Ladybug

A Story of Angel Food Cake

Last week, I was mentioning how much I was looking forward to Michaelmas, (which was yesterday), one of my favorite principal feasts of Christ on the church calendar. Ladybug immediately responded with “What are you making?”

Nothing?

I hadn’t planned on doing anything special. No angel hair pasta. No angel food cake. No fancy or themed food of any kind. Mondays are kind of a crazy busy day here this semester, and I didn’t figure it was worth it.

But this is what I’ve worked for all these years. My adult children hearing a church festival is coming up, and knowing that it’s a day for special food and feasting, a day to look forward to and celebrate. A day to recognize how God has provided for His people through the years.

This was the goal all along.

I can’t change how busy Mondays are. We didn’t have the time for a fancy dinner. But I did have time on Sunday after to church to bake an angel food cake, and I even found time to stop at Walmart to get some fresh strawberries to go with it.

I am so thankful that the traditions we’ve created over the years mean something. I’m grateful I found ways to make connections between the church year and home life. I’m glad that Ladybug heard a church holiday was coming up and wanted to know how we were going to celebrate it.

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.”

18 (+8 Days)

Between Bunny’s college graduation (which was actually on Ladybug’s birthday), and the finals her brothers had this week, Ladybug chose to wait until today to celebrate her 18th birthday! I was impressed with how patient she was in waiting to open her gifts until today…I’m not sure I could have waited!

I made our favorite lavender matchas this afternoon:

I’m personally very lucky, because one of my favorite dinners (Reuben casserole) is also one of Ladybug’s favorites, and that’s what she choose to have tonight:

I also made what I think is the overall favorite celebratory drink in our house…Bayou Queen Punch from Entertaining with Disney…at least three of the Fab Five have requested it for at least one birthday!

And we had a banana cake with cream cheese frosting for dessert:

It was unfortunate not to be able to celebrate like we usually do on the actual day, but I’m glad we finally got to fete Ladybug’s very significant birthday!

The High School Graduate

It’s Graduation Day!

Ladybug has successfully completed high school…and the entirety of K-12 in my little homeschool!

We had a nice little celebration, including photos and “Pomp and Circumstance.”

For fun, we built our last-day-of-school Lego sets…three of the seasons available in the Botanical collection…they’re absolutely beautiful, and used interesting building techniques and pieces!

For her graduation dinner, Ladybug chose some of her favorite recipes from The Ultimate Final Fantasy XIV Online Cookbook…Stuffed Cabbage Rolls, Pixieberry Tea, and Princess Pudding:

Not that I really thought it would, but it doesn’t get easier to say goodbye to students from my classroom at home…I’m going to miss seeing Ladybug at her desk every morning!

2024-25 School Year–Week Sixteen

Time to get back to work after an extended Christmas break!

We eased back into our routine with a visit to the St. Louis on Monday…we really wanted to see it while it was still snow-covered, and we weren’t disappointed!

Ladybug also learned this week that she placed first in the high school category of our city’s winter art contest…she put a lot of effort into her painting, and was very excited to find that it paid off!

We got back into the routine of our regular schoolwork, too. Ladybug identified the appeal to pity and bandwagon fallacies in logic. She picked off where she left off in A Tale of Two Cities. In psychology she read about physical portrayal of emotions. She started reading 1984. In religion, we read about John of Damascus and the Great Schism.

Chickadee calculated permutations and combinations in pre-algebra. We read about the French Revolution in history. In science, we discussed evolution. She continued her literature study of The Trojan War. In writing, she read the “The Highwayman” and learned about reversals in poetry.

Hopefully I’ll find another interesting outing in the coming weeks to break up the monotony that is the time after the holidays!

2024-25 School Year–Week One

We have completed the first week of the 2024-25 school year!

Our first day of school was mostly fun, but we did get into some work…Ladybug was very excited to get started on her advanced physics course, and Chickadee was just excited about everything!

Ladybug began the intro to logic course she’s taking this year instead of standard math. In advanced physics, she reviewed vectors and the dot method. She started reading 1491 for social studies. She also read Act I of The Merchant of Venice (and read the entirety of The Great Gatsby!). In religion, a walk through all of church history, which she and Chickadee are doing together, she read about James the Brother of Jesus and Ignatius of Antioch.

Chickadee reviewed the identity formulas for addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division and the rules for arithmetic involving signs in pre-algebra. Her first literature selection of the year is Tom Sawyer, and she read the first chapter. In history, she read about the Holy Roman Empire at the time of Charles V. She reviewed one and two-level outlines in writing. She began an intro to general science, and got to do her first experiment, which demonstrated how molecules move at different temperatures.

This year, we’re going to be reading The Wizard of Oz out loud together, and making recipes from The Wizard of Oz: The Official Cookbook. We started with a fairly simple recipe from Auntie Em’s Recipe Box for “Dinner on the Farm Rolls.”

We also took advantage of one of the fall-like days we had this week to play tennis. It has been a few years (I think) since we played tennis, and let me tell you, I’m really feeling it!

Next week it’s going to be hot again, so I don’t anticipate any fun outdoor adventures, but we are going to get fully into the routine of school!

First Day of School 2024

Today we kicked off the 2024-25 school year, Ladybug’s last year in our little homeschool. I organized the school room as best as I could so we could start fresh, but it’s getting increasingly difficult to find room for all of the books (and Lego sets!) in our collection!

As always, there were Schultüte to open first thing:

And pictures to take. Ladybug is in 12th grade this year, and Chickadee is now a junior high student in 7th grade!

We did some work this morning, but not every subject:

I had to run out to the orthodontist with Turkey before he heads back to college, so we stopped for a first day of school treat at Scooter’s…pumpkin spice season has arrived!

And then, as we usually do, we got to work building our Lego set(s). I decided that instead of a larger set, I would get the mini Disney castles we didn’t already have, so we could complete that collection. Even I got to build this year, because I still had the Sleeping Beauty castle I picked up while we were at the Mall of America this summer!

It a lovely little collection, but I don’t know what we’ll do for space if they make more castles…and at the same time, I really hope they do a replica of the castle at Disneyland Paris!

For dinner, I made one of Ladybug’s favorites…pot roast and green beans. And we enjoyed a cinnamon roll cheesecake for dessert.

It was a great kickoff to the new school year!

First Day of Twelfth Grade

Ladybug has made it to her senior year of high school here at Veritas Academy! It’s just as hard for me to believe that as it was for me to come to the same realization about Turkey and Bunny four years ago…and I’m still worried that this school year is just going to be one long rendition of “One Last Time!”

And while I’m at it, here’s a picture of her on her very first day of school here at home, way back in 2012:

Summer School 2024

I can’t believe that both the Olympics and summer vacation are over, but here we are. There were so many great moments, and today I’m taking a look back at our Paris 2024-themed summer school, starting with our visit to the Olympic Spectacular right here in St. Louis:

We made our favorite edible Olympic torches, and had a lovely toast to Paris 2024 with sparkling cider. I’m not going to lie, I was a little mad that we had already built the Lego Eiffel Tower years ago, because it would have been a nice summer school activity, but at least we had a ready-made centerpiece!

Our big activity for the summer was trying out some French recipes. We cooked a lot of different things, starting with a special series of meals for the Opening Ceremonies, and culminating with the pièce de résistance of the summer (and maybe my culinary career!), the Croquembouche. It’s nice that we’re finally at a point where both Ladybug and Chickadee can do a lot in the kitchen!

  • Croissants
  • Salade Niçoise
  • Vichyssoise
  • Bœuf Bourgignon
  • Macarons
  • Crepes
  • Salade Lyonnaise
  • Quiche Lorraine
  • Chocolate Soufflé
  • Gougères
  • Lavender Madeleines
  • Steak au Poivre with Red Wine Pan Sauce
  • Plateau de Fromages
  • Lemon-glazed French Sable Cookies
  • Croquembouche

I had a good book list, but coming up with crafts beyond cooking was a bit of a challenge. We did try to be fashion designers…do you think we’re ready for French haute couture?

And of course we made medals:

We had a lot of fun being creative with cooking and crafts!

I’m so glad Ticket to Ride Paris came out in time for us to play this summer! And we also played Ticket to Ride France (and watched all of the episodes of Rick Steves’ Europe we have set in France), which educated us on just how little we know about French geography!

Here’s a look at our complete medal table…Team USA definitely won!

Summer wrapped up quickly…on Monday, we begin the 2024-25 school year!

17 (Going on 18)

Today is Ladybug’s 17th birthday! She got up extra early this morning so we could get a start on celebrating, especially opening presents, before Moose left for school!

I was so excited about our gift to her…she received her first dirndl!

A lot of her birthday ended up being Lilo and Stitch themed (with a good helping of Tron Legacy and Star Wars: The Bad Batch thrown in).

She asked for pineapple salsa from the Lilo and Stitch Cookbook for lunch:

She picked dinner recipes from cookbooks that reflect her various interests…honey lemonade from The Ultimate Final Fantasy XIV Online Cookbook, spinach salad with shallot vinaigrette from Destiny: The Official Cookbook, and 626 Experimental Fried Rice from the Lilo and Stitch Cookbook.

Her birthday cake, a guava celebration cake, was also from the Lilo and Stitch Cookbook:

We had a really fun day, and I loved having a chance to celebrate another year of this beautiful life for my daughter!