Linzer Tarts and a Movie Night: Special days Part 5

For Charity's night she decided to watch a movie, and before dinner she and I were elbows deep (figuratively of course;) in preparing a dessert to go with the movie.

Her selection was Linzer tarts.  We had never made them before, so we were in for an adventure.

 Charity (who made a special dough because of her diet) went and cut out the tops by hand - hearts and stars, triangles and circles, all decorated the top of her cookies.

Mother and I decided to use a doughnut cutter, creating just round holes.  It definitely was faster, but not as pretty.

Charity filled her Linzer cookies with strawberry jam from France!!!

We filled ours with strawberry (our homemade) cherry, and black raspberry.

They were tasty little tarts, and were the perfect thing to munch on while curled cozily watching a movie.

~Chs

Luminaries of God's Word

"Oh, send out Your light and Your truth! Let them lead me; Let them bring me to Your holy hill And to Your tabernacle." ~ Psalm 43:3

"Jesus bids us shine with a pure clear light, like a little candle burning in the night."

"God is the LORD, And He has given us light;" ~Psalm 118:27

"O house of Jacob, come and let us walk In the light of the LORD." ~Isaiah 2:5

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven." ~Matthew 5:16

"Let me live blessed Lord in the light of Thy Word, let my life be a light on a hill..

..Let my life be a light shining out through the night, may I help struggling ones to the fold..

Spreading cheer everywhere to the sad and alone, let my life be a light to some soul." ~J.R Varner

~Chs

Snow creatures, and Treasures: Special days Part 4

 We knew we were in for two major creative activity days when Mom and Dad's "days" were put back to back, and our hopes were verified. 

Dad had invited Josh and Theresa to come for the evening, so as soon as supper was done and dishes washed, we gathered in the living room to receive our instructions.  The first games was held on the deck.  We were split into 3 groups.  Josh and Theresa, Faith and Josiah, and Mom and I.

 We had 10 minutes to create a snow sculpture on our designated part of the deck, and there were three categories. Largest (the one using the most snow), the most unique, and the most humorous or funny.

 Faith and Josiah were definitely on the unique side with their farm scene, including a large barn, silo, corn crib and tractor.  Mother and I sculpted a unusual leaning snowman, with a semi sculpted head, and Josh and Theresa manufactured an adorable puffy cheeked araucana chicken, with a clutch of eggs. 

 Thoroughly chilled and stiff in the knees, we trooped inside for the next activity.  A treasure hunt!  Again we were split into two teams, and given a card with a bible verse on treasure, and our first clue.  There was a clue for each of the team members, and we managed to follow our clues quite well which took both teams by different routes to the treasure: A box of Ferrero Rocher chocolates!! (One of Mumsie's favoritist candy in the world)  We all enjoyed our treat, as well as warm apple crisp and homemade vanilla Ice cream (Dad's choice) while watching "Expelled", to end the evening.

"For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21

Of Letters and Numbers: Special days Part 3

When it comes to words, and educational games, Mother dear always is the MOST creative.  From definictionary to team spelling games, and many more, she has kept our interest, and this year it was no different. 

We started out the evening with an alphabetical bible name quiz.

We were split into teams of 2, Dad and Josiah, Grandpa and Faith, and Charity and I.  Mother was moderator.

You started the game with a list of the letters of the alphabet down the side of your paper, then when mother said "go!" Bible pages rustled and pencils flew.

The object was to find a name (with a matching bible reference) for each of the letters of the alphabet.  But you didn't want to pick too familiar ones, because you lost a point if you had the same name as one of the other teams.  When Mother finally told us that time was up, we all had almost all of the letters filled.  W, X, and Y however were very difficult and though no names were found, some of the teams selected titles, such as Widow.  The other names ranged from something normal like Mary (Matt 1:16) to Meremoth! (Nehemiah 3:21)

We then all gathered around the table for the second game with our snack, carob bridge mix, (Mmmmm!) in the middle.

An Alphabet Sentence turned out absolutely ridiculous and hilarious.  Just a hint if you ever make your own sentence, don't start with "All bad cats".  It kind of limits your options a little;)

The last game of the evening was a number activity...

Midnight Madness!! 

For those of you who have never played this game you are missing out.  Here are the basic rules: All the players have a piece of  paper while there is only one pen which is set in the middle of the table. The goal of the game is to write numbers from 1 to 100, but... you can only get the pen when you roll a 1 or a 6.  And of course if the person next to you rolls a 1 or 6 right after you receive the pen, then you must give it up right away!  It is always a hard laughing, fast moving, crazy writing game, and when we played it on Monday, we all managed to get quite high numbers, before Mother reached the winning 100!

~Chs

A Hike and a Game around the World: Special days Part 2

Saturday was Josiah's "day" and typical of him, he took us all on a hike at Beaver lake trails.

There was just enough snow on the ground to make the woods beautiful, and though slightly chilly, by the end of our vigorous tramp we were all quite warm.  We decided to take both the dogs, and as Sadie Rose has never been on these trails before, she steamed ahead like a locomotive sniffing enthusiastically and forcefully dragging whoever was on the other end of her leash ;)

Josiah had forgotten to bring his walking stick along, so he spent some time searching for a the perfect specimen.  The first one he selected was more like a young tree, and he ended supporting it more than it supported him!  The next candidate was short and just a little rotten, so soon all sticks were disposed of and he made use of just his two strong legs.

We managed to make it through the woods without being shot at, or even seeing any disgruntled hunters. Exhausted but happy we headed homeward where dear Mumsie waited with steaming Hot Chocolate.

Josiah had chosen homemade Hot Chocolate and Scotch Shortbread for his snack and we enjoyed them both while we played a game of Josiah's choice.

Take Off.  A very ancient game of our childhood, still enjoyed today even though we are missing many of the playing pieces, and the planes that are left rarely have both their wings.

The point of the game is to take your fleet of planes (we had to do with two in our fleets because of the missing aircraft) from the starting point on a Hawaiian island, all the way across the world to Hawaii on the other side of the map.  It was a delightful day of traveling (on foot and on paper) and enjoyed by all.

~Chs

Ducky Clementines

 The other day I received four darling duckies from our friend Mr. Reiche. 

They are so cute, all down to the littlest ducky with his jaunty blue ribbon.

In fact, they looked so adorable sitting next to the clementines that I just had to capture them!  

(on the camera that is;)

~Chs

A Blizzard Indoors: Special days Part 1

 One of our more recent year end traditions is to give each person in the family an evening (or afternoon) to plan as they please. They get to pick an activity and a snack to go along with it. 

The first evening was Faith's, and as it was last year, her "activity" was hanging up our paper snowflakes, turning our living room into a winter wonderland while we listen to the Focus on the Family Radio Drama "A Christmas Carol" by Charles Dickens. 

 Mr. Reiche and Josh and Theresa joined us for the event, and we began folding, cutting, ironing, and hanging.

 Josiah and Dad were in charge of suspending them onto the ceiling, since they have the height in the house:)

 By the time the second spirit was introduced to Ebenezer Scrooge, our house looked like a snow globe stuck in time.

 Once the last snowflake was hung in place (this year we had them all the way down the hallway) Faith brought out her special snack.

 Extra Snappy Scottish Snaps, and Spooned Eggnog, deliciously complimentary desserts.

It was a fine way to spend an evening, and if you are ever in want of winter wonder, perhaps when it is all melted and brown outside, do drop by and partake in the visual feast of over a hundred snowflakes making a perpetual decent in the middle of our humble abode.

~Chs

The Carpenter the Door and the Window

In our basement directly underneath our front porch, is a door-less little cement walled room; a room which we have affectionately dubbed our cellar.  Housed in the little cellar are all our canned goods seated on wooden shelves which line the room.  Everything was nice and cozy... Until we found ourselves the possessors of bushels of apples (leftovers after cider and applesauce making), apples that needed a place to stay.  While there was space in the cellar, it wasn't cold enough to keep the apples.

One suggestion was to put a door in the cellar opening, thus shutting off any warm air coming from the rest of the house. 

So we bought and old wooden door, and Josiah and Dad set to work making a frame for it in the cellar opening.

Then Josiah began the process of shaving down the door to fit.

 

 

After many hours of labor the door was properly fit and hung, and we finally had a door to our cellar!!

Now to make sure that the door had succeeded in making the room cold enough we stuck a thermometer among all our colorful jars of produce, and left it there for several hours.

Upon returning, we found that while the door had made the cellar cooler, alas it had not made it cold enough!  So we went on to plan B.

Petitioning the help of Mr. Reiche we took on the project of putting a window into the cellar.  First we had to remove one cement block (without damaging the others) which was accomplished by chisels and hammers.

We then fit in the tiny window that Faith had bought this summer that just happened to be the exact size of a cement block.

Now the cellar is freezing (o.k. 42º) cold, not very pleasant for humans, but perfect for apples and vegetables!

~Chs