Christmasy Time of Year

I have really been enjoying this Christmasy time of year!  One thing I really enjoy is decorating for the holidays and making Christmas crafts.  I've been on Pinterest quite a bit just pinning away...and I've actually completed a few of the projects I've pinned.  Here are a couple of them.  Yes.  They involve glitter! :) 

I have always liked snowglobes.  So when I saw these little snowglobes I thought they would be fun and easy to make.  I thought I would have a hard time finding the deer but I found them at Hobby Lobby.  This is a baby food jar.  I painted and glittered the lid.  I glued a little tree and the deer onto the lid and put in a tiny bit of fake snow (that I bought at Target for 90% off after Christmas last year).  I put a little glitter in there too.  And there you have it.  I'd like to make some with jars of different sizes and with different scenes inside. 

This is a different little jar "scene" that I made for the mantle.  I put some fake snow into a candy jar with some bottle brush trees and a moma and a papa moose.  Simple.  But I like it.

I thought the little deer jar would be cute next to the moose on the mantle. 

Here is a full view of the mantle.  It has several Enesco vintage figurines and some other random things on it.  I found the white bottle brush trees at Homeland of all places!!  The santa on the window is an exact replica of the Christmas tree topper we always had on our tree when I was a little girl.  I found this one in a thrift store several years ago. 

Here is another little scene I made.  The light up ceramic tree came from Matt's Aunt Ka.  The little figurines I found on clearance after Christmas last year. 

This is my second Pinterest project.  A Glitter House.  I bought a paper mache house at Hobby Lobby and decorated it with glitter and plastic pieces of candy and beads.  You can read all about the history of glitter houses here.  I didn't realize that they have been around so long.  I made this one while Matt watched the OU vs OSU football game :)  The girls helped and now they want to make one of their own!  I am really happy with how it turned out.  It took about 2 hours total to make. 

I put the house on the top of my fridge with my other glittery/gingerbread-ish decorations.  I think it looks cute up there :)

These are my vintage Shiny Brite ornaments.  These hung on my tree when I was a little girl. I LOVE these!!  They just remind me of Christmas when I was young. 

This is a new addition to our decorations this year.  This is my new gumdrop tree.  Matt bought this for me for my birthday.  He had a hard time finding it.  I had told him I wanted one and he looked at several stores.  He said many people had no idea what he was talking about.  Fortunately, we found it on Amazon :)  I love it!! 

Finally, here are a couple of pictures that made me happy....today while I was finishing up my snowglobe deer craft I looked out my window and saw this little deer nibbling at some of the seed under the bird feeders.  When I went outside I saw she had a friend.  It was so cool to see them back there.  We've lived here since the end of May and I haven't seen a single deer yet.  I need to buy some deer corn to feed them! 

Hope you all are having a wonderful December so far! 

Recipe for Cinnamon Roasted Almonds

I stumbled across a recipe in my recipe binder the other day that I just had to make....cinnamon roasted almonds.  These are those yummy nuts you smell at state fairs and craft shows...you know, the one's that cost $5.00 for a bag of about 8 almonds (or pecans, if you prefer)!!  Anyway...I made these once before and I don't know why it has taken me so long to make them again...they are YUMMY!!!  My kids eat them like candy.  They almost taste like candy but you get a nice healthy almond in the center :)  So...here goes...

The ingredients: 

1 egg white
1 teaspoon vanilla

4 cups whole almonds (I just used a 10.25 oz can b/c that's what I had on hand)

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 teaspoon of salt

1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

(I have two cans of almonds in the picture b/c I made a double batch.)

First step:  Preheat your oven to 250 degrees.  If you aren't using parchment paper you want to lightly grease a 10x13 inch pan or cookie sheet.  I highly recommend using parchment paper.

Then, you lightly beat the egg white;  add 1 teaspoon of vanilla and beat until frothy but not stiff.  Add the nuts and stir until well coated.  

Mix the dry ingredients - sugar, brown sugar, salt, and cinnamon. 

You want to stir the nuts in the egg/vanilla mixture. After that, what I did was lift the nuts out of the egg whites with a slotted spoon and dropped them into the bowl of dry ingredients. I stirred them around to make sure they were well coated. 

Spread evenly on the prepared pan.

Bake for 1 hour (depending on your oven - I baked 1 hour and 15 minutes) stirring occasionally, until golden. Allow to cool and then store in airtight containers - If you have any leftover to store. YUM!! 

Home Ec at Our Homeschool

Well today we had a little "Home Economics" in our homeschool.  I never took Home Economics in school.  I took "Technology" where I learned how to weld and screen print and make things.  It was "Shop" basically.  I was one of two girls in that class.  I remember I used to say, "If you can READ, you can cook!"  I had absolutely NO DESIRE when I was 14 years old to learn anything about homemaking. It wasn't until I was pregnant with my first baby that I realized that I wanted to be a homemaker.  That I wanted to stay home with my babies and not work outside the home.  When I first got married I was NOT a cook.  Yes.  I could read.  And I did.  Believe it or not I had to read "Cooking for Dummies" to learn how to make mashed potatoes!!  My mom cooked all the time when I was young.  She would invite me into the kitchen but I was like, "Nah".  It wasn't my thing.  And when she died when I was only 22 years old, I regretted so much that I never spent any time with her in the kitchen.  I never learned from her how to make gravy.  Or mashed potatoes.  Or how to fry a chicken.  To this day, I still don't make gravy.  I've never fried a whole chicken that I've cut up myself.  So, since my kids have shown an interest in spending time with me in the kitchen I'm going to take advantage of it.  BEFORE they get too busy  and don't want to hang out with me ;)  So, anyway...today's cooking lesson was a simple one.  How to make Beef Stew.  I'm sure we'll have to practice this many times but I love that they were so eager to want to help and to want to learn :) 

I told them...rule #1...put on your aprons and wash your hands :)  (I poured myself some Dr. Pepper and put on some of my favorite music too!)

Aren't they cute in their aprons?

Even Philip was super excited to help! 

Next.  We clean and chop the celery.  This was their first time to cut up veggies with a sharp knife so I was a little nervous.  I kept saying, "Watch your fingers!!"  Fortunately, no problems.

Philip didn't get to chop.  He's still too young. 

Next lesson.  The vegetable peeler.  This step is going to take some getting used to.  Madeline did pretty well.  Susanna got a little frustrated.

Madeline helped chop the carrots.  Susanna thought it looked a bit too hard. 

Madeline peeling her potato.  SuSu was busy playing with Philip by this time. 

They are playing with Mammy, the pumpkins and the farmhouse :)

Philip was in charge of the salt and pepper.  He poured in the beef broth too!

And everyone took a turn at stirring.  I really think that is their favorite part!

We really had a lot of fun in the kitchen today! I really hope they will be more eager to eat their stew since they had such a big part of making it!  Will definitely have to do more "Home Ec" classes soon!

Apple Print Shirts and Pumpkin Painting

We've been really enjoying the cooler temperatures and the Fall weather around here!  I've been on the internet and found several fun fall worksheets for school and fall craft ideas.  Last week we made apple print shirts.  We used apples that we cut in half so the core could make a "star" on the stamp.  The kids loved making these!  I thought I would make it a little extra fun by having little "eyes" to glue on and for the girls I made little bows.  And since it is fall, we made pumpkins to go on our shirts as well.  The kids were so proud of their shirts they wore them the very next day - forgot to take a picture of them with them on, though.  Maybe next time they wear them.  Here are some pics of us as we were creating our apple shirts....

Today we decided to paint mini pumpkins.  The kids have been asking to do this for a while now.  They enjoyed this but I wasn't super pleased with the paints we bought.  They were marketed as paints for painting pumpkins but I didn't feel like they were bright/dark enough.  The kids had fun, though.  Some of the colors are supposed to glow in the dark too so that should be fun! 

Of course, mommy didn't want to paint her pumpkin...I wanted to glitter mine with my Martha Steward glitter.  I've said it a thousand times already but I just love this stuff.  I think it is so pretty.  I tried to do a color that would look nice through Thanksgiving - I love the looks of green and purple and black pumpkins but didn't think they would look right for Thanksgiving.  Anyway...all you do is paint the glue onto your pumpkin.  Then sprinkle them with glitter.  Use a plate or a piece of paper to catch the extra glitter so you can pour it back into the bottle.  When I was finished I did spray mine with acrylic paint so I wouldn't have glitter falling off everywhere (that happened to me last year).  Then I tied a little ribbon on.  There you have it.  I think they are really cute. 

Here are the finished products from the kids pumpkins....

Monarch Migration at the Zoo

I love homeschooling because we have flexibility and freedom.
We can go to the zoo in the morning when no one else is there.
We get to see monarch butterflies while they are migrating from Canada to Mexico.
What an amazing sight!  The kids LOVED seeing them!!

Getting Ready for Fall....

What did I do for Labor Day?  I spent that Saturday getting ready for Fall!!!  My sweet husband had to work and the kids went to Grandma's, so I was able to have some extra time to start getting out my Fall decorations.  This is our first Fall in our new house so it has been fun finding places to put pumpkins or scarecrows and such.  I'm sure I will want to change things around as I go and add things here and there.  But we have a start!  I love Fall decorations - they just seem to make my house feel more "homey".  I love the colors and the cool crips air of autumn.  I love the leaves changing and the cool mornings.  Autumns is definitely my favorite season....it has been since I was a little girl.  I remember telling my momma...."I love Fall because the State Fair comes, then Halloween, then my birthday!"  I love fall for different reasons now - but I still love all those things.  Well, maybe not my birthday.  BUT - my MIL does make me the yummiest fried chicken dinner every year for my birthday!!  Anyway...here is a glimpse of Fall in our house.  For now.  Until I change it. There haven't been any real pumpkins at the store when I've been the past few times.  I saw lots of pumpkins in front of the local pumpkin patch today, though.  So...soon I will have pumpkins and mums and a hay bale! :) 

"Autumn is a second spring when every leaf is a flower."

Albert Camus

This is the front porch.  I have a little corner I decorate....

The fireplace...

Upclose picture of the mantel.  I LOVE the vintage window!  Oh, and that little pumpkin in the middle was given to my sweet Maddo when she was a baby :)

These guys visited while I was getting my decorations out so I had to stop and say hi...

This is my little farmhouse that sits in my kitchen...got her some new pumpkins for her front patio!

This is the few Halloween decorations I have.  I really stopped buying Halloween decorations a few years ago - I do like the vintage style ones, though. 

Put a few Happy Pumpkins on the wall of our School Room...

Made a "Fall Playdough Bucket" with fall colored playdough and Pilgrim, turkey and fall themed cookie cutters.

We made a "September" garland for the wall in class the other day. 

This is one of my most treasured pieces...this is a pumpkin patch that Madeline drew and colored in First Grade.  I LOVE IT!! 

"Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the autumn tree."

Emily Bronte