Leap day

Happy Leap Day!!!!!   I wanted to start the day off with something special, the hubs after looking a bit suggested eating something we normally wouldn't eat for breakfast.  Something decadent or really hard, or time consuming!  I thought decadent sounded the best!!!!
 I remembered seeing cake in a cup on Pinterest.  I thought that sounded great.  Your own personal cake!  So we started our day with chocolate cake and fresh made whipped cream, with chocolate sprinkles!! (and hot cocoa!)  I used this recipe.  It was very easy! (I think the only change I made was to use sugar instead of splenda!!!)

After doing our main subjects we did a time capsule of sorts.  I asked the kids some questions and wrote down their answers!  I'm going to seal it in an envelope that says do not open until Feb. 29, 2016.  I think it will be interesting to read, especially Reuben's answers!!!
We also learned why we have leap year.  Later this afternoon we will have a leaping contest!  We may even play leap frog!!  Are you doing anything special for Leap Day?  

Random Happenings

The weeks are just flying by here, how about for you? 
This past weekend we had a birthday party for this little guy!  He just turned one.  Isn't he cute!  He makes me want another little one, but unless the Lord plans for that to happen...it won't be!!   So I just have to live vicariously through my sister, and enjoy her littlest one!  I hope she doesn't mind!!!

He had an adorable sock monkey party, my sister did an excellent job with it!   I took several pictures of him enjoying his cake, because like I said I have to live vicariously and I'm trying to fully learn my camera and it's settings! 

Here I am living vicariously again!!!!  We painted our house (walls) almost a year ago, I still haven't decorated most of the rooms.   I normally have to get something on the walls, because it drives me CRAZY to have them blank.  I think I've been pretty patient, trying to take it slowly and really make it how I want it!  So in turn, most of my rooms have NOTHING on the walls!  I'm always checking out things that I like to get ideas!  I think my sisters shelves are super cute!
The real reason I'm including this picture is because I chopped my hair off.  I'd been contemplating it for a while now... It's been cut over a week now, I'm still not sure I like it!   I like parts of it, but I wish it were a little longer around my ears, but it's hair and it will grow!  C'est la vie, right!

I did mention that this was random, right?!?!?!?!
  One of the things I love about homeschooling... If you're having a rough time with math, mom can make you a peach smoothie and put it in a special glass.  Doesn't everything seem better with a goblet???  Maybe that is just my philosophy!!! 
By the way my sister in law has the best smoothie recipe ever...some water, some milk, frozen fruit, and a little bit of sugar, that's it!  I use a little less than 1/4 cup for a whole blender, and a quart bag or so of fruit!  So easy, and we love it! 

What a great way to end a school day...poetry tea.  I didn't read poetry, a novel instead. The kids painted and had hot cocoa, while I read.  It was very relaxing, we need to do it more often! (We have really enjoyed our poetry teas this year,especially when we've read poetry!)  We wrote on paper with a white crayon then painted over it, simple but wonderful effect.

Christmas fun

Our unit this week has been Christmas.  We've been doing some fun crafts and reading some great books.  The first thing we did was to make an edible nativity!   I got the idea from here.  I thought it was a great idea, another way to keep the focus on Jesus! 


Reuben putting his "baby Jesus" on the "hay"

Brie thinking it didn't really look like Mary!

It seem like every time I took a picture of her she was snacking on something!

Reuben eating Mary!

I have no idea why he's pretending to sleep? (but he's cute!!)

I just realized this is the only shot i uploaded of Titus.  (he had more, i guess thats what happens when you upload too many pictures!)

Our next craft was to make Christmas trees.  You take sugar cones, flip them upside down, frost them and then decorate.  This was really easy, and made a yummy dessert after dinner! 

Life

I don't often share "random" shots of our week.  I'm trying to use my camera more and really learn how to use it.  Some shots are great, some not so much.
( I'm still finding it hard in low light to get a good shot, oh well, more practice I guess!)

Brie working on spelling...

Reuben and his really short eyelashes!!  Can you believe those suckers.

 Reuben being cool!

Titus practicing some cutting skills, Zeke encouraging him!

Zeke with a football, because with out that ball life just isn't the same!  You can see in the picture that it is in motion, trust me it is always in motion.  He has end zones in different areas of the house, and  is constantly running plays!

A puppet show put on by Brie and Zeke.  Acting out Luke 2! 

And this pretty girl is staying with us till Christmas when she will go to her real home!  We are all absolutely loving her!  As you can see in the pictures below we are holding her, and it's amazing how much she's calmed in just a day.  She sat on my hand for a good 5 minutes today with out trying to fly away.  (her wings are clipped so she can't fly!) (otherwise we would be in serious trouble!!!)  =)

Pioneer

We finished our pioneer study this last week.  We had a couple of things we didn't get done, but I'm sure we will study this time period again sometime!  We covered a lot of material in 10 weeks,  had many good discussions about slavery, what it would have been like to live as a pioneer, and live thru the civil war.
People we read about:
                        Robert E. Lee
                        Abraham Lincoln
                        Ulysses S. Grant (whose real name was Hyrim Ulysses, did you know that?!?!?) 
                        Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson
                        Frederick Douglass
                        Harriet Tubman
                        John Brown
                        Jefferson Davis
Topics we read about:
                                  Slavery
                                  Underground Railroad
                                  Civil War
                                  Stagecoaches/frontier women
  We also read a couple of pioneer themed books,and of course Little House on the Prairie! 

In Little House on the Prairie they made molasses candy for Christmas.  Brie has been waiting for snow so we could try it too. Brie was elated when it snowed so we could finally try the candy!.  So after looking around a little bit I found a recipe that looked great!  It's from the Little House cookbook, so I assumed it was pretty accurate!


Here is what it looks like.  I didn't take any pictures of it off of the snow. 

The first step is to take some pans outside and gather some clean snow.  I trusted Brie and Zeke to do this step.  I gave them some spoons and told them to just take the top off.  I didn't see any dirt in it. Plus a little dirt never hurt anybody, right!  =)

While they were outside getting the snow, I measured out my molasses and brown sugar and brought it up to boiling.  (I made a half recipe, and it was plenty for us!) It needed to come to 145 degrees.  I don't have a candy thermometer so I just used my digital meat thermometer.  It worked fine! After it's up to the correct temperature, you want to put it into a pitcher. (the blog where I got the recipe recommends using a creamer, so that is what I did.) 
It is a very sticky candy, and if you don't like molasses this won't be your favorite!
*Make sure to caution your kids that it is very very hot. 
The next step is to pour it onto the snow carefully.

We had some leftover snow, so we decided to make some snow ice cream!  We used this recipe.  It was pretty good.  We decided that it was a pretty awesome day.  Before we started school we ate ice cream and molasses candy!  You know it's going to be a wonderful day if you get to start it out with candy and ice cream!!