Candle By Night

THEME: "This week I’d like to invite you to share your favourite field-trip that you’ve been able to go on since you’ve started homeschool. I’d encourage you to include photos, but you don’t have to." My favorite field trip so far......It would have to be to the apple orchard. The children, Nana, and I had so much fun. Especially after we went to Nana's house and made yummy applesauce. :D It coincided nicely with out school lessons. It happened to be the week for the letter A and the unit happened to be...APPLES! It was fun to see my Sweet E learn that apples do grow on trees (she kept saying they didn't before we went to the orchard.) Granted.....we have only had a couple of field trips, but we are only into our 3rd month of homeschooling. Many more field trips to come. :D

After some struggles we had last week I figured this week would be best spent doing review and enjoying Autumn. So this week things have been focusing on this wonderful season. Yesterday we started working on a lapbook (not sure how it will turn out....first one I have done on my own->no instructions) and we made fall cookies. The children all took turns helping to make sugar cookies. They helped to roll the dough, cut the cookies, transfer to the cookie sheet, and paint them before baking. Here are some adorable pictures of the children. :o) Yummy!

"I am giving us an opportunity every Monday to not only count our blessings, but to share them with others. This is a way that we can encourage one another. Make a post on your blog telling us about your blessing. Please put a link back to this post ( on her blog ). You can add the URL of your blog post on Mr. Linky below. Many of our blessings we will have pictures of and we can share those as well. I think that many times we forget that it is a blessing to be able to breath, to get out of bed, to hold a baby... Share your blessings with us. They encourage others. We can share so many other things.... special gifts, recipes, let's take the time to share how God has blessed us!! - Marci " It was easy to know what to write about today. For school this week we are taking a break from the structured curriculum and doing a review/autumn themed week. So I wanted to share the first thing that we did. With the help of Beloved the children's hands were traced onto red and ora...

I think I will just let these pictures speak for themselves. I couldn't help but share them. ;o)

Today I decided to take the children for a hike since this would be one of the last nice days (weather wise) we would be having for a while. The children were excited to go back to Wolf Run. At first I had a hard time keeping up with the children because they started off running ;) (and I was carrying Little E.) They were so happy to walk the wooded trail this time. As we were walking one of the upper loops of the trail we came across a tree that, I am assuming, came down in a storm. But instead of breaking in half, or being uprooted, it...I don't know how to describe it.....it was twisted. It was so intriguing to see such a sight. I don't think I have ever seen anything like it before. I was a little disappointed in the lack of color on the trees. Almost half had already lost their leaves and there weren't too many reds/oranges. That's okay though, it was still a beautiful walk/hike. We walked for an hour which is more than enough for me since I carried Little E the w...

Still trying to get back into a routine after being gone for the weekend. But I just wanted to show pictures of the children today. This week we have started talking about the letter N and nests (and other animal homes). So today the children wanted to build their own nest. They "flew" around the yard and picked up sticks. (They were pretending to be young eagles and I was the Mama Eagle.) They are so proud of their nest that I wanted to share the pictures with you. Here they are "flying" around the yard gathering things to make the nest. They even put leaves in the middle to make it more comfortable. :D They are so happy with it. And here is a picture of Little E just because he is so cute. ;o)

What better way to start the season then to have a doughnut and cider party! :D Remember all those apples I canned last week? Well there were still plenty of apples left over, so a family in our church graciously had everyone over for a get together. They made fresh doughnuts and cider. Here is a picture of the ladies getting the doughnuts made. Here are the doughnuts being fried up...it smelled heavenly in that kitchen. ;o) And then about half of the doughnuts after they had been glazed. They were delicious! While I was inside near the doughnuts ;o) Beloved was outside helping with the cider. We had 2 presses and I think almost everyone helped out. We even had popcorn popped over a fire. So much food and great fellowship. It was a wonderful evening. Oh, and after everyone had some doughnuts, cider and popcorn most of us went for a ride on a hay wagon. The children, and adults, had a lot of fun. Although we should have made a stop at Marci's house to serenade Josh before they left ...

I apologize that I haven't been around for a week or so. But here is the reason why..... No, they aren't bananas and peaches. Instead...the boxes are filled with...... APPLES ! That's right.... 4 bushels. I know, I know...I am insane for tackling 4 bushels alone, but I did. Here is a pick of my first batch of apple butter being put in the crockpot for the night. After a couple of days of some work and one of them included me being up for 24 hours! Yes, I got in bed at 7 am Saturday morning as Beloved was getting out of bed. Here is a pick of all of my hard work (minus one pint of apple butter and a few quarts of applesauce.) So I roughly canned 40 quarts of applesauce and some pints and half pints of apple butter. Yummy! Now that the apples are done I hope to post more. Blessings to all. :D

Sweet E talking to Beloved: Sweet E-> "You sound like a hippopotamus. I gotta fix you." Don't children just say the cutest things. :D Beloved had a good laugh from that. :o) To fix Beloved she went and got her little orange reflex hammer, tapped it on his belly, and said, "There...you're fixed."