Pumpkin Pie White Hot Chocolate

Yummy!


3 cups whole milk
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon vanilla
pinch salt
4 ounces white chocolate (roughly chopped)


Directions:
1. Heat the milk, pumpkin puree, and spices in a sauce pan until it just starts to simmer and remove from heat.
2. Add the chocolate and stir until it has melted.
3. Pour into mugs and top with whipped cream and garnish with cinnamon.

This recipe comes from Closet Cooking

(P.S. Organic ingredients are best!)

The Price of Speed

We got a new satellite installed yesterday for our internet in order to get better service and speed. But, as with a lot of things, it came with a price. Unfortunately, the price was going to be paid by the poor installer.
He started off the morning by drilling the holes in which he was going to run his cable. He was drilling a hole from the outside of the house along the back of the house near the bottom of the ground in order to be able to bring the cable down from the satellite, into the garage, and across the ceiling of the garage up into the floor of the office.
As he was drilling this hole, he hit a water line. The pipe went around the perimeter of the garage where the ceiling meets the wall (which would be at ground level from the outside along the back of the house). Water was pouring into the garage over Odin's kennel! I finally had to drive the quad-runner and turn the water off at the well house. This meant we had no water.
Luckily, the installer, we will refer to him as Stan from now on, had a good friend who could fix it (as he had to fit the bill). He continued on with his install, we continued on without water. The fix-it man arrived around 12:30. About this time we all figured out he hit one of the boiler system lines (which we are no longer using because we switched over to central heating this year).
After cutting out some drywall, making a trip into Warrenton for some parts, figuring out the configuration of our pipes in the furnace room (not easy!), and 3 hours later, the leak was fixed and the water was back on.
To add to the pandemonium, Stan arrived right in the middle of breakfast and got to the point where we needed to set up our new account with me, etc, right in the middle of lunch. During both of those times I had hungry kids loudly trying to get my attention.
To top the whole thing off, during the middle of this ordeal, he realized he could use the cables from the existing satellite (In my defense, I did show him these earlier) and didn't even need to drill any holes.

Advent Begins

This weekend the feelings of excitement and anticipation were in the air as the Autumn decorations came down and the Christmas decorations went up (and are still going up....).

The first light of Advent is the light of stone--

Stones that live in crystals, seashells, and bones.

The second light of Advent is the light of plants--

Plants that reach up to the sun and in the breezes dance.

The third light of Advent is the light of the beasts--

All await the birth, from the greatest to the least.

The fourth light of Advent is the light of humankind--

The light of hope that we may learn to love and understand.

by Rudolph Steiner

The first day of Advent was Sunday and to start the celebration I made an advent wreath. The circle represents the endlessness of God with no beginning and no end. The live branches represent continuous life, and pine cones symbolize life and resurrection.

We burn the big candle a bit each day. We lit the first little candle for dinner, then after dinner I read a bible verse and an advent story. We will be doing devotions and reading Advent stores all this month.

We also have four other advent calendars around the house to help us count down the days to Christmas. One of the calendars has a piece of chocolate and a verse from The Night Before Christmas behind each door. I think that one is Grant and Johanna's favorite!

The first light of Advent is the light of stones. So, the nature tables and manger sit empty this week, except for stones and crystals. Next week, the candle symbolizes the light of plants and then I will add pine cones, evergreen branches, etc to the tables.

Happy Advent!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Family and Friends. Great Food. Warm Home. We are Blessed. Happy Thanksgiving!

Julia and Kitty Man

The Week of Thanksgiving

This week we were focusing on Thanksgiving and gratitude. I read Grant a book about the Pilgrim's and their journey to America, their hardships, how they met the Indians, and their triumphs before bed on Sunday night and he said he knew all that stuff from watching the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving cartoon, including the name of the ship, the names of the first Indians the pilgrim's met, and that there was a baby born on the Mayflower.

On Monday, I took some pictures of the kids outside before our walk.

This is a picture of Julia thinking about "running" (she can get going pretty fast) away from me:

This is a picture of Julia running away from me:

Unfortunately, I was not fast enough to catch her before she went into the dog kennel (I was right behind her, really) and stepped right into a pile of dog poo. I picked her up, and at this point still didn't know what had happened until I put her down outside of the kennel and Johanna says, "It smells like dog poop." I didn't think much of this, because, hey, we have dogs and they poop. Then I smelled it, looked down and realized poop had rubbed off Julia's shoe onto my pants, and onto hers, too. Eew, yucky! I went and got a wet towel, wiped us down (they were small spots and we did change our pants a little later) and we continued with our walk. Johanna even did some posing for me, and then joined Grant with throwing rocks in the pond.

I read the kids a story called The Littlest Pilgrim. After that we talked about what food the Pilgrims would have eaten as we drew pictures of cornucopia's.

pumpkins, pumpkin pie, sweet potatoes, corn, squash, bread, fish, turkey, apples, berries, nuts, (Grant says broccoli) = YES.

pizza, ice cream, fish sticks (Grant hesitated on this one because he knew they had fish), anything from a can = NO.

When we were done with our drawings we played a couple rounds of Pin the Hat on the Turkey.


Mom's drawing:

Grant's drawing:




On Tuesday I read them a book called Thanksgiving is a Time to be Thankful. We talked about what we were thankful for, and how an attitude of gratitude will attract more blessings into our lives. I asked them what they wanted more of in their lives.

Grant - Lego's and blankies.
Johanna - Angels.

They made leaf drawings and then we used beeswax to make pumpkins and apples for our mini cornucopia.





On Wednesday, Johanna saw Julia wearing her pink and brown striped shirt, and said "I want to wear my pink and brown shirt." But it didn't stop with the shirt. I started to put some grey pants on Johanna and she said, "No. I want my brown ones like Julia." We had to dig those out of the hamper. I decided that dirty pants were better then a meltdown.

In school, I decided to focus more on the Native Americans. I read them a Cherokee legend about how corn came to be. I sang a song about Indian Children as the kids began drawing "hand turkeys" (Julia got in on this project), and Grant and Johanna used corn kernels to make necklaces. We also set up the tee-pee in the driveway. They had fun playing in that.

Johanna's turkey is getting rained on (more like he was caught in a torrential down-pour):

D and R

This week Grant is learning about the letters D and R.

Our school week didn't start until Tuesday, as we were coming back from Mexico on Monday. We also had a quick visit from Grandma and Grandpa Webb, and Cory's Aunt Jackie and Uncle Paul as they were on their way from the Mexico trip. After we gave them a tour, we had a bit of a late start, so we had to shorten the lesson a little. After some movement and bean bag games, and our new music lesson, I read Grant Hansel and Gretel and then we drew a picture for the letter D. I also introduced the form drawing for the week.

On Wednesday, we wrote the summary to Hansel and Gretel in Grant's book and talked more about the letter D, and practiced the form drawing. Later that day, Grant received his Highlight's magazine in the mail, and wouldn't you know, it had an activity page with a ryhyme about a dinosaur and you had to find as many D's on the page as you could. Talk about good timing!

On Thursday, Grant learned about the letter R. I told him the story of The Rabbit's Wife. We talked abour the letter R and he drew it, and the form, in his lesson book. We also talked about what kind of animals live around us.

On Friday, we had co-op. In the pre-school group the teacher read stories and they did crafts centering on Thanksgiving. Grant had a conservation agent speak in his community helper's class. What do you want to bet they talked about some of the local wildlife??