Honey and Lemon Pops

Well, as of yesterday, I have a couple of bugs with sore throats so I decided to make some honey and lemon suckers since one of the bugs is only three years old. I stumbled across a few recipes for this a while back and thought it was time to make some.

Here is how I did it.

1 cup honey (I used local)

2 teaspoons of freshly squeezed lemon juice

Candy Thermometer

 Lollipop Sticks

Non-stick surface

Heat your honey and lemon juice to hard crack stage, stirring constantly. Spoon small amounts onto a non-stick surface, I used my silpat, and add sticks (in my case, I was out of lollipop sticks so I used craft sticks). Let cool.

There are some recipes that call for peppermint oil also. I might try those next!



It is that simple. Homemade, all natural, sore throat soother! Boy how I love to give my family all natural, homemade goodness!

Just another home remedy that is easy to whip up!

                        


Linked up to : Ben and Me, Like a Mustard Seed

                     

Days 21, 22, 23 and 24

Well, as we get closer to the end of our Advent, I don't have many pictures to share. Most of our crafts were at the beginning. We are still having fun.

Day 21.......

This day we took a drive to the little town we live in and looked at all of the Christmas lights. We meet a friend with a few of her little children and enjoyed the lights together. It was a fun trip.

Day 22.......

Today we were suppose to watch "Merry Madagascar" and pop popcorn but we decided to watch something else. Still had a good family night.

Day 23.......

Tonight was our Christmas musical at our church. We had a lot of things to do all day today so I decided to make this a special day on our Advent! We really enjoyed ourselves at church singing beautiful hymns about our Lord Jesus Christ!

Day 24.....

Today on our Advent ornament is tells us to bake a birthday cake for Jesus. We will do this and enjoy it for breakfast Christmas morning. We always bake a cake for him and sing Happy Birthday!

Our last day of our Advent is today and on Christmas Day we will enjoy our family together and praise God in the process!

Merry Christmas to everyone!

God Bless!

Days 17, 18, 19 and 20.......

Well, trying to keep up and not doing to good of a job but here it goes!

Day 17.......

Make a Christmas craft. We decided to make more homemade ornaments for gifts and peppermint and gingerbread playdoh. Well, we only got the ornaments made and are planning on making the playdoh a little later. Maybe have a fun day!

We took a Christmas scrapbooking punch and used green, white and red construction paper to make these cute little Christmas trees to fill our clear ornaments.

This one is not quite finished but you get the idea! I just realized I don't have a picture of the finished one!!!

Day 18.......

This day we took our school and changed it up a little. We were suppose to learn about the North Pole, so I decided to make this fun and instead of doing our regular work, we focused on Geography, all day. We learned about the Arctic circle, the North Pole, Arctic animals and what a tundra is. We had a really good time. We even learned about real reindeer!

Day 19.......

This day we were suppose to make goodies for everyone but as you know, our plans changed! I forgot about an eye appointment for my oldest bug so, the two oldest bugs and I decided to finish our Christmas shopping after the appointment. We had a really good time! We are planning on finishing with the homemade goodies Friday!

Day 20.......

Today was a real busy day also. Thank goodness today I had something planned for the night. My three oldest bugs have all seen some of the Christmas classics that are shown on tv every year. Well, we have not had cable tv for almost two years, so, the two youngest bugs that are 3 and 5 years old either have not seen any or don't remember them. So, I decided to buy A Charlie Brown Christmas DVD and wrap it and put it under the tree for tonight.

As you can see, someone is really excited!

I am trying to keep up but it is really HARD!!!

God Bless!

Days 13, 14, 15 and 16

Day 13......

The Suburban Express!

Got our tickets and we are ready to go!!!

I found these cute little tickets here.

We had a ball! We went to town and looked at Christmas lights and instead of hot chocolate for our snack, we decided to get TCBY! Yummy! Lots of fun and memories!

Day 14.......

This was suppose to be family game night but the plans changed. I needed to finish my Christmas shopping so hubby kept all the bugs Friday night and I finished!!!!!!!

Day 15......

This day we were suppose to make a Rice Krispies Holiday Train but we had to change our plans again! We had to build a goat pen for our two new dairy goats! We spent the day together and made up for our family night and had a family day! Lots of fun. I will post pictures of our new farm animal members later.

Day 16.....

Today we had planned on singing Christmas songs together while our 2nd born bug played the piano. Instead, we decided to make our Rice Krispies Holiday Train and some Rice Krispies Christmas Trees.

For our train, I found this little kit at Hobby Lobby.

Everyone had such a good time with this!

For our trees, we used used the rice krispie recipe that is on the box of Rice Krispies and pressed it into a small plastic funnel for the Christmas tree shape. Then they decorated the trains and the trees. FUN, FUN, FUN!



I am really looking forward to tomorrow! I am the only one that knows what is in store, hehe!

God Bless!

Days 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12

Well, I think I am getting further and further behind with this! I really have good intentions on getting on here and blogging about this fun Advent we are doing this year but I run out of time every single day! I am really trying!

Day 8.......

Well, Day 8, we haven't done yet. I know it sounds bad but we will do it. We were suppose to make Christmas cards for the family. I still have a plan, we just need to take time to do them.

Day 9.......

We made homemade hot chocolate and put french vanilla marshmallows in it. It was yummy!

We used our cute little snowman mugs.

Day 10.......

We made pipe cleaner candy canes.

Here is one our tree. We also made some of these cute little guys for some elderly ladies in our community.

Day 11.......

Well, we are doing this day tomorrow. The plans for this day and Thursday changed. This day we were suppose to make Reese's Fudge for some elderly ladies in the community and take it to them. We are making the fudge tomorrow and taking it to them along with the pipe cleaner candy canes. I will post recipe and pictures of the fudge later.

Day 12......

Today was really the first day we didn't have some kind of craft or cooking to do with our Advent. I got the bugs a new Wii game the other day and  instead of giving it to them right away, I decided to let it be a surprise on one of their Advent days. They have really been enjoying it tonight.

As for Day 13, I think they are really going to enjoy what I have planned. Until then......

God Bless!

Day 6 and 7......

Well, as you know by now, we will be behind every day on this! I wish I wasn't a slacker, but, I am, when it comes to my blogging.

Day 6.......

 

PEPPERMINT ORNAMENTS

 

 

I got this cute idea from here. We had alot of fun making these.

 

 

First we decided what kind of shapes we wanted for the ornaments, then we put them on a foil lined cookie sheet.

 



This one is our first batch of ornaments and we forgot to leave a space some where, so we could run a ribbon through it and hang it. Our second batch looks like the one hanging on the tree.

After you have them on the cookie sheet, bake them at 250 degrees for about 10 minutes. Let them cool before attaching the ribbon. We decided to take our first batch and hot glue the ribbon to the back of the ornament and it worked fine.

Day 7.......

This day we baked Christmas cookies. The recipe we used was found on the back of a Hershey's Kisses bag. They are Hershey's Kisses Peanut Butter Blossoms.

Here is the recipe off the back of the pack. This recipe makes approx. 4 dozen cookies.

Hershey's Kisses Peanut Butter Blossoms

 

48 Hershey's Kisses

1/2 cup shortening(I uses coconut oil)

3/4 cup creamy peanut butter

1/3 cup granulated sugar

1/3 cup brown sugar

1 egg

2 Tablespoons milk

1 teaspoon  vanilla extract

 1 1/2 cups  all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

Granulated Sugar

 

Directions: Heat oven to 375 degrees. Remove wrappers from chocolates. Beat shortening and peanut butter in a large bowl until well blended. Add 1/3 granulated sugar and brown sugar; beat until fluffy. Add egg, milk and vanilla; beat well. Stir together flour, baking soda and salt; gradually beat into peanut butter mixture. Shape dough into 1-inch balls. Roll in granulated sugar; place on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned. Immediately press a chocolate into center of each cookie; cookie will crack around edges. Remove from cookie sheet to wire rack and cool completely.

 

 

Day 7 and 8, coming soon!

Day 3 , 4, and 5.......

Well, as you can see, around this homestead I am not keeping up with this blog everyday! We are getting things done I just run out of time to post them!

Day 3.........................

CINNAMON-APPLESAUCE ORNAMENTS!

These were so much fun to make. We decided to glitter them instead of leaving them plain like this:



Here is the recipe for these yummy smelling ornaments!

I took 1 cup of cinnamon, 1/2 cup of applesauce and about 3/4 cup of Elmer's glue and mixed it all together and made a dough. We rolled it out and used Christmas cookie cutters for the shapes. We baked them for 30 minutes at 250 degrees. After they cooled, we decorated them with glitter. So much fun!

Here are some of these cute little ornaments hanging on our tree!

Day 4.................................

Well, Day 4, we had a change of plans. We were suppose to make reindeer fingerprint ornaments where you take a solid color glass ornament and dip your finger into brown paint and make a reindeer head with your finger print and press it onto the solid ornament. Well, I had a bright idea that clear ornaments would work for this, well, guess what.....NOT! We made a trial run and the finger print will not show up on clear ornaments. So, I had to go to plan B, in this house there is always a plan B!!!

This is what we did with the clear glass ornaments I bought.

Filled one with colorful sprinkles. Look how pretty! We were only able to make one, because of the amount of sprinkles it takes but our one turned out AWESOME!


Day 5.......................................

This day we had two things on our advent ornament. We were to make Root Beer Floats and watch "The Polar Express" after church. Everyone was really excited about this. In the morning, after we read the back of our advent ornament, we decided to make homemade root beer instead of using store bought. I had recently bought the root beer extract and had planned on us making some but it just got forgotten. Well, I thought this would be a great time to make some so we did.

The recipe on the back of the extract bottle said to use 1 quart of water or sparkling water, 8 tablespoons of sugar and 1/2 tablespoon of root beer extract. We used club soda and it turned out delicious!



We have never seen "The Polar Express" before, so I decided to buy it , wrap it up and let them open it that night. We had a good time watching a new movie (to us) and drinking our homemade root beer floats!

I know this is Day 6 but, you know me, already behind. Except this time I have an excuse, Mommy is under the weather!

Stay tuned for Day 6 at a later date!

God Bless!

a little behind.......

Well, as you can see, we are a little behind on our Advent ornaments.

First, here are a few pictures of our Advent ornament garland.

So far, we have done Day 1 and Day 2 and worked on Day 3 today. We will finish Day 3 and Day 4 tomorrow.

Day 1 we made an Advent chain.

Macy bug is holding our chain and as you can see, there is a star at the top that reads:

One Christmas night, so long age

A star shone down so all would know

That in a manger, on that night

A Savior was born, our guiding light!

Now Christmas time is almost here

A very special time of year

When everyone anticipates

That night we can celebrate!

As you remove a link each night

Remember the star that shone so bright

And told the world of Jesus' birth

The Son of God, here on earth!!!

I found this little craft on  a website I found off of Confessions of a Homeschooler website. I , for the life of me, can not remember it right now but when I do, I promise I will share it with you.

Day 2 we made paper snowflakes. We have decided to only put our homemade ornaments on the tree this year. Here are a few we made:

As you can see in this picture, we have two proud little artists!

Day 3 we made Cinnamon Applesauce Ornaments and as I type, they are drying, so I will have to do Day 3 and 4 together tomorrow!

For Day 4 we will be making reindeer ornaments.

We are having so much fun doing this and I think our tree with our homemade ornaments will be our best Christmas tree to date!!!

suppose to be my first day of Advent?!?!

Well, as you can see, what I planned for today did not happen. First, I just bought a new camera and have no idea how to use it. I did figure out enough to take a few pictures but my computer doesn't want to cooperate! I sat down tonight to get the pictures off of my SD card and was not successful. So, after church tomorrow I will be working on getting all of that fixed.

On top of not accomplishing what I wanted with our Advent ornaments, we spent most of  the day going to get two milk goats that a family so graciously gave us. I have been wanting milking goats for a little while now and when this opportunity came up, we couldn't pass it up. I am going to try to take some pictures tomorrow and hopefully will be able to post them with no problem in the next few days.

Wish me luck and maybe by this time tomorrow night, I will have everything up and running!!!!

God Bless!

It's been a while!!!!

Yes it has! I have been so busy around here that my blog took a back seat. Well, Erica over at Confessions of a Homeschooler has inspired me to blog every day until December 25th.




We, as a family, try to do some type of Advent calendar every year. Well this year we will be doing Advent ornaments. You can go here and see this fun project that my family will start on Saturday, December 1, 2012. We are pretty much going to follow her recommendations on each day. Some I changed that would better suit my family. This is going to be the most fun Advent we have done to this day! I am so excited.

Check back every day starting Saturday to see what we will be doing on that day and every day after that!

See you then.......

Growing Up Wild (Schoolhouse Review)

Growing Up Wild is a DVD collection featuring the adventures of the Wild brothers: Morgan, Hudson, Kian and Asher, along with Mike and Libby (Mom and Dad). These DVDs take you into the lives of this missionary family living in the jungles of Papua, Indonesia.

They share their life and lots of experiences in the jungle through these DVDs. They share about the Wano culture, which are the tribal people they live around. They are there to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ with these people.

For this review, we had the opportunity to review two of their DVDs.

In Volume 1, we see how they live and gather their supplies that are needed on a daily basis. It was also fun to see how this family has fully adapted to the culture over there. From the foods they eat down to how they made their indoor plumbing using water brought into their home through a hose that runs from a spring at the top of a mountain. It is fascinating.

In this DVD, Volume 2, we get to see the tribe that the Wild family lives among. They share their different traditions and tribal beliefs. The Wild children also participate in a tribal piercing! The jungle they live in is such a beautiful place.

We love this series. Each volume features three 15-minute episodes with an activity guide for each. The activity guide includes suggested field trips, science projects, bible scripture and activities.

We as a family thought these DVDs were amazing. It gives you an inside look at how they live each day, doing missionary work, in Indonesia. Awesome! I would highly recommend this DVD series to anyone who wants to see what its like living in the jungles of Indonesia. If you would like your children to get a glimpse into another culture, these DVDs are for you.

Each Growing Up Wild DVD sells for $18.99 or you can save 15% when you purchase the whole set for $80.99. These DVDs are intended to be used with children ages 5-12, but anyone will enjoy them!

See what other crew members had to say about the Growing Up Wild!

Disclaimer: I received two DVDs as part of the TOS crew, in exchange for my honest opinion and review.

Book Review: With the Children on Sundays

With The Children On Sundays , from Grace & Truth Books is a family worship book, published in 1893, as a series of children's sermons and brought back to print in 1995. It is designed to be a weekly study for family worship or a Sunday School curriculum for children ages 5 to 11.

In this book, there is a ten page "Suggestions to Parents" that offers methods to help and make these lessons a success. It gives you 63 tips to play church and contains 52 little sermons.

How we used WITH THE CHILDREN ON SUNDAYS!

As I said before, this book is designed to be a weekly study for family worship but we have been enjoying ours as a daily bible lesson in our homeschool. Our first subject everyday is Bible, so I decided to try this book as our daily bible and it worked like a charm. We are thoroughly enjoying this book. The bugs never want me to stop with just one story.

In each story, the author tells you an object to use along side your lesson.  For example, the second story entitled The Worm In The Apple tells us to use a large perfect apple and a stunted, wormy one. This story teaches children how things on the inside is not always how it looks on the outside and how there is sin in our hearts and how it can eat its way out through our hearts into our lives like the worm in the apple.  In my opinion, using objects to enhance these lessons are a wonderful idea. The children are really interested in how the object fits into the story.

At the end of each chapter, there are questions that you can ask your children and start a discussion about the lesson. Each lesson is about 5 to 6 pages in length. The book is very vintage looking with wonderful pictures throughout. We are enjoying this book so much. It is full of wonderful, character building lessons.


With The Children On Sundays is a large paperback book that retails for $17.50.  Go to www.graceandtruthbooks.com and enjoy free shipping on orders over $49.

To see what other crew members have to say about this book and others reviewed, go here.

Disclaimer: For this review, I received the book With The Children On Sundays, free, in exchange for my honest opinions and review.

A Great Blog and Giveaway!

It's no secret, I love to cook. A few months ago, my sister sent me a link to a blog to check out. I am glad I did. It is now one of my favorite cooking blogs. The bread recipes on this blog are some of the best I have tried.  

Go to What is on your menu this week? and check it out.

She also has a cookbook giveaway going on. It is entitled Savoring the Seasons with Our Best Bites Cookbook. Hop on over to the blog and check it out and enter to win this cookbook! I did!



God Bless!

Apologia: Journeys of Faithfulness Book Review

Journeys of Faithfulness by Sarah Clarkson is a collection of inspirational stories and devotions written for young Christian women. It can be read alone or with other young women, or in my situation, two of my oldest daughters ages 11 & 15. It is written for girls ages 12 & up but my 11 year old is a very smart bug!

This book is broken down into four parts:

Part One: Mary and Martha

Part Two: Mary, Mother of Jesus

Part Three: Esther

Part Four: Ruth

The author provides fictionalized stories of these women and adds in possible actions and feelings. She also includes a devotional at the end of each chapter, a bible study and a journey journal for writing down you thoughts or prayers.

The stories in this book are very interesting and engaging, however, are fictionalized versions of God's Word. For some people, this is not a problem but for me, it is. I want my children to know the truth and God's Word is true! In my opinion, I am not that comfortable with any fiction in our Bible stories. We really enjoyed the Bible study and devotions in this book.

This paperback book consists of 232 pages and is available for purchase through Apologia Ministries for $13.00. Go here to purchase your copy.

This is strictly my opinion about this book. Since I have told you how I feel about this, you should see what other crew members had to say. I am sure there are many different views on this!

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book free, in exchange for my honest opinion and review.