Ash of All Trades

         Having visited Pennsylvania Dutch Country recently I have been on a big Amish novel kick.  While this infatuation of mine definitely stemmed from visiting the area I really do believe my continued love for these novels is the simplicity of life.  Now don't get me wrong, no one's life is simple, however there are so many endearing qualities of Amish life.  Lot's of family, nature, and quiet time.  Tons of home cooked food and fresh grown produce.  No wondering what to wear or how much gas will cost this week.  Yes they deal with having to hand wash everything, hand make everything, and the physical labor of growing their own crops - it's not candy land but it is just really gratifying to sink into that world of theirs and know that my heart yearns for many of their tightly held principles (obviously technology is not one of them).  Without further ado here are my reviews for the second and third books in t...

This past week a very exciting thing happened in our garden: the pumpkin turned completely orange! And for that we are giving thansk - well for that and a whole plethora of other things! .094 lbs .42 lbs 9.937 lbs! .03 lbs .93 lbs .72 lbs 1.06 lbs 3.84 lbs A very blessed week at: 17.031 lbs! Annual Total: 163.598 lbs

In honor of Thanksgiving we watched the Charlie Brown Thanksgiving! Read plenty of Thanksgiving books. And did the following crafts. We made handprint mayflowers and talked about the long voyage the pilgrims had. We used pinecones from our Big Bear trip to make turkey's and talked about how it is a more recent tradition but a good one at that. We use old toilet paper rolls to make corn cobs and talked about how hard it was to grow vegetables. We also made this pilgrim hat out of a clay pot to adorn our table. Lastly we made turkey handprints and talked about the things we were thankful for! (For more detailed instructions google each craft and you will find several sources).