Christmas Cookies!

Reading and Learning This Month

Wow- what amazing videos about life in the womb! I loved the part in the human "womb" video of the first weeks of life- now with 3D and 4D video we can learn so much more than was known before. We were all amazed once again at God's awesome power and creativity in knitting us together in our mother's wombs. These videos are not graphic and I felt comfortable having all our children watch them.

Fascinating look at social and environmental factors affecting many boys' motivation: Video games which disengage boys from real-world pursuits, teaching methods geared towards the ways girls learn, prescription drugs such as for ADHD, endocrine disruptors-environmental estrogens from plastic bottles and food sources lowering testosterone levels- and the devaluation of masculinity through different societal role models in the past forty years.
Highly recommended!

I read an interview with George Weigel in a magazine and was very impressed with his perspectives on religion and society. This book got pretty intellectual and I got "lost" in spots, but overall very interesting. I especially appreciated his concern over the low birth rate in Europe and how that will impact the culture in the long term.

As I work on processing through some difficult situations in the homeschooling arena, this book was helpful in understanding spiritual abuse.


We also saw the movie "Amazing Grace" this week. I hadn't seen it yet and I can highly recommend it.

We are almost finished with "Sense and Sensibility" by Jane Austen in our group reading time. We are also reading "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" because it's just too cute.

Family History on a Tree

As we were decorating the Christmas Tree yesterday, Abby observed that our tree represents our family history. The ornaments hanging from its (admittedly faux) branches remind us of different people and different times in our lives.

The angel at the top of our tree was given to Abby from Brian's mother. She used to have an entire tree decorated with angels like this one.

Jacob picked out this ornament when he was about five years old. It reminds me of when he was little(er).

Hannah's baby ornament. All of our children have a precious moments ornament from the year of their birth.

We made these ribbon candy ornaments last year for our own tree and for gifts. The kids had so much fun making these.

This was my "baby ornament" and has hung on my tree for a long, long time.

An ornament mom made one year out of matchboxes.

An angel ornament mom made. Our trees were always decorated in red and white.

An ornament mom made for me to commemorate my favorite toy.

Each of the kids have a tree in their bedrooms to decorate with their own ornaments.

Though it's hard, I do not interfere with their decorating efforts. When they were toddlers, all the ornaments ended up on two or three branches! Now that Hope is older, she is starting to spread them around a bit.

Wreaths to hang on the (inside) doors.

Our nativity set from my childhood. This set has a story behind it which always reminds me that people are more important than things.

The nativity set from Brian's childhood, given to us two years ago.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our pinecone turkeys

Ready to eat!

No children's table this year- but the three littlest ones still managed to get in a lot of giggling and silliness!

We played games after dinner.

Mrs. H. made this beautiful table runner for me. She is an excellent quilter and we always enjoy talking about sewing!

The other family who we get together with could not be with us this year. We missed seeing them! Since we still had a 20 pound turkey, we'll have lots of leftovers for awhile.

Fall Weekend on the Windswept Plains

Brian worked (again) on our septic system so hopefully the alarm won't go off every. single. winter. day after a load of laundry or two.

The girls continue in their love of all things cake decorating by playing with fondant.

A rose made of fondant.

I decorated a wreath for the front door

and nine others for the outside windows. Hopefully these will get hung this week. We used these at our house in Littleton (with just the bows and lights) and it seemed like a good idea to decorate a bit outside this year.

More outside decorations.

We found some bulbs on clearance and thought we'd try planting bulbs again. The last time I tried, NONE of the 100 or so I planted came up. I know I'm not a gardener, but good grief. Not ONE bulb made it. I think there is some kind of conspiracy...

Notice the claims of "Easy to Grow". We'll see about that!

Playing outside during the planting episode.

Lucy

Happy Birthday to two of my favorite children!

Hannah's favorite gift- the Tasha Tudor Auction Catalog- full of pictures of her historical clothing collection that went for sale this month. Hannah is running a fever in this picture, but still managed to look pleasant for the photo.

Jacob in (most of) his gifts- snow pants, snow boots and heavy duty snow gloves. He also received slippers, which made him most happy. He's a guy who is all about comfort!

Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

Since this is our year to host Thanksgiving for our "holiday family"(two other families that we have been getting together with for the past ten years or so for Easter and Thanksgiving), we are making sure we have everything in order. Since none of us are too crazy about cranberry sauce (but a few of our guests are), we found this at Williams Sonoma. It looks like it will be good- we may even try it! Brian also bought a new meat thermometer since ours died last year.

We are making "turkey" decorations for the place card holders. We need to locate nuts for the head, though. I went to two craft stores looking for acorns or chestnuts but they didn't have any. Ebay offers acorns in one pound increments, a bit much for what I need. Anyone out there have any nuts like acorns in their natural state??

I'm going through our serving pieces and place settings to make sure it's all clean and ready to go.

A trial run last night to measure the length of the table cloth before I sew the edges and to make sure we like the way things will look. I found the burgundy fabric (4 yards for this long table) for $2.24 a yard at the craft store.


Thanksgiving Checklist:

24 pound free-range turkey, on order at the health food store

Cranberry sauce (see above)

Stuffing- need to do a trial run on the new recipe

Mashed Potatoes and gravy
Mashed Sweet Potatoes

Coffee

Possibly make sugar cookies for the kids to decorate

For table: roasted almonds, nuts, chocolate candies


Guests to bring:
salad
rolls
vegetable dish
relish tray
pies

We are enjoying a visit from cousin/nephew Doug, who is on his way back home after finishing his time in the military. We haven't seen him since he enlisted, so it has been fun hearing of his adventures!

Play Ball!

Dogpile on the Windswept Plains

The kids have enjoyed cousin Doug's visit. Their game of baseball turned into a dogpile a few times. I think poor Doug will be sore when he leaves!
(Please note that Hope dressed herself this morning...)

Ready for church