Weekend Recap: Pumpkin Saturday

Last Saturday was so much fun. We had a theme going on! I made my delicious pumpkin spice latte made Bria her first ever pumpkin dish, pumpkin and apples and I was adventurous and made pumpkin pancakes! 

  photo credit goes here

Pumpkin Spice Latte: 

adapted slightly from: The Kitchen

makes 1-2 servings (for me, it made 1!) 

2 cups milk

2 Tbs. canned pumpkin or 1 tsp. of Torani Pumpkin Spice Syrup 

2 Tbs. sugar 

2 Tbs. vanilla extract

1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp. nutmeg 

1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice* 

2 shots of espresso

Directions: 

 In a saucepan combine milk, pumpkin, and sugar. Cook on medium heat, stirring continuously until steaming. Remove from heat, stir in vanilla extract and spice, transfer to a blender or processor and process for 15 seconds or until foamy (or you can wait until you add the espresso and use the frothing gadget on your espresso machine). Add the espresso. Enjoy!

Optional: 

Top with whipped cream and sprinkle pumpkin pie spice, nutmeg, or cinnamon on top! 

 *If you don't have pumpkin pie spice, you can substitute: 1/4 tsp. all spice, 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp. ground ginger.

*****

Pumpkin and Apples for the Babes: 

2 Tbs. canned pumpkin (or fresh)
1/2 an apple

Directions:
Simply cut, peel, and core the apple. Chop it into chunks and put it in a small saucepan of boiling water. Turn heat on low and let apples cook for about 5-10 minutes. After apples are done, put the apples through the processor or grinder and mix with the pumpkin. Now feed and watch your baby swoon over this dish over and over again*!

**See below!

Bria wondering why I'm taking a picture instead of feeding her! 

*****

 Pumpkin, Pumpkin Pancakes!
adapted slightly from: Sassy Mama in LA

1 1/2 cups milk
1 cup pumpkin puree 
1 egg
2 Tbs. vegetable oil
2 Tbs. vinegar
3 Tbs. brown sugar
2 1/2 cups of Honey Wheat Pancake Mix
2/ 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice** 
1/2 tsp. salt

 *If you don't have pumpkin pie spice, you can substitute: 1/4 tsp. all spice, 1/4 tsp. ground cinnamon, and 1/4 tsp. ground ginger.

Directions: 
In a bowl, mix together milk, pumpkin, egg, oil and vinegar. In a separate bowl mix together the flour, brown sugar, pancake mix, salt. Stir the pumpkin mixture just enough to combine (not too much!) Heat a lightly oiled frying pan over medium to high heat. Use approx. 1/4 cup of batter for each pancake. Brown both sides. Serve hot with some pure maple syrup! Mmm.... 
 

I hope you enjoyed the pumpkin recipes!! I will be dabbling in a lot more festive dishes in the coming weeks :)

Monster Madness!!

With Halloween just around the corner, I wanted to do a unit to celebrate Halloween or at least the fun activities that the kids are going to celebrate anyway. But, I didn't want to celebrate the same 'ole same 'ole ghosts, witches, goblins, pumpkins, etc. So, I looked on my new favorite site, Pinterest . I pinned so many different ideas and also bought a Monster Madness packet to use which had literacy and math games to do with the kids! You can find the packet here.

So, without further explanation, I wanted to show you the class set up before last week started:

 Job charts:

Our calendar board: 

Some more of the calendar: 

The "good work wall"

Don't you love how the monsters are eating and holding their work? I think it's just adorable!

Here are some math games and activities that we have done. All of them I found either from here or here:

Shape monster glyphs:

 

Writing Activities:

Monster roll and write: 

Art Activities:

Monster treat bags from Blog-Babble:

Monster boxes..

I'm going to use my monster box for a tattletale project.  You can find the tutorial from Giggles Galore.

I'm going to put the monster in an open space in the room with this poem from Room Mom 101:

I am going to ask the kids to write down all their tattles on a piece of paper (now, obviously my kinder kids can't actually write words yet but they have learned all their sounds and we have been practicing writing the sounds they hear in the words) and then they will feed the tattle monster their tattle. I will no longer have to hear "teacher, teacher...so and so is doing this!" and "teacher, teacher...so and so just did that!" ... Ahh... I will finally have quietness amongst the tattles, hopefully!

I hope you enjoyed my monster unit. If you have any questions, please ask! We are still in the middle of our second week with the monsters, so expect to see some other goodness!

Hope you have a great Wednesday!

Wii Tournament With Youth

We had Teen Night at our house last week and it was a total success! We had so much fun with the youth that decided to come. We decided to have Teen Night at our house and create a Wii tournament! We also were able to hand out a Teen Study Bible to each of our students that came- we had 9 students throughout the course of the night come over (courtesy of First Assembly of God Church in Ketchikan!).

We started the night off with guitar lessons, and watched a new (well, new to us. The dude is from the 80's with afro hair and tight jeans) guitar video that has lessons for beginners!

Clint then shared a short message. It was neat seeing the youth follow along and look up the verses in their bibles. I hope that they will continue to read them throughout the week and not just on Thursdays, but it's a good start!

Then it was time for the Tournament. The Wii tournament! We hooked the Wii to the big screen, turned off the lights, had treats, and played our little hearts out:

I loved the fact that kids where hanging out at the house. One of our guitar students loves, loves his new guitar and couldn't put it down that night. I'm so happy that they are so motivated to learn guitar! 

At the end of the night, we "crowned" the champion. He sweated. He played hard. He beat everyone. He deserved the "plaque" that Clint had made!

Clint and I have been so pumped about the Youth and what God is doing in our lives. In their lives. In White Mountain!  Something huge is happening here and we are excited and so thankful that we can be part of something magnificent. We will have these fun days with the youth quite often to try and get their attention and to be able to come together in fellowship and just hang out! Of course we love sharing the Good News and love seeing the kids get excited about things.

Currently, we are working on a skit to hopefully perform on one of our Sunday services. It will be amazing!

Through the Lens Of A Child!

This last week, when I was downloading our MONSTER pictures, I found a bunch of pictures that my boys took of the classroom. It's amazing how little kids view their world around them. Take a look:

Hanes Comfort Package For The TaTa's

 I am here to announce that Hanes has launched a really neat app for Facebook and Breast Cancer Awareness! It's pretty neat. I checked it out and you could send a virtual care package to family and friends. You know what the best part is? Every care package sent, Hanes will donate $1 to the National Breast Cancer Foundation, Inc. (up to $25,000) to promote early cancer detection and provide mammograms for those in need. 

We have seen so much awareness promotions for breast cancer, i.e., sweatshirts, shirts, pink bracelets, necklaces, hats, bags, etc. There are also different ways to show you care, this one would be perfect to send a personalized message, video, music, and photos to show someone you are thinking of them and you care.

This is the facebook App : 

Do you have someone in mind that could use a care package? I have a couple of women that I wil be sending this too.

If you would like to get it, here is the link to the Facebook page:

 Disclosure: I participated in this campaign as a member of One2One Network and am eligible for a prize drawing. All opinions stated in the post are my own.

Kingdom Karate Fun Day!

This last Saturday we put on a Kingdom Karate Fun Day for the kids. We started the practice with a little warm-up and got straight into our activities. We played Marco/Polo, which we changed to Bushido/Kai, which turned out to be a lot of fun, and got a lot of laughs. We then set up an obstacle course for the kids, that included tunnels, mats for tumbling, kick shields, and our newest member B.O.B (Body Opponent Bag) which was donated by the ABKA. We had almost 20 students who attended our practice.

I also gave a message on doing what is right even when no one is looking. Because Christ is always watching us, and he see's everything we do. James 4:17 says, "So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin." All of our messages are designed to be simple and short to keep students attentive and engaged.

Here are some pictures from our practice:

  Bushido-KAI

Giving the message and explaining the obstacle course

Man Made Tunnels

One of my favorite pictures! I love when students are working hard

Everyone saying hi to B.O.B. The girls had fun fixing his handkerchief

Happy Sunday!

A Sweet, Sweet Surprise...

On Friday we received a care package from my sister Alexis. Now, if you have been following the blog you know how excited I get with care packages and how much it means to me when people send us simple things that we just can't get up here in the bush.

This is what we got: 2 bottles of my favorite drink. Ever! Blood Orange Organic Italian Soda, 2 big things of Reese's for Clint along with Torani Chocolate, Bria's B Linking Toys, Bananagrams and overalls (not pictured...They are for my Halloween costume!)...

It really is the smallest little things in life that make me so blessed! 

Bria going after the chocolate before finding her toys:

Yeah, my sister's awesome!

I couldn't get Bria's attention. Usually she loves the camera and does her signature smile. Not today. Today she was busy!

I love watching her develop her fine motor skills. She loves putting her hands in the bucket to try and get her links.

Thank you Alexis! We loved your sweet, sweet package! Although, I am already out of my Blood Orange Italian Soda! Yeah, it doesn't last long in the house of Tory :) ..