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.

Field Trip to D.C.

Lunch break in front of the G.W. Memorial

We recently took a field trip with our homeschool coop to D.C. The kids and I took the metro and got off at the Archives station, where Eric got to see the originals of the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, all of which he has been studying about in his Social Studies Curriculum. We then met up with our group for a tour of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. Most interesting fact from that tour: The Bureau prints about $700 mil a day, 95% of which replaces worn currency that is out of circulation! We then made the long trek back past the archives and spent a little bit of time in the Gallery of Art. Why did we want to go there? Well, since the kids are such big fans of Little Einsteins, they wanted to see some of the art that they are familiar with from their favorite cartoon :) Although it was a cloudy and rain-threatining day, we really enjoyed ourselves, wore out our feet, and learned a lot! I am including Eric's journal entry from his field trip journal. If I can get my hands on my mom's scanner, then maybe you'll see a scanned image of his artwork he drew from the day.

In his own words: "Yesterday, me, Mom, Bay and Leah went to Washington D.C. We drove up to the Metro station and rode for half an hour! When we got off the Metro, we walked across the street to the Archives. We saw the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and lots of others. I liked it a lot. Then we walked to the Bureau of Engraving and Printing and saw them make money! Then we walked to the National Gallery of Art. My favorite one was a boy and a shark. We saw the presiden't motorcade go by and then we went back to where we started, the Metro! I think I had a great time at Washington D.C. I hope I can go there again."

Outside the Archives building

In the National Gallery of Art

Snack while waiting for the train

68 Pints of Salsa!!!

My mom and I just finished making and canning 68 pints of salsa from our garden tomatoes this summer. We have found that it is easier to cut up and freeze the tomatoes as they come off the vines, and then turn them into salsa and spaghetti sauce in the fall, when it is more conducive to heating up the house with the canner. We had a bumper crop of tomatoes this year, and this is only 12 gallon bags worth, there are at least that many left to turn into spaghetti sauce next week. I am including our recipe, it started out as a family fun magazine recipe, and has been tweaked over the years to make it more like we enjoy.

Salsa

4 large tomatoes
1 diced jalapeno pepper (I use my own pickled variety, but fresh works too)
1 4 oz. can tomato paste
1 cup fresh chopped cilantro, or 2 T. dried
1 diced onion
2 T. lime juice
1 t. cumin
1 t. salt

Chop tomatoes, onions and jalapeno. Combine all ingredients. Serve fresh or process in pint jars at 10 lbs. pressure for 25 minutes. 1 recipe makes approx. 2 pints.

Leah's Striped Dress

Here is Leah's latest outfit. I think it turned out pretty good, it went even faster than the last one since I was familiar with the pattern. I made the little headband with some extra fabric. Another change I made was adding the loop and button on the back instead of a hook and eye.

I have a friend who asked me if you can sew with knit without having a serger; it seems that you can. Although I would say the the places where I had the most difficutly with it being a knit was at the beginning of each seam, the fabric wanted to bunch up and despite my feed dogs being all the way up, it didn't want to feed. I usually had to start sewing a little further down the seam and then backstitch to catch the beginning. Trial and error. I think the other advantage was that this is a pretty heavy duty knit, meaning it is fairly thick, like a heavyweight t-shirt.

Well, she sure is cute and I sure am enjoying sewing for her!!!

Halloween

Here are the jack-o-lanterns we carved this year. See if you can guess who carved which one? The three carvers were Heather, Dennis and Eric. Eric and Bay also each painted a smaller pumpkin as well.

Here's the crew, ready to go out on the neighborhood tractor ride. We have started a tradition on our street, last year was the first, this year was even better and actually a little organized! We invited all of the kids on the street to join us in their costumes for a hay ride on a trailer pulled behind a tractor to do their trick-or-treating. With this being such a rural area, and the houses so far apart, it makes it much easier and not as much walking, as well as it is a great time for the neighbors on our street who don't normally see little ones coming around very often. We enjoyed getting to know some neighbors and their children who we don't normally see. Dennis drove the tractor and pulled behind a friend's trailer complete with hay bales and little pumpkin lights. Everybody piled on and off and eventually their buckets were so full that the little ones couldn't even carry them! Anyways, it was a great time. Heather's mom dressed up as a real hayseed, rotten teeth included, daddy went as Cowboy Dennis, and Heather even dressed up this year, however it really scared Dennis and Leah to see her that way! You'll have to see the rest of the pictures in webshots to see if you can pick her out! Dennis' mom even felt good enough to come over for the evening to see all the kids dressed up and have some dinner and candy.

Field Trip to the Zoo

Our home school group just took a field trip to the Baltimore Zoo. We carpooled with some friends and although it was bitter cold and we ended early due to the rain that moved in, we had a good time! Eric's favorites were the cheetahs and the penguins. Leah's favorite was the elephants, and Bay's were the penguins and the Polar Creeper at the polar bear exhibit. Our group has lots of field trips planned for this year and has already gone on several (though this is our first with the group).