JoAnna's Chicken

When I first came to La Grande, I was looking into going to college... more than 20 years ago!!  I was here with my best friend and her cousin and we were staying at their relative's home.  Her name was JoAnna and she was a school teacher.  For dinner she made this chicken and it's been a staple at my house ever since.

two chicken breasts... the crumbs are so completely addicting!

JoAnna's Chicken

4 bone-in chicken leg quarters
2 cups of bread crumbs
1 cup of shredded cheddar cheese
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. pepper
1/2 tsp. garlic
3/4 cup of butter, melted

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Combine bread crumbs, cheese, salt, pepper and garlic in a gallon size ziploc bag.  Coat the chicken pieces with the melted butter then dip them into the crumb mixture and place them in a 9x13 baking dish.  Pour the leftover butter and crumb mixture over the top of the chicken and bake for about 1 1/4 hours til meat thermometer reads 165 degrees.

Mini Unit Study: Fire Safety

max standing by the "wee-ooo" (his word for any vehicle with a siren!)

Well, since we had moved into our new house quite some time ago, we were clearly overdue for some fire safety training in our new locale!  I set up a mini-unit study on fire safety and we established our place to meet, fire safety rules and floor plan.  We installed two more smoke detectors and learned about the fire escape ladder located upstairs in Janie's room.  We talked about fire safety in the kitchen and throughout the house.  We got great ideas from www.sparky.org including a checklist and a printable floor plan.  They also have games on the site that reinforce what our kids learned.  We stretched the unit study to about a week and finished with a trip to the local fire department with our local homeschool group!  Clearly unit studies don't have to be big and involved.  Pick a little subject and try it for a week.  I love it!  They're really fun!

"It's All Over Over There!"

Finally!  The end of World War Two!  Yikes!  When we began this journey, we had no idea where it would take us.  Because I took on the whole war at once, we merely scratched the surface.  If you choose to do a unit study on World War II, I suggest breaking it up.... study the homefront, rationing, a few battles, a single country... there is so much to this subject that taking it on in bits and pieces is more effective than trying to digest the whole!

props for the presentation

To do this unit study, we did a half hour activity (or active learning) first thing and then 30 more minutes of me reading aloud to the kids.  We decided to read "Anne Frank, Diary of a Young Girl" during this time.  While I read the kids worked on the timeline (more on that later) or drew pictures of what they were hearing me read.  It was tough getting a lot of reading done in that half hour with a three year old and and infant demanding attention.  We found the book to be interesting and boring all at the same time.  It was interesting how they were forced to live during their time of hiding, but naturally repetitious.  Because it became a bit of a drudge and because the kids had watched a movie based on the book, we settled for reading only half the book and then the epilogue.  We spent an hour one morning whispering to see how difficult it must've been for the residents of the Secret Annex on a daily basis to protect themselves from discovery.  In retrospect, I would've tried "The Hiding Place" by Corrie Ten Boom instead.  Actually, I've never read that book but I was disappointed that Anne Frank made little or no reference to her faith in her diary.  It was sad to me that they hid, suffered and died because of their religious beliefs and yet it did not seem to play a pivotal role in their daily life.
Alright, beyond Anne Frank, we learned a lot through a movie that we watched called "The 1940s House".  The movie was a bit of a documentary that chose a modern family to place in a house and situations fashioned exactly like one would find in England in the 1940s.  It's about a three hour movie but well worth the time.  We also watched "D-day to Berlin".  This is a much shorter documentary that moved along rather quickly and showed real and up-close footage of the war.  It certainly made an impact with the children.
Aside from movies and books, the kids did a trivia game, made yellow Stars of David out of popsicle sticks, a model of a bomb shelter and made a rather impressive timeline!  During the presentation, Mitch did a sock puppet show that was the fastest summary of the war ever given!  Janie did a detailed report on Anne Frank.  Her read aloud was excellent!  That was super exciting for me since reading aloud is really far out of her comfort zone.  Mitch figured out how to drop a "bomb" on his shelter with a straight pin and grenade shaped balloons with a couple of beans in them for weight... that was a big hit with Josiah and Hailey who were here as guests!
We learned a lot, but I have to say that I'm totally burned out!  Maybe next year we'll take on just a portion of the war, but it's gonna be awhile before I have the energy to invest in this subject again!

Coffee With Grandpa

I'm a silly and sentimental girl, but so many things mean so much to me.  Sometimes I hang on to silly things because they belonged to someone I love.  The idea that that person touched the item and used it, even in the most casual way, means the world to me.  It puts them in my life again and again and I love that comforting reminder of them and their impact in my life.
When my mother-in-law passed away I took from the pile of discarded household items a clear glass hand soap dispenser.  She had put some little rocks in it and a sprig of silk flowers to pretty it up.  It was a silly thing but it so reminded me of her.... or the popcorn popper that we finally threw away last month that belonged to my grandmother who passed away more than twenty years ago!  It was decrepit and far past it's prime, but it still worked!  When my best friend passed away, I realized that she was everywhere in my house.  Things she'd touched, pictures on the fridge, things she'd given me... moments we shared were everywhere.  I love that.

My new percolator and a polish pottery mug reminding me of the two people I miss the most in life

This Christmas I got a gift that brought tears to my eyes and still does.  I got a stainless steel percolator with a clear "glass" top.  I got coffee with Grandpa.
When I was little, I would spend the night at my grandparents house on occasion.  Grandma would tuck me in to her bed all covered in pink satin blankets like a princess.  In the morning, I would wake up to hear my Grandpa's deep morning voice and smell the coffee perking just on the other side of the bedroom door.  Grandma would be making breakfast and Grandpa would be sitting at the table in his undershirt waiting for the coffee to be ready and talking to Grandma.  I would crawl out of bed and sit with him and watch the coffee perk up thru the glass top on the percolator and it was such a comforting sound and smell.  Grandma would serve us kids orange juice and Alpha Bits for breakfast.  The rule was that you had to drink your juice first because Grandma couldn't stand the idea of you tasting the sourness of the orange juice after eating the "sweet" cereal!

Grandpa and me at Christmas time

My Grandpa was wonderful to us kids.  He was always happy and never got after us about anything.  I remember going in his room first thing in the morning (before he was even awake!) and my brother and I would run and jump on his bed loudly to wake him up.  Even then, he didn't raise his voice, but treated it as if it were the best alarm clock idea he'd ever seen or heard!  There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of him and miss him greatly, but now, every morning, I get to have coffee with him.  I'm so grateful for the time we shared and the memories I get to keep until I see him again.