Aldi Friendly Spaghetti Sauce...

My kids are eating a lot more spaghetti lately, so my Mom's recipe that I used to make and freeze isn't stretching as far as it used to. I decided to modify it, and now I'm making a pot of sauce and having leftovers for later in the week. I can get what I need at Aldi most of the time, excluding the minced garlic in a jar I keep in the fridge and possibly the Worchestershire sauce?

Olive oil
1 28 oz. can crushed tomatoes
1 8 oz. can tomato sauce
1 t. minced garlic
1 onion, finely diced
1 bell pepper, finely diced
1 t. sugar
1 heaping t. each basil and oregano
a generous splash of Worchestershire sauce
1/2-1 lb. of ground beef, browned

Brown the hamburger and remove from your large pot. Put some olive oil in there and add the garlic, onion, and pepper. (I mince mine in the mini food processor that lives on my counter.) Saute until softened, and then add all the other ingredients except beef. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 20 minutes. Add ground beef and simmer another 1/2 hour.

Feeds 4 hungry males. Maybe.

First 4-H presentations....

This year, I decided to get my act together and get the big boys to do their first 4-H presentations. My mom will tell you that 4-H was an important component to her homeschool, and I agree that it was really useful for me. The public speaking skills that I gained from having to give a talk with visual aids from the time I was pretty young have stood me in good stead, and that's just the beginning, really.

So what was stopping me from doing this before now? Daily life. A full schedule. Adding one more thing to the to do list. (And I kept telling myself I had time because I only had one Cloverbud.) BUT, it's worth it, so we pulled it together in time for our county presentation day. I had the boys tell me what they wanted to present, and I helped them organize their talk and make posters. We printed off text and images and Seth was able to arrange his how he wanted. (I admit to doing Evan's posters for him. Sue me. He's 6.)

Seth's presentation was called "Seth's Wacky Gadgets." He talked about famous inventors that inspired him, showed a couple of things he'd come up with, and then gave a step by step demonstration of his rubber band crash car game. The judges had lots of good questions and made him feel really encouraged. He told them that when he invents something awesome one day, he'll give them a discount. That's my boy.

Evan's presentation was called "Critter Catching School." He mostly showed how he catches a variety of wild creatures (like frogs and lizards and bugs), complete with gardening gloves, a box to keep them in, and a few little plastic bugs and toads and snakes. The last poster was about safety, and I included large pictures of copperheads and black widows. We have taught him not to try and catch anything with patterns because it might be poisonous. (We have decided that telling him that he can't catch things because he might get stung or bitten isn't the way we want to raise him or his brothers. This article sums it up pretty well.)

I really enjoyed how Evan kept trying to pack up all his things and walk off while the judges were still asking him questions. I guess I should've covered that part of presentation etiquette. Next year. :)

David said he could see why I thought presentations were worth it after seeing the boys at our county day. A tired end-of-the-year-homeschooling mom likes to hear that from the principal. :)