November and December Recap

It was November 3 the last time I posted here at Camp Homeschool.  Of course I have a few recipes to share, videos of Joseph reading, and a review of Calming Clippers, but first I think a general recap of the last couple of months is in order.

Duck hunting has infected a few members of the family.  Nick spent a good portion of his fall chasing ducks and geese.  He and Amber went to the Mead Wildlife Refuge one morning and brought home 6 nice sized ducks.  Nick's perfected the art of cooking duck - it only took a few pointers from me and now he's the main duck chef.

Joe attends Friday school through the virtual homeschool program.  Just before Thanksgiving he made a turkey head band at school.  It didn't make it to Thanksgiving Day; he had it wore out long before that.

Deer hunting takes center stage in November when everyone eats, sleeps, and breathes deer hunting.  Conversation around the dinner table often includes talk about deer hunting snacks, blaze orange jackets, sighting in rifles, ammunition purchases, and who's sitting with who.  We have so much to be thankful for this hunting season; 7 deer went in the freezer.  Most likely we'll eat it up by the end of July or August.

Can you tell Joseph loves hunting season just as much as his older siblings do?

We alternate hosting Thanksgiving with Warren's brother's family.  It was our year.  I like having a few games ready to play, just in case the electronics are trying to take over the day.  This competitive relay race had everyone laughing and cheering and moaning when the ball dropped.  Good times!

And more post Thanksgiving hunting.

This year we attended Canadian National's Holiday Train light display.  I think it was one of the coldest nights of the year, but we trudged on.  I'm so glad we did; the light display was awesome and it was pretty neat to be so close to the train.  When it was time for the train to leave there were a group of workers shooing people back and checking in between each car to make sure no one was hiding out.  So, it was safe even though we were so close.  It happened to be the vigil of the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. Thanks to the internet I was able to look up a Catholic church and see what time their vigil Mass would be and it ended up working out perfectly.  I always enjoy, out of curiosity, attending Mass at other churches.  I was surprised by the number of youth at Mass that evening; there had to be at least 100 teens.  And to really top off the night we went out for a late supper at Culver's.

The search for the perfect Christmas tree had us all trudging along one Sunday afternoon.  We had slim pickings so when someone spotted a 30 foot tree with a beautiful top, we decided it would be perfect.

We all watched as Nick notched and sawed and pushed a little until it came down.

We left the bottom section of the tree in the woods for rabbit habitat; Sam carried the top to the truck.

December is also the month of Peter's birthday.  Right away in the morning (when you're the tallest) I measured Peter.  Turns out he's the tallest 5 year old yet.  I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but the boys' measurements are on the left and the girls on the right.

Peter and Maria love to color, so when I found this over-sized Melissa and Doug coloring pad, I snagged one for Peter and Maria each, plus the crayon sets.  Maria got her set for Christmas, but Peter immediately went to coloring.  The pictures are big, clear, and exactly the types of things boys like to color:  spaceships, dinosaurs, race cars, and tractors.

Peter asked for angel food cake, but also wanted cupcakes.  I decided to make mini angel food cupcakes with white frosting, which represented snow and then made white chocolate (tinted green) trees as the decoration.  It's so easy to create chocolate shapes.  I found inspiration here and here.

Now that was a lot of pictures, so I'll stop here for tonight.  I hope to be back soon with more useful posts relating to Catholic life, homeschooling with Down syndrome, and maybe a couple of recipes.

Have a wonderful evening.  We're coming off a cold week of below 0 temps and moving into a week filled with freezing rain and increasing temperatures.

Thank You to All My Readers

Don't forget the cranberries.

 



My Daily Dove Chocolate

Yesterday I bought a bag of Dove Mint Bark at Walgreens.  Don't you just love their deals?  Last week I purchased holiday m&ms and a $5.00 coupon printed for more candy.  Love it!  I had to use the coupon this week before it expired and wouldn't you know Walgreens had Dove Christmas candies on sale for 2/$6.00 with a $2.00 register reward printing at checkout.  I used my $5.00 coupon and essentially made a $1.00 with that transaction.  Ok, so I tried the Dove Mint Bark and OH. MY. GOSH. It is divine.  I tore open the bag in the solitude of my bedroom to help get me through hiding Christmas presents in my closet and this is what I found:  a perfect little square of dark chocolate topped with a layer of crushed peppermints in white bark. I ate 2, then put away a couple things, ate another and twisted the bag closed.  Who was I kidding?  Put away a couple more things.  Opened the bag and had another 2.  I wasn't piggy about it though, I did pause between bites to read the cute little sayings on the wrappers.  My favorite was this:

Togetherness for the holidays is a gift in itself.

We all know this is true.  Being together with family and friends during the holidays really is a gift.  But my wanting to have a plan for everything brain read this as togetherness = having a plan, being organized, being ready, having supplies handy.  Moms know that with all that is expected from now until the New Year a plan is essential.  I believe it goes a step further.  A WRITTEN plan is essential.  My brain has so much swimming around it that if I don't write it down it's not going to happen or get done.  I've tried using all kinds of free printables in the past and find that really all I need is a simple notebook dedicated to Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years planning.  I do make a paper pocket that I tape inside the front cover.  That's where I keep my online shopping confirmations and store receipts.  For those of you who like printables for everything under the sun, here's a great website with tons of free printables for planning your way to a "Together" holiday. 

Thanksgiving Planner

Christmas Planner

My holiday planner is gradually filling up with lists of gifts to buy, cookies to make, new recipes, homemade ornament ideas, Advent books to read and a big reminder on every page that there'll be a newborn in the house.  Anything that gets checked off the list will be a good thing.  So since the holiday planning in underway, so must the holiday candy eating.  I'm heading off to have another piece of candy.  It'll only be my third for the day, but the bag is slowly emptying.  Hats off to a well-planned, enjoyable holiday season starting with Thanksgiving and ending with the New Year.



Happy Thanksgiving

I'm in charge of bringing the pies to our Thanksgiving Feast. I opted for the standby pumpkin and then threw in one of Warren's favs, cranberry apple crunch and then tried a new recipe, German Sweet Chocolate Pie. Funny story about acquiring the recipe. Just yesterday I was in the grocery store checkout lane when I glanced at the cart ahead. There on top of the woman's purse was a computer printout with a large turkey on it and in large capital letters, German Sweet Chocolate Pie. She was placing the ingredients, I assumed, up on the belt. When she stepped back to grab her purse I commented about this being the time of year for pies. She agreed and mentioned how her family wouldn't let her come to dinner unless she brought this pie, pointing to the recipe. I said, oh a chocolate pie? I'd like to take a chocolate pie to our feast, too. That's when she grabbed a pen and scribbled down the website on a scrap of paper and said I had to get the recipe and make it. So there it is in the lower right corner. Tomorrow I'll garnish it with dollops of cream and mini chocolate chips. I licked the whisk tonight and YUM!!!

I pray that your blessings outweigh your burdens.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

Thanksgiving Curricula

We're just nine days from Thanksgiving which means a few plans need to be made. We'll be spending the day with my husband's side of the family. I'm to bring pies and mashed potatoes. More about my Thanksgiving food contributions to come in another post. For today, I'd like to share how Lou learned about the first Thanksgiving and the spirit of thankfulness. Have you read Thanksgiving at the Tappletons'? It's a cute story, pointing out that family is the greatest part of Thanksgiving. See, each family member is in charge of a different food for the traditional meal. And each person has their own reason as to why the food didn't make it to the table. Needless to say, the only thing traditional about their Thanksgiving dinner is that it's spent with family. Next I read aloud, The Pilgrims' First Thanksgiving. This is a nice book filled with info about the Mayflower, pilgrims, and the first year at Plymouth. Then armed with a pile of supplies including: paper, colored pencils, scissors, glue, old November magazines, and an atlas, she went to town making a poster.

We divided her poster into fourths. On the top left is a drawing of the Mayflower. Do you notice the perspective line? My knowledge of art is improving, thanks to Art Projects For Kids. The explanations there are really helping me to be a better art teacher for my kids. Top right are her drawings of a pilgrim and indian. She struggled with this quite a bit. She was so frustrated with trying to get the right proportion for her pilgrim woman that Lee offered lots of help with the indian. In the bottom left quadrant she searched through magazines looking for traditional Thanksgiving dinner foods and in the bottom right is a tracing of the lower 48 states with Plymouth labeled.

We have plans to make a Thanksgiving garland of some sort tomorrow. I'm thinking we'll cut out leaves from construction paper and then string them along a length of twine. Each night at dinner we'll all write something we are thankful for on a leaf. We'll do this through the month of November. I have a couple more ideas on celebrating Thanksgiving but those'll have to wait; I'm feeling a little under the weather today and best be getting to bed.