A New Path to Follow: Thanksgiving 2016

Thursday, January 26, 2017

We started out our Thanksgiving season with a Thankful Board. You can get the printable {HERE} Every day during the month of November we wrote something we were thankful for. I really would like to extend this throughout the year instead of just November. It's a nice reminder of why we should be thankful everyday.

We made our very favorite pumpkin cookies. Honestly, they are amazing. I usually only make one batch of these a year because they are very "sinful", but this year I made two batches and took some to a party. I kept getting requests for the recipe. I tried to find it online again, but cannot find the original. I even have the website I got it from, but it wasn't on there anymore. I decided to type it up so I don't ever lose it. Here is the recipe. Try it next year!! They are amazing.

The Best Pumpkin Cookies

Makes: about 5 dozen

Ingredients:

· 2 cups sugar

· 2 cups shortening

· 2 cups pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling

· 2 eggs

· 2 tsp. vanilla

· 5 cups flour

· 4 tsp. baking powder

· 1 tsp. salt

· 2 tsp. cinnamon

· 2 tsp. baking soda

· 2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice ( if you don’t have just add some ginger & allspice.)

· 2 tsp. nutmeg

· 3/4 tsp. cloves

Directions:

· Preheat oven to to 350 F

· Mix shortening and sugar until blended

· Add pumpkin

· Add one egg at a time, mix

· Add vanilla

· In a separate bowl, mix the dry ingredients

· Add to wet ingredients

· Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes

Vanilla Buttercream Frosting:

· 4 ½ cups powdered sugar

· 1 stick butter (1/2 cup)

· 1 tsp. vanilla

· ¼ half & half (I have used milk or whipping cream)

· Add a little orange food coloring for festive touch.

We learned what life would have been like for Native American children. This is a great book to give you a peek at their daily lives. We made dream catchers after this story. Two of my boys were sure that their dream catchers were really working. Dreamcatchers {HERE}

We read our very favorite Thanksgiving book. If you are a Five in a Row fan , I am sure you hold Cranberry Thanksgiving in a special spot in your heart. We read this every year.

Our seasons are opposite of the United States. Usually, we would have a pumpkin and apple pie for Thanksgiving. This year we made a strawberry pie and the boys made it, crust and all, by themselves.

I learned that I never want my kids to cook a turkey for me. Printable {HERE}

Some of our art work. They learned about the Mayflower and drew the ship. Directions {HERE}

They drew turkeys. {HERE}

The boys added thankful leaves to their Thankful tree each day.

A couple more books we read to get us prepared for Thanksgiving.

While we lived in Thailand we always celebrated Thanksgiving on the following Saturday because Ben always had to work on that Thursday. I was planning on doing the same thing here, but found out a couple of days before that Ben actually got half a day off on Thanksgiving!! That was pretty exciting for us. We started off our morning watching the Macy's Day Parade from 2015. Always a year behind.