January in Pictures

As per tradition in our home we made Pot Stickers for our New Year's feast and brought in the New Year with the Scottish custom of First Footing. The camera finally died so I have been using Mom's for now which means even less pictures because I have to run downstairs to get it when I need it and that interrupts our learning. Hopefully we will have a new one soon but it is pretty far down on the list of things we really need to spend money on right now.

Bug in her new Nerdy bunny sweater

 Bug is growing so fast and growing out of all of her clothes again. I rarely by brand new but stumbled upon a clearance sale and found this adorable sweater for four dollars and could not resist.

I picked this kit up in the fall for something to do on cold winters days. We hit our January cold snap and i think -42 C qualifies for a cold winter day.

There were six different gem grade sandpapers

It took a lot longer than Bug thought it should but she stuck to it and sanded her Amber down so it was clear enough that she could see the plant matter inside.

She thought it was neat how the sandpapers are water proof so that you can sand under the water. None of the Minions realized the work behind making the crystals and gems they love so much look as pretty as they do.

Her finished Amber

Bug and Daddy built an igloo

Bug started to learn to play the recorder and mastered Mary had a little lamb

We did an experiment to see if bubbles would freeze in -40 C weather. It was very cool lol and YES they freeze.

Frozen bubble

We learned all about keeping warm when our boiler quit and we had to wait a week for a new one during our January cold snap.We were so thankful for our fireplace but it was not designed to keep our whole house warm. We got by with space heaters and lots of layers. It sparked a lot of discussion and learning about pioneer life and how they kept warm when they first came to Canada and how the natives kept warm that lived here before we came. We watched a documentary called First Winter on Canada's history focusing on a family of Irish immigrants trying to survive there first winter here.
Geology like the human body is a subject we have on going lessons in and using another kit I picked up in the fall at Scholar's choice we did some experiments on the florescence of minerals using a UV lamp. The Minions then used the UV lamp to see how clean the house really is, they had a lot of fun with this and spent the majority of an afternoon checking things out under the UV light.

Bug did some color mixing experiments and is always fascinated in how two colors mix together to create all new colors.

Keeping in touch with our ancestry we celebrated Robbie Burns night with traditional foods made vegetarian and a dramatic poetry reading of "A Red Red Rose" by King Connaher.

Oat biscuits, Vegetarian haggis with a whiskey sauce, neeps and tatties.

As I have mentioned before we eat about 90% vegetarian and the only time we eat meat is usually at Sabbats or special occasions. Haggis is a very particular recipe and you cannot legally buy the proper ingredients where we live and we do not raise sheep (yet) so i decided to make a vegetarian version. It was a big hit and will be part of our permanent Robbie Burns night menu from now on. The trickiest part was trying to find a way to cook it. I wanted to boil it to keep as close to tradition as possible so I wrapped the oat, barley, herb,egg mash I created in saran wrap, secured the ends and boiled it....I thought it was pretty genius

 Can't celebrate Robbie Burns night without some good Scotch

We have celebrated Robbie Burns night in our family since before I can remember. In our home we still celebrate it but we also use it as an opportunity to remember and celebrate the Ancestors.