Reindeer Toast

I bet Santa would love to find a herd of these waiting for him when he comes down the chimney.

“Kindness is like snow – it beautifies everything it covers.”

I couldn't find who said that quote but it sure gives me a better attitude about 10 - 12 inches we have had so far and the flakes that are still coming down.   

 

 

The deck post looks like a match stick. 

 

 

Chester - are you out there?

 

 

Thank goodness for the neighbors or we wouldn't be out until spring.

 

 

Nikki wishes she wasn't going out until spring.  She's not really a snow kinda girl.

 

 

The kitties have no idea a storm is raging just inches from where they are tousling.

 

 

Kacheeker's kitty days are way behind him, he's trying to find food in his snow covered dish.  He and Vidallia spending more time in the barn since the cold weather has hit has made our rat population dwindle.

 

 

Dad is not giving in to winter, he is still wearing shorts.

 

 

The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found? - J.B. Priestley

Shading a Line Drawing

Using a Sharpie, draw a wavy line across the paper.  Make eight dots along the line.  Connect the dots on top of the line and the bottom of the line.

After the dots are connected it will look like this, then you just start building out and out and out in any fashion, except straight as that is boring

When these are done it should look like intestines.  Chose a few favorite colors and start coloring by making the edges of each blop darker and get lighter as you go to the middle to make them seem like they are curved and there are shadows.

 

These took a few hours to make but the kids enjoyed the whole project and the end result is really cool - much better than the picture was able to capture. This is Dancer's.

 

Spark's

 



And a glorious sunset.

Rollerskating

Not that you can tell from the picture but, we went rollerskating today along with a 150 other homeschoolers. 

Hospital Christmas Lighting

Every year the hospital Dad works at has a lighting ceremony.  The hospital and all of it's architectural details are outlined in lights, it is truly spectacular and can been seen for miles.  We use to live in a town on a hill that was just across the river from the hospital.  I have special memories of sitting up at night with the kids when they were babies and how much I loved to look at it in the silence of the cold December nights.

 

The last time we went to the lighting ceremony was when Spark was probably about three and Dancer six years old.  Since we moved it is just to far to drive into town to watch them flip a switch when we can see the lights on other nights that we are there.  Tonight though Dancer had a meeting near by so Spark and I ran over to take in all the festivities.   

 

Santa and Mrs. Claus were handing out candy canes. 

 

Horse drawn carriage rides.  They were short but that was okay, made the line move quickly in the cold weather.

 

 

Two reindeer where there but, no sleigh, perhaps Santa and Mrs. Claus both rode in on one?  Not sure which ones these are but we know they weren't Rudolph.  Spark and I wondered if he need to charge that bright, shiny nose and was at the North Pole plugged into a power outlet.

 

 

A living nativity scene, I love these.

 

 

Just a tiny slice of how many lights there are.  They picked a little kid out of the crowd to pull the switch - how cool would that be?

 

 

A local high school choir.  They were good because even Spark said, "Their singing is so beautiful."

 

 

And cookies and cocoa that wasn't so hot it burned your tongue - yummy!

Pine Swags for the Food Shelf

Back in September when we were making our plans for the 4-H year we thought about making Christmas wreaths as a craft project.  Then someone else said, "Let's make swags, give them to the food shelf and make it a community service project too."  Glad they did because we each got to make about four of these and they were really fun to make and decorate.

 

Started out by sorting all the ribbons, ornaments, bells, beads and other do-dads that everyone brought for decorating the swags.



Dad and one of our older members trimmed all the fir branches to the right lengths.

Taking metal coat hangers, we pulled them from the bottom so that the hanger hook part was still on top but the hanger was now narrow and long.  Pick out just the right pieces to make balanced swag.

 

Using a pipe cleaner cinch the middles together and twist on to the coat hanger.

 

Then add decorations.  Not working very hard we make over 40 of these in less than an hour. 

The kids made a sign for the food shelf to hang up when people come to get their food boxes and a swag.  We had the perfect day for this project, it was about 45 degrees so the kids could run out to grab more branches and didn't even need coats as you can see a lot of them are in short sleeves.  Everyone was already saying, "We need to do this again next year!" 

Double Booked

We have a hard and fast rule at our house:  DO NOT make any plans with out looking at "The Book" first.  "The Book" is our date book and if it isn't written in there we don't show up, know what we are suppose to bring to a meeting or event, or get things done on time right down to when it is time to worm the cats.  I truly keep very little of that information clogging up my brain because it is all there. 

 

Our last 4-H meeting, however, was outside around the bonfire and I didn't bring The Book with because I wouldn't be able to see it in the dark and besides now that Dad is the Key Leader I know everything that is going on.  One of the agenda items was bell ringing for the Salvation Army.  Dates on the best days to ring were flying around and when a date on a Saturday morning early in December (when I hoped it wouldn't be as cold later in the month or at night) came up I jumped at the date.  That was as far as it went, I didn't write it in the book - gasp! I just broke my own cardinal rule!! 

 

Fast forward to last week when I got an email from Dad's co-leader saying that the date was set for us to bell ring this Saturday.  Crapola, we are suppose to be bringing Dancer over to help Grandma Pat make crafts and decorate cookies with kids at a Relay for Life event an hour away.

 

We ended dividing up and Dad driving two extra hours because of my little mix up.  He took Dancer over to his mothers early in the morning, then drove back and met us to bell ring.  The plan was for Spark and I to bell ring and then drive over to meet him but he would have to drive back either way, and since I hate to drive at night, he just did the trip back in the morning. 

Spark and Lauren ringing the bells, they didn't do too bad for a sort of early on Saturday.  Not being morning people I was surprised how many people were out ramming around at that hour on a weekend.

With Grandma :)

It's Cold Outside.....

even if you have fur.  With no fireplace, basking in front of the space heater is the next best thing.

Marshmallow S'mores

Melt a bag of chocolate chips and dip in marshmallows.  They come out sort of glumpy so roll the sides and the top of the marshmallow on the side of the pan to give it a smooth coating.  Roll in crushed graham crackers.

Let them sit on wax paper to get hard or if they are not progressing as fast as you would like pop them in the freezer for a few minutes.  We took these to a fellowship at church and they flew out of the bowl.

The 20 Word Story

Dad gave Dancer 20 words that she needed to incorporate into a story.  The words were: flaming, forest, mushroom, kittens, sparkles, drove, oven, flood, noodle, harness, cheap, elf, spiral, shrunken, waffle, bow, load, plastic, garden and swamp.

Here is her story ~

Once upon a time there was a magic forest, and in that magic forest was the land of Boom.  Now the land of Boom is an odd place where they grow such things as, flaming mushrooms, pizza, and edible rocks.  The elves that dwell there are excellent bakers and are widely known for their tasty spiral waffles.  People travel long distances to get these waffles because no one has been able to figure out to make them spiral.

One day a little elf named Cece was working in her swamp garden when she saw an unusual looking bird eating some blueberries off her plants.  She was about to chase it away when it started to talk.  “This blueberry is not very tasty you know,” grumbled the bird, “it is rather sour and shrunken.”  Cece then noticed that the bird had sparkles on all of his feathers.  “Are you a Hodge Podgy bird?” asked Cece, for she had only seen a picture and had never seen one in real life.  “Yes, I am Sir Ruffle Puff,” he announced while taking a deep bow. “I was on my way to order a load of noodles for the palace because we are having a very important party for visiting royalty in five days and, alas, we do not have any,” he complained as he flew over and pecked her on the nose.  “Hey!” Cece exclaimed while holding her hand over her assaulted nose.  “Peck me again and I’ll throw you in the oven for a cheap source of protein in tonight’s dinner!  “You don’t want to eat me; kittens are a much better source of protein,” Sir Ruffle Puff replied.  Cece looked at him and shot back, “Or, I could just harness them to the fence next to my blueberry plants to eat pesky birds that try to eat my blueberries.” 

Sir Ruffle Puff then picked up a bulging, plastic bag full of smooth, shiny, colored rocks.  “Will you drive me to the store since I have wasted so much time here?” Cece thought this through.  “I will drive you to the store but, only if I can have some of those rocks.”  “Alright, I will give you 15 of them.” He retorted grumpily. 

“Okay, I drove you to the store and helped you get the noodles.  I cannot drive you any farther because there was a flood up ahead and I don’t want to get my car stuck in the mud,” Cece said as she opened the door for Sir Ruffle Puff.  “Thank you for your help and I can fly to the palace from here. Here are your rocks; I hope you enjoy them immensely.  They would be most beautiful in your garden by the gate door.” Sir Ruffle Puff called back as he flew away. 

Well, this has been a very interesting day though Cece as she drove home.  I hope they don’t burn the noodles.

Sour Cream Drops

Dancer says these plain looking cookies are a happy explosion in your mouth.

These must be good because while looking for another cookie recipe tonight I saw that I had already blogged about these before.  I thought they seemed familiar!

Sour Cream Drops

1/4 cup shortening
3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup sour cream
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 1/3 cup flour
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt

Frosting:
2 Tbsp. butter
1/2 cup powdered sugar
1/4 tsp. vanilla
3 to 4 tsp. hot water

Cream sugar and shortening.  Add eggs and vanilla.  Add dry ingredients.  Bake at 425 degrees until lightly brown. 

For frosting - melt butter in saucepan until golden brown.  Stir in sugar and vanilla.  Add hot water one teaspoon at a time until spreading consistency.  Make it a little thin so that you can just dip the tops in the frosting and not deal with spreading it on the cookies.

2012 Handprint Thanksgiving Turkey

I love the Groucho Marx eyebrows he got this year courtesy of Spark.

He now resides on the turkey wall in the hallway.

Like A Boss

 

Our goats are sugar hooves - that's what Dad calls them because they are such babies about everything.  They don't like to be out in the rain, the wind, the snow, the dark, or in the summer when it is hot, the sun.  To make their poor lives more bearable we put a dog house in the corral so they could be outside and still be out of the rain, the wind, the snow, the sun and, well, not the dark but four out of five isn't bad. 

 

We expected them to run right into it because Eeyore, Dancer's goat that died of seizures, liked it very much.  Instead, they acted like it fell out of the sky like the Coke bottle in "The God's Must Be Crazy" and it must be evil.  This was back in August and they huddled by the barn.  Slowly they started to make their way around the corral again but never venturing too close to the house.  Now that it is November we started throwing our old pumpkins by the house and finally threw one in the house.  Goats, our goats anyway, are ruled by their stomachs so to get that final pumpkin at least Lola went into the house to eat it.   Now that she realizes the dog house isn't scary, or evil, she spends a lot of time standing on top of it - like a boss.  I still haven't seen her actually in the house but we are getting closer.

 

 

Nico has been out to do his manly duty and he wanted his picture taken too.

Thanksgiving Week

Our week has been jammed pack full of activities, appointments, preparations and not much school.

On Tuesday our homeschool co-op made and delivered Thanksgiving baskets and pies.  This is a fun project we have enjoyed the last two years.

Wednesday was spent baking for our Thanksgiving diner.  We made an Amish Sugar pie.  The jury is out on if it was good or not.  I think it was one of those things you either love it or you don't.  As the name says it is sugar, lots and lots of it makes my teeth hurt to eat this sugar with a little lemon and three eggs thrown in.  Dad made rolls and he is a very picky baker, you could call him a baking snob in fact.  He made several batches before he had ones that he thought were worthy for a Thanksgiving diner.  The kids and I had no problems enjoying the ones that he shunned. 

The kids also had dentist appointments on Wednesday.  Dancer had her first cavity.  She is pretty upset about it which I wasn't expecting.  She has been through having teeth pulled and braces so this should really be a walk in the park, it is just a little one.  Once she has it done I am sure she will see that it isn't such a big deal.  I had a mouthful of fillings by the time I was her age, although that fact isn't making her feel better.  She will understand now though why Dad and I don't enjoying going to the dentist, something the kids have never understood before.

Wednesday night Dancer was invited to a youth group Thanksgiving dinner and game night.  They played "Plunger Ball" - yes it is a game played with a toilet plunger.  When we went into town to pick her up we stopped for a late night snack at McDonalds so I could down load the book The Homeschooling Highway: How To Navigate Your Way Without Getting Carsick  on the Kindle.  It is wonderfully written by a famish kind of homeschool mom  we happen to have the good fortune of being friends with. We don't have wifi at our house so any time we want something it means a trip to either a restaurant or the local laundromat.

Thursday we celebrated the day at church.  Our church is right across the road from a college and we extended an invitation to the international students to join us for dinner.  Only two came, one from the Bahamas and one from Ethiopia, we had a fun time getting to know them and playing games.  During diner it started to snow and just kept on snowing and snowing and snowing. 

By the time we were ready to leave the roads were slick and we had to creep our way home.  There were a lot of accidents which means that Dad, who was hoping to get put on call a good portion of the holiday weekend, is working since many were very serious and people are hospitalized.  Dad always says that people misunderstand that when people hear of a crash that reports there were no deaths they assume everyone is alright.  The reality, the part he sees, is that many are hospitalized for months and months, endure many surgeries, intense pain and have life long problems that make their former lives a memory. 

Friday we were invited to dinner at a friends.  Only Dancer and I were able to go as Dad was going to work and Spark wasn't feeling well so he stayed home.  They both really missed out as the food was plentiful and delicious.  After dinner we played the game "What's Yours Like?"  We laughed so hard that my cheeks hurt by the time we left.  Might have to look for that game the next time we are shopping.


Skips

 

Mr. Fluffles

 

That brings us to today, Saturday afternoon.  This morning we brought our two new kittens to the vet for check ups and their first shots.  This first appointment was $248 - so much for free kittens.  We thought they would be outside cats but I am rethinking that plan since they are going to be expensive little creatures by the time we finish up their shots and neutering.  I use to think that a cat at the Humane Society for $60 was out of line but it looks like a bargain now. 

We have lots of pictures from the week but Blogger is not cooperating.  When it starts to work I will add some in.

A Frosty Morning for Chester

Thanksgiving Crafts

 

Little Rice Krispy ball on half an Oreo with frosting for glue and candy corn head and tail feathers.

 

Thankful pumpkin 

Fingerprint turkey.  One on the left is a napkin ring.

Homemade Raisin

Spark brings me this.

"What is it?" I wonder since it looks like a baby belly button.

"It's a raisin I made.  I put a grape behind the microwave on October 26th and now it is a raisin.  Cool huh?"

Yeah....cool.  Or else a sign that I need to do a better job cleaning.