Thanksgiving Week

Noah and his youngest cousin, Atticus.

 Thanksgiving Cousins.

Ho hum, I wish I had a better camera at moments like these when the kids are moving so fast and you only have a few seconds to capture the moment. I am overflowing with thankfulness; for family and close friends, for good health, a warm home and a pantry and freezer stocked with our own food.

I've been starting to clean peas over the last couple weeks. These are soup peas that I grew this summer. I got them from a friend who does sell seeds locally. His farm is Grey Owl Garden. I got two kinds of soup peas from him. I'll have to look up their name again. But supposedly this variety is prettier but has more pea flavor whereas the other variety was just called "Soup pea" and is less pretty but has milder flavor. When I've cleaned all the peas I'm going to take a picture of my total haul. We had an unusual rainy fall so they the pods started to mold so I yanked all the plants and put them downstairs and started running the wood stove to dry them out. I think I pulled them just in time as I've only come across a couple moldy peas.

 Painting salt dough ornaments.

 

 Avery's first day on cross country skis.

 Pine Cone Poppyseed head Princes.

 I wanted to make human figures, preferably children for Advent bags for our home-school cooperative. But I was out of acorns from last year and all I had were pine cones and poppyseed heads, and this is what I came up with from what was laying around. They ended up looking more like royalty or fairy winged people. They were a fun creative outlet, and quick and simple (in my book at least - raw materials gathered around the house and a hot glue gun as opposed to anything involving needles and thread).

 And the first part of our advent display.

In addition the kids have begun a playmobile nativity scene. We are going to make an advent candle holder this weekend - just in the nick of time.

 The kids have been showing some interest in learning to embroidery. Of course Avery wants help with each stitch, whereas Noah wants to free lance.

 Making candle holders for the Thanksgiving table with plants, berries, pine cones, mosses and grains gathered this fall. The kids dipped the candles last winter.

Well I'm procrastinating heading out for my morning chore routine, so I'll have to write more later. Just wanted to share our week in pictures with you. We had a lovely family day yesterday. I'm looking forward to a week of leftovers after all the crush to get the pies and rolls baked, and the turkeys brined and rubbed and seasoned. This weekend is for relaxing and getting some gift projects underway. Best wishes to you all!