St. Nicholas Day and more...

What's Cookin'?

I'm having another bake-a-thon at my mom's.  I need to process those 7 pumpkins, make a birthday cake, make more pumpkin bars (we ate it often for breakfast!), bake St. Nicholas Day cookies, and something else that I will hopefully remember before I leave the house. 

Here is the birthday cake recipe:
http://www.cooks.com/rec/doc/0,186,145173-236204,00.html

~Mango Splitter:  While I was looking at recipes I came across this contraption.  We eat a LOT of mangoes yet I had never heard of such a thing as a mango splitter:
Search Amazon.com for mango splitter

~Good News about Pineapples:  Del Monte (the whole, fresh ones on sale for $1.00 at Kroger this week) are NOT GE/GMO.  I actually got a response from the company.  They also are okay to not eat organic as noted in To Eat or Not to Eat Organic.  I have no idea how to cut one!  I saw another ingenious contraption on Amazon when I found the mango splitters.  Mango splitters, pineapple corers/slicers, all new to me...Gee, you would never know that I grew up in the tropics, would you?  We'll see how it goes this week with a new adventure: pineapples!

~St. Nicholas Cookies:  I'll be baking German Spice Cookies from Catholic Cuisine during my bake-a-thon.  Here is a doc I made to use as patterns to cut out Bishop miter shapes.  I think I'll lay several on top of the rolled dough and use a pizza cutter (one contraption I know how to use!).  Ignore the line through the middle.  Hopefully the cookies will come out like this:  http://tinyurl.com/2ep3ojs  Here is the simple doc:

http://tinyurl.com/2dmejdw

~Lunch:  We were out of any type of bread, biscuit, or wrap for dd's lunch at enrichment (because their mother was busy rearranging furniture and didn't prepare any - you know, the "I can only focus on one thing at a time" syndrome).  Fortunately I had run to the health food store for medicine for sick dd and had gotten some organic tortilla chips ($1.99 for a huge bag!).  I was also in the middle of making bean dip.  So, they took chips, dip, and part of the last bit of Amish cheese (along with a pumpkin or cranberry scone).  We figured it was basically the same ingredients as a bean/cheese melt at home (shrug).  They said it was "actually" very good :).

What's Schoolin'?

~St. Nicholas Day:  Just in case I forget to post the most excellent St. Nicholas site here it is now:
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=23
We made St. Nicholas Lapbooks one year and used some of their info, etc.  We also put the layout in the shelf work. 

Here are some 'stickers' to put on chocolate coins (Aren't they beautiful?).  I always use just plain ones but these will add to the treat.  If you can't find chocolate coins try the dollar store or the ethnic food section in the grocery store.  Our dc discover chocolate coins, a quarter, a card, and maybe something like a pencil or something in their shoes (left with hay outside their doors the night before) on St. Nicholas morning:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/44487625/StNickCoins

Riddle:  What color was St. Nicholas' white horse?

This is a photo of our St. Nicholas presentation from Domestic Church.  There is a similar presentation in stnicholascenter.org under Resources, then Stories and Poems, then on the page click on Stories for Classroom use, then look for the story that mentions Catechism of the Good Shepherd.  Hopefully their link will work.
http://family.webshots.com/photo/2444500130100452258BywgXu
http://www.stnicholascenter.org/Brix?pageID=580

~History: We started our Wild West unit early this week.  We read the textbook chapter in one sitting.  It was so nice; oldest dd read aloud while I got a bunch of kitchen work done (I'm still catching up from being gone all of Thanksgiving break!).  Middle dd has verbalized how much she likes the unit.  Now we're lapbooking it using the Wild West book.  Youngest dd had her Little House in the Big Woods book club party this week.  She was so excited and had a great time!

~ What was I thinkin'?: Why am I reorganizing the schoolroom right now???  We've been moving furniture around in 3 rooms this week (big shelf out of the schoolroom; it went into one dd's room; a shelf from that room to other dd's room)(we'll be exchanging chests of drawers asap also).  Now chaos reigns even more as I organize and go through piles in the schoolroom.  Youngest dd has the only organized room right now, lol.