Pilgrim Hats ~ A Thanksgiving Eve Tradition

A couple years ago, I found a cute recipe in a Family Fun Magazine that I knew the kids would enjoy making, and it looked simple enough that we could actually accomplish it...so began our Thanksgiving Eve Pilgrim Hat cookie making tradition.

This recipe calls for only a few ingredients: a bag of large marshmallows, a bag of chocolate chips, a package of fudge striped cookies, and a container of colored icing (the recipe calls for orange icing, but this year we used green).

My little kitchen helpers took turns smoothing out the melted chocolate over the chocolate-dipped marshmallows.

My camera guy (ds7) grabbed a picture of the pilgrim hats cooling (and hardening) in the fridge.

Here's the final product, the green icing makes them look a bit like leprechan hats - but the kids didn't mind :)

And, of course, I must share a picture of one of our cute taste-testers.

This treat is a great one to deliver to family and friends on Thanksgiving Day. Dh took two of our kiddos to his parents' house to deliver a plate of these on Thanksgiving morning, while I stayed home with dd5 to guard our turkey (in the oven) and work on all of those other millions of things that need to be done to prepare our annual Thanksgiving feast :)

Getting Outside

We took some time last weekend to get out and enjoy some beautiful fall weather. It seems that we've gotten more rain this year than usual ~ so when we have a clear day, we need to take advantage of it...'cause it may not last long.I actually took my planner and planned out our school for the week while dh and the kiddos played...

But it wasn't long before they convinced me to join in their fun. I climbed a hill with dd5 and ds3, and worked up a bit of a sweat (it was a steep hill).


See, it even tired the kids out, they had to take a breather on a park bench after they reached the top :)

We've visited this park many times, but I've never explored the back end of it...I'll definitely have to add it to our list of favorite parks.

Pumpkin Creations

Dh is the king of pumpkin carving around here. I am always amazed at his creativity when it comes to things like this, and this year was no exception.

Each child chooses the design for their pumpkin (picked fresh from the patch), and somehow, daddy makes the design happen...

First up, is Abby's "dog"

This is Ryan's choice, I don't think it had a name, just a design that he chose...

And finally, this is Caleb's little pumpkin with hair (see the holes on top...)

Reading with the kids

I really need to update my "Reading with the kids" widget on my sidebar. We finished Charlotte's Web eons ago. Following our Sonlight Read Aloud Schedule, we've also completed Homer Price and Mountain Born. This week we've started reading The Year of Miss Agnes.

One of the reasons I am loving our Sonlight curriculum is that is has introduced us to some great read-alouds, ones that I would probably never have considered reading (and never read myself, until now).

Crystal Grottoes Caverns Field Trip

Last week we took a tour of a nearby cavern with our homeschool co-op. I figured this field trip was too good to pass up - I knew my kids would have a blast exploring a cave...and I was right!

This is a crystal formation on the rocks inside the cave...

The tour guide told us the names of all of the different rock formations, but between trying to grab a few pictures and making sure that none of my kiddos got lost in the cave - I wasn't able to pay as much attention as I would have liked :)

We exited the cave from a mine-shaft type door, into the bright sunshine. It was indeed a beautiful day for a field trip...



Afterwards we headed to a beautiful park that was just a few minutes from the caverns - the kids ran and played, we enjoyed a picnic lunch, and then hiked a short distance to an overlook.

Pumpkin Patch Fun

We were finally able to make our annual trek to the pumpkin patch. I wasn't sure that we'd be able to make it this year, with all of the rainy weekends we've been having...