Thanksgiving Day

It was such a beautiful sunny day so the kids played outside, climbed trees, played in the leaves, played chase and hide and go seek. They had a great time with their cousins and the food was soo good and lots of it. We wrote down what we were thankful for this year many of them were family, friends, church and our country.

'Twas the night before Thanksgiving

UPDATE:Since the last post Makenzie decided to diguise another turkey and it turned out really cute. It's now a Pilgrim.

I was looking for fun homeschool ideas and came across this great website that's been a wonderful resource for me this year. Today we talked about the very first Thanksgiving and of course the Pilgrims and Indians and then we did a turkey craft that goes with this poem. Kylan disguised his turkey as Darth Vader and Kenzie disguised her turkey as a pumpkin.

Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving (Readers Theater)
by Tracy Lee

‘Twas the night before Thanksgiving,
When all through the forest,
There was a young turkey,
Whose first name was Morris.
This turkey was happy,
He played all the day,
Till he got some bad news
That took all that away.

It seems that a lady,
Who lived on the hill,
Was looking for Morris
A young turkey to kill,
And eat for Thanksgiving.
A juicy delight!
And hearing this news
Gave Morris a fright!
He had to do something
To save his dear life.
So his kids would’t miss him
As well as his wife.
A disguise might be good
To hide him away.
He’d try almost anything
On this very sad day!

So he gave it some thought
Started using his thinker.
Came up with a costume.
What a cute little stinker!
You’d never have known him!
I promise! It’s true!
Now show how he looked.
It’s all up to you!

Click here if you want to print out your own turkey, disguise and writing pages.

New family photo

The church that we just joined had family pictures taken for the church directory and this is the photo. I don't like it because my face looks shiny and my eyes look goofy, hello where was my powder? What was I thinking and now it will be in the directory for a couple of years until we take a new one. Oh well C'est la vie!!

My new apron

The new apron that I won from Colour du Jour came the mail and I was so excited. If you happen to go to the Color du Jour blog then please vote for her quilt!

Makenzie tried to take a picture of me wearing it but it didn't turn out very well so here is Makenzie wearing my apron. Notice that she has her hand in the little pocket...isn't that cute. Also, note the pink camo ribbon around the bottom of her jeans. That is my feeble attempt at sewing because her jeans were too short and she loved this pair so we made them a little bit longer with some cute ribbon.

Making homemade crayons

This was taken after all of the broken crayons came out of the container.

Our chunck crayons

I had heard of this wonderful idea for broken crayons so we started saving any and all broken crayons for the past year by now we had a large container of broken crayons and we were just waiting to melt them down and make some new ones. We finally had the time and they turned out so cute! I need to get some different molds for the next time. This time the only molds we had were fish, octopus, and turtles but they were still cute and the kids loved making them. We also found that if you melt a metallic crayon in with a color it gives a pretty shimmer to your crayons.

To make CHUNK crayons

All we did was take the paper off the crayons and boy did that take a long time, then we separated them by color into a muffin tin for "chunk" crayons (we use these for rubbings) then popped them in a 350 degree oven and waited for the crayons to melt. Once they were melted we pulled them out and put them in the fridge to harden and then popped them out of the muffin pan.

To make a molded crayon

I just melted all of the same color family in a glass measuring cup in the oven on 350 degrees and waited for them to melt and then pulled it out and stirred it a couple of times with a popsicle stick and then poured them into candy molds let them dry and started over with a new color. We did try melting them in the microwave at first but it didn't work as well as the oven.

Thanksgiving customs around the world

Since we are Exploring Countries and Cultures this year in our home school classes I thought it would be appropriate to study Thanksgiving customs around the world. Listed below are some of the countries we will study about this week. For a Thanksgiving quiz click here.

In Korea, the harvest festival is called Chusok or Chuseok. Chuseok is a major three-day holiday in Korea celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month of the lunar Korean calendar. On a side note this is also Kylan's birthday! We always read Sori's Harvest Moon Day, In the moonlight mist and talk about the Korean traditions of Chusok. Asia for Kids is my favorite resource for Asian books and Korean items for my kiddos since we like to incorporate their birth country as much as we can!

In China they celebrate the August Moon Festival and it is held on the same day as Chusok in Korea which is Aug. 15th.

In Africa, the yam festival is usually celebrated in the beginning of August after the rainy season.

Australia has an apple and grape harvest festival that is celebrated in the month of March .

The United Kingdom has a Harvest festival but it's not a national holiday like in the USA.

The Canadian Thanksgiving is celebrated the 2nd Monday in October and is similar to the US Thanksgiving.

Succoth is the Jewish Harvest Festival. It begins on the 15th day of the Hebrew month of Tishri. It is usually held in September and October. The celebration lasts for 7 days.

In Vietnam, Têt-Trung-Thu (tet-troong-thoo) or the Mid-Autumn Festival is one of the most popular family holidays. It is held on the 15th day of the 8th lunar month.

The Kwanzaa celebration is another celebration and is based on African harvest traditions. Kwanzaa means first fruits in Swahili. The celebration starts on December 26 and lasts for 7 days.

Pongal is a popular harvest festival in South India. Pongal starts on January 14 of each year. The celebration lasts for three days.

In India Thanksgiving is popularly known as 'Ladin' or 'Ladainha'.

Of course last but not least is the USA. Most of us celebrate with Turkey, family, friends and lots of giving Thanks for all of our blessings but each family celebrates in their own special way. If you have a special tradition please comment and let me know. Ours is that we each go around the table and say what we are thankful for this year.

Kids ornament swap

We joined the kids ornament swap that we found on the Crafty Crow (this is one of my favorite blogs for craft ideas) and is hosted at Full Circle. We are going to make holiday ornaments and mail them to different people and then we should receive the same amount back that we mailed out. It will be great to see all of the different homemade ornaments!

Gettysburg Address by a 2 yr old

Pampered Chef

Hey everyone I am having a Pampered Chef catalog party so if anyone needs anything from Pampered Chef before the holidays please take a look here. When you order just let her know that it's from Jennifer W! They have some really cute holiday items so take a peek!

I spy Turkeys

I browse so many blogs and can't remember where I found this fun I Spy Turkey. If it happens to be your blog leave me a comment so I can give you credit for this fun Thanksgiving game!

We printed off a Turkey picture

then colored it and added stickers to each feather. Then, while we are in the car the kids play I Spy with the Turkey. This is such a fun, inexpensive game for the kids...you could even make it harder, ours is pretty simple or you could make it easier for younger children. If you find a fun Thanksgiving game let us know! Leave a comment!

Each of us made one and then we had them laminated. Of course if I was Michele I would have a laminator at home but I don't have one and have to take it in and get it done or use clear contact paper but I am so tired of the contact paper! (Do you hear the jealousy in my typing?) No , I am really happy for her and put it on my "want list" for our homeschool!

Thanksgiving crafts

Last week and this week we have been studying about the Pilgrims and about all kinds of Thanksgiving traditions and how they came about. One craft we made was finger puppets of Pilgrims and Indians. Kylan wanted to paint his with watercolors and wow his colors were really creative!

Makenzie on the other hand really wanted hers to look more "real" so we made these and if you want to try your hand at some then here and here are some more links! Choose the one that's best for your family. Drop me a comment so we can see your Pilgrims and Indians!

Kenzie's "gotcha day"

Friday Nov. 14th was Kenzie's "gotcha day"...for those of you that don't know what a "gotcha day" is it's the day that we "got" her from South Korea. This was one of the happiest days of my life. We had flown out to LA to meet Beverlee (she was coming home from Korea) and I truly didn't believe that we were actually getting her until she was in my arms. I didn't cry at her arrival like I do for most babies because I was all cried out by the time she got home. It was such a long, hard journey to finally have a baby all our own to love and cherish forever and ever. It was 6 miscarriages and several failed adoptions before our precious little princess was in our arms it was a feeling like no other when Mr Chae placed her in my arms and then I looked at Kevin and he was bawling like a baby and had missed the moment when Makenzie held her arms out to him. Here are a couple of photos of her arrival. Notice how chubby she was (she was only 4 1/2 months old in these pics which totally amazes me because she acted so much older and was saying "da da" by the next week! When we took her back to the hotel we laid her on the bed and she rolled over and we kept putting her on her back so she would do it over and over for us because we had no clue that she could already roll over. Kevin's parents and my mom showed up in LA the morning of her arrival to surprise us and to get a sneak peek at their new granddaughter...it was a wonderful surprise!

For more info on adoption check out Dillon International.

The quality of these pics isn't that great because they are all in her scrapbook so I had to take a pic of her scrapbook page and then crop it.

On Friday we had a Korean dinner for Makenzie with Bulgogi, sticky rice, kimchi, mandue pot stickers, Korean pancakes, Korean pears, a Korean yogurt drink, Korean cookies...hmmm, do we see a pattern here? Everything was Korean! We looked at her gotcha day pics and we have a special box that we look through each gotcha day that has her baby clothes and items that her foster family sent home with her. We also usually watch videos of her in Korea and of her arrival in LA and her homecoming in Tulsa. It's always such a fun day and brings back so many memories for Kevin and I.

Internet problem~

I have felt SOOOOO disconnected all week because our internet was down from the 11th until today the 17th! Isn't that crazy because 10 years ago I don't even think I had internet but now I feel a little crazy when I don't have it for less than a week! Anyway, I am back now and have lots and lots of things to post about!

Homemade Toothepaste

It doens't look very appealing so next time we might use a food color in it and they want to try mint so it will probably be blue!

Makenzie brusing with it...she says it tastes great!

Makenzie has been asking me about making our own homemade toothpaste so I searched around on the interent and found a recipe that was super easy. Tonight we made vanilla homemade toothpaste and Makenzie LOVED it!

The ingredients

What you need:
4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1 tsp flavoring (vanilla, cinnamon or mint)
1 tsp water
Plastic container (we used an old film canister)

What you do:
Mix baking soda and water until it is about the consistency of regular toothpaste.
Mix in salt.
Add a few drops of your chosen flavoring.
Mix well and store in air tight plastic container.