Suet Recipe

Ok My birds love, love the suet I make for them.  They devour it and unfortunetly so do the squirrels, our 10 squirrels!  Yes, you read that correctly- 10!!  I'm so angry with them I want to scream!  They won't leave my suet alone!!  I have reverted to buying them their own food in hopes that this will help, but so far no luck.  Daron is getting a live trap so we can hopefully tote them away...far away!!  It's a party out there for them with some free food and my poor birds get the short end of the suet feeder. :-)  Well it got so mad yesterday that I hunted Daron's Bebe gun to shot them myself but unfortunately the Bebe got stuck in the barrel.  They won again yesterday but not for long!!  Well now that my venting is over I would like to share our recipe for some delicious, home cooked suet.  Hope you try it, well not really try it, but hope you try to make some for your birds they'll love it!  I got this recipe from our Science curriculum-Apologia's Flying Creatures on the Fifth Day.

Smart Suet

• Small plastic zippered bags
• Mesh bag or suet cage (Walmart sells them for about 1.25)
• Stove
• Pot
• Stirring spoon
• Freezer
• 2 cups crunchy peanut butter
• 2 cups lard (NOT Shortening!)
• 4 cups rolled old-fashioned oats (not quick oats!)
• 4 cups cornmeal (not cornmeal mix!)
• 2/3 cups sugar
• 1 cup raisins
• 1 cup bird seed

1.  Start by melting the peanut butter and lard on low heat.
2.  Stir in the remaining ingredients.
3.  Scoop into the plastic bags.
4.  Put the bags in the freezer to harden.
5.  Place the suet from one bag in suet cage.
6.  Hang your suet on a tree.
7.  Enjoy watching them devour your suet you made for them!

Great Handicrafts Idea

Here is a great idea for a handicraft.  I think we will be trying this one out!!  As I find neat sites I will post them under the handicrafts link on my  side posts.  It's a cut out fleece blanket that even my 6 year old could possibly do.  Here is that site.  Hope you try it as well.

Jesse Tree. What is it?

Here is what a Jesse Tree is:

The Jesse Tree is a unique Advent tree that can be very useful and fun for teaching children about the Bible at Christmas time. The Jesse Tree represents the family tree, or genealogy of Jesus Christ. It tells the story of God's salvation plan from creation and throughout the Old Testament, to the coming of the Messiah. The name comes from Isaiah 11:1, "Then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit." (NASB)
Each day of Advent a homemade ornament is added to the Jesse Tree, a small tree made of evergreen branches. These symbolic ornaments can each represent a prophecy foretelling of Christ. Other variations include creating ornaments that represent the ancestors in the lineage of Christ, or using the various monogram symbols of Christianity as handmade ornaments.

~This is the one we are doing.  We color them and cut them out.  Then we follow this devotional to go along with it.~ Hope you try it.  We do this along with Advent.  We put ours on a small Christmas tree.~

Christmas ideas

Well now that Thanksgiving was here and now gone.  It's now time to think about Christmas.  One thing my kids are begging me to do is start up our Jesse Tree.  Here are some Jesse Tree patterns that you can use to start your oun Jesse Tree.

Jesse Tree Patterns

King of Peace

Making a Jesse Tree

Jesse Tree Ornaments

Devotions to go with the Jesse Tree.

I am eager to start decorating and begin advent .  Here is a great advent calendar you can use.  It has great ideas for books to read and fun things to do as a family as we prepare for the wonderful day of Christmas.