Butter

Today the papa went into work to work on job applications and a class he's taking at PSU (last one!). So, any day that papa works we do too! Had a great learning time. I've been enjoying First Language Lessons so much that I decided to go to Ordinary Parents' Guide to Teaching Reading (same author), which I'd gotten a long time ago and never used much. Amirah did really well and we'll be trying it out for a while, I think. Explode the Code has been great for reading/spelling. Math is going well too. And Hebrew and torah. I'm pretty happy with everything, and very glad that we've been able to keep up a nice amount of learning time through all the crazy house stuff.

After the basics were done, I got all the kids together in the kitchen to make homemade butter. They loved doing this. We put a pint of whipping cream into the mixer (after tasting it, of course!) and let it go on high speed. We stopped it when it was whipped so we could have another little taste. Then we let it go again. Just when it seemed like we would never get butter, suddenly the butter and the buttermilk separated. Another few seconds and it was one big glob sitting in a bowl of buttermilk. I strained the butter and kneaded out the last little bit of liquid. We divided up the sweet, mild buttermilk and tasted it. I kneaded a little salt into the butter. Then we made toast. They all thought it was the best butter they had ever eaten. :)

the butter makers

the buttermilk and the butter

Afterwards, we went to play in the Beaverton fountain since it was so hot today (mid-80s). It stopped working 15 minutes after we got there! :( But we had fun on the playground, then went to pick up papa. A very nice day. And a very tired mama... Good night!