End of July

Because we were busy with our staycation and didn't get things planned in time, we had Sarah with her kids and Joy with her kids over for a Pioneer Day Party on July 26th. Ann was invited, as well, but didn't show up. She is on my "you-know-what" list ;)

We started off the day by squishing up some farm-stand-fresh blackberries and making blackberry freezer jam.

Faith created this cute covered wagon out of our old wagon, some giant candy cane decorations, an old fitted sheet, and hot glue. Skittles got the first ride!

Next, I had everyone knead a ball of wheat bread dough and put it into individual little loaf pans to rise. Faith had made all the dough the day before in our bread maker, using our favorite roll recipe, but substituting one of the cups of bread flour for stone ground whole wheat flour.

After that, we pulled some old-fashioned salt water taffy.

Some of it got wrapped, but most of it was eaten right off the fingers :)

Next, we colored some handcart racer guys. I just printed these on white card stock and after the kids were done coloring, folded them in half, stapled them on the side, and punched a hole in the top. They took turns racing each other by attaching two at a time onto their respective strings with a loose-leaf ring and then letting them slide down from the loft to the edge of the family room. If you look closely, you can see the strings in front of the t.v.

This activity is redemption for an epic fail that occurred a few years ago at my preschool. I had gotten the idea for bird racers at this blog, but then did them with the yarn tied to the railing like the string this time. Because the yarn was too fuzzy and the pieces of straw too skinny with snaggy edges, they didn't sail down like I imagined. Instead, they just sat there, at the top, mocking us! It felt good to make it right, finally :)

To give the kids the experience of dipping candles, I melted some of our old jar candles (we use a fake Sentsy-style warmer we got at WalMart now) in some water in our crock pot. I just gave them lengths of regular string I got at the dollar store. The key was to dip it quickly into the melted wax, then get it immediately into the ice water bath. The soy wax, full of scented oil, stayed a bit soft even when cool, and the candles ended up looking like Shrek's ear wax candles (according to Faith), but it was a lot of fun and the candles got all drippy and looked even more awesome when they were lit!

The one activity that didn't go so well was the tin punching. Joy brought some nice foil pans from the dollar store which I cut into strips, but that didn't interest most of the kids (although Joy did some beautiful work!). I had also frozen water in some old soup cans so they wouldn't crush when the kids were hammering nails into them, but it was too hard to keep the cans steady while working on them so the big hit was emptying the can-shaped ice cube out of them and then pulverizing the ice with the hammers. At least it was entertaining!

Earlier, we shook mason jars (well, technically they were old spaghetti sauce jars) full of cream and a pinch of salt to make butter. Brendon and Sarah were the main muscle behind accomplishing this :) So at the end of the party we enjoyed our fresh baked bread with homemade butter and jam ❤

Sarah had to whisk her girls off to dance class, but Joy's girls and my kids did some writing with quill pens. I just cut the base of large feathers at an angle and cut a small slit up the point. I didn't have any ink (and would be concerned about the stain factor if I did) so I just mixed a little black acrylic craft paint with water and put it in little sauce cups. It was really a lot of fun!

Oh! I forgot to mention our craft. We made covered wagons out of skill sticks (notched popsicle sticks), a rectangle of corrugated cardboard for the base inside, four circles of the same cardboard with a slit cut into them, and a half piece of "parchment" marbled copy paper. We just built up the sticks sliding one corner notch into another and gave them two on the front and back sandwiched between three on the sides. A little hot glue to secure everything, and voila!

Here is a close up:

We had such a fun time, we will have to get together for another holiday themed party again soon!

On the 27th the kids wanted to make special pancakes. Faith had seen some cute pig ones on Pinterest and Christian wanted to make raindrop ones.

I let the kids mix the batter and make their own creations and they came out so cute!

On the 30th dad made his specialty dinner--"super heart attack delight". Just kidding, I just now named it that. It's actually, hot wings, onion rings and deep fried mushrooms. The kids go crazy for his wings (recipe courtesy of Pioneer Woman)! Good thing he doesn't make this for us very often :)