Quit reading that blog

I struggle with motivating the kids.  They seem to think that I am some unreasonable task master and I think we could be getting a lot more accomplished during the day.  Our days really are quite relaxed, the problem is that they have only lived this kind of life so they don't know what the rest of the world is doing.  Well, they do know what some of their friends have to do but I think they truly believe those friends are the exception to the rest of the world. 

Tonight I was reading a blog where the mother, who was trying to motivate her kids because some days they aren't finishing school until 3:00 p.m., made a rule that if school wasn't done by 1:00 p.m. the kids lost their privileges like TV or computer for the rest of the day.  I read this out loud to Dancer and asked what she thought of that.  Like lightening she responded, "I think you should stop reading that woman's blog!"

To explain just how horrible this could be, I should mention that there are days that we have just gotten started on school at 1:00 p.m.  It also isn't unusual for us to being doing school at 9:00 p.m. either depending on how the mood strikes us for the day.

Almond Bark w/Candy Canes, Ritz Crackers and Pretzels

Dancer had a friend over night and Dad had lots of things planned for to keep them busy.  Having a few things planned for them to do also makes the night go smoother when there is a little brother involved.  One of the activities was making lots of treats with almond bark.

The two girls had quite the time breaking the block of almond bark into squares.  I think when you are 13 years old it is mandatory to add a little drama into everything you do so that may have been part of their problem.  Once they got it into chunks they melted it in a double boiler.  We don't have an official double boiler so we just put a big pot of water on the stove and then a smaller pot on top of it and it works just a good as the real thing.  The other plus to using two pots is that I don't have to store another kitchen gadget in the cupboards.

The first thing they made was Almond Bark with Candy Canes.  The only ingredients are almond bark and candy canes.  Unwrap all the candy canes, this is the longest part of the whole process, and put then in a plastic zipper bag.  Smash them with a rolling pin, but don't pulverize them, you want some larger pieces not just peppermint dust.  Pour the pieces in melted almond bark and stir. 

Next, pour it out on wax paper, spread thin and allow to harden.

Then comes the fun part.  Pick the hardened piece of almond bark a few inches off the counter and  

drop it where it doesn't shatter into pieces.

Drop it again and it........doesn't break.

Drop it again and it........doesn't break.

Get out the rolling pin where for sure that will make it break......into two pieces.

Give up and break it apart with your hands like when putting away a jigsaw puzzle.  This method is not near as gratifying as having it shatter on the counter.

Their second recipe was Almond Bark with Ritz Crackers and Peanut Butter.  I think some people might call these Ho Hos.  Take two Ritz crackers, spread one with peanut butter and put the other one on top to make a sandwich.  Dip these in almond bark, we used chocolate here, and sprinkle with Christmas sprinkles before the almond bark get hard.  These are one of our favorite treats and they are usually gone the first day as they are just so addicting.

The final almond bark creation was dipping pretzels in the bark.  Again melt in the double boiler.  Dip the pretzels into the bark with a fork.

Shake off the excess bark or you just get big blobs ad lay on wax paper.

Sprinkle with colored sugar before the bark hardens.  These too are hard to leave alone so I put them in container where they are out of sight and, hopefully, out of mind.

Date Pinwheel Cookies

Grandma brought us pre-made cookie dough for these.  All we had to do was roll them out, spread on the filling (which she also brought all done - gotta love that woman), roll them up, slice and bake them.  Oh, these are good.  Too good in fact, they only lasted a couple of days.  We did figure that since they had date filling they were probably healthy and so we even had them for breakfast one morning.  I think during the season of Christmas cookies that is okay to have cookies for breakfast.  She brought us half a batch of these as they make 16 dozen.  We got about five dozen out of our half as Dancer cut them a little wider to make a softer cookie.  Grandma used a recipe from Taste of Home, it follows below. 

Date Pinwheel Cookies

Ingredients


1 cup butter, softened

2 cups packed brown sugar

3 eggs

1 teaspoon Spice Island® Pure Vanilla Extract

4 cups all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon baking soda



FILLING:

2-1/2 cups chopped dates

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

1 cup finely chopped pecans

Directions

In a large bowl, cream butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Combine the flour, salt and baking soda; gradually add to creamed mixture and mix well. Divide into four portions. Refrigerate until chilled.

In a large saucepan, bring the dates, sugar and water to a boil. Reduce heat to medium; cook until mixture is thickened, about 15 minutes. Cool completely. Stir in pecans.

On a baking sheet, roll out each portion of dough between two sheets of waxed paper into a 12-in. x 9-in. rectangle. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.

Remove waxed paper; spread with date mixture. Tightly roll up each portion jelly-roll style, starting with a long side; wrap in plastic wrap. Refrigerate for 2 hours or until firm.

Unwrap and cut into 1/4-in. slices. Place 1 in. apart on greased baking sheets. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes or until set. Remove to wire racks to cool. Store in an airtight container at room temperature, or freeze for up to 3 months. Yield: 16 dozen.

Deck the Halls

We have the tree up so it looking like Christmas around our house.  It was fun to put the ornaments on the tree and talk about when we got them all.  I really like to put the ones on that the kids made when they were little.  Some of those I can still see the kids making them,  where we were and sometimes almost down to what they were wearing that day. 

We don't put up too many things after the tree.  I would love to have one of those fancy schmancy homes that you see in magazines but that just isn't us.  Our house is not a show case, we live here and it shows.  Of course, we could have a house like that but what would the cost be?  It would be a huge job to keep it looking picture perfect.  Clutter makes me a little testy and crabby and we have enough clutter with just all our school stuff.  Who wants a fancy decorated house and crabby mom?  Our tree, and some of our other decorations, are a mishmash of things we have made or love, it isn't color coordinated or the theme of the season.  We want to spend the season having fun with the kids not keeping a house looking like some HGTV set.

So if you come our house you will see a Christmas tree full of  memories that show who we are, will be offered a tasty homemade looking cookie and you may leave with a little glitter sticking to your pants but you can sit back relax while you are here. 

I Don't Get That

So I'm driving into town the other day checking out all the decorated houses.  As usual, our family was grading christmas light displays on the 1-10 scale.  By the way, to score a "perfect 10" a house needs to have some Christian religious element to it.

One of the places we went by had a lighted Santa head on the wall next to their front door.  As we went along I noticed other Santa heads displayed in various ways.  What the hay???  Do you really think that displaying Santa's severed head will increase the booty they get?

In Olde England, traitors heads were impaled on pike lining the London bridge to warn others.  I can't fathom how having parts of Santa's dismembered body strewn about the front yard would encourage him to stop on Christmas Eve.

"Let's hang Santa in effigy"

"Let's hang him right here in Boston"

People, come to your senses.  Stop displaying Santa's severed head.  It's wrong, damn it!!

The Island of Misfit Toys

I saw one of the iconic Rudolph shows on TV the other night.  On the show there is the "Island of Misfit Toys."  These are toys that are a little off, don't work and maybe were the victims of a bad design team.  The scene reminded me, in some ways, of our little farm. 

In the morning we head out to see Eeyore, the little goat wether that has seizures (no, he's not a fainting goat).  We give him a few pieces of candy as that seems to ward off his spells.

On the way to Eeyore's pen we pass a couple of rabbit hutches.  In the first is Ear and a Half, admittedly a pretty long name.  This rabbit lost half of one ear when a few days old.  He is pretty friendly and is one of our bucks.

In the next pen is an assortment of rabbit does.  One of these is Radar.  Radar was named by Dad because of it's abnormally long ears (huge really).  This bunny also is puny, less than half the size of our other does.  Not an ideal trait for meat rabbits, but she gets played with because she is cute.

Other misfit rabbits, who are old, or just can't get along, wander about the yard.  One even took the initiative this fall to dig a tunnel from the garden into the barn for easy access even when the barn is locked up. 

A couple years ago one of the ducks hurt her leg and couldn't hobble fast enough to keep up with the flock.  We all took care to make sure she had water and gave her a seperate pile of food so she didn't have to fight the rest to eat.  Last spring she proudly limped out of an old chicken coup with EIGHTEEN ducklings in tow.

This brings us to the latest arrival.  On Friday morning the cats were gathered about the front door waiting for food.  Oddly, there were four cats instead of the traditional, and expected, three cats.  I bent down to look at the new cat and it jumped into my arms!!  I didn't hold it long as I saw it's one eye was a cloudy green/brown with yellow discharge.   The cat is a small, young female.  We are guessing it was a pet that got dropped off as it tries to get into the house continuously.

It's eye is now sort of scabbed over and mostly shut.  The new visitor is very friendly, and even got a couple names--Pirate and Bella.  I thought the plan was to relocate Pirate/Bella this week, then this morning, I saw that Spark gave her a bowl of food and a steaming bowl of water (you don't need hot water to steam when it's 2 degrees out).  The provisions were sneakily placed behind the house but in view of Sparks room.  When asked, "Why the hospitality?", Spark replied "She might have baby Raggles in her tummy".

Well Pirate Bella, welcome the Island of Misfit Toys.  

Memory Test

In Dancer's science we are studying body systems, right now we are on the nervous system.  Today we are talking about sleep and what purpose it serves.  Some studies show that sleep is a time when the brain processes and stores information (others disagree).  Researchers also speculate that the brain does this learning work during REM sleep.

This is an experiment we did to see if sleep aids learning.  Look at these 10 words early in the day. 

horseshoe, category, sphinx, civilian, opinion, animate, utility, segment, independent, magnify

Study them for 10 minutes, keeping in mind you will be asked to recall them later.  After about eight hours ask your subject to recall the words.

Before bed have your subject study this second list of words for 10 minutes. 

quantity, medicine, funnel, target, latitude, scavenger, ornament, graceful, stadium, journalist

In the morning, after an appropriate de-groggifying period, have your guinea pig recall as many words on the list as they can.  Dancer could recall five words from the 1st list and nine from the 2nd list.  In this case the sleep seems to have aided in recall.

Cleopatra's Kisses - Egyptian Unit Study

It was thought that Cleopatra had an intense sweet tooth so these kisses would have been a hit with her.  This recipe came from the Cookbook of Foods from Bible Days, by Jean McKibbin, although we made a few changes to it. 

Cleopatra's Kisses

6 slices white bread crumbled 
1 cup honey
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup butter

We only have wheat bread so used that in place of the white bread.  We made bread crumbs instead of just crumbling the bread which I am not sure how you would do with fresh bread anyway.  First we toasted the bread, broke it into small pieces and put it in the food grinder.

Turn it on and let it go for a few seconds until it turns to bread crumbs.

Put the honey, sugar and butter in a skillet and heat on the stove until it is melted.

Add the bread crumbs and continue cooking over low heat for 10 minutes stirring the whole time.  This firms up quite quickly so it needs to be stirred so as not to burn.



Drop by spoonfuls on wax paper and let cool.  We kept these in the fridge but with all that sugar and honey they should be fine sitting out on the counter. 

Christmas Picture

Our 2010 Christmas  picture. 

I want to put it up on the header but only half of it goes on.  When I uploaded it I clicked on shrink to fit and it still didn't work.  Now when I go back to edit the shrink to fit option is gone.   I have had this problem ever since this spring, which is why Spark in the swamp was our header picture for so long.  There was more people in that picture too but at least it looked like we meant it to be just Spark.  Can anyone tell me what I am doing wrong and help me get our complete picture on the top?

Dancer's Butterflies - paper cutting for big kids

Dancer made these beautiful butterflies based on some she saw in the book Simple Paper Crafts by Gunvor and Harriet Ask.  They are done a lot like paper snowflakes.  First fold a paper in half, draw half a butterfly on it and then cut out.  These are putsy and take some good scissor skills to get smooth antennas and the holes in the wings. 

Choir Girl Christmas Gift Tags

When it get dark out at 5:00 p.m. we have plenty of time to sit and putz with little art projects.  This one is Christmas tags that we found in the Christmas Around the World book 9.  We broke Popsicle sticks in half and glued on for legs to get them a little more heft and dimension. 

Dancer added bows and glitter on some of hers.  We copied these out of the book but it would be easy to just draw one and also wings can be added to make them into angels.  We will write who the gift is to on their skirts.

Sparkly Walnut Christmas Ornaments

My title of the post pretty much wrapped up the project. 

If you crack nuts during the holidays, this is a nice thing to do with the shells.  I remember as a kid we had a coffee can decorated with felt to look like Santa's boot on the coffee table and every night we would crack some nuts.  Over the years we could have made enough of these to cover several trees. 

With our kids, when they were younger, I would give them a bag of nuts and a nut cracker and they would sit and crack them for an activity to keep them busy.  There seems to be something satisfying about cracking nuts and digging out the meats, especially if you get one out whole.  We seem to be easily entertained here. 

Well, on to the ornament.  First, we cracked the walnuts open and took out the meat.  This was the hardest part as we had trouble getting the shells to crack perfectly in half, they kept wanting to break on the sides.  We had the best luck when we took a butter knife, slid it down the middle of a nut and then twisted it.

The kids spread glitter glue on the outside of the nut and then dipped them in glitter.  I thought they could paint them but they brought out the glitter instead so we went with that. 

After the glue dried we ran a line of Tacky glue along the rim of the nut, put the hanger (curling ribbon in our case) between the two halves and stuck them together.

As I was writing this, I thought that it would be cool to leave the materials out all season and have everyone assigned a color and tally them up after Christmas to see who had the most walnuts perfectly cracked.   I think we would paint them if we had this out all season or there would probably we glitter around until July. 

Where, oh where, did it go?

Spark can not find his Awana book.  It was here on Thanksgiving and I remembered him with it in his hand on Friday.  We searched for that book, looked through all the books under the coffee table, the couch, then end table, the homeschool cabinet, the down stair book shelves, anywhere we could think the book could be hiding.  I told Spark to think about the last time he had it in his hands and what he did next.  His face lights up, he runs in his room and comes out with the book.  Where was it?   He had put it away in his Awana bag and that must be such a rare act that he never thought to look there.  Ugh, we need more organization at our house.

Everyone wants in the house

When it is warm out we can go days without seeing the cats.  They are working cats that keep down the vermin population and they eat what they catch.  When the temperatures start to dip it is a whole other story with them.  They start begging at the doors and trying to sneak in when we open the doors. 

This is Vidalia watching us through the window.  Usually, she sits on the deck to look in at us with pleading eyes, but this day she got up on the post of the deck that is right by the slider door.

Here I think she is probably disdainly thinking, "Why does that dog get to be in the house?"

Now we have reached a whole new level of things trying to get in the house.  We came home the other day to find the chickens, Paige, Speckly, and Wooton, sitting at the front door.  I don't think they really want in but it was funny to find them there.  They are always on the  porch eating the cat food, which we need to some how stop because cat food is expensive to feed chickens.  They also leave poo all over when they are up there which is nasty.  The other chickens went in the barn for the winter but these three won't stay in there.   

Raggles' Rescue

Dad's brother is a cook at bar/restaurant place.  They had a problem with cats, way to many cats, hanging out in their dumpsters.  It made me think of that book "Millions of Cats."  The owner made the decision to get rid of them.  There was one cat that was friendly and would come up to Dad's brother to get tidbits and be petted. 

Grandma called and asked if we would save this cat by taking it in.  One more pet our house really doesn't matter so I said to bring it over.  They caught him in a live trap with the alluring aroma of tuna.

Spark was out of his mind with excitement about this cat.  He made list of names.  Looked at pet lists of names on the Internet.  We voted on names.  Spark made more lists of names.  We finally all agreed on the name Raggles. 

Grandma brought Raggles over and we got him in a rabbit hutch.  He lived in the rabbit hutch for a few weeks until he wasn't scared out of his wits and hiss when we would come out to feed him.  We got him into a cat carrier and took him to the vet for a rabies shot.  Even if he ran away, I don't want a rabid cat anywhere around our house.  We get to the vet and she reaches in to the carrier, pulls him out, he purrs like crazy, lets her check him over, give him a shot and treat some ear mites.  Encouraged by his behavior at the vet, we got home and let him out in the garage.  He was gone like a shot behind some boxes.  We kept him the garage for another week or so and finally got him to come out by only leaving food down for him if we were in the garage.  He got pretty friendly this way.  Finally, we left the garage door open and let him come out.  He was still timid for a few days but has become less skittish every day.  He has since made his home in the hay stack or the barn. 

A couple of days ago we could hear him meow in the other garage but couldn't figure out where he was.  The next day we hear him meowing again and took a better look around for him.  He had some how crawled up into the eaves of the garage and was stuck there.  One of our other cats, Vidalia, doesn't like him one bit so she probably chased him and that is how he got up there in the first place.  We thought we could lure him down with food.   

Dancer got out the ladder and climbed up to offer him a can of cat food to see if that would get him to come out.

He was so hungry he snagged his nail on the rim of the can, held it there and ate out of the can.

After he had had a little, we thought he would follow the smell of the food down.  Nope, he still didn't move.  Dancer tried to get him out, he reached out to her but he was still stuck in there. 

Finally, he managed to get himself out and on top of the open garage door.  We put the cat food on the top of the car thinking he would jump down to eat it.  He just couldn't make himself jump the two or so feet to the car.

He back tracked and went over the rafters to the middle of the garage.

He got on top of the garage door opener and still couldn't make himself jump onto the car.  All the while we are waving the can of cat food around to intensify the smell so he would jump.

Dad saved the day by thinking of putting a box on the top of the car for him to climb down on and he was brave enough to get down.  He is like a cat afraid of heights.  I didn't know there was a cat out there afraid of heights.  I wonder if we had started chanting "JUMP, JUMP, JUMP" if that would have gotten him to jump.

Dancer scooped him up off the car and brought him down the ladder.  He was still scared as you can see him hanging on for dear life on the ladder.

Safe on the ground, Raggles finished his can of food.

Play-doh Neopets

Grundo, Chia, Aisha, and Chia - by Spark

Dehydrated Onions

This will be a Christmas gift for our parents this year.  We made these for them last year and they both came back and asked if we had anymore.  While they can be used in cooking we use them crunched on top of salad and as a sort of potato chip.  Dancer will just eat them straight of the bag for a snack but a handful is also good along side a sandwich. 

I have two dehydrators and it took about two days to dry 22 pounds of onions.  I do not run my dehydrators when we are gone, or at night, so that is strictly day time hours for drying  time.  I buy them in bulk from our organic food co-op so the price is very reasonable.  The prep for these is very simple, just peel and slice the onions thin.  This batch of onions had us crying like babies so we often needed to stop and wipe our eyes.  Not only the person cutting the onions was crying, anyone in the room was crying, that is how strong they were.

Next, we lay them out on the drying trays, put the dehydrator together and turn it on.  The last step is just to take them off the trays and into plastic sealable bags.  For some reason when they dry they manage to get themselves wrapped around the slots in the trays so this is actually the hardest part of the whole process. 

The 22 pounds of onions ended up being a huge mixing bowl full, enough for each of our parents to get a big bag.  I wanted to have a picture on here of how they look after but blogger just wasn't cooperating.

Giving Thanks Challenge - Leftovers

When I talked to my dad about bringing ham for Thanksgiving, he asked if he should get a big one or a little one.  A big one, I told him, I want leftovers.

I love the time after holidays when the fridge is stuffed with the leftovers because, for a few days afterwards, the cooking is so easy.  We all just open the fridge and take out what we want.  It is like a vacation!

Marshmallow Gun how to

 Making a marshmallow gun is a fun easy project. We saw these at a craft fair for $12.00.  We made two of them for about $3.00 each.  This  gun shoots mini marshmallows and is made from 1/2" PVC pipe.  You can buy the supplies at any hardware store.  Buy an eight or 10 foot section of 1/2" PVC pipe, at least three "T" connectors and at least three caps for each gun.

The PVC pipe can be cut with a hack saw.  In this picture you can see a Dremmel Tool with a cut off wheel, we used it because it cuts faster. 

We made a 7" piece, a 5" piece and five 5" pieces.  The pieces just slide together and you can arrange them how you want to make a general gun shape.  The pieces aren't glued together, that way you can take it apart to store the gun, rearrange it's look and can get into it if a marshmallow gets stuck.

 Load a marshmallow into the back of the gun and blow hard.

The marshmallows go pretty far, it's amazingly accurate and the soft little sugar puffs sting pretty good.  If your kids have poor aim, and/or poor judgement, use some eye protection.

Thanksgiving

Decoration by Spark

I called my dad a couple of weeks ago and asked if they want to come for Thanksgiving.  Without missing a beat he said yes and that they would bring a ham.  Then he asked if we had any cranberries and sweet potatoes.  Sounds like he was waiting for an invitation and knew exactly what he wanted!  The trip from their house to ours is usually about an hour.  Today, with horrible roads, it took them and hour and 45 minutes.  Thankfully they made it here and back.

Every vegetable and side dish we had was orange.  We had carrot casserole and yams.  Since we already had two orange veggies Dad threw a squash in the oven for one more.  Then Grandma Pat came with an orange salad and pumpkin pie.  Pumpkin pie can technically be orange.

All the food was so good.  Glad we had leftovers!

This is what happens when you work all night and have company all day.  You are fast asleep on the couch with the dog by 4:15 p.m.  We watched a movie, played Wii Sports Resort, played a game at the table and Dad never stirred.  He did wake up about 8:00 and made us pizza.  We know winter has officially arrived when Dad starts making homemade pizza.