Making Presents...

This year,  the kids and I are making some presents again to give to our friends and family...We are also taking brown paper bags and decorating them with holiday decorations (stickers, stamps, markers) and ribbon... The tags I printed out from Organized Christmas ... I really love this site..It has great ideas that I use every year... Here are some of the things we are doing this year...  

Baking cookies to place in tins - 

1. "reindeer" cookies made out of Nutter Butter sandwich cookies, pretzels, and decorated

2. making "OH SO EASY" peanut butter blossoms (yummy!!)   You can find the recipe here.

3. Christmas Fudge

4. traditional sugar cookies 

5. M&M Brownies  - and I use the "BEST" ever brownie recipe (at least that is what the site called it, and I have to agree it was darn good...)  http://baking.about.com/od/brownies/a/bestrecipes.htm

Making soup mixes - the recipes I like can be found here.

Painting "glass ball" ornaments with our hand-print snowmen,

candy canes and Christmas trees. Then making some "snowflake" ornaments with beads and pipecleaners.   I found the idea here, although ours were definitely not that elaborate...

and then making "Snowman Soup and Reindeer Poop" which are 2 of our favorite stocking stuffer gifts for our extended family... which I also get the ideas from here.

Merry Christmas!!!

Frustration..

Yes!! I'm frustrated... I have spent the last hour or so trying to get my Christmas cards ordered... My internet server (FRONTIER) whom I do not have a good relationship with (it is slower than a sloth) is slow and then the Sam's Club site(who I order my cards through) is giving me trouble...So, dear family and friends, the Christmas cards will be late this year, "IF"  (crossing my fingers) they ever get ordered...  

 

our Christmas decorations...

Whew!!! We are almost done putting out our Christmas decorations...Why is it that decorating is soooo tiring? It seems that it takes some of the joy out of the season, because of all the work and effort that goes into "getting ready for Christmas"...This year I didn't do no where near as much because I wanted to be able to make crafts, cookies, and just have fun and enjoy Christmas through my kids eyes...

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Party with the Boy Scouts

DS recently had his Boy Scout Christmas Party... Here is a picture from his party...

 

Gymnastics Recital..

DD recently had her gymnastics recital... She was so excited...

The costumes they wore were just white tee's (which had bells painted on them by their instructors) and red or green shorts... They were sooooo cute!!

They turned cartwheels, did backbends, and forward rolls... the finale was a pyramid with several girls doing splits and backbends... DD is on the top of the pyramid...

After the recital, her brother gave her flowers which she definitely loved!!

 

What to do with a costume...

Ok... DD has a ballet/tap recital costume from several years past that I have been keeping because it was :

1. adorable

2. a great memory for her

3. it cost too much to get rid of...

So, I have hung it in her room on a padded silk hanger beneath a shelf with her birthday dolls... What do you think?

December Little Hands Art group...

This month we studied Nadir Afonso... A Portugese artist known as the creator of "Kinetic Art"... We learned about his education in architecture and his conversion to his art career (his first love) ad how he is still painting today in his 80's... We looked at several examples of his work involving his "Cityscape" series and how over the years his art had become more abstract...

  Aliados Square   Moscow

We did our own versions of his watercolor work... Here is some pictures of our group and their work...

 

Our week with Gingerbread Baby

This week we have been working on Jan Brett's "Gingerbread Baby"... We have had a great time visiting Austria, Germany and the Alps...We worked on measruements and fractions...We discussed spices and wher they come from...and the highlight of our week was making GINGERBREAD COOKIES using a recipe without molasses which turned out great...and they were YUMMY!!!

Performance Night...

Tonight was "Performance Night" for our co-op...DS take piano lessons there so this was his time for his recital... He did great...I was such a proud momma!!!

Our First Snow...

Yes!!!!

We have snow... Granted it is not much but it is the first snow and on Dec. 1st too...

The kids were almost as excited as I was ....

We took a walk outside, threw a few snowballs, and made snow cream...YUMMY!!!

Here is the recipe we used:

Basic Recipe                                                          

1 cup milk
1/2 cup sugar
scant 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
large bowl of snow (about 3 quarts)

Blend milk, sugar and vanilla. Stir in enough snow to make snow cream to an ice cream consistency.

My Lil' Pilgrims..

A time for counting our blessings...

So much of the time we take for granted all the wonderful things we have been blessed with... I have more blessings than I can count and try to thank the Great God above for all that he has given me and my family...

I hope that in the coming year, that I, my children, and my wonderful DH take time to thank God and to trupy appreciate all that we have... Healthy lives, lots of family, and the opportunity to worship freely...

Happy Thanksgiving!!

Autumn and the Leaf Man...

We had a great time with fall, trees, and leaves this year... We did them last year, but DD really was to young to get much from them... I have a wonderful book called the "Kids's Nature Book, 365 indoor/outdoor activities and experiences"... It has an activity for every day and it was really put to good use this year...

We also did a science experiment on why leaves change color and chromatography that you can find here that was great... Both kids loved it and I had fun too...

 

 

Madeline...

It seems like every year we do Madeline... DD loves this story and both kids seem to learn a little more each year we do it... So at her request, we did it again... Here's a look at our notebook for our "trip" to France with Madeline...

Our time in China...

We are sorta ecelectic in our homeschool... We use a variety of curriculum and I pick and choose things to put together for us... So we have been using FIAR, "Galloping the Globe" and HSS for alot of the units we do... So when we did China we had a great time with Ping and Pandas and alot of other resources... Here is a look at our completed notebook...

 

Chocolate Biscotti...

DDs Keepers class had to make cookies as one of their tasks to earn a badge... She was given "International Cookies"... So I dug out theEmeril Cookbook " There's a Chef in My World"...

It had a great recipe for Chocolate Biscotti... and we also had a great short history lesson as Biscotti was one of the things that Columbus took with him on his journey to the New World...

Here's that recipe:

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line two large baking sheets with parchment paper.

Combine the flour, sugar, cocoa, espresso powder, baking soda, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer. Mix for 30 seconds on low speed to combine. Add the hazelnuts and chocolate chips and mix well. 
In another bowl, lightly beat the eggs with the vanilla. On low speed, pour the eggs into the dry ingredients and mix just to form a soft dough.  
Divide the dough into 4 equal pieces. On a lightly floured work surface, roll each piece under your palms into a 14-inch cylinder about 2 inches in diameter. Transfer to the prepared baking sheets, placing 2 logs on each baking sheet, about 2 inches apart. 
Bake for about 30 minutes, until the logs are lightly browned and firm. Let cool completely on the baking sheets on wire racks. Reduce the oven temperature to 300°F. 
Transfer one of the cooled logs to a cutting board. With a heavy sharp knife, cut the log into 3/4-inch-thick slices. If sliced crosswise, each log will average 24 small cookies. If cut on an angle, each log will yield about 16 large pieces. Repeat with the remaining logs. Spread the cookies on the parchment-lined sheets.
 
Bake the cookies for 30 minutes, turning halfway through baking, until crisp. Transfer the cookies to wire racks and cool completely.
 
Place the white chocolate in the top of a double boiler or metal bowl over simmering water and melt, stirring occasionally. Remove from the heat. Dip each cooled cookie halfway down into the melted chocolate, scraping off the excess chocolate against the rim of the bowl. Place the dipped cookies on a sheet of parchment or waxed paper and let cool until the chocolate sets.
 
Yield: about 64 large or 96 small cookies

Disney on Ice...

"Disney on Ice" .... One of our favorite things to see... We try and go every year... We go during the school showing when the tickets are reasonable and you can get great seats... This year DH took off work and went with us... Our seats were right on the ice and we had a great time... The theme was "The Incredibles Save Disney World" so there was something for every Disney lover, from Pirates to Princesses to Mickey and Minnie... It was so much fun!!!  

 

Earth Science

This semester I have been teaching Earth Science for 1-3 grades at our co-op on Thursdays... It has been a BIG class (21 students) but it has been fun... We did an experiment making a cloud in a bottle and then made some shaving cream clouds... We used the Evan Moore Giant Science Book and Weather Wizkids ... Here are some pictures of our time with clouds...  

Trick or Treat?

Trick or Treat???

This year we made our costumes again...Well... sort of...

 

I found DD's Super Girl costume at the GoodWill... It was actually an adult small and then my mom took it into make it fit...I spray-painted her boots gold and then made a posterboard mask and painter it gold... as for DS, he went as a Pirate and I just cut up a pair of plaid pants (also got at the GoodWill) cut up one of my old shirts and used some tree beads from last years Christmas tree for his gold chains... a bandana and ascarf at his waist completed the look...

And this "old lady" with them is me without make-up...*LOL*  Actually, I thought i was a pretty good costume... I just put rollers in my hair, tied them up, put on my robe with some face ceam and some bright red lipstick and said BOO!!!...   

Freebie Friday...

This is a great website for free puzzles to be e-mailed weekly to you for use with your children... DS (8yo) loves them...

You can check it out here: www.cogno.com/puzzlers

Have a great weekend!!!

BOO!

Experiment with sound...

Since we are learning about bats this week, I decided to do an experiment on sound because bats use echolocation to help them find direction...

We filled up several glasses with different amounts of water and took turns hitting them with a spoon and listening for the pitch and placeing them in order by pitch...

The kids did really well and learned how the water volume would affect the pitch of the sound emitted from the glass...

You can find this and other experiments like this at Steve Spangler Science...

The end of Cheerleading Season!!!

Field Trip to Ripley's Aquarium...

Our co-op went on a field trip to Ripley's Aquarium recently. We had a great time... We had a class on the fish on display there, we saw their "Living Babies in Incubators" exhibit and made "potato fish" ...

Field trips are always better with friends...  

Stellaluna...

This week we are doing Stellaluna...
We spent this afternoon reading the story, dicussing a bat's sense of smell and where bats are found...Bats are found pretty much everywhere in the world except for the polar regions...To let the kids see how strong a bats sense of smell was, I tied a bandana around each child's head and let them sniff certain household items to see if they could tell me what they were (I used cinnamon, vanilla, bleach, a dryer sheet, mouthwash, lotion, and peanut butter)... They did pretty well.. Another of the projects I planned was to make origami bats... It was very easy... We just followed the directions found here and this is what they looked like when we were done...

 

ORIGAMI BATS

What's cookin' at our house this week...

Monday

• Sloppy Joes


• Green Beans

Tuesday

• Oven-baked Buffalo Chicken


• Oven Fries 


• Brownies (while the oven is hot)

Wednesday

• Spaghetti with Meatsauce


• Salad


• Italian Bread

Thursday

• Pancakes


• Scrambled Eggs


• Sausage


• Fruit

Friday

• Beef Stew


• Brown Bread loaves


• Apple Turnovers

 

Halloween...

Fall and Halloween is always a fun time for us... This year we went to Dollywood for the Fall festivals and then took a walk through the streets of Gatlinburg where we ran into this interesting fellow you will see below...

Our Friday Field Trip...

Today we went a field trip with some HS friends of ours...

We went to the Frank H. McClung Museum... A local group leader had arranged a class on "Geology and Fossil History of Tennessee" for kids ages 4-10... It was great... The class was taught by a geology student and even though he used some words that even the adults had touble with, the kids really enjoyed it...They got to see Dino skeletons and Dino eggs and all kinds of rehistoric animals that were actually in Tennessee... I was really amazed at how much DS actually got from it as he was telling DH tonight...

After the class we toured the museum exhibits which included a Egyptian exhibit complete with mummified cats and goats, as well as, a mummy coffin and a coffin for a hawk which was a sacred bird to the Egyptians..

Another exhibit the kids loved was on Ancient peoples and Indians... My kidlets really enjoyed it and the movie was really a great teaching tool... DD told DH all about how the US government made the Cherokee move and the "Trail of Tears"... which she paid attention too since we went to Cherokee, NC this summer for a weekend trip...The kids also learned about Sequoyah and his alphabet...

The kids are already talking about when we will get to go back...

 

I've been tagged...

My friend Michelle has tagged me...

Here are the rules:

1. Link to the person that tagged you and put the rules on your blog...

2. Share 7 weird or random facts about yourself...

3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and link to their blog...

4. Let each person know they have been tagged by leaving a note on their blog...

Here Goes:

1. I am a trekkie...

2. I love disco and the BeeGees

3. ABBA is one of my favorite groups

4. I am a self described geek

5. I love peanut butter and bologna sandwiches

6. Buttered Popcorn JellyBellies are my favorite jelly bean

7. I have always wanted thick and naturally curly hair 

I'm going to randomly tag from my list of friends : Rhonda,  Dawn, Heather, Mary, CourtneyLane ....

A great video clip...

I was sent this video from a close friend at my church... I am not Catholic, but the content has meaning for so many that I had to share it...Especially at this time in America... God Bless....

Frampton Comes Alive..

Dh and I had a date night and went to see Peter Frampton... We had a great time... Sometimes you feel like a teenager...*L*

My Fall decorations...

Fall is one of favorite times of the year... This year, instead of decorating the house (mantle, living room, stairwell, etc..) I just did the porch, and the entryway table for the kids... It ws so much easier and they were just as happy with it...