The Walnut Acre Daily - Cheesy Ranch Biscuits And More

Words to Live By

Psalm 103:1-2

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Praise the Lord, my soul;

all my inmost being, praise His holy name.

Praise the Lord, my soul,

and forget not all His benefits. 

In the Kitchen

I decided to try a new biscuit variation for dinner this evening and came up with these Cheesy Ranch Biscuits. They were good and this recipe easily fed us all plus I had some leftovers for breakfast tomorrow which is a win for me. 

Cheesy Ranch Biscuits

5 cups Homemade Biscuit Mix

1 cup shredded low fat American Cheese (I would have used Cheddar if I would have had some on hand)

1 cup water

1 cup milk

1/8 cup Homemade Ranch Seasoning

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F. 

Mix all ingredients together to make a soft dough. Drop by spoonfuls onto lightly greased baking sheets. 

Bake for 10 minutes or until golden. 

Yield: 24 

Outdoor Fun

These pictures are from yesterday. Michael and I went out in the snow/sleet for a little. I wanted to try to make a little snowman but every time I started Michael would run through and step on it, daring me to a snowball fight. So a snowball fight it was. I love that goofy kid!

Just For Fun

CJ, Mykalin and Michael spent a large part of the morning putting on concerts. CJ got a mic stand for Christmas and he did such a good job of sharing with Michael who was truly obsessed with it! 

Michael and Mykalin played with Michael's two new playdough sets this afternoon during quiet time. 

I think Christmas wore Lauren and Madalyn out - they did a lot of this today. 

Today's Quote

I have often noticed that when chickens quit quarreling over their food they often find that there is enough for all of them. I wonder if it might not be the same with the human race.  ~ Don Marquis

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The Walnut Acre Daily - Spiced Sweet Potato Bread and More

Words to Live By

Luke 1:68-70

Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because He has come to His people and redeemed them. He has raised up a horn of salvation  for us in the house of His servant David (as He said through His holy priests of long ago)

Homeschool Fun

This morning the Damien, Lauren and Michael watched Story of John the Baptist and Pretty Angel to go along with our Jesse Tree readings. They also watched Letter G Song and Numbers Help Me Count. Our worksheets came from

Coloring Pages for Kids (G coloring page),

DLTK (Aa is for Angel Worksheet),

and

3 Dinosaurs (Which One is Different Worksheet).

We also reviewed the -ag word family.

Austin and Amanda studied Prime Numbers in math and the body's Circulatory System in Science.

Books We Enjoyed Today

I read the first three books with the little kids (Michael, Lauren and Damien) for storytime. The next two are the books I read with CJ  before bedtime. The last book is the one I am reading myself.

In the Kitchen

We had oatmeal and fruit for breakfast this morning, leftovers from the last couple days for lunch and Amanda fixed Hamburger Helper Stroganoff, corn and fruit for dinner.

Amanda also made two loaves of Spiced Sweet Potato Bread this morning and we had some for snack this afternoon.

Spiced Sweet Potato Bread

2 cups sugar

1 cup vegetable oil

4 eggs

2/3 cup water

2 cups cooked, mashed sweet potatoes

2 teaspoons ground nutmeg

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 1/2 teaspoons salt

1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans.

In mixing bowl combine sugar, oil and eggs. Beat until smooth. Add water and beat until well blended. Stir in pumpkin, nutmeg, allspice,  cinnamon, and cloves. 

Add dry ingredients to pumpkin mixture and blend just until well mixed. 

Pour batter into loaf pans and bake in preheated oven until toothpick comes out clean, about 1 hour. 

Outdoor Fun

The kids played outside for about a half hour this morning. I had thought I would let them go back out this afternoon but the temperature started dropping and the wind picked up so I decided to keep them in.

Just For Fun

They didn't get to go outside and play this afternoon but they sure did have fun playing with playdough. 

I don't know how Amanda managed to cook dinner with this menagerie under her feet!

Daily Quote

We have to pray with our eyes on God, not on the difficulties. ~ Oswald Chambers

Daily Deals

Why I Write the Walnut Acre Daily

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Playdough Pattern Fun

Our current focus in math with the younger kids is patterns. We've enjoyed some videos and worksheets on patterns but their favorite activity so far is making patterns with playdough. The first day we did this I used two colors - blue and green. I simply made blue and green circles with marker in patterns and then had the kids put the correct color of playdough on each circle. The second time we did this I used blue, green, yellow and red. I rolled the playdough balls ahead of time but kids who are able and have the patience could do this for themselves. It's a fun sensory experience (and this homemade playdough is peppermint scented, adding to the sensory fun) as well as math. 

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The Walnut Acre Daily - Catching Up . . . Again

Since school has started and since I had appendicitis I have had a hard time keeping up here. I want to write but before I know it the day is gone and I'm exhausted.

So here I am, trying to catch up again. The main thing that has happened since I've last posted is Michael's sleep study.

We went Tuesday to see the sleep specialist and she agreed that we should do a sleep study to see if we can find out why Michael has such restless sleep. I was surprised when it was scheduled for Saturday night. I was expecting a longer wait, but I was glad to get in quickly. In these pictures he's already had his night time meds and is getting really sleepy. He was a little more wired up than most sleep study patients because not only were they watching for sleep apnea and restless leg syndrome but also for any seizure activity during his sleep. He did so well allowing the technician to get him all set up and he went to sleep quickly. He was restless although I've seen it much worse before. I'm hoping they got enough information to help us understand what is going on at night. We should know in about two weeks when we get the results back.

We got home in time Sunday morning to go to church. I hadn't expected to get back that early and Doug was going to let my Sunday School class just come in with his. Since I was earlier than I had expected I hurriedly put together the supplies for my Sunday School class. Our lesson was on how God supplies all our needs. I took along some playdough to use with the lesson. At first we used the play dough to play a guessing game. One person would pick up a card with a word on it describing a need that God supplies - water, food, shelter, etc. - and then make something with the playdough to illustrate that word while the other person guessed. After we played that my one student wanted to make some other things with the playdough so we made these critters and talked about how God supplies their needs as well. Somehow a snowman showed up for the discussion too.

Sunday afternoon I had choir practice and then Sunday evening their was a group singing at church that we went to hear.

And here are a few pictures from today. Lauren brought cookies and blueberry muffins this morning and they were very good. Lauren and Michael put on a little concert for us. And CJ was busy crafting as usual. 

Hopefully I'll do a little better now about posting regularly. I miss it when I don't get here to update.

Oatmeal Playdough and Nature Fun

Michael has been asking to play with playdough for the last few days but almost everything we had was dried out. The little bit that was still good was not enough for all the kids who were going to want to play too if we got it out. So this morning while they were playing outside I made a batch of playdough. 

I usually use the same recipe each time I make playdough because it's such a good, simple recipe. But I decided to do something different today just to give the kids a different experience. Here is what I made today.

Oatmeal Playdough

8 cups oatmeal

7 - 8 cups flour

4 cups water

Measure out 8 cups oatmeal and 4 cups flour into large mixing bowl. Add water and mix well. Add remaining flour gradually until dough is desired stiffness. This gets pretty stiff and you may have to mix it with your hands. 

Amanda had the kids help her gather supplies from outside to use with the playdough - small sticks, leaves, walnuts, and some gravel. I picked some flowers to add as well. We also added some plastic animals and trees.

So when the kids came in from playtime this is what they found waiting for them.

It didn't take them long to dig in and start creating. 

I loved the things they came up with!

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Dinosaurs and Playdough

The last few days have been hot and muggy so after taking advantage of the coolest part of the morning outside, we've been coming back in and playing with playdough and the dinosaur playset.

These dinosaurs had so much fun in  playdough land!

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Playdough, Do A Dot Paint and More

I've posted here, here and here about how much we've had this week in the garden. And I've posted about our fun learning about trees. But we've also had fun with other activities this week as well.

Here are some of them.

Several weeks ago I bought nine of these colorful tote bags and began filling them with quiet time activities.

Wednesday morning I brought them out and explained that these were full of things that were only for quiet times. Each bag has an animal playset, coloring pages, crayons, stickers and a notebook. I will change the activities in the bags from time to time to keep it interesting. They really enjoyed them and were busy with them for about 30 minutes.

Do-a-dot paints are still a favorite. This week's painting papers are the letters Aa - Ee from DLTK's Dot Art section.

Playdough fun

Playing with Roni

Going for rides

Going places in the "car"

Playing "steal the hat"

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