Simple Pizza Crust

Saying that my family eats pizza often may be an understatement. We eat it VERY often. At least once a week. The only saving grace to this habit is that it is homemade pizza and so therefore it's really just as healthy as any standard meal.

I've been making our own pizza ever since I married Justin. I first got this recipe from my mom's bread machine recipe book and while I've changed it a smidgen, it's still essentially the same recipe.

Pizza in case you've been living under a rock, is a very versatile meal. You can go with plain old cheese pizza (our usual because we always have those basic ingredients). You can get a more hearty pizza by adding meat like with a bbq chicken pizza. Or you can get fancy with a colorful pepper pizza or a pear gorgonzola pizza. We've tried them all and are continuously making up new pizzas but they always use this same basic pizza crust.


Simple Pizza Crust

1 cup warm water
1 tbs honey
1 tsp salt
2 1/2 cups flour
2 1/2 tsp yeast

Directions:
Place all ingredients in this order into a bread machine. Select Dough cycle and let the machine do it's job. When cycle is complete, remove dough and form into crust on a baking sheet or preferably a pizza stone. I like to pre-cook my crust before adding toppings (to avoid any soggy issues) if you would like to do the same, just cook the crust in a 500 degree oven for 6 minutes. Remove from oven, add all your toppings and place it back in the 500 degree over for another 6-10 minutes.

If you do not have a bread machine, you can use the same ingredients except you will want to mix the water, honey, and yeast. Let proof for 15 minutes add the remaining ingredients and let rise for an hour.

Verity: 8 Months

Age: 8 months


Weight: 18 lbs (roughly, it's probably closer to 18 1/2)

Height: 26 inches (yeah, I give up on this… Verity has gotten too mobile to get a good measurement)

Eating: Still just breast milk. Still nursing a lot. One more month and Verity will start solids.

Sleeping: This has been less than amazing lately. Verity had about 1 week of sleeping for only 1-2 hrs during the night and she had to be in bed with us. Finally realize it was just because she was ready to move into a bed of her own instead of the swing. Last night was the first night that Verity was in her pack n play (aka her own bed) and she slept a 5 hour followed by a 3 hour. Not amazing but I'll take it! Verity is also still swaddled; we swaddle for a long time.


Accomplishments: Lots of progress this last month, Verity crawls like crazy. She has a bit of the "zombie crawl" but she'll crawl normally if she wants to get somewhere fast. She can pull herself easily now and there's no stopping her. She's starting to learn how to get back down which is good because otherwise she just gets stuck standing up. More babbling, getting closer to actual "mama" and "dada" but not really associating anything yet. She's also started to "bounce" while sitting, sort of a dance move.

Other Random Stuff: Not much else to report. Verity is still quite happy and easy going. She seems to be taking after Logan a bit. It'll be interesting to see if she continues to look like him.

Our Curriculum for 2013-2014

Just in case you were curious about what the boys will be learning this year… here's our curriculum! I can't believe Logan will be in 2nd grade and Ransom will be in 1st! Logan's school is definitely going to be much harder this year. I've been getting all the lesson plans put together and wow! It's a lot more work for him compared to last year but he's totally excited!

Core Curriculum

We are using Sonlight as our “core” curriculum. Sonlight is an "open and shut" curriculum, meaning that I can essentially open the book and it has all the subjects planned out for me. We do not use all that Sonlight recommends however; I have a few subjects that we do differently and therefore, we do make a few changes. As my boys are only one grade apart, we are using the same core for both of them but with their own grade level books for the subjects that need it such as math and language arts. This year we are using Sonlight's Core C which is their second half of an Intro to World History, so we will travel through the fall of Rome all the way to modern history. For those curious, Core C is recommended for ages 7-9. Logan is 7 fits this recommendations fine but obviously Ransom, my 6 year old who is in 1st grade is a bit young however as he is using the core for the subjects that are not as technical; he does fine. This is why we still get him his own level of math and language art curricula.

1st Grade (Ransom)

Bible – Sonlight

Math: Singapore Primary Mathematics 2A & 2B US Edition

Science: Exploring God's Creation

History & Literature: Sonlight

Phonics/Reading/Writing: Progressive Phonics Advanced Books and a selection of emerging reader books.

Spelling: Selection of Grade 1 words based on Fry's word list 

2nd Grade (Logan)

Bible – Sonlight

Math: Singapore Primary Mathematics 3A & 3B US Edition

Science: Exploring God's Creation

History & Literature: Sonlight

Reading: Sonlight's 3rd Grade Readers

Grammar: Language Smarts C

Vocabulary: Wordly Wise 2

Spelling: Selection of Grade 2 words based on Fry's word list

Those are our basic subjects. Other subjects such as art, health, P.E., and character building/manners I take more of an unschooling approach and just incorporate them into our lives as they fit in naturally.

We'll be starting in just a couple weeks! I can't believe summer has gone by so quick!