Out of This World Gingerbread

Gingerbread Cookies


1/3 cup softened butter

1 1/2 cups dark molasses

1 cup packed brown sugar

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground allspice

1 teaspoon ground cloves

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons ground ginger

2 teaspoons baking soda

7 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour

In a large mixing bowl, blend butter, sugar, molasses, and water. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Cover the bowl and refrigerate for at least 2 hours, or overnight.

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees F.

Roll dough out (about 1/4 inch thick) and cut into desired shapes. Bake on lightly greased baking sheet for 12 minutes. Cool before decorating.

This was the first time we used the robot cookie cutters that Blaze got for his birthday.


If you are a complete nut like me, you can triple the recipe and spend all day building a gingerbread rocketship with cotton candy exhaust, but since my rocket began to break apart as soon as I started adding the "cone", I suggest extra reinforcements inside.



This really was a delicious mistake. Blaze, DH, and I have been eating huge chunks of gingerbread since the rocket crash landed.

Which Star Wars Location is Your Weather Most Like?

If you have a Star Wars fan in your home, they might enjoy this website that tells the weather in Star Wars terms. DH is having fun playing with it on the laptop right now.

Star Wars Weather

It says our weather is most like Naboo, dry and fairly pleasant.

For the place in Illinois where we will be spending Christmas, it says " Oh my. 2°C, Wintry Mix?IT'S LIKE HOTH OUT THERE. Cold, ice, freezing desolation".

Corner View:Books

"Books" is a good Corner View theme for my family. DH has large collections of both science fiction and scholarly works. The latter group has expanded so much with each school year, that there are now tall. precariously balanced, piles around the apartment, since there is no longer any shelf space.



Blaze has enough children's books in his room to start a library, but that is my fault. I am a compulsive buyer of books, particularly children's books.

This week (and probably next week) for science and history lessons, we are going to be learning about Leonardo Da Vinci using the following books:





This is one of the coolest pop-up books I have ever seen




This book also has Blaze all excited, because at the end of the book there is a kit for building a toy ornithopter (a flying machine).







These books are waiting for my oldest daughter to visit just after Christmas. I was going to mail them to her over a month ago, but I'm really terrible about taking things to the post office.



Ula collects Horatio Alger books. I claim no responsibility for this behavior. It's all her father's doing!




For a literary journey around the world, don't forget to visit our host for Corner View, Spain Daily and all of the other participants found on the sidebar of her blog.

St. Lucia Buns

Happy St. Lucia Day!





St. Lucia Bun Recipe

1 1/2 sticks of butter (12 Tablespoons)
6 c. flour
2/3 c. sugar
2 Tablespoons dry yeast
2 c. milk
1/2 teaspoon saffron
1/2 t. salt
1/4 cup raisins
1 egg

Grind saffron with a 2-3 Tablespoons of the sugar in a mortar and pestle. In a medium size sauce pan, heat the milk and butter together until the butter is melted. Turn off the heat. Add salt, sugar, and saffron to the milk mixture and stir well. Let the milk mixture cool until about 110 degrees F.
In the mean time mix flour and yeast in a large mixing bowl. Slowly add the milk mixture to the flour mixture, stirring until all the flour is incorporated into a dough. Knead. Add a little more flour if needed to form a non-sticky dough. Place dough in a greased, covered bowl until it has risen to double it's original size ( about 1 hour). Punch down and form into rolls.

There are several traditional roll shapes to choose from:

The Christmas Ox:


The Pig:


St. Lucia's Cat:


The Bird:


Add raisins as decorations on top of the rolls. Set aside to rise. Brush rolls with beaten egg. Bake at 350 degrees F. for 15-20 minutes.

Christmas at The Hippodrome

We dressed up in our holiday clothes and took Blaze to see A Christmas Carol at the Hippodrome Theater in Down Town Gainesville this afternoon.



We had never been to The Hippodrome before. It's a very pretty building, with a small theater that has no bad seats. The play was good. I had never seen A Christmas Carol presented with Jacob Marley as the narrator before, but it worked very well. Also, the actor playing Scrooge was excellent!



This was Blaze's first time attending a regular theatrical performance and he behaved very well.

Seeing Pompeii Without Leaving the Comfort of Your Computer

A great trip for the armchair traveler or history buff.

Google's Street View of Pompeii

This week in homeschooling

This week, for science, we read books about force, motion, gravity, and speed.









Since we had read about Newton's law, that for every action there is an equal but opposite reaction, we were able to watch the vultures flying above our heads ( they still congregate in large numbers at the school) and see how pushing their wings down against the air gives them lift.


We also watched the following videos:





It turns out that the old roadrunner cartoons are a great way to explain potential energy vs. kinetic energy.



Math:

We did not have any school on Thursday, as a reward for Blaze finishing the Math*U*See Alpha math book.



Today he will begin the Beta book.



We have been reading some Winter and Christmas books that we checked out of the public library:







Blaze has gone with me every afternoon this week and last week to help the elementary students at the school with their Christmas crafts. Mostly he has been playing with legos in the back of the classroom, because he doesn't feel comfortable doing crafts in large groups, but he did start sewing a felt stocking a couple days ago, when he decided he wanted to sit next to me instead of being alone.

For a bedtime story we've been reading The Great Illustrated Classics version of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.