Family Thanksgiving 2016

 Preparations started Friday for our annual family Thanksgiving dinner at home.

 I still haven't come across my recipe binder since the move, and it has all of my Thanksgiving standards, so I had to figure it out from old blog posts.  If you look closely, you can see there are slips of paper in the different dishes.  I did that to make sure I had all the dishes out that I needed but it also made me realize about 10 minutes before dinner that I hadn't made the stuffing.  Thankfully, StoveTop takes about 10 minutes to make.  Ha!

 Everything's on the table!

 I'm so thankful for these three!

(And in the interest of honesty, this is normally where I sit, but I made Jay sit there so the background would be nicer.)

 

 Because we really don't need to see this in the back of all of our Thanksgiving pictures, do we?

It was yummy!  

Happy Thanksgiving!

Apple Party

We're finishing up How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World, so we had an apple party!  We did this before with Jack, so it was fun to try it again.

 

We had lots of toppings for caramel apples.

 

And lots of apple food!

 

Alice made these cute yarn apples for decorations!

 

She also sewed goodie bags and we made apple pie and butter crust playdoh.

 

We played with playdoh...

 

...and ate lots of apples!

 

We had 12 different kinds of apples to try!

 

There was hot fudge and caramel to dip in...

 

...and lots of sprinkles!

 

I think the favorite was bobbing for apples!

 

You've got to be willing to get a little wet!

After we dried off, we headed to the park.  Thanks to our friends who helped us celebrate!

Wee Gillis

 I'm slow to blog about it, but we are doing school!  Alice recently rowed Wee Gillis and we used many of the same books that Jack used a few years ago.

 We measured lung capacity.

 We made Scottish shortbread.  I can't find the recipe we used, but it was delicious!

 She had oatmeal for breakfast.  She likes to eat plain oats, so I was surprised she didn't like it!

 We attended ScotFest--and there was even fog over downtown!

 With Nessie

 Attempting the caber toss!

 Not bad!

 We also watched some of the Highland dancers.

By some miracle, we even made the bagpipe craft I had planned for Jack so long ago that we never got to!  We had lots of fun!

Books to Treasure 2017

 Every year our library system brings in a children's book illustrator for a special program called Books to Treasure.  Second graders can get a free book and a special library card designed by the illustrator.

 This year's illustrator was Rafael Lopez.

 

 Waiting for the presentation to begin!

 He told about growing up in Mexico City.

 When he was 11, he got to go live in England with a family friend for a few months.

 His illustrations are painted on wood panels and then scanned.

 He did a fun activity where he drew things the kids suggested.

It was a great presentation (as always) and we actually were in the car and ready to leave by 8:05, which was a miracle considering some of the lines we've waited in before!

Communication Rally

 Yesterday Jack and Alice both participated in the county Communication Rally for 4H.

 Jack entered the Legacy category, where they have to recite different things about 4H.

 He also entered the literature category (shown here), where they read a selection aloud, and the extemporaneous speaking category.

 Cloverbuds could enter the Legacy category and do a show and tell.  Alice did hers on dress up clothes.

 They enjoyed hanging out with friends while they waited.

 

Jack won first place in extemporaneous!

Drone Discovery

 This week the kids had the opportunity to participate in the Drone Discovery program for 4H National Youth Science Day.

 

 It's hard to see the items on the carpet, but there were different stuffed animals on the floor and the kids had to watch a screen showing what the camera on the drone could see and then try to direct it to the right animal.

 I'm not sure what they were filming Jack for, but it didn't seem to distract him!

They had a lot of fun!