Elf on a Shelf ideas week 1

Our elf arrived on Thanksgiving right before dinner. During dinner we discussed names and all 4 kids finally agreed on Peppermint our female Elf on a shelf.

Day 1 after her first day here she returned from the north pole and held a tea party on the kitchen counter spilling all sorts of tea bags on the while she sipped tea with a few of her Christmas friends.

Day 2 We found Peppermint riding on a red and black toilet paper tube airplanes we made a few months ago above the dining room table.



Day 3 Peppermint was watching Christmas movies on the chair and brought us a new movie from Santa. Monster House. Robin was mad that Santa brought her a movie that scary. Duck and falcon enjoyed it though.

Day 4 We found our lovely elf doing a Christmas themed picture search puzzle on the table. she wrote a little note that said to do well at school today because Santa was watching.

Day 5 Before Robin went to bed she asked peppermint if there was a snow storm at the north pole. When she came back she left us a note that said, yes there was a big snow storm, so I made dome snowflakes for you I hope I do not get stuck. After searching high and low we found peppermint stuck yo the wall while hanging up snowflakes she made for us.


Day 6 she was hiding in the kitchen in a holiday decoration.

Day 7 She came back from the North Pole answering the question "how many friends do you have?" With an answer of I have many friends but 2 best friends Icicle and Candycane. We are hoping she will soon answer the question about where her other elf friends are in the world and what their families are like. Check next weeks blog post too see. Peppermint was hanging out in Robin's room last night dressed up in a Barbie dress and brought us another new movie. This movie wasn't to scary for Robin it was Barbie in the Princess and the Pauper.

America the Beautiful.

Appreciating the beauty of Our country.

We painted these beautiful pictures of "purple mountain majesties" after we discussed Katharan Lee Bates who wrote the poam America the Beautiful. Robin loved singing it with me.



Monday was a warmer than normal November day and we spent 3 hours playing outside.while I was going up and down on the seesaw with Duck I thought of a very cool art project we will be doing later this month.

We started back up with our state studies we are now studying Conneticut home of the first hamburger.

My littles really enjoyed making letter Hamburger patties.


Our Elf on a Shelf came to our house on Thanksgiving right before we ate. The kids named her Peppermint.

We woke up Friday morning to Peppermint's tea party she had after she returned from the north pole. Do you have an Elf? We would love you to leave a comment and tell us your Elf's name and what He/She has been up to.

Falcon is finishing up Treasure Island this week and continuing his studies on the Korean war.

We will be wrapping up our ocean theme next week and completing Robin's Sea Turtle project for Girl Scouts. I just need to decide how I want the project to look I keep changing my mind.

Giant Edible Gingerbread House.

This was the Giant Gingerbread House that you could walk through. It is completely made out of food and is edible.




Here are the smaller houses that you could vote on.Local Culinary Arts students have designed and created gingerbread houses that are on display for a school project. They were amazing, the students spent 2 months planning their projects. Here are some of our favorites there were 38 in all.







23 was Robin's favorite.


Front!


Back!
It was hard to choose but this one was a favorite of Falcon and I. The pumpkin patch in the backyard was too cute!

Homeschool Mothers Journal- The Stinky edition!

In my life this week…
Ahhhhhh the smell of dead animals. About a month back we noticed rats in our crawl space addition that cannot be accessed easily. We were able to get some Decon down the wall that they had chewed a hole in and I had set traps outside as well. After 2weeks..... no more activity. Yay, they were gone! Decon is supposed to dry them out so when they die they don't smell. They did not until the new roofers screwed up which caused a delay in getting our gutters up when it POURED!.I never knew how important gutters are on a house until then. Well water got into the crawl space and re-hydrated the dead rats. Now it SMELLS! I did discover the smell was coming through the only access to the crawl, the small window. Wind was wafting in through the cracks giving my house the wonderful aroma of dead RAT!



Nothing a little Duct tape cant fix! I sealed the gaps around the window and for now I do not smell anything, YaY! Fingers crossed that the smell wont work it's way up through the floor boards in our dining room. I could fit through that window if I really wanted to but, there is only enough space in there to army crawl around and if the smell doesn't go away that will be the fun I will get to endure. So cross your fingers for me that they will dry back out and become one with the earth!

In our homeschool this week…
Well it was short but productive. I usually don't give extra days off besides Thanksgiving but my best friend is in town from Florida so we took Wed-Fri off. We did go to see a huge edible gingerbread house I will be blogging all about it in a few days and linking up to the homeschool field trip blog hop.

Outside my window...
I see Rain, rain and rain!

Questions/thoughts I have…
Thinking that maybe I might be ready to add another baby to our nest!As my 2 year old gets bigger I am sad to not have a baby around but happy at the same time that I am able to sleep longer stretches at night.

I’m cooking…
Thanksgiving Dinner and all the fix In's of course!

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

So sad that this is the way the world is moving. I love my tech toys but still take the time to unplug sometimes. I told my husband I wanted to start a TV and digital game free Sundays and he said sure go ahead but I won't be part of it! GRRRRRRR! Well I can't really tell the kids they cant do it but Daddy can. Maybe I will have one school day tech free were we will school without the use of any electronics, that would be a hard one!

Pumpkin Play Doh and Peanut Dog Treats

The best dog treat recipes ever no raw ingredients so its safe for little helpers to play with.

Peanut Poppers
4 cups whole wheat flour
2T baking powder
2 cups milk
1 16 oz jar natural peanut butter (creamy works best)I use Smuckers natural

Knead together (I just throw it all in a bowl and squish it together with my hands. Once it's pretty much mixed I give each child a hunk to knead)then roll out to 1/4 in thick or roll them into one inch balls and smush them down with your palms
Bake 375 for 20 min

This recipe is so easy and nothing that is raw so the kids coud play with it all day then bake it for the dogs. My kids have even been known to eat the dough.
it will make enough treats to fill a big freezer bag. I store in the fridge to keep fresh longer mine have kept for 2 months in the fridge. I had them mold on me once in a jar under the sink but I forgot about them for 4 or more months! We love to make these as Christmas presents to family members who have dogs.

Here are our festive turkey treats




My son thought it would be funny to use the people cutter and feed the dog people. I thought it was rather funny myself!

We also made pumpkin pie play doh. It smells so good.
You'll Need:

2 cups of flour
1 cup salt
4 tsp. cream of tartar
1/4 cup cinnamon
1 Tbsp. cloves
1 Tbsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. ginger
2 cups water
2 Tbsp. oil

To Make:

1. Mix the flour, salt, cream of tartar, and spices together in a mixing bowl.

2. Add the water and oil to the dry ingredients and mix together well.

3. Transfer mixture to a medium sized saucepan and heat over medium heat, stirring constantly.

4. The dough will begin to thicken and form. When it becomes difficult to stir and is more solid, remove from heat and carefully knead the dough. {Note: dough will be hot!}

5. When dough has cooled, have fun playing ~ this is great for the holidays!!

Weekly Wrap Up

We have moved on to step 2 of out monarch mounting. We have relaxed the wings in a container with wet paper towels for 3 days in our refrigerator. After the wings were re-hydrated and able to be moved we could position is how we would like for display. It will take two weeks like this for the wings to dry out again and remain in the position that it is now.

Continuing with our ocean/water/thanksgiving theme we were lucky enough to have a beautiful sunny 60 degree day to go up to one of the great lakes.

I took this picture with Robin's camera since my DSLR is currently broken. Her shutter was stuck and didn't open all the way but I really thought it created such and interesting picture.

Here we discussed how all water leads to the ocean so we cleaned up litter that washed up on the shores.

We gathered natural items from the shores and threw them off the pier into the water to see if they would sink or float.

Falcon found this interesting item washed up

We asked a gentleman at the beach and he said that it is a type of flower that is grown in the swamps. It had a bunch a bigger seeds inside it. He did not know the name of it though but it was rather cool.
There was a man that was wading in the water with a metal detector looking for treasures. We joked around saying he was a shipwrecked pirate looking for his gold!

Falcon watched this great movie, it has quizzes at the end which are great.


WE made peanut butter dog treats Falcon thought it was funny to use the people cookie cutter so he could feed the dogs people!


Falcon finished up his personal narrative that has been working on. He also started his studies on the Korean War. He wanted to take a break from the ancients to study the Korean war. He started watching this movie as well as reading a few books on the war.

When It Rains In The House With A New Roof

In my life this week...
You know how we assume that men are born with the "handyman gene"? Well, my husband is just NOT that man. He is very technical and knows his way inside and out of nano technology and can fix computers, do electrical work and fix most computer type products but fix a pipe, hang a shelf, repair drywall he cannot. It all started with a trip to home depot to buy weather stripping for our back door. When he arrived home to get to work on the door and promptly put his hand through the glass window at the top of the door. He thought it was plexi glass. Sigh! We were able to get all the dogs and kids away from the glass safely and Papa bird was not hurt (just a small cut)but now he will have to figure out how to replace the glass. I don't think the weather stripping will work now that the door is missing glass.

So much for the new roof that we just had put on last week. It was raining BAD the day they were supposed to put the gutters up so they didn't come. We did however notice the water POURING INTO OUR HOUSE from the roof that is BRAND NEW. Of course the roofing company we used (Home Depot) was unavailable. After many towels, buckets, and cloth diapers the rain stopped. We then had a very soggy house. The
I'm reading...

This book was suggested to me by a fellow homeschool friend, Holly as well as a great art project that we will be finishing up this week. I am only on page 17 and this book is amazing. I already feel like a bad teacher but am ready to incorporate some new and great ideas to become a fantastic teacher. Again thank you to Holly for telling me about this book.

outside my window...
I see maples hanging on to the last few yellow leaves of the fall, blue skies and the woman across the street raking her leaves.

I'm cooking...
Apple cranberry crisp

Photo to share...


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