper hummus is just a can of chickpeas, drained and rinsed, about 1/2 cup of roasted red peppers from a jar, some cumin and salt and pepper and about 2T of olive oil. Put it all in the blender and puree until soft and smooth. Then you spread that on pitas or Naan.

The Naan, well, by that time I was tired of working on new recipes and didn't have time to figure out what Ghee was (clarified butter in case you are wondering) so we bought some at the health food store. It is like a soft pita bread that is a little bit fluffier. The next time I will make it because then I could use wheat flour.

All in all, this was a delicious dinner that we all loved! Thanks Keenan for having an interesting palate!

November.....

I am looking back on the month of November and trying to remember what we did, and basically it seems like it was school, Lego Robotics, School, School and School! I guess we didn't do much fun stuff in November though. We were kind of "on call" for some friends who were expecting a baby and needed us to watch the 3 year old, but that didn't happen until December.

I did spend a weekend with a friend's kids in November and had fun with that. In fact, I even took the little boy fishing, at his request. This is the first time in my life I have ever handled live fish...it was an experience to say the least! But, the fish was delicious, the pond was gorgeous, and I believe we will be going fishing with the boys this summer! I even learned, through the verbal instruction from W, how to gut and clean a fish....since he was too squeamish to actually do it! He was QUITE impressed that a mom would touch guts. (So was I)!


Here is a picture of the lake at Green Mountain Falls, where we went fishing. This is just a cell phone picture so it doesn't do justice to the gorgeous colors that were present, but it was truly a beautiful day! The reason Conner and Keenan didn't go with us to experience fishing is that they and Kevin were in Denver at a model train show with an older man that has really taken a shine to them. They got to see all kinds of model train setups, including, get this, a LEGO one! Of course they had a ball and Conner now has an idea for a hobby kicking around in his head....a hobby for when he is a grown up and has lots of space and money to spare, since it is apparently quite expensive!

On Thanksgiving, Kevin and the boys met up in La Junta with G'ma, G'pa, Aunt C and M&M. Aunt P and Uncle H were there too. They had a good day and it was pretty nice out so the kids hung out outside most of the day. I stayed home on baby watch, and had a deliriously relaxing mom day, all alone in the house!

During the month of November the Virtual Academy required each of the boys to formulate and submit a pretty extensive lab report and they did that, through much complaining! But it was good for them to have the experience....(at least that was what I told them)! It wasn't so much about the lab even, as just learning the formal, proper way to fill in a lab report. However, the grades that they got back from the teachers were less than stellar. When I contacted the teachers to see why, the answer I got was "Conner provided way more information that was necessary". Well SHAME ON HIM! I told him that for the purposes of the virtual academy we will do what is expected, but in the real world we know that doing prior research and going into an experiment with some concepts and ideas in place is NEVER a bad thing!

We are very fortunate to have the option of a virtual academy and have access to the K12 curriculum without paying for it, but sometimes the "requirements" from the school get a little tedious. We will, of course, continue to fulfill the requirements in order to have access to the education opportunity, but we definitely do a LOT of modification. Also, our expectations seem to be a LOT higher than the VA! Imagine that. For example, they expect that by May, the kids will have completed 80% of the curriculum in order to advance to the next grade level. Well, it is the end of January and they have completed 60% in everything right now! And I have told them that 80% isn't good enough and we will be completing 100% and probably still be done before May!

Virtual Academies, in states where they are permitted, are really a wonderful option, but the bottom line is that they are a public school, full of public school teachers, that must fulfill the requirements of public school...so there is still a lot of bureaucracy. However, we are grateful for the guidelines of the curriculum and we continue to modify it to fulfill our requirements and expectations of education and at least they will graduate with a high school diploma.

Lego Robotics

Last August, when we signed up to do an activity called Mind Storm First Lego League, we had no idea what we were getting in for! It seemed like a fun little Lego related activity....

Well, it was Lego related, some days were fun, but there was nothing little about this! For about 2 months it seemed to completely dominate our lives, leading up to the competition. I think they learned some things about being prepared, putting all of yourself into what you do (or the results of NOT putting all of yourself into what you do!) and the cost of doing something well. They had to create a project idea and present that to judges, program their robot to do certain tasks (and actually duplicate those for judges), do a teamwork competition and answer technical questions about their robot.

Here is our scared little bunch trying to act like it was "no big deal" on competition day.

The technical interview, AKA the only time the robot did everything it was supposed to that day!

The teamwork challenge. They were "judged" based on how they interacted, how the solved the problem and how tall their paper tower was.

Waiting for scores. They made friends with another home school team of all boys, in the blue costumes behind them. That team was one of the top placers of the day.

Running up to get their medals for the day.

The boys loved the robot and are looking forward to hopefully getting one of their own someday in the future, but they are not sure that they loved the competition part of it all. Since there are college scholarships associated with this, there are some teams that are VERY dedicated. So much so that according to Keenan "they are a little scary!" I think that next year we will order the kit and do the tasks at home, without the whole competition aspect of it.

Here is the video that I actually managed to capture of the only time the program worked in all the aspects the entire day! The robots are apparently pretty notorious for being inconsistent but they got it to work through all of its tasks on the first try in the technical interview. There are several possible tasks that the robot can be programmed to do but as a rookie team they didn't go too overboard, and if the robot performed properly they managed to get 4 tasks completed. Interestingly enough, the most consistent one throughout the day was the one that the programmed on the fly the day of the competition!

Happy New Year

And one of my resolutions...well, actually I only made two! One is to blog weekly, the other is to try to make school more FUN for the kids.

So, in light of the first one, blogging weekly, I am going to get started by backtracking a little bit to try to bring things up to date on this blog.



Art project from Keenan. They had to make a mask; so he made a "death mask".

The week after Bird City we went to visit mom and dad Lerwick in NE and had a great time with cousins...playing etc. We even got to see a soccer game that Kate was in and cheer her on. Then on the way home we had a field trip at the Aquarium in Denver. The kids got to take a "behind the scene's tour" that was really neat. They were able to see the tops of the tanks, what they do to keep the water healthy, where they prepare food for the animals etc. Then we even got to see the divers go in with the sharks!


Kate's Soccer Game

The Aquarium tour


Conner also had the privilege, through school, to do a WWII reenactment in the mountains near Colorado Springs. This was in October and he took his friend Alex along...they had a lot of fun but were not impressed by the MRE (actual meal ready to eat that the US Army gets fed) that they got to try out...in fact I think the term "cat food" may have been used to describe at least one of the dishes. They were "taken in" when they first got there and got their uniforms and paybooks. Then they had about 2.5 hours of education about uniforms, weapons, vehicles etc.
After that they ate their MREs and then it was off to the battlefield. They were divided into 3 groups, the Americans, Germans and Russians. About midway they all had to switch teams and play for the other side of the battle. No one was 100% sure who won these particular battles, but they got to throw smoke bombs, roll around on the ground and hide behind trees so it was all good!


Here are a few of the adults that had a lot of fun educating our kids!

After the "battle" which they thought was great fun

Well, last week we went to Bird City and had a wonderful time there, well until Sunday morning when Conner came down with the stomach flu bug. We stayed for the morning meeting and then took Conner, a bucket, lots of clorox wipes and headed home. We made it after only about 4 or 5 stops for sickness (and this mama doesn't do well with the whole vomiting thing!) and he slept it off, felt fine by Monday morning. So far, no one else is sick...

They are doing fine with school, making good progress. The goal is 3% a week on the curriculum. So far we have not had any trouble keeping up with that. We have started blocking by week, so an example of our week would be:
Monday: 5 math lessons and 1 history
Tuesday: 5 reading lessons and 1 history
Wednesday: 3 science lessons and 2 history
Thursday: 7 language arts lessons (includes grammar, composition and vocabulary)
Friday: 2 art, 1 music (for Keenan) and 2-3 Spanish (for Conner and that number depends on how many he fit in other days of the week).

Sometimes the kids don't block the same thing on the same day so that my attention can be one kid while the other does something more independent.

And now, just to be fair....a narrative essay by Conner. This one has been about 3 weeks in the writing as Conner absolutely does not like to be rushed!

My First Companion

As Dan Greenberg said, “Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near perfect method of writing avoidance”. I have been cat watching my whole life. This is the story of Forrest Gump, my first companion, and the many interesting things we did together. And yes, in case you were wondering, cat watching is a real distraction, from all kinds of important things. But it is such a fun activity.

Some children have an older brother or sister meet them when they come home from the hospital, but Forest Gump was waiting for me when I came home from the hospital. You may be wondering who Forest Gump is. Well, he was a Siamese cat that my parents got when they first got married. I suppose you wonder how he got the name Forest Gump. My parents got this cat about the same time they saw the movie Forest Gump. Our cat had lots of enthusiasm about everything he did but he was still petty slow about some things, like learning not to jump on the toilet seat when it was open and trying to get out from under the table when all the chairs were pushed in, since he was cross-eyed you see. When Forest was about 4 years old, everything in his world changed because my mom and dad brought home a baby.

A big brother might be disappointed to have a baby that couldn’t do anything come home from the hospital but Forest Gump and I loved to watch each other from the very beginning. My first day home I had to be under these ultraviolet lights for jaundice, or something wrong with my blood. The lights came in a little suitcase thing and my eyes had to be covered up with little glasses because the bright light would hurt my eyes. Forest was very curious and kept jumping up on the stand where I was laying in the lights but mom and dad were worried he would hurt his eyes so they had to keep chasing him away. Some cats are scared of noises but Forest was never scared about my crying. If I ever started crying, mom told me that he would come right in to check on me. One time my dad was gone for work for a few days and my mom was really tired and she didn’t hear me crying. Not to worry though, Forest was looking out for me! He jumped on my mom’s bed and kept pushing on her head until she woke up! As soon as I started moving around, Forest was always there, just a few steps behind me.

What a strange sight that must have been! A little boy and his cat sized shadow, traipsing around like they were two brothers who could not be separated. What was common between playtime and quiet time? My constant companion Forrest Gump. Whatever I did when I was playing he was always right there but unfortunately many of the things I did, he couldn’t really participate in. Well, except for messing up my Lincoln Log Houses, knocking my wooden trains off the track and mixing up piles of Legos. One time though, we had a toy we both agreed was the best, a cardboard box. You probably wonder why a cat and a 3 year old had so much fun with a box. This was a special box. For starters it was huge and my dad helped me make a 3 sided square hole for a door and another for a window. As soon as I left my little box house, Forrest would go inside and then poke his nose out the window to spy on all of us. We had the greatest time with me putting a string through the window so he could attack it. We shared quiet time too. Whenever I sat down on the couch to look at picture books, the next thing I knew, Forrest would be sitting next to me with his chin on my leg. It was almost as if he were reading along. I am sure I read a few stories out loud to him too, since cats are such great listeners!

The next stage in life was when I had to leave Forrest to go to school. We still stayed best friends though and he would sit on the fence and watch for my bus to come home, kind of like Lassie. When I raced up the hill his scratchy “meow” would greet me every day. He often wondered around the neighborhood during the day but somehow he always knew what time to be watching for me because every day, there he was, balanced on the top rail of the wooden fence around our small back yard. He loved that perch, like a hawk on an old oak branch, he could watch everything that went on in the park across the street and in our own back yard. He loved to sit there and watch my brother and I dig trenches and build construction sites in the back yard. He was probably the most patient cat that ever lived. Sometimes little boys can be pretty ornery. They get crazy ideas that there is just no explanation for. One day my brother and I thought it would be a good idea to use the orange hairspray my mom had gotten for crazy hair day at school and spray paint Forrest Gump. I am not sure what we were pretending but we were in Make Believe World. Even though Forrest got a bath out of the whole deal, he didn’t seem to have any hard feelings towards us, since he still waited for us after school, from his spot on the fence, and greeted us with a smile and “hello” in his own language. He had been there every day of my life, I just never thought of life without Forrest Gump.

The thing is, no matter how much we love them, animals get older. Somehow, I guess I didn’t understand what it meant when he started dragging his legs in the winter and couldn’t jump on things as well. My mom said things about arthritis but I didn’t have any idea what that meant. He seemed to sleep more but we could still get him to chase a string or a ball sometimes. Then he started to get ear infections all the time and didn’t feel well enough to even sit on the fence and wait for us, but when we were sitting on the couch or playing games on the floor he was always right there. Then one day when I was happily sitting at my desk at school, my mom and dad came to the door of my classroom. By the looks on their faces, I knew that it was bad news. They asked me to come with them and my brother Keenan to the car, but didn’t tell me why. Once we were in the car, they explained that we had to go to the vet’s office. Mom had taken Forrest into the vet that day for another ear infection but his ear had started to bleed. The vet couldn’t get it to stop and the only treatment was a really serious surgery that would make him deaf. Mom and dad explained that it didn’t make sense to put him through the surgery when he was almost 14 years old and he probably wouldn’t be happy if he were deaf, if he did live through the surgery. Besides that, the surgery cost way more money that we had right then. I still didn’t understand where they were going with this but then they explained that the best way to take care of an animal who was this sick would be to give him medicine to make him sleep forever. I felt sad and mad and a little sick to my stomach to think about that.

Forrest had been my best friend since I was born and to think of life without him didn’t make much sense. Who would I talk to? Who would meet me after school? Who would listen to me when I was mad or sad? Who would listen to my crazy ideas that other people laughed at? But what mom and dad said did make sense. Forrest couldn’t live with a bleeding ear and I couldn’t imagine him not being able to hear. He loved to sit on the fence but that wouldn’t be safe if he could not hear dogs or other dangerous animals coming close. He would have to be locked inside all the time and that wouldn’t make him happy. Besides, the surgery would be very dangerous and painful for him. I realized I would have to say goodbye to Forrest forever. Mom and dad took us into the room where the vet was with Forrest and they explained that they would put a needle in his leg and put some medicine in and he would just go to sleep. Mom and dad wanted us to say goodbye and then go out and let the vet take care of them. But I said “No way!” I wouldn’t let Forrest go through that alone. So we stayed in the room and hugged and kissed him while he left us. Then we cried all the way home. When we got home I just stood outside the door, by his spot on the fence, and remembered. I don’t know how long I stood there, but I couldn’t seem to move away.

After 10 years of cat watching, suddenly I found myself without any distractions. I guess I should have become the best writer around but somehow things didn’t turn out that way. It seems that easily distracted people can always find something to be distracted by. It probably wasn’t my cat that was distracting me, but something inside my own head, or maybe my little brother! It has been 3 years now and while I still miss Forrest, now I have 3 other distractions to my learning, Dexter and Ginger, our new kittens, and Keenan, my younger brother. It seems like as good of excuse as any to quote Dan Greenberg and say, “Cats are dangerous companions for writers because cat watching is a near perfect method of writing avoidance.”

Keenan had to write an essay today, and I thought it was worth sharing! I still don't necessarily agree with the whole "format" writing thing that is taught these days, but I understand that when they are tested on it they have to all write the same. We sort of deviate from that a bit. He obviously has some things to learn about paragraphing and things like that, but he has come a long way from his first essay this year.

Enjoy his personal narrative paragraph.

Barr Trail

“Ahhhhhhgggg! Stupid game! Just when I almost win, something happens!” My mom said it sounded like we needed to plan a day tomorrow that didn’t have anything to do with computers! “We need to do something for exercise tomorrow, how about swimming?”, nagged my mom, again with that exercise thing! “All the pools are too expensive and the YMCA is a letdown”, explained Conner. “I know! Hiking!” I exclaimed. “Great idea, how about Barr Trail?” suggested mom. “Sure”, we all agreed. The next morning, after my dad left to slave away at work all day, we got our water, lunch, and snacks ready to go. We all piled in the car and took off. When we finally drove into Manitou, the place was packed with people, all kinds of people! It took forever to arrive at the trail head through all the traffic and people walking every which way. Finally, we started up the trail, up, and up, and UP! I kept stopping to rest and whine, because I thought I couldn’t do it. Then we saw a poor bedraggled little 6 year old boy who had wiped out and torn up his knee and his face after climbing all the way up the incline. He was being so tough that I started to feel a little stupid about the way I was acting! I took off and got way ahead of mom and Conner, and wouldn’t you know, I got in trouble for breaking that safety rule about staying where mom could see me. But I have to admit, it just felt great to take off and do it! It took us 2 ½ hours to arrive at the 4 mile point but it only took 40 minutes to walk and run back down. It was almost 2:30 when we got to the car and Manitou was almost deserted! We stopped and Sonic and purchased ice cream to help us cool down before we went home. We had an amazing day after all, even though I complained a lot at the beginning. I cannot wait to try it again, and this time I won’t have a negative attitude at the beginning, just focus on having fun!