Alphabet Adventures J-P

 We have still been having fun with our Alphabet Adventures I just hadn't gotten around to recording them here. Also some days (around the Holidays) ended up being pretty busy and I don't think pictures were always taken.

One of our fun activities on "J" day was making a Nativity set which the boys thought we very appropriate as we made figures of Jesus and Joseph. In the picture above Aaron was carefully wrapping baby Jesus in swaddlings clothes.

"K" day brought a rather interesting meal with it. We ate Kababs, Kim-Bob and Kim-Chee, the latter two are favorites from Korea which of course starts with K too! We thought about doing Kababs as we have been studying countries in Eastern Asia (like Turkey and Iran) and Kababs are a normal meal there.

And of course Ken was King for the day on "K" day.

Here are Megan's "K's" and a litle kitty that she drew.

We have been having lots of fun memorizing a verse for each letter. Usually when we memorize we have done longer sections and even whole chapters. For these we are adding a new one each school day and they are generally pretty short. For "K" day we chose "Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies." Psalm 24:13

The kids were quite excited for "L" day as I made Lefse for breakfast. It is pretty yummy spread with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and rolled up. (I'm not sure why Mara looks like she is about to sneeze in this picture- perhaps she was!) Ken was excited for "L" day too as he hoped I would make Lasagna. I had planned to but found out I was out of lasagna noodles but I had Linguine noodles so I invented "linguine bake" (rather like lasagna!) to have instead. It was easier to make and Ken liked it quite well so I was happy!

Here Aaron is making an "L" and a picture of a ladder on lavender paper to hang on our wall.

Writing verses has been a good time to work on handwriting.

Megan has been learning how to write the letters too which has been fun. I suppose it is possible that she and Aaron will learn to read together.

On "O" day (Sorry I skipped "N" as I couldn't find any pictures) the girls and I wore Orange.

On "P" day we cooked up the last pumpkin and then I made a bunch of pumpkin bread to give away. We also worked a lot on presents!

Alphabet Adventures J-P

 We have still been having fun with our Alphabet Adventures I just hadn't gotten around to recording them here. Also some days (around the Holidays) ended up being pretty busy and I don't think pictures were always taken.

One of our fun activities on "J" day was making a Nativity set which the boys thought we very appropriate as we made figures of Jesus and Joseph. In the picture above Aaron was carefully wrapping baby Jesus in swaddlings clothes.

"K" day brought a rather interesting meal with it. We ate Kababs, Kim-Bob and Kim-Chee, the latter two are favorites from Korea which of course starts with K too! We thought about doing Kababs as we have been studying countries in Eastern Asia (like Turkey and Iran) and Kababs are a normal meal there.

And of course Ken was King for the day on "K" day.

Here are Megan's "K's" and a litle kitty that she drew.

We have been having lots of fun memorizing a verse for each letter. Usually when we memorize we have done longer sections and even whole chapters. For these we are adding a new one each school day and they are generally pretty short. For "K" day we chose "Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies." Psalm 24:13

The kids were quite excited for "L" day as I made Lefse for breakfast. It is pretty yummy spread with butter and sprinkled with cinnamon and sugar and rolled up. (I'm not sure why Mara looks like she is about to sneeze in this picture- perhaps she was!) Ken was excited for "L" day too as he hoped I would make Lasagna. I had planned to but found out I was out of lasagna noodles but I had Linguine noodles so I invented "linguine bake" (rather like lasagna!) to have instead. It was easier to make and Ken liked it quite well so I was happy!

Here Aaron is making an "L" and a picture of a ladder on lavender paper to hang on our wall.

Writing verses has been a good time to work on handwriting.

Megan has been learning how to write the letters too which has been fun. I suppose it is possible that she and Aaron will learn to read together.

On "O" day (Sorry I skipped "N" as I couldn't find any pictures) the girls and I wore Orange.

On "P" day we cooked up the last pumpkin and then I made a bunch of pumpkin bread to give away. We also worked a lot on presents!

Happy New Year!

            I hope you all had a very blessed 2009 and that 2010 is one in which you grow in your love and knowledge of our God and Father and His will for you.

    We were blessed with a wonderful year that is just now past and I am very excited to see what next year will bring! When we are walking through life by following Jesus Christ, we certianly have no need to fear for the future but we can be excited and joyful to see what is going to happen next.

   I have been having fun thinking about things I want to do this next year, ways I want to grow, and even things I want to do with this blog. ( Nothing very different, just topics that I want to cover and little things like that.) I am hoping to share some of my goals and dreams (dare I say, resolutions?) with you soon.

   This week I ended up taking a little unplanned blogging vacation as our computor was under the weather. It has been to see the Dr.(which ended up taking 3 days instead of the1 we had thought) but returned with a pretty empty mind so Ken is having to fill it up again which is taking a little time. So I am currently using the laptop (after Ken helped me to find my needed passwords! ) which has no pictures on it for me to upload, so this post will be photo free.

   I didn't have much time for blogging anyway as we were blessed to have guests here for a couple of days. (The Rounds family from Iowa were visiting.) We also had fun at a New Years Eve party at church last night. We played lots of games, I tried out "Apples to Apples", "Mad Gab", "Catch Phrase" and "Worst Case Scenario", and ate way to many snacks! It was a fun time for all ages.

  Today as tradition dictates we watched the Rose Bowl Parade on TV and then our family (Guests had left) played another game and we even went out to eat for supper, which the kids found quite exciting! And now since last night was rather late, I think I had better head to bed!

Happy New Year!

            I hope you all had a very blessed 2009 and that 2010 is one in which you grow in your love and knowledge of our God and Father and His will for you.

    We were blessed with a wonderful year that is just now past and I am very excited to see what next year will bring! When we are walking through life by following Jesus Christ, we certianly have no need to fear for the future but we can be excited and joyful to see what is going to happen next.

   I have been having fun thinking about things I want to do this next year, ways I want to grow, and even things I want to do with this blog. ( Nothing very different, just topics that I want to cover and little things like that.) I am hoping to share some of my goals and dreams (dare I say, resolutions?) with you soon.

   This week I ended up taking a little unplanned blogging vacation as our computor was under the weather. It has been to see the Dr.(which ended up taking 3 days instead of the1 we had thought) but returned with a pretty empty mind so Ken is having to fill it up again which is taking a little time. So I am currently using the laptop (after Ken helped me to find my needed passwords! ) which has no pictures on it for me to upload, so this post will be photo free.

   I didn't have much time for blogging anyway as we were blessed to have guests here for a couple of days. (The Rounds family from Iowa were visiting.) We also had fun at a New Years Eve party at church last night. We played lots of games, I tried out "Apples to Apples", "Mad Gab", "Catch Phrase" and "Worst Case Scenario", and ate way to many snacks! It was a fun time for all ages.

  Today as tradition dictates we watched the Rose Bowl Parade on TV and then our family (Guests had left) played another game and we even went out to eat for supper, which the kids found quite exciting! And now since last night was rather late, I think I had better head to bed!

Inexpensive Gift Idea #3 - Cookies with an Ornament

I created this post about a week before Christmas and had hopes of being able to post it while we were in PA visiting family. After our adventure getting there, needless to say, it didn't get posted on time. So here's a late, late gift idea.




Each year we give little presents to the mailman, the preschool teachers & director, and neighbors. This year I decided to make cookies and we attached matching ornaments for Charlotte's teachers. The other ornaments were wrapped for Charlotte to give to relatives.

Step #1 - Making the Cookies


I made shortbread cookies using Ina Garten's recipe. I love shortbread cookies and this recipe is fantastic. I'm glad I gave most of these away since I found them hard to resist.

I found a 3 pack of snowflake cookie cutters at Walmart for under $2.

Shortbread Cookie Recipe

I sprinkled powdered sugar on the cooled cookies.

I wrapped them in celophane bags and tied them with silver and blue ribbons.





Step #2 - Making the Ornaments

Charlotte and I made salt dough for the snowflake ornaments. The dough was easy to handle. Charlotte had no trouble cutting out her snowflakes.

After the ornaments were baked and cooled, Charlotte painted them with glue and gave them a heavy coating of glitter.

We made sure to make a hole in the ornaments before baking them so we could tie a ribbon through the snowflakes for hanging.