One of Our Family's Christmas Traditions If you know our family, you know we have some odd family traditions including limiting our Christmas decorations to a nativity theme (we don’t even have a tree!) and putting off gift giving to New Years. Of all of our traditions though, Camel Bags raise the most eyebrows. “Camel what?” And so we launch into this explanation, which seems to get weirder as we go. We want to celebrate Christmas without making it about presents, but we love presents too. 🙂 That’s why our gift-giving takes place on New Years Day. Camel bags allow us...

Happy National Poetry Month! Today we share with you one of our Grandpa’s poems, Sunset at Sea. This poem was one of several of his poems read at his 90th birthday celebration several weeks ago. It was written about the time Grandpa first started writing poetry, while he was in the Navy during World War 2. In time, it became a tradition for Grandpa to compose a poem for each grandchild and great-grandchild on their birthday. Over the years, Grandpa has composed scores of poems, with topics from garage sales, to Christmas, to a visit to the dentist! SUNSET AT SEA...

On birthdays it isn't uncommon to have these delicious cinnamon rolls requested by the birthday person, sometimes instead of birthday cake! The family story behind the name is that whoever makes the cinnamon rolls claims the privilege of referring to them as (insert baker's name here)'s Most Famous Cinnamon Rolls. Most Famous Cinnamon Roll Recipe Ingredients ½ cup warm water 2 packages yeast 2 tablespoons sugar 1 package instant vanilla pudding 2 cups milk - room temperature ½ cup butter - melted 2 large eggs - beaten 1 teaspoon salt 8 cups all-purpose flour ***** 1 cup butter - melted...

Our family-favorite caramel corn recipe. We are serving it today as part of our first traditional Monday Meal of the year! Microwave Caramel Corn Ingredients: Popcorn, popped, approximately 6 quarts2 cups brown sugar ½ lb. butter½ cup white corn syrup1 teaspoon vanilla1 teaspoon salt1 teaspoon baking sodaPecans, toasted, if desired Put brown sugar, butter, and corn syrup in a saucepan. Cook on medium low and bring to a boil. Boil for 5 minutes. Remove from heat. Add vanilla, salt, and baking soda. Blend and pour over popcorn. If you plan to add nuts, do so immediately after you pour on...

Let's Build Curriculum Kits Families tell us they love our Curriculum Kits but I wonder how many realize why it took us so long to offer that option. For over twenty years we clung to the belief that if you were going to go to the work of homeschooling, you would want to hand-select each item for each child. After all, that was what our family had chosen to do! Of course, we had always been eager to help families, and it was not uncommon for a mom to call asking where to start for a particular grade. We would give some...