turkey handprint craft

This is the last Thanksgiving craft I have to post. I promise.
Hope you all had a good one. You were in my thoughts. xoxo

Give Thanks craft

I saw a picture of something like this somewhere but I can't remember where. A while ago I bought some ears of indian corn and it took a LONG time for the girls to pluck the kernels off. Even the young ones got into it as you can see. I think they turned out really pretty. Actually I just found where the picture was and they used split peas for the letters. I didn't even notice that when I first saw it.

mosaic cornucopia

Another craft we did yesterday during our all day craft marathon was a mosaic cornucopia. Even Margie partook in this one.
Josie. She was making a very non flattering face so I cropped her out. Mean mommy.

Emmy's

And Georgia's. She was not making a very non flattering face but she was sick in bed!

teepee craft

We spent the whole day crafting yesterday. One of the things we made were teepees.
I found a chart of Native American symbols and had them try to draw some on their teepees. Josie's has the sun's rays which stands for constancy, Georgia's on the right has many different symbols such as a bear track which stands for a good omen, morning stars which means guidance, a horse means journey, the medicine mans eye on the door means wise and watchful. Let's see what else.... the arrow means protection. She has many more symbols but I'll spare you. I have yet to ask Emmy what her pictures mean. Oh wait a minute, they aren't symbols, she says she put jewels on it.

St. Leo the Great

Way back on November 10 was the feast day of St. Leo the Great and in honor of him, because he promoted the various works of mercy, we made a really nice works of mercy lapbook. This one is from lapbooks for catholics.

homemade caramel corn

I've been telling the girls forever now that we will make homemade caramel corn after they have enjoyed my Aunt Joann's at various get-togethers. We finally got around to it yesterday. Popcorn is not a usual thing at our house so we borrowed my mom's hot air popper and I think it really scared Margie at first. She was standing right in front of it and it all of a sudden blew hot air on her, making this ticking noise as the kernels swirled around inside.
As soon as it started popping it was like fireworks. The girls all squealed and jumped around. What did they expect??

My first batch got a little too dark and some pieces had a slight burnt taste. We waited for dad to come home and showed him the amazing hot air popper and made some more!! PERFECT. Here is the recipe:

8 cups of popped popcorn

3/4 cup packed brown sugar

1/4 cup butter

3 TBSP corn syrup

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

pop the popcorn

melt the brown sugar, butter and corn syrup on low heat

after it boils cook with out stirring for 3 minutes

remove from heat and add baking soda, salt and vanilla

mix into popcorn to coat evenly

place on a cookie sheet and bake at 350 degrees for around 13 minutes

put it back into bowl and stir/shake until cool

postcards from home contest winner!

We got a call the other day saying Georgia won 2nd place in a "postcards from home" contest that the paper was sponsoring. Here is a link since I can't get any pictures to upload to the blog.

http://www.watertowndailytimes.com/wdt_repository/advertising_files/20101111_postcards.pdf

Well as you can see I got it to upload. I scanned the copy from the paper therefore it is not very big. xo

Grandpa

Grandpa, wishing you a speedy recovery. Hope you are feeling well and please know that you are in our thoughts and prayers. Grandma make sure you relax too!! xoxo

Just a cute poem about Grandpa's. I remember LOVING the walks we used to take Grandpa, watching you wrangle big water snakes and snapping turtles, taking me to the beaver dam, .... it was so much fun.

I like to walk with Grandpa,

His steps are short like mine.

He doesn't say "Now hurry up!"

He always takes his time.

Most people have to hurry,

They do not stop and see,

I'm glad that God made Grandpa"Unrushed"

and young like me.

– Rodney O. Hurd

Tessa's gift

We were invited to a little girl's, whom I consider to be my half niece, birthday party over the weekend and I attempted to make a name plaque for her. (She is considered family to me because her Grandmother, mother and aunt took me in for a while and just plain loved me.) I have done them before but not completely out of paper. I wish the name was more pronounced but I'll know next time.

All Saints Day printable

I found this simple printable on the Catechist website. If interested it was under the catechist keyboard tab.
It has 8 pages about the steps in being publicly recognized as a saint.

We printed it for All Saints Day. We're sure trying!!

Halloween night

Georgia was a cowgirl for trick-or-treating. I made the costume out of paper bags. I greased the bags with crisco to get a leather look and used brad fasteners to look like studs. I think she looked darn cute!
Josie was a spider princess. This is my dress but I made the web for her back and then made the crown with strips of metal and beads.

Margie is a hand-me-down elephant. Thanks Stacy for letting us borrow it. She wouldn't wear the hood for the picture because she was adamant about eating the lollipop she found and mean mom said no not until later!

Then the little fairy. Emmy just LOVED this costume. She flitted and floated around all evening!

Here we come - Trick-or-Treat!!

St. John's first annual Halloween Party?

Mom put on an awesome Halloween party this past weekend at St. John's. I put a question mark in the post's title because I wonder if it will become an annual thing. It was very successful.
Here is the gang. Make sure you take a peek at Margie here in her angel costume. She would NOT stand for a picture later on.

Bobbing for donuts!

Waiting oh so patiently.

GO!! Come on Jo catch it!

Floating hand punch....eeewwww!

Russell organized a trivia game of Halloween facts.

The big hit was mom's ghost bowling with pumpkin gourds.

Knock 'em down Emmy.

Then, there was ring the witch hat. We also played throw the roses to St. Therese but I didn't get any pictures of that on since I was manning the game.

Little close aren't you Em?

Blurry, darn. The kids LOVED sticking their hands in the boxes and feeling parts of some guy mom called Herbert Smears. (Although mom Georgia said on some of the labels you had Howard Smears and others said Herbert Smears. Must have been his alter ego :)

Lots of smiles and "eeewwww"s!

Look at the Saints. We have Emeline as Mary the Blessed mother of Jesus, Josie as Saint Bernadette and Georgia as Saint Rose.