Hooray for Dennis!!!!

Well, we are so proud of Dennis and had a great weekend at his graduation! Heather's mom made it down for the ceremony as well. We spent a whirlwind of a time seeing some friends whom we hadn't seen in awhile, and hitting some of the local favorite eateries...but due to Leah catching a stomach bug, our visiting was cut short and we headed home. Now, as soon as those grades are transferred and a diploma comes in the mail, we will all breathe a sigh of relief!





We also can't believe that Christmas is just around the corner. We have all been enjoying getting ready-decorating our tree this week (although it is not huge, it is the biggest one we've ever gotten), decorating sugar cookies, lots of other baking and cranberry tea making (recipe to follow), gift wrapping, etc... Thankfully this year we have not felt the Christmas rush, and have really enjoyed the season of advent as a family each night at dinner time.

Cranberry Tea Recipe

1 package of cranberries, boiled in 6 quarts of water till popped and soft

1/2 gal. apple cider

1/2 cup orange juice

1/4 cup lemon juice

1 1/2 to 2 cups sugar, depending on taste

2 T. mulling spices

2 sticks cinnamon

orange slices, optional

Strain the cranberries through a mesh strainer, saving the water. Mash the cranberries and push as much of the pulp throught the strainer as possible. Combine in a crockpot or on the stove in a large pot set to low: the cranberry juice, apple cider, orange juice, lemon juice, sugar, cinnamon. Tie the mulling spices in a cheesecloth packet or something similar. Sometimes I add fresh orange slices to the pot for added flavor and it looks pretty if serving from the crock, but is not necessary. Brew for several hours (I usually let mine sit in the crock pot all day). Once it has cooked, serve directly, or to save, strain the juice into a container and refrigerate, pouring each serving into a microwavable mug and microwaving to re-heat.

Boy Genius in Training!

Here is a picture of Dennis trying to get anyone to do his math homework for him to avoid doing it himself!!! Just kidding, but Dennis is very glad to have his math class completely finished and just one more test in another class and hopefully he is done for good! We have been doing so many things lately, it has been hard to keep track of them all, but I'll try to summarize a bit:

Kitchen: Heather and her mom finally finished putting up all of the tomatoes from this summer's garden. All in all, it was a year for records: in addition to the salsa already done, 44 quarts of spaghetti sauce and another 15 quarts of just plain tomatoes to be used for soups, etc. There is a picture of HALF of the spaghetti sauce and tomatoes on my webshots page. Now, to find a place to store it all until it gets used up! Next kitchen project, Christmas cookies and other holiday baking with the kids...one of my favorite places to be is in the kitchen!

School: Eric has been plugging away at some very exciting school projects this December. He made a glacier for science and we tested it in the sandbox. We have done fingerpainting for art, and even Leah had fun with that (Bay doesn't like getting his hands messy!) Eric is working on a big written report on the life of George Washington, which is turning out very nicely. We are in the planning stages of a science project for a science fair in January. We hope to be able to successfully tan a squirrel hide our cats brought in for us!

Advent: We spent an afternoon recently at our church's advent workshop. All of the kids got to do lots of Christmas crafts, and Eric made our family a beautiful Advent Wreath for use with family devotions. He even got up and sang some Christmas karaoke (though it took a little bribing to get him up there). We also just went to Eric's home school Christmas music program, which was great.