Saturday, October 13, 2012

A Great Hiking Day...

Last night it rained for the first time in AGES and we all woke up this morning with a burning desire to go on a hike. So we headed out to one of our favorite stomping grounds. Here are some pics from the day:

Ouch, there's a rock in my shoe!

Weird plant we found...

Pine-cone, anyone?

Our youngest girl was our Emergency Corpsman...er, woman.


Our trusty guards... 
Beautiful Ranch across the valley.

I am SO in love with this man!

Love that my hubby is such a great daddy!

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Little House- Day Ten Making Molasses Candy

We saved our activity till daddy got home last night to help us. It's a good thing we did, as it took a lot of muscle work to get our candy to the right temperature. Daddy's muscles came in handy!

                         Here are the directions:


First, you have your husband get all his frustrations out on a bag of ice:


Then put ice in a container and set in freezer to chill out....


Next, mix 1 cup molasses and 1 cup brown sugar in pot....
(We doubled the recipe!)



Mix in pot and boil till the candy reached the "hard crack" stage on a candy thermometer or until a drop of the mixture dropped into cold water forms a hard ball and cracks. The latter is my preferred method as that is how I was raised! (It takes about 30 minutes to reach that stage.)


This will take a lot of muscle and elbow work, so be sure and include the kiddos!


Remove the syrup from the heat. BE CAREFUL!


Dribble a spoonful of syrup onto the snow...or ice... and make all kinds of designs!




And....the finished product. old-fashioned molasses candy!




NOTE: You may have noticed that I am not blogging our adventures every day. That is because some days, all we do is a small craft or simply just read a chapter and have no activity or only work on our time-line. So while I usually take pictures every day, I am not posting everything!

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Back To Piano Lessons!

After taking a break for financial reasons, we are back to our favorite piano teacher, Miss Amy! Mac and George are back taking lessons. Our younger two will probably wait another year or so before heading back.