Gingerbread fun

This year the kids wanted to buy Gingerbread cookie and house kits. I decided that we could do this because it never turns out real well when I try to make the gingerbread house parts from scratch. I even have the correct baking molds and it still never seems to work well. Also we have used a good brand of graham crackers to make houses some years but that's not quite the same. So in the spirit of my slightly more relaxed attitude to junk food we bought both a gingerbread house kit and a gingerbread people cookie making kit. All I can say is this way is SO easy. I'm sold!

Everyone decorated a side or two of the gingerbread house.




The kit allowed for each child to make several gingerbread cookie people. They plan to keep some and give some to friends.

...and I guess some heads have already been eaten!

I had my camera out and caught Tristan doing this:

He was putting sugary frosting on salt and vinegar potato chips! Ewwwwwww

The finished house came out great! We wrapped it up to save for our Christmas Day table.

Freeze ALMOST got the whole gingerbread house but thankfully we stopped him in time.

After making all the gingerbread goodies we watched Santa Buddies and sang some Christmas songs. This was a fun day!

Thanksgiving

These photos aren't in order, they're all from Thanksgiving and the week before.

Tristan and Colin are such a study in contrasts!

This is how they dressed for Thanksgiving. Colin in sporty summer wear (he's NEVER cold!) and Tristan dressed up for the holiday. These two are very close in age and obviously have had the same upbringing yet they are SO different!

Back before Thanksgiving we had a feast and program at homeschool group. The photo below makes me laugh as I didn't realize the look on Hayley's face until I downloaded the pics. This must have been THE moment she realized there was no ketchup to put on her meal. She's in a big ketchup phase lately.

Hayley has decided that she'll look for a small bottle of ketchup to carry in her bag from now on so she doesn't have this tricky problem again!

The Thanksgiving program was after the feast. A Native American woman gave a wonderful, interactive presentation about the native peoples feast days and what their lives were like back around the time the colonists arrived here.


The children did some drumming and chanting to Indian music.

Tristan with the red warrior make up on his cheek.

Tristan and Colin had made bows and arrows to bring along as part of their costumes.

The Thanksgiving program was at the church "with a great pond" so we had to check out the pond for awhile after the event!

A couple days before thanksgiving we started our Christmas shopping. We do this early because we need to mail some gifts and to give some at Thanksgiving. After shopping the kids were STARVING (or so they claimed) so we headed to pizza hut, I'd heard about their all natural pizzas. Well we ended up buying the special instead because Tristan really, really, wanted the chocolate dunking sticks that came with it. A little junk food won't hurt.

Once home we had to wrap some gifts. Below Colin wraps a gift he chose for Grammy.

I told him he definitely wraps like a boy!

So we had a nice Thanksgiving event with the homeschool group. A fun shopping trip that same week and then a trip to Grammy's house for Thanksgiving itself. It all went pretty well except that Trevor did not want to go to Grammy's but I said he had to. It was not fun convincing him he had to go and getting him ready. I needed to do his laundry so he'd have something nice to wear (his new "good sweats") and then he wore an old pair of sweats anyway and wouldn't put on the new ones (but at least they were clean!). He doesn't like the long car ride and doesn't like that holidays are different. He did ok but ate no dinner at all and put his hands over his head at times when the holiday got noisy. He finally settled down and ate some left over dinner once we were home and the younger kids were in bed. The joys and trials of a special child were quite in evidence that day. I'm glad we stay HOME for Christmas!!!

Sick week

Last week passed in a blur. We all caught the flu, the h1n1 variation, and although it wasn't as bad as the one time we had seasonal flu, a couple years back, it was still no fun. Basically we had times of extreme tiredness, headaches, fevers (but not super high), lack of appetite, upset stomachs, coughs and congestion. It was no fun at all but now we are starting to feel better and trying to get back into a normal routine. Today we went out for a long dog walk to get some fresh air.

Job Fair at the ski area

Saturday I went to the job fair at a local ski area. It was raining, and the lines were long, it looked like this:




After waiting in the rain and then waiting in the building and then talking to a couple supervisors I did get a ski season job. I'll be doing childcare and working opposite hours to my hubby so the kids will be covered. It should be an adventure. Now I have just a few weeks to work out how our homeschooling while Mother works will look.

All Gone

What was here:



Is now there:



I guess that means that Fall has fallen and winter is wandering in. By the calendar Winter begins in late December but it tends to arrive sooner here in NH. Time to get ready.

Outdoor cages and such to clean up and bring indoors (never know if they might be NEEDED for some animal, a rescue, an orphan, a new pet...over the winter and they'd be no good buried in snow. Another kitty litter box needs to be set up too since the cats spend much more time indoors in the winter.


The pool is draining.

A few stray apples look out of place on the leafless tree.

Snowflake the cats fur is thickening.

Fire wood is being stacked and covered.

Flower is thinking who knows what but I imagine it to be...... winter is not to my liking... or maybe...... why did you put a mini pumpkin in front of me.

So fall has fallen and we get ready for winter.

Not many photos from the past week. It was a quiet week with only Thursday being a day out. Colin and Tristan had their first visit to a Boy Scout meeting that day. They are cubs and will move up in February. I took photos (of course!) but they have too many other peoples kids in them to publish. The big boy scouts looked so old! The group of 10-11 year old cub scouts looked so little in comparison, most of those boy scouts looked like they can shave or will soon! I must admit don't know how I feel about them moving into a large boy scout troop. It will be the first regularly meeting activity my kids have had which is NOT all or mostly homeschooled children.
From what I could tell the boy scout troop is a diverse mix of all sorts of boys some seemed nice, some maybe not so much. I did hear a few bad words spoken from a boy or two which I found odd with all the cub scouts parents hanging around. It's a new phase and I'm not sure, just not sure. I think there would be benefit in my boys being in the boy scouts but are they ready? Am I? They will be further out of our safe cocoon of home education, carefully chosen activities and like minded friends than they have ever been before. Sure we see a mix of kids at the beach and in the community but for the most part they don't turn out to be a big part of our lives. It's a subject which I need to spend some time thinking about. Are they ready to stay strong to their own convictions and relatively good behavior?????? Yes this requires some thought.

Our home ed. has been going well. We're...8-10 weeks into our year now? Going on week 10 I believe. We are doing well, starting to get a little antsy. The kids have done by far the most formal schoolwork these past weeks than in years past. It's a good thing but I can see a break might be beneficial soon. It's getting a little monotonous. Both for the kids and me. I see them feeling a little bored since nothing is "new" by this point in the year. I find myself less perky about planning "next week". In fact "last week" is not completely wrapped up and filed away in the binders and next week starts in mere hours.

My job search is mixed. I had a job offer from one ski place but despite the fact that I'd said I could work any day of the week until 2:00 pm, the job I was offered was Saturday-Sunday and Monday 8am-5pm. I had to turn it down since hubby needs to head to work-with our one vehicle-at 2:45. Not to mention the fact that I don't drive well, especially in the winter but really not well pretty much anytime. I also don't like the thought of the kids being alone for too long just yet. Sure they're old enough but there is still good reason to have a parent around most of the time. Too much bad in the world that children can come across accidentally. I may get another offer from the ski mountain this coming week but at the moment I have my sites and hopes set on another ski mountain which could in fact be a better fit. I will interview there on Saturday. I just want this whole thing to be decided. I don't like not knowing and don't like waiting.

On the home front, I think Tristan is coming down with a cold or flu. I dread to think it might be flu but it's come on suddenly for him and at the moment I sense that something might be about to come on suddenly for me. Hoping it turns out to be minor for us or that the others in the family don't get it at all.

On the pet front, The Degus are in a bigger cage now. They are heavy chewers so can't have any plastic. We had them in a small aquarium tank while waiting for a lid to arrive for the 36" long aquarium tank. The lid arrived Friday and Hayley got the Degus settled in. They need more toys and things to climb on there is plenty of space in the bigger tank. The photo below only shows around half of their new home. These are great pets. We had some inconclusiveness about whether we are allowed to have them where we live but it turns out we can being rural and this being for educational reasons.

The other pets are fine. Dogs lazily sleeping by the wood stove. cats spending more time indoors. Guinea pigs indoors for the winter and squeaking constantly for treats. The ferrets also seem to enjoy lazing about when the wood stove is on. Fish doing well now that Colin has their tanks set up correctly. Everything else turtles, frogs, gerbils and hamsters, puttering along as usual. Hayley is campaigning even harder for a tarantula these days. maybe, but I'm not feeding it! I'm not scared of them but hate to see something eat another living things and she would have to feed it crickets. I don't know if I can bear it but if she keeps it in her room I guess.

I will leave with this thought...I really hope my next post isn't that we have the flu or had it and were out of commission for days! Mainly because we have Animal Academy again this Thursday and that is THE highlight of the year for the kids.

Octoberfest in November

Today we attended "Octoberfest in November". Pat's peak, one of the local ski mountains, holds this event the first weekend of November each year. There is a used ski and snowboard sale, German entertainment and foods, lots of activities for kids and unusual things such as chainsaw carving and mud snowboarding. We got some used skis and boots for the adults, kids already have some, contending with the large crowds all trying to find a deal on the right size skis boots of equipment. That was not fun, I don't like crowds but did manage to find some things eventually. After the crowded ski sale it was a relief to get back outdoors and enjoy the various activities.


Bouncy castle:



make your own candy apple, as if they didn't already have enough candy from Halloween!

Pumpkin Painting

It was a nice weather day, a little chilly but not as bad as some days lately have been.

Tristan and Colin tried the keg bowling, a strike wins a prize but no prizes for us. It was hard!

This was a fun day. The boys are now quite in the mood for snow and skiing- me, I can wait longer! The days are getting cold though, we've already had some flurries, soon the snow will be here to stay.

Halloween 2009

For Halloween 2009 we went to my Mothers house, as we do most years. She lives in a suburban area with neighbors where we live rurally-not best for trick or treating! To start the day we had planned on a girls day at the salon. The guys went shopping for last minute Halloween needs while the girls had hair or manicures done. I was not able to take pictures as we were all being worked on in different places at the same time. I did take a pic of Hayley's nails after the fact0 her first manicure! Hayley said it was kind of fun but a little strange.

Pretty nails.


Later we had dinner, then the kids got ready for the main attraction...trick or treats!

Not many photos since they mostly didn't come out well after dark. I got a few. Hayley was Tweety bird, Colin a ghoul and Tristan a star wars guy (Jenga Fett? I think he said). Trevor didn't dress up but the other kids shared candy-of which they all got way too much! Some houses just give a piece or two but some give handful after handful! The bags were breaking by the end and we only went up 4 not very big roads.

The kids were very tired by the end of the night and having a 2 hour drive home meant we were up well past bedtime. We got home about 11:00 and the kids went happily to bed.