Today, Ash Wednesday, begins the Lenten season – the 40 days that we prepare for and reflect on the Resurrection.

Not many Protestant traditions formally practice Lent, but our family has been so enriched by our growing participation in the Church calendar, that I wanted to share some resources  that may help you decide how to observe this season as well.

Not all of these are Protestant, and some are inter-denominational. One of the things I enjoy most about celebrating the seasons of our faith is that it brings unity with followers of Christ across all lines. Thank you to friends who have pointed these resources out to me.

Printable Lent Calendar for Children

On Keeping a Holy Lent (PCA Conversations)

Journey to the Cross Devotionals

40 Ideas for Lent (Rachel Held Evans)

40 Days for Life Devotionals (pro-life focus)

Lenten Resources (mostly food related) from Kitchen Stewardship (Catholic)

Free Lent Devotional Book Ann Voskamp

Thankfully, my family is very amenable to trying new things, and since I keep the ingredients pretty simple, it very rarely comes out inedible. This masterpiece concoction was inspired by having a recently delivered 1/4 cow (local and grass fed!!!) and cottage cheese and sweet potatoes that desperately needed used up!

I did my customary google ingredient search and the most enticing thing that came up was this “Cottage Pie,” but alas it didn’t contain any cottage cheese. So… here’s what we ended up doing instead. It was delicious!

Sweet Potato Cottage Cheese Casserole

Ingredients:

1/2 large onion, diced
2 large sweet potatoes
1lb ground beef
16ozs cottage cheese (I used 4% small curd)
1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese
butter

Directions:

Peel, chop, and boil sweet potatoes until soft. Drain and set aside.
Sautee diced onion with butter in skillet until translucent, add ground beef and cook until done. Drain if necessary.
Combine all ingredients except cheddar in skillet if you have room, or directly in the buttered casserole dish you’ll use for baking (whatever you have that will hold it).
Transfer to buttered casserole dish if you haven’t yet, and sprinkle with cheddar.
Bake at 400 until cheddar starts to get crispy. Everything is fully cooked, so this is personal preference.

Enjoy! It’s nutrient dense and comforting, and really could hardly be easier!! It *is* a little “soupy” so if your family has texture issues, you may want to add rice, noodles, or more beef to give it some structure. If you want it to set up more like a savory sweet potato pie, I’d try adding an egg to the mashed sweet potatoes (let them cool first).

Looking for more recipes? Did you know I have tons? Click through for more or find them in my recipe tab up top.

(I’ve covered up my phone number to spare my husband’s sanity) :D

Take 25% off any order from Tiny Prints until 2/21 with the code tinyprints25.

And on an only semi-related note: what in the world am I going to do in April with Picnik officially closes down???!?

I’ve had a list of favorite baby names since Middle School. I have a baby name book that I’ve looked through so many times in the last decade that the pages are falling out. We’ve decided on a baby name within a week of finding out we’re expecting all three times.

I love naming children! I would totally name yours if you let me.

I also love themes – it’s just how I’m wired. The more layers to the meaning, the better. Now, Rob’s tastes are a bit (ha!) more simple, so he doesn’t share the same enthusiasm that I do about names, but he’s a good sport. He’s humored me for hours of brainstorming and negotiating. And he’s all for deciding names early on so that the brainstorming and negotiating can end. :D

If you know me in person, I’ve probably talked your ear off about names at one point or another, but now that we’ve revealed our name for baby #3, I thought I’d write up a post about our naming philosophy.

For our children, we’ve chosen three themes.

1. A’s for boys and C’s for girls.
2. Family Names
3. Literary Names

Aidan’s first name came from a lovely book that we read before we were married – Byzantium by Stephen Lawhead. I also have a Great Great Grandmother named Ada. His middle name is of course in honor of daddy.

Cora is named after the heroine of The Last of the Mohicans by James Fenimore Cooper. Cora is also the name of another of my Great Great Grandmothers. Ruth (her middle name) is Rob’s grandmother’s name.

When it came time to choose names for this baby, we had a great list already prepared that fit with our themes, and several that we liked that didn’t. I’m glad that we didn’t reveal our themes before we posted our baby name poll. It was very interesting to see what all of you thought we would choose!

Have you wondered what our girl name would have been? We really were considering them all, but the one that won out for us was Catherine “Cate” Olivia! Cate would be in honor of my little sister Catlin and the main character of Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. Rob’s other grandmother’s name is Olive, as was her mother. She hates her name though, so we thought we’d soften it to a more popular version. ;)

So how about Alex?

Well, out of all of our names, Alex is the ONLY one that doesn’t fit neatly into our themes! Alexander is a family name – Rob’s French-Canadian Great Great Great Grandfather was Alexander Lonctin (later changed to Stanton – they really couldn’t say Lonctin?? *shrug*). And Ross is my father’s name.

So we’ve got themes 1 and 2 down, but 3? Number three has been frustrating. The only literary Alexanders I know are of the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day and Alex Rider variety.

It’s really been frustrating – did I mention that? But Alex has grown and gown on (and in!) me. So I guess we’re going about things a little backwards this time. I’m going to ask for YOUR help – do you know any Alexanders in literature? I’d love to be able to present him with a nice copy of a good book someday. Leave comments, please! :)

I heard from a few of you after I posted our ultrasound photo and know that there was some guessing going on based on what the image did/didn’t show. :)

After our ultrasound appointment, Rob emailed my friend Tori and let her know the gender and the name we’d chosen. Let me tell you, this woman is amazing! In less than 24 hours, she’d created the cutest baby items to surprise me with.

A generous mommy friend, Allison, let me open Tori’s gift at her kids’ birthday party today. Love my play group friends. Thank you all for being such a special part of our lives!

Allison was also kind enough to video tape me opening the gift. You ready? ;)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7pBcE5IaVQ

Yep! We’re having a little boy! We’re so looking forward to meeting…

Alexander “Alex” Ross

]]> http://www.raisingthebarrs.com/2012/02/genderreveal/feed/ 7 http://www.raisingthebarrs.com/2012/02/babys-first-photos/ http://www.raisingthebarrs.com/2012/02/babys-first-photos/#comments Fri, 10 Feb 2012 18:27:04 +0000 Anjanette http://www.raisingthebarrs.com/?p=1465 Continue reading →]]> We had our 20 week ultrasound today and got to see our beautiful little one dancing away in there! Organs looked great, baby is measuring spot on, heart beat 140bpm. :)

See the elbow resting on the knee? Too cute!! :D

We DID find out the gender… or at least Rob did!

My exasperating wonderful husband decided last minute that he wanted to know right away. He then emailed Tori the gender and I’ll still be surprised. :)

If you haven’t voted yet on which name you think we chose, check out our last post.

The only concern was a low-lying anterior placenta. That usually resolves itself later in the pregnancy, but we’ll now for sure if we have to be diligent about watching for placenta previa when we get the results from radiology on Monday.

So yeah, yay for healthy baby, and watch for the big gender reveal very soon! :D

We will be asking the tech to look for baby’s gender, though we will have them write the answer down instead of telling us.

Originally, I thought I might throw us a gender reveal party. Unfortunately, I’m a little partied out, and we don’t have it in the budget in any case. After some brainstorming, I decided to take my favorite elements of the party, and just do them digitally. Gotta love the internet!

Let the festivities begin!! :)

Our “party” will be posted in multiple parts. Today, come on in and participate in a little warm-up game. Fill out the three polls below to vote on what you think we’ll be revealing at the end of the party. Boy or Girl? And what name will we choose?

Make sure to vote on the names you think we chose, not on the ones you prefer. :)

Part 2 will be posted after we see our precious baby on Friday!

Part 3 will be up after our wonderful friend Tori from Monkey Stitch has a chance to see the gender that the tech writes down and has time to make us something fun to open on video. We’ll post the video here. :)

You’ve probably seen lots of your favorite bloggers chatting about getting excited for this or that blog conference. I hear most about some of the larger ones – Blissdom, Allume Social (formerly Relevant), BlogHer, Savvy Blogging Summit, etc. etc. There are also conferences for specific niches (like food blogging), and regional conferences. (Here’s a good list of conferences in 2012.)

I have yet to attend an official blog conference, though I had really hoped to travel for the Savvy Blogging Summit last year when it was in Colorado Springs! As you can imagine, blog conferences feature speakers and seminars focused on better blogging. This includes content (writing), photography, social media, and marketing/pr. With so many people earning a part time (or full time!) income blogging, it’s no wonder these are so popular.

I’d venture to guess that what draws people to them the most, though, is the community. Networking with other bloggers in person is a great way to build a support group and make the contacts necessary to do big things in the blogging world. So many bloggers have begun charity and awareness campaigns that have touched lives, and the relationships that make them possible often begin at conferences.

When I thought I might try and attend a conference last year, I created business cards for my blog. I felt a little silly at first, pretending that I was big stuff, but they came in handy as contact cards so many times throughout the year – even though I didn’t get to go to the conference as I’d hoped.

I was able to use my business cards to arrange playdates with new mommy friends, give friends and family a handy reminder of how to find us online, and yes, even do some bloggy networking!

This year, I’ve been given the opportunity to show you some of the available designs from Tiny Prints, and I’ll receive some free business cards in return. I’m happy to point out some of my favorites from this company that I’ve used and enjoyed before.

Tiny Prints offers many styles ranging from simple and classic like these:

To more whimsical and feminine styles this this one (gotta love the square!):

And the ones that have really caught my eye this year are the folded cards. A neat way to sneak more information into the card and present them with something they won’t forget:

Check out their entire selection of business cards to find the perfect match for you! Thank, Tiny Prints, for giving me the chance to be part of this promotion!

I wanted to take the time to research and decide on an educational philosophy, and gave myself the Summer to do so. I already had a good idea of the type of studies I thought would work best for us, just from reading blogs and talking to other homeschooling families.

I was honestly very surprised by how quickly I got overwhelmed with all of my options. Mostly because I thought there would be one or two philosophies that I really liked, and I’d probably disagree with and decide not to use the others. As I researched though, I discovered that, with very few exceptions, each learning and teaching style/philosophy had something interesting and exciting to offer.

By the end of the Summer, I was still rather unsure of exactly how I wanted to proceed. So rather than twiddle my thumbs for another couple of months (or longer!), I decided to just jump in and start doing SOMETHING with Aidan. That’s when we officially started preschool and had Aidan’s preschool party.

While I was trying to get the hang of a daily schedule, I stuck mostly to the Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve (affiliate link) curriculum and various free printables from around the web. Aidan loved having something exciting to look forward to every day. But after just a few weeks, something surprising began to happen.

There were days when we’d hardly begun before Aidan was already saying he “didn’t want to do school” that day. And he started getting picky about which types of worksheet and activities he’d do (he doesn’t like to color for instance). Also, after he got the basic concepts of each activity down (like cutting or writing practice), he’d whiz through them in 30 seconds and look at me like, “now what?”

Suddenly, while I was still trying to figure out what my educational philosophy really was, I was confronted with the reminder that it’s the student that matters. Was he learning? Were we just practicing repetition and routine? Should I make him press through boredom and distractions at this stage?

The things he never balked at, like music and media times, active play, and cooking/preparing food, didn’t feel very “school” like. And since he obviously had the hang of all of the preschool worksheets I could throw at him, I began to wonder again what my purpose in starting this early was. So, back to reading…

First, I did find a helpful list of the things he’s “supposed” to be mastering at each level. While I don’t want to put his development on someone else’s timeline, it’s comforting to have some guidelines. You can find a Typical Course of Study list for each grade at worldbook.com. (Aidan has all but two of the preschool objectives down – and that’s because I haven’t made him memorize our address and phone number yet. He does know where they are written down in the house though.)

The very best book I’ve come across thus far for helping me sort through my thoughts is called Homeschooling Methods: Seasoned Advice on Learning Styles.*

It is written from a Christian perspective – though that’s not obvious looking at the cover unless you are familiar with the editors (I wasn’t). In this book I was delighted to find comprehensive descriptions in the form of easy to ready essays written by prominent people in (and sometimes even the founders of) each homeschool method. It was so much easier to see the similarities and differences of the methods when they were placed side by side!

As I said before, the thing that surprised me most is that I was drawn to certain aspects of almost every single method. I like the order and logic of classical education, the emphasis on literature with charlotte mason style teaching, and I’m also drawn to self-direction of interests and hands on learning that unschooling promotes!

The newest concept for me was the opinion that formal schooling should be put off until as late as 7 or 8 (or even 10 or 12!) years old. The Moore Foundation and others emphasize that children need their early years to learn by experience and in real-life situations. They argue that if we begin formal schooling too early, children (and especially boys) quickly get burned out.

This naturally sparked my interest because of what I was experiencing with Aidan. I also kept coming across the concept of play based learning and articles like this one.

I whole-heartedly agree with the idea of teaching them in ways that are applicable to real life! I want my kids to learn to cook, and garden, and correspond in writing. I look forward to being able to tailor their days to their interests and talents. But I had never heard the argument that delaying school is better for children!

There seems to have been a big push for early education in recent years. This is probably mostly due to the necessity of quality before and after school care for working families. I imagine lots of concerned parents have worked hard to make sure their kids are doing more than watching tv while they have to be apart from them. I do wonder though, if we’ve now swung too far the other way.

In any case, I started watching a little boy at about the time I was trying to figure these things out, and it became more difficult to maintain the schedule I’d set for us. Rob and I agreed to take some time out and stop trying to be formulaic until we had a better plan. He is only three, after all!!

So I just stopped. Stopped planning. Stopped coming up with things to do way in advance. We even stopped most of our craft projects (because I like them more than he does). I just let him play.

We still had a routine, of course. We do the same things – like naps and meals – at roughly the same time every day. But I haven’t tried to fill our time otherwise. It’s been a complete departure from the way I’ve done things the last three years.

Interestingly, I’ve seen his personality shine through in these last few months like never before. He’s started pretend playing and coming up with all kinds of fun “games” for himself and the other two to play. He’s finally gotten interested in music and singing. And he’s eager to do whatever I put in front of him when I occasionally come up with something fun, regardless of whether it’s a worksheet, a craft project, or something more out of the box – even chores!

Now, I know that a lot of this could just be developmental. He may just be reaching these new stages because he’d be ready to no matter how we filled our days. But really, he’s turning four next week, and I feel that he would completely be able to keep up with a kindergarten class.

So, long story short, I don’t know how I feel about preschool.

I don’t know that I would say that it’s inherently bad – especially because most of the little friends Aidan has who go to a preschool are spending a few hours there a few times a week and mostly just having fun. But I am also not convinced that it’s very needed.

And yet, Aidan is asking about school again. Every once in a while we’ll “make a plan” for the day around a theme – last week it was the book “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.” We did some fun activities based on the theme, some worksheets and a movie. And he loved it.

He’s really a smart cookie, and I hear and empathize with the proponents of filling their early days with meaning and learning because they are such sponges. I do think I’m still leaning more toward giving him ME to soak up, and our family, and good stories and lessons about God, than teaching him to read at four (which may happen on it’s own at the rate he devours books!)

Rob and I were recently encouraged by this post on Barebones Homeschooling from Fun In My Backyard (awesome blog!!). I think he and I agree that we will try out a more regular schedule come Fall, if for no other reason that to train ME to stick to one, but we’re going to play this game one day at a time – as if we could do it any other way! :)

Now we’re full of ideas and want to start on something else. There’s probably no way we can afford these, as frugal as they are, but here are some of the things we’ve been oogling:

We would move Sebastian’s kennel downstairs and make something like one of these to seat multiple kiddos. We love our tall dining table, but it’s a bit tricky for the little one, and only seats six.

One of the walls in our living room has needed something for a while. rob has decided on some kind of bookshelf, but there’s not really a convenient place for another piece of furniture. How fun is this solution (above)?

Also, in lieu of another dresser for new baby, I plan on filling up these shelves:

But I don’t want them to look quite so plain (and of course, the bags upon bags of items to be donated won’t be intruding to the left of them when baby arrives), so I think I’m going to try and make these to organize items on the shelves:

Think I can manage more than one before July? hehe, we’ll see!