November Fun

Here is what we have been up to so far this month. Just FYI, I have been trying to keep our lives very low key of late. September and October were crazy busy, and the holidays are coming and promise to also be crazy busy. So this stuff may not look uber exciting, but we are having fun staying home and keeping things simple.

Way back in kindergarten, Nora's teacher made volcanoes with the class. They are made of clay and painted appropriate colors. There is a hole in the top and the underside is one big hole. So you put a medicine cup of baking soda on a plate, put the volcano on top and slowly pour vinegar in the top hole. The resulting "eruption" is pretty fun, albeit stinky. This whole activity is much more enjoyable if you are wearing a wedding dress from the costume box. Try it!

On Saturday, Nora invited one of her school friends over to play. They had so much fun and were so creative together. Here you can see them partaking in their main activity of the day: collecting snow. Seems benign enough, but let me continue this story. It snowed just enough to put a small dusting on solid surfaces (this does not include the ground). So the girls got bowls and spoons and scraped the snow off of any surface it had collected on. They brought the snow inside and packed it into a muffin tin. Next, they topped it with sprinkles and put it in the freezer to harden. Finally, they attempted to eat these delicious treats and instead found them not as tasty as anticipated. I coerced them to eat frozen yogurt with sprinkles instead. Afterward, they took the muffin tin outside, removed the snow cakes and threw them at the house. All good fun!

This morning, Dana said to me, "Mom, if we make gingerbread men, will they run away?" I, of course, found this question to be so incredibly adorable that I responded, "Let's bake some and find out!" I should insert here two important facts. First, I do not like gingerbread cookies. I actually greatly dislike them. Second, I do not like making rolled out cookies. This second fact is surprising because I love to bake.

Anyhow, our day began at 9am, when I found an interesting recipe that included orange zest. After we made a big mess making the dough, we put it in the refrigerator to chill. Then we set out trying to find a gingerbread man cookie cutter. I know that every other mother in America owns a gingerbread man cookie cutter, but I do not for the two reasons already mentioned. So we got dressed and went to Canal Park to buy one at the Blue Heron. After looking through their cookie cutter selection and coming up empty, we were told that Christmas cookie cutters have not arrived yet. Duh! So Dana picked out this bone cookie cutter so we could make gingerbread Scooby Snacks instead.

Yup, there is more to this story. So we got home, rolled out some dough and cut out eight cookies before Dana decided she had had her fill. She untied her apron and walked away. I finished all of the rolling, cutting and baking myself. I excitedly asked Dana if she wanted to try one of her gingerbread Scooby Snacks. She took the tiniest of bites and said, "Mom, these cookies taste really NOT wonderful." This was at 3pm. After we had spent six hours on the project. Oh well.

I ended up giving the cookies to Uncle Sam and Aunt Lizzie, who both think gingerbread is tasty. Thank goodness! Nobody in our house likes it. I didn't want to throw five dozen cookies away. As you can see, the bones spread while baking and the result is maybe not so appetizing. At least we had fun, and the house smells nice and spicy.