My Mother Ate My Homework and Other Tales From Homefront

She can honestly say "My mother ate my homework."

As a matter of fact - so did her father, her brother, her sister and a neighbour kid.

You can hardly blame them though when science tastes this good.

Do you see it?

The cell?, the nucleus?, how about the endoplasmic reticulum with ribosomes stuck on it?

OK maybe not - but it's all there.

It was one sweet science lesson - making the cell out of jello and a variety of candy and fruit leather. I've never seen three kids so geared up for science. Now, before you give me any credit for creative-teacher-of-the-year let me assure you that we were simply following the instructions in the science text. Scientific method baby, scientific method! This is definitely one way to grab a young scientist's attention and create a hunger (ha-ha pun not intended!) for more learning.

And, lest you think we simply feasted on science projects for supper, I'm sharing with you the grand prize winner of the cheap-yet-healthy meal of the year.

Hummus, pitas and loads and loads of veggies.

Veggies from either our garden or Bumpa Saylor's garden.

Hummus from this recipe: use a hand blender and blend together 2 cans of chickpeas, a glub or two of olive oil, the zest and juice of one lemon, and a head of roasted garlic.

And of course pitas (cut and toasted tortilla wraps).

And the cost for this meal for a family of six (fed a neighbour kid!).

Drum roll please.

$4 (not including the cost for veggies since they were from the garden)

Despite my fear that there wasn't enough food, there were left overs! AND it was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone at the table.

Finally, in my tales from the home front, I will perpetuate the rumour that home schooled kids are a little on the weird end of the spectrum by sharing with you this photo.

What a bunch of weirdos. They are my weirdos, so I can call them weird. But yes, there they are reading and eating cereal on the roof of the shed. This is what happens when I send them out to play. It's always something. Last week they set up a shoe store on the front lawn - single shoes were free, pairs of shoes were $1. On the weekend they attempted a bike repair shop. Today, they gave up their entrepreneurial quests and headed for a quiet place to read and eat cereal.

Oh, I wonder what the neighbours think of us now!