November Projects, Books, and Snacks

I have been occupying myself with many different projects this week, all this rain and cold blustery air has me cooking and sewing, as well as cuddling up with a warm beverages, a blanket, and my labs and catching up on some of my favorite television.

I don't put out my Christmas decorations until after Thanksgiving, except we string up lights on the house the week before Thanksgiving, as soon as we have a break in the rain, so we can light them up on Thanksgiving evening. I do, however, start my Christmas planning and crafting quite early in the fall.

Here are a few of my Christmas projects.

I am making owl ornaments out of wool felt.

This is how the owl ornament looks when hanging.

I want to make a few more Christmas Poinsettia Fairies.

I also decided that rather than buy the dogs pre-made dog toys I would make them out of my spare fabric. I just drew the pattern on printer paper. I hope to get a few more shapes made, and of course I have to make two of each, don't want any doggy sibling rivalry going on Christmas morning.

I have been experimenting with other ideas, and hope to make a few more decorations for Christmas.

Now for a couple of Harvest themed Children's Books.

I have wanted to purchase Christopher's Harvest Time by Elsa Beskow for quite some time, and was finally able to add it to my collection of Elsa Beskow books. Such a cute story about a boy who is outside playing with his ball, who meets a boy sprite named September. Christopher's Ball gets away from him and Christopher and September go through the garden looking for it meeting all of the Harvest folk- like the Gooseberry boys and girls, Old Man Black Current, Apple and Plum tree women, beautiful flower women and the strawberry people, as well as other plants in the garden ready to harvest. This story would probably be better read in Early fall, but I enjoyed reading it so much I just had to share about this story. As always, wonderful illustrations, I have yet to read a Beskow book that I didn't thoroughly enjoy.

Here is my Amazon affiliate link if you would like to read more about this book at Amazon.

Another of my favorite Harvest Story books- Strega Nona's Harvest by Tomie dePaola (another favorite author). This story is about Strega Nona's Garden, how she carefully plans and plants it, her helper Big Anthony also grows a garden but doesn't really plan it out very well and is left with a large harvest and no time to preserve it, so he leaves the produce at Strega Nona's door. Along with her own abundant crops, she is also dealing with the mysterious piles of veggies that show up at her door. So she shares it with her community, which, as it turns out had a bad gardening year, unlike Strega Nona who had lots of sunshine on her hill. I love this story of sharing the Harvest, Strega Nona stories always make me smile, and I love dePaola's illustrations. This would be a wonderful book to share with children for Thanksgiving week.

Here is my Amazon Affiliate link for Strega Nona's Harvest.

Lastly, some November Snacks. For my Sunday school class last Sunday I made a nice Autumn Snack Mix. I have made similar versions of this every year now for quite some time, sometimes we make it together as a class. It seems like I always have a couple of leftover bags of candy corn mix around the house after Halloween, so I add a bag of Autumn Blend Candy Corn and Pumpkins, to corn chex, pretzels, raisins and dried cranberries, and stir it all up. I love sweet and salty snacks and I love dried raisins and cranberries. This is a very easy fun snack to make with children.

I have also been wanting to experiment with Butterscotch chips, which I love. When I was a child a neighborhood mother used to make Cheerios coated in a Peanut Butter and Butterscotch chip coating, they were delicious. Peanut Butter doesn't sit well with me, so I avoid it now, but I still wanted a nice snack with that delicious Butterscotch chip flavor. Now of course my all time favorite is the Classic Oatmeal Scotchie, but I thought I would try something different, so I made a nice big batch of Butterscotch Crispy Rice Squares, and they turned out very yummy, great after school treat.

Here is the recipe for Butterscotch Crispy Rice Squares.

10 cups Crispy Rice Cereal

1 stick of butter

1 1/2 bags of mini marshmallows

1 bag of Butterscotch Chips

Melt butter in a large pan (large enough for all the ingredients to be stirred in) over medium heat, then add marshmallows and butterscotch chips and stir until melted. Then stir in 10 cups of cereal, until cereal is thoroughly coated. Then turn out mixture into a large baking pan that has been coated in cooking spray (like a 10 by 15 lasagna size pan), and press down with the back of a large spoon that has also been coated in cooking spray. Let cool, then cut into squares and enjoy.

I will leave you with another of my favorite Thankful verses.

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18