Christmas Fireside Family Photos

Merry Christmas!

Lots of teens and tots in our family photo this year! The toughest part of family time these days, is matching the schedule of these kids going every which way. They are all involved in so many activities I am sososososo proud of them all.

I set up my props in the backyard by our firepit and picnic table. I used vintage sleds, firewood, checkered tablecloth, wooden guitar, and some evergreenery.

The Tots

These girls are learning how to be good friends.

Pretty girls.

The Picnic Table

Our picnic table became the center of our photos despite my efforts to include all of the props that I set out.

The Tree

The big kids leaned against the tree by the woodpile for some of our photos.

The Guitar

I love that he plays guitar and enjoys music so much.

Small Group Photos

The Storm

She is so beautiful and loved sitting in this little seat at the woodpile.

The Dog

Arwen didn’t make it into very many photos. She is a very active dog and just wanted to play!

Merry Christmas to all!

Family Thanksgiving Minute-to-Win-it

We visited some family for Thanksgiving. We played a few Minute-to-Win-it challenges together. Our family has a large age difference, so we tried to choose games that would be equally challenging for each of all.

Corn Cob Roll

Corn Cob Roll

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • Corn Cob
  • Wooden Spoons
  • Masking tape

Directions:

  1. Make straight lines with your masking tape that are at least 12 feet long and 1 foot apart.
  2. In less than 1 minute…
  3. Players should slowly roll the corn cob down the lane
  4. If the corn cob rolls out of the lane, players have to roll it back to where it left the line and keep going
  5. No sliding the corn cob with the spoon

Pumpkin Seed Suck It Up

Pumpkin Seed Suck It Up

Materials:

  • 1 minute timer
  • 10 Pumpkin Seeds
  • Straws
  • Plates

Directions:

  1. Player needs 2 plates with 10 Pumpkin Seeds on one plate.
  2. In less than 1 minute…
  3. Use the straw to suck up the seeds, one at a time and place them on the second plate.
  4. Try to get all of the seeds to the second plate in less than a minute.
  5. You can adjust the difficulty of this challenge by adding or taking seeds.

Thankful Plate Stack

Thankful Plate Stack

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • 6 Plastic Cups
  • 3 Large Paper Plates

Directions:

  1. In less than 1 minute…
  2. have players stack the cups starting with 1, then a plate, 2 more cups, plate, 1 cup, plate, 2 cups!
Thankful Plate Stack

Match Maker

Match Maker

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • 9 Pumpkins
  • 9 Acorns
  • 18 Cups
  • 2 Empty Cups (across the room)

Directions:

  1. Place a pumpkin under each cup and an acorn under each cup… and spread them out on the table.
  2. Place an empty cup several feet away.
  3. You have just 1 minute to…
  4. uncover 1 pumpkin and acorn at a time and run it to the empty cups across the room
  5. Sort the pumpkins and acorns into the appropriate cups.

Candy Corn Shake!

Candy Corn Shake!

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • 5 plastic cups
  • 15 pieces of candy corn
  • card stock
  • glue

Directions:

  1. place candy corn into cups with 1 in a cup, 2 in the next cup, 3 in the next cup, 4, then 5
  2. Cover the opening with card stock and glue – write a little number of how many candy corns are inside for your eyes only
  3. In under a minute…
  4. Players should shake the cups and order them in order 1-5 candy corns.

 Shake Your Tail Feather

Shake Your Tail Feather

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • an empty tissue box – the rectangle kind
  • pantyhose
  • 1 bag of feathers
  • scissors and tape

Directions:

  1. Tie the hose through the tissue box with the legs for the hose extending out of the backside
  2. Fill the tissue box with feathers
  3. In under a minute…
  4. players should shake their tail feathers – emptying feathers out of the box

Inertia Yank

Inertia Yank

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • 3 plastic cups
  • 2 pieces of card stock

Directions:

  1. Place a cup with a piece of card stock on top of it.  Then a cup on top of that with another piece of card stock on top. Place 1 more cup on top.
  2. In under a minute…
  1. Players should yank the card stock out from between the cups
  2. If they are quick enough the cups should stack up without toppling over.

Pumpkin Bop

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • Orange Balloons

Directions:

  1. Players keep one hand in their pocket and try to keep two orange balloons up in the air for one minute.
  2. You can adjust the difficulty of this challenge by adding or taking away a balloon.
Pumpkin Bop

Leaf Blower

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • leaves, they can be real leaves that are dried out or fake leaves
  • straws (or turkey basters)

Instructions:

  1. In less that 1 minute…
  2. Player will use a new straw (or turkey baster) to blow/race the leaf to the other end of the table.

Turkey Trot

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • Wooden spoons
  • candy pumpkins or candy corn

Instructions:

  1. Place one candy pumpkin on a spoon and stand at the beginning of the obstacle course.
  2. In less than a minute…
  3. Have players race holding onto their spoon with one hand (you can allow younger kids to use both hands).
  4. If their candy drops off, they have to start back at the beginning.
  5. To make this game more challenging for adults, you can create a bit of an obstacle course.

Acorn/ Pumpkin Toss

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • 10 Acorns or Candy Pumpkins
  • Halloween Pumpkin Bucket

Instructions:

  1. Place the bucket on the floor 10 feet from where the player will be standing.
  2. In under a minute…
  3. The person with the acorns needs to throw all of the acorns into the bucket.   

Turkeys of a Feather

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • 2 feathers
  • Turkey basters

Directions:

  1. The object of the game is to keep your feather in the air without touching the ground or any other surface by blowing on them.
  2. players need to attempt to keep their feather in the air for a full minute by blowing it up.

Buckets of Acorns

Buckets of Acorns

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • 2 bowls
  • Jumbos kids tweezers or chopsticks
  • 10 acorns

Instructions:

  1. 2 bowls side by side.  All of the acorns in 1 of the bowls.
  2. In under a minute…
  3. Players will try and get all of the acorns into the empty bowl using only the tweezers.

Pumpkin Head

Pumpkin Head

Materials:

  • 1 minute Timer
  • Mini pumpkins

Directions:

  1. Give each player a mini pumpkin to balance on their head.
  2. In under a minute…
  3. The players must run from one end of the yard to the other without the pumpkin falling off their heads. If you want to make it more difficult, you can set up an obstacle course.
  4. (our pumpkins were too small and light for this one… I suggest an actual tiny pumpkin)

2 Year Old Pocahontas Toddler Photos

Pocahontas this fall… but it’s too cold to go outside this year.

We had been watching Disney Pocahontas this fall so she was excited to she herself as the “Pretty Princess”.

Laying in the leaves.

Pretty and long hair!

Below she is Pocahontas 1 year apart in each photo…

Family Teen Halloween Festivities

The kids are growing up so we tried some more activities geared toward teens this year!

Campfire

Fall Foods

Hot Cocoa & Apple Cider

Carmel Apples (red, green, yellow apples) with mini chocolate chips, chopped nuts, and sprinkles

Roasted Hot Dogs

S’mores

Chili with cheese, crackers and corn chips

Homemade Chili Recipe

Ingredients:

  • Chili Brick
  • 2 lb. ground beef
  • 3 cans of kidney beans
  • 1 can tomato soup
  • 1 Cup water

Directions:

  1. Brown the beef and drain.
  2. Mix all of the ingredients in a big pot and bring to boil.
  3. Lower heat and simmer until chili brick is dissolved, at least an hour, stirring occasionally.

Pumpkin Carving

Candy vs. Chocolate

This was one of the kids favorite activities this year!

Storm Trunk -or- Treat

Goodnight Moon Tot School

One of the favorite books for all of my toddlers over the years has been “Goodnight Moon”. The simple rhyming and repetition is calming for my little ones.

Abeka Curriculum

I was able to incorporate several of our Abeka nursery lessons into this unit as well. Following are some of the specific books with links that are used in this Farm Tot School Unit:

Goodnight Moon Sensory Tub

Color: Red

Shape: Crescent

Number: 2

Letter: M (moon)

“In the great green room”

“There was a telephone”

“And a red balloon”

S reviewed his colors by coloring the balloons on page 2 of this download the color that I told him.  Then I cut it out and folded it into a book.

“And a picture of—”

“The cow jumping over the moon”

Hey Diddle Diddle

I got this printable from Homeschool Creations.  I added a craft stick to them so I could make the cow jump over the moon.

“And there were three little bears sitting on chairs”

Three Little Bears

I cut out the bears and chairs for S to sort them by size. Then she wanted them to have a “bowl of mush” too.

“And two little kittens”

I printed the 2 Little Kittens printable for her to color.

“And a pair of mittens”

“And a little toy house”

“And a young mouse”

Abeka Nursery Curriculum

“And a comb and a brush”

“and a bowl full of mush”

“And a quiet old lady who was whispering “hush””

“Goodnight room”

Goodnight Room Coloring Page

I printed the Goodnight Room Coloring Page for S.

“Goodnight moon”

Paint a yellow crescent moon.

“Goodnight cow jumping over the moon”

“Goodnight light”

“And the red balloon”

Paint a red balloon.
Red pom pom balloons in star ice tray.

“Goodnight bears”

“Goodnight chairs”

Sit teddy bear in the chair.

“Goodnight kittens”

I found this 3 Little Kittens for her to match mittens with the kittens.

“And goodnight mittens”

“Goodnight clocks”

Here is the Hickory, Dickory, Dock coloring page.

“And goodnight socks”

“Goodnight little house”

“And goodnight mouse”

“Goodnight comb And goodnight brush”

“Goodnight nobody”

Abeka Nursery Curriculum

“Goodnight mush”

Oatmeal for breakfast.

“And goodnight to the old lady whispering “hush””

Abeka Nursery Curriculum

“Goodnight stars”

“Goodnight air”

Draw moon and stars with a white crayon and paint water colors over it.

“Goodnight noises everywhere.”

Abeka Nursery Curriculum

Chewy Sugar Cookies

Cookie Ingredients:

  • 1 Cup Butter
  • 1 1/2 cup granulated sugar
  • 1 egg
  • 2 1/4 cup flour
  • 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1//2 teaspoon salt
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla

Cookie Directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
  2. Spray cookie sheet with nonstick spray
  3. Cream together the butter and sugar.
  4. Add the egg and mix well.
  5. Stir in the flour, baking powder, salt and vanilla.
  6. Form dough into a large ball and place in a bowl to refrigerate for a hour.
  7. Roll the cookie dough onto a floured surface about 1/4 inch thick.
  8. Cut out the dough with cookie cutters and place them on the pan.
  9. Bake for 8-10 minutes.
  10. Cool and add the buttercream.

Buttercream Ingredients:

  • 1 cup butter
  • 1 cup Crisco
  • 4 cups powdered sugar (2 lbs)
  • 2 teaspoons vanilla
  • 1 tablespoon milk (if thick)

Buttercream Directions:

  1. Cream together the butter and Crisco with a mixer.
  2. Slowly add in 1 cup of powdered sugar at a time.
  3. Add the vanilla, if it seems too thick you can add a bit of milk.
  4. Color with yellow food coloring.

Cousin Fall Forest Photos

We went to the backyard forest for these pictures. These three girls are cousins; we decided to take the pictures for as a Christmas gift for the grandparents.

We did get a couple smiles from the tiny one.

The picnic table was a fun addition to our photoshoot.

Little Miss Storm wasn’t interested in cooperating with her smiles today.

Snow White Disney Dinner

The Little One has been watching Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs lately, so I decided to have a German Snow White themed dinner for family movie night!

Appetizer:  Bavarian Pretzels

Dough Ingredients:

  • 3 tea Instant dry yeast
  • 1 ½ Cup Warm Water (100-110 degrees)
  • 2 TBS granulated sugar
  • 4 Cup all-purpose flour
  • 1 tea salt

Crust Ingredients:

  • 1 Cup water
  • 2 tea baking soda
  • Coarse Sea Salt
  • ¼ Cup Butter

Instructions: 

  1. Combine yeast and warm water and sugar.
  2. Add in flour and salt (knead or use mixer).
  3. Place the dough in a greased bowl, cover with a tea towel, and place in a warm place to rise for 30 minutes.
  4. Preheat oven 425, grease baking sheet.
  5. Divide dough into 8 equal parts. Roll each part into 24 inch rope to form the pretzel.
  6. In a shallow bowl, combine the water and baking soda.  Submerge each pretzel in water and place on the baking sheet.
  7. Sprinkle with sea salt and let sit for 10 minutes.
  8. Bake for 12 minutes then brush with melted butter.
  9. Serve with cheese sauce.

Entrée: Gulaschsuppe (soup)

Ingredients:

  • 2 T. olive oil
  • 2 onions, chopped
  • 2 carrots, chopped
  • 2 celery stalks, chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1.5 lb beef, cubed into bite sized pieces
  • 2 T. balsamic vinegar
  • 2/3 cup red wine vinegar
  • 6 med thin skinned potatoes, peeled and cubed into bite sized pieces
  • 32 oz beef broth
  • Water
  • 3 bay leaves
  • 1 T. paprika
  • 6 oz. tomato paste

Instructions: 

  1. Cook onion, carrots, celery and garlic in olive oil until the onion is caramelized. 
  2. Scrape pot and add beef, browning well. 
  3. Scrape the pot again and add the wine and balsamic vinegar, let it simmer on low until the wine has almost entirely evaporated.
  4. Add broth, bay leaves and paprika, and let simmer for about an hour to tenderize the beef. 
  5. Add potato cubes and enough water to cover plus about 1 inch above, and bring to boil. 
  6. When potatoes are tender, add tomato paste, lower to a simmer and let cook for about another 15 minutes.

Fruit: Apple Dumplings

(I got this idea from the Disney Princess Cookbook.)

Dough Ingredients:  

  • 1.5 cups of flour
  • 1 teaspoon of baking powder
  • 1/2 teaspoon of salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
  • 6 TBSP of cold butter
  • 1/2 cup of milk

Filling Dough Ingredients:  

  • 2 peeled apple (cut into quarters)
  • 1 TBSP butter (cut into quarters)
  • 3 TBSP of brown sugar 
  • 1/4 cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg

Syrup Ingredients:  

  • 1 cup of hot water
  • ½ cup packed brown sugar
  • 2 TBSP melted butter

Instructions: 

  1. 1. Heat the oven to 375 degrees.  Butter a 9inch square baking pan.
  2. 2. To make the dough, mix together flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg in a mixing bowl.  Cut 3 tablespoons of butter into small pieces.
  3. 3. Use your hands to knead the butter and flour together.
  4. 4. Stir in the milk.
  5. 5. Flour a surface and knead the dough until it holds together and dust the top with flour.  Roll out into a 12 inch square.
  6. 6. Cut the dough into four equal squares and place two quarters of apple in each square.  
  7. 7. Place 1 quarter tablespoon butter one quarter in each square. 
  8. 8. In a small bowl, mix together 3 tablespoons of brown sugar, cinnamon, and 1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg.  Spoon equal amounts of mixture in each square.
  9. 9. Gather three corners of dumpling together and pinch together.  Put all four in the baking dish an inch apart.
  10. 10. Combine hot water, the remaining brown sugar, and 2 tablespoons of butter, melted.  Stir and pour over the dumplings in the pan.
  11. 11. Bake for 20 minutes until golden brown.
  12. 12. Spoon more syrup over the top, and serve warm.

Vegi:  Crispy Potato Bake

Ingredients:

  • 6 russet potatoes, thinly sliced
  • 1 small onion, thinly sliced
  • 2 Tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil
  • Salt and pepper, to taste
  • 2 teaspoons rosemary
  • 1 teaspoon thyme
  • ¼ cup real bacon bits

Instructions: 

  1. Preheat oven to 375F.
  2. Use a mandolin or sharp knife to make thin, equal slices of your potatoes and onions – about 1/8″ thick is ideal.
  3. Grease a round casserole dish.
  4. Use a spiral pattern , arrange the sliced potatoes in your baking dish.
  5. Insert the sliced onions an equal distance apart amongst the sliced potatoes.
  6. Place the butter in a microwave-safe dish and microwave for 330 seconds until completely melted. Stir in the olive oil and then pour the mixture over the casserole.
  7. Sprinkle on your seasoning and bacon bits.
  8. Cover with tinfoil and bake for 45 minutes.
  9. Remove the tinfoil and continue baking for 15 minutes to crisp up the potatoes and bacon.

Dessert: Poison Apple Pie

(I got the idea for my Poison Apple Pie from A Magical Kingdom Called Home Blog.)

Ingredients:

  • 4 Granny Smith Apples, peeled and diced
  • 14oz can whole cranberries
  • Juice from one lemon
  • 2 tsp pie spice
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup water
  • Two pie crusts
  • Egg wash

Instructions: 

  1. Preheat oven to 425°. Line pie plate with one pie crust and set aside. Pour lemon juice over diced apples and stir to prevent browning.
  2. In a medium saucepan, bring cranberries, one cup of apples, sugar, water, and pie spice to a boil over medium heat. Then lower heat and simmer 10-15 minutes.
  3. Remove from heat and add remaining apples. Let filling cool while preparing the crust.
  4. Lay second pie crust on working area. Using a picture reference and a knife, free hand the Poison Apple face to the pie crust. Paint the crust with egg wash.
  5. Turn pie filling into pastry lines pie plate and then carefully place crust on top. Fold and pinch pie crusts together. Cover edges with aluminum foil or pie crust protector shield.
  6. Bake for 30 minutes, remove crust shield and bake for additional 15 minutes.

Drink:  Evil Queen’s Punch

Ingredients:

  • 2 envelopes lemon-lime Kool-Aid
  • 10 cups water
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 46 ounce can of pineapple juice
  • 1 quart lime sherbet
  • 2 liters lemon-lime soda

Instructions: 

  1. Combine the Kool-Aid, sugar, water, and pineapple juice. Refrigerate until ready to serve.
  2. When ready to serve, scoop lime sherbet into a punch bowl.
  3. Pour the kool-aid and juice combo over the Sherbet. Follow this up with lemon-lime soda.
  4. Serve immediately.