Chocolate Rum Pecan Cookies

Do you like to bake cookies with your kids, but want healther versions for the festive month of December?

In December, my family makes batches and batches of cookies.

We have been baking December cookies since my kids were toddlers, and before!

We have cookies and tea for friends when they drop by. We bring cookies to the local firehouse, the library, our merchant friends downtown. It is one of my December joys. It may be cold and rainy outside, but it is warm and sweet smelling inside.

I also like to make healthy treats. So, our cookies are often wheat free, sometimes dairy free, and sometimes sugar free!

Here is the first batch of cookies we made this year.

Wheat free, diary free Chocolate Pecan Rum Cookies.

1/2 Cup Coconut Oil, melted

2/3 Cup honey

3 T dark Jamaican rum

2 oz unsweetened chocolate, melted

2 Cups flour; I used a mix of sprouted spelt and coconut

1/2 t baking soda

1/2 Cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine oil and honey and whip until blended. Add rum and melted chocolate and mix well. In a separate bowl, sift together flour and baking soda, then add to the chocolate mixture and mix well. Fold in pecans. Drop by teaspoonfuls onto a greased cookie sheet and bake for about 8 minutes. Do not allow the edges to darken or burn. Makes 40 cookies.

Both of my kids, and my husband loved these cookies. I hope your family does too. Enjoy!

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Gingerbread Houses, Large & Small

Goblins to Gingerbread.

We don’t waste any time around here.

You see, originally we were going to enter the kids creations into the Ritz Carlton Gingerbread House Contest in Half Moon Bay as we did last year.

However.

As the mamas sat on the sofa (and chairs and carpet) discussing the ins-and-outs and logistics of getting all the houses done in time for the contest deadline, and analyzing all our upcoming holiday schedules, we soon realized it was just too much this year.

It was a very funny meeting, in hindsight. Luckily, we are friends, and appreciate each other. Phew!

We were all tired from our big Halloween party the night before, and had had big plans of making the gingerbread dough that very next morning. Needless to say, we did not get the dough made, nor did we do much of anything that day.

Note to self: Don’t schedule any big activity for the day after the Halloween party.

Just plan a hang out day, and enjoy each others company.

Making Leaf Shaped Cookies oN a Sunny November Morning

Wheat Free Sugar Cookie Leaves

We did finally get to the gingerbread houses, after much discussion. The following week, we all showed up with walls baked and houses in varring degrees of assembly, and began our decorating, which lasted the next few weeks.

A break for a few of us to visit Homeschool Day at the Monteray Bay Aquarium, and a break for Thanksgiving week.

And the final week of November was a lovely completion of the fall season.

Isn't She Lovely?

Paloma led the juniors with creating beautiful corn husk dolls.

Linda led the seniors with a biology lab about owls, complete with owl pellets. I over heard Mara say “This is more fun than I thought it would be?” Always good to hear from a teenager.

Can't Wait To Get Those Owl Pellets!

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Haunted Dining Room

The month of October is consumed with Halloween for us. As you can see, our playroom is converted into a haunted dining room, (or dungeon, or maze of tricks, or…) and the seniors spend the month planning, writing a story, creating costumes and props and just generally having a ghoulish good time.

Haunted Cupboard

The Teens Prepping for the Haunt

Here the teens are getting in the spirit of the season as they put finishing touches on props, costumes and discuss their lines.

Meanwhile, the juniors are in the other room, having a costume party, making shrunken apple heads and becoming very exciting for the haunt.

Shrunken Heads

They decided to make our pinata spider a Frenchman. He does look rather Parisian, does he  not?

Setting the props up, our frenchy spider, and our ghoulish character hanging in the trees. This year, our haunt began outside, and ended in the haunted dining room with a party, complete with deviled eye balls. My favorite.

Before the haunt, we all enjoyed a potluck dinner, however, the kids worked up quite an appetite going through the haunted forest, and they were rewarded for their safe return with all sorts of treats.

Quilted Sit-Upon

This year we decided on tie-dyeing shirts.

The teens began their day with an introduction to film making. This will be an on-going class that will end in them making an actual movie together.

Teens Film Making Class

The junior group came back to ‘circle’ with knitting, and big movement games, like Cat and Mouse.

Junior 'Welcome Back' to Circle

Old Fashioned Outdoor Games

At lunch we shared a wonderful harvest style potluck.

In the afternoon Maria and Rebecca led the gang in the tie dyeing. The seniors even got some chemistry mixed in as well.

Concentration

Moms Play Too!

The following week the kids wore their shirts. They look great, don’t you think? If not just a tad goofy

Tie Dye Gang

Half of the group was new, as several of our families moved or went on to high school last year, and I feel we are off to a great start for the year! How has your homeschooling year been so far?

Last years camping trip was at Memorial Park and was such fun. This year a few of us decided to head for the hills. The Gold Rush hills.

For our Gold Rush experience we choose Marshall’s State Park in Coloma. This was not the rustic camping experience we were expecting, but it was literally right across the street, walking distance from all the history of the time frame we are planning to study this year for 4th grade history.

When Jeremy was in 4th grade, I never did manage to get him to the Gold Rush Country. I know we did many other rich and valuable activities, but I still feel a bit guilty around that. Sigh.  Do you ever experience parental guilt?

So, Kasey gets it right on time, and Jeremy, in the 8th grade gets to soak it up as well. Better late than never, as they say.

Kasey and Anna step back in time. Love the expression on their faces!

We had some great adventures on the water of the American River. At one point, all six of us were in an inflatable boat made for four, floating down the river shooting the rapids (we had assessed the severity of the rapids before we made this attempt) but it did get a bit rougher, than at least I imagined! We got very wet, had to bail water out of the bottom of our boat with our gold pan saucers (those pans are so useful!) on more than one occasion and were hoarse from screaming, yelling and laughing. At one point, when we were stuck on a group of rocks and were bailing water furiously, I looked up to see several kayaks going by us with looks of….surprise (horror?) on their faces. Ha! At least I knew they were keeping an eye on us. Wink, wink. When we finally paddled to shore to play on the beach for a bit and have a lunch of everything left over from our camp…there were cries form all of us…”Let’s do that again!”

Kasey and Anna soaking up the sun

Jeremy and J.D. rigging up some contraption

Learning to pan for Gold (and Garnets too!)

Oh boy, did it feel good to have our hands in the cool water. It was hot, hot, hot!

I wonder what our camping trip will be next year?

Next up: Our first day as a group back to Lupines!

Do you homeschool in the San Francisco Bay Area? Would you like information about Lupine Family Homeschoolers? Ask away!

The seniors will have a teacher to work with half day for the rest of the year. Starting with film making for the months of September through November, they will make a film from start to finish. Come January they move into a movement class with a trained Waldorf teacher for a six week block of games and movement. Next, I am going to look into a drama teacher with the idea of  putting on a Shakespeare play come spring.

For the seniors afternoon block, the parents jump in. They will prepare for our annual Halloween Haunted House in the months of September and October with the help of Lupine Dad extraordinaire David. December will bring us just a couple of weeks of holiday fun and then  moving into January we have sketched out some classes such as : Poetry, Shakespeare exploration, entrepreneurial-ship and moving out into the community more. (We are not sure what that is going to look like yet but it is a seed we are planting to see what grows)

Stay with us to see what develops as we grow along with our teens and strive to create a learning environment which meets their needs, and ours too!

I will continue to post not only records of our days, but updates to our planning and community happenings. We are currently looking for teen boys to join us on our adventure so if you are interested contact me HERE.
Lisa

During the summer months we don’t meet every Monday as we do through the year. This gives us a chance to refresh and have a change of pace. As much as we like the break from our regular routine, we miss being together! So, twice over the summer we have summer camp days!
Check out some of our silly summer fun.

Pie Eating Contests

Thank goodness for the tarp on the lawn.

.

As the families arrived, each with a bounty of cut flowers, the teens prepared for chemistry class and the flowers were loaded onto the picnic table. Nasturtiums, lavender, daisies, lilies, more than I can recall. It was so beautiful and brought such a festive feeling to the morning! A few of the teens stole over to make a few bouquets of their own, they just couldn’t resist…until they were called over to class. Then the junior gang all set to work. This year the kids made not only the baskets of flowers but really cute little button flowers to add to the bouquets. We found this cute addition to our craft at Family Fun.

Making the baskets….

After our May Pole fun, we had another yummy potluck. I shared a yummy and healthful strawberry shortcake. Here it is:

• 8 C organic strawberries, sliced
• 1/4 C honey, agave, maple syrup or sucanat
• 2 C whole wheat, spelt or oat flour
• 1 T baking powder
• 1/2 t sea salt
• 1/4 C butter or coconut oil
• 2 T of above sweetener of choice
• 1 egg
• 3/4 C milk (soy, hemp, rice, almond etc)
• Topping: Vanilla yogurt or fresh whipped creme
• Can be egg free – Use 1/4 C milk to replace egg or 1 T flax oil
• Can be vegan
• Can be wheat free

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 450 F
2. Stir together strawberries & 1/4 sweetener (can be dry or wet)
3. Set aside
4. For Biscuits: Stir together flour, baking powder & salt in a large mixing bowl
5. Cut in butter until mixture resembles coarse crumbs
6. In a small bowl combine egg, liquid sweetener and milk
7. Add to dry ingredients & stir to moisten
8. Drop by heaping spoonfuls onto ungreased baking sheet and bake 10 to 12 minutes or until golden brown
9. Split biscuits, fill & top with fruit & topping.
10. Enjoy!

The senior gang after hiding the eggs for the juniors. (The gal in the middle is NOT one of the seniors, she just likes to hang out with them

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