martinzoo

This year I cheated. Usually I make a bunch of different kinds of cookies and make up a platter for all my friend’s families. But this year I thought I’d make a bunch of cakes. The recipe for this cake is the only recipe that my husband has ever asked for. A woman in his office made it for the holidays one year and he loved it. It is extremely chocolaty!

Chocolate Kahlua Cake

Grease and flour a bundt pan

Pre-heat oven to 350 degrees

In a mixer add:

one chocolate cake mix ( the kind with pudding in the mix)

two eggs

16 ounces of sour cream (the real stuff, let’s not be wimpy now)

1/4 cup of vegetable oil 

1/2 cup of kahlua 

Mix until blended well, then add a small bag (11.5 ounces) of chocolate chips.

Stir it all up and pour it into the prepared bundt pan.


Bake for 50 minutes. Leave in bundt pan overnight, then invert onto cake plate,

shake powdered sugar over the top, cut into that sucker and enjoy. 


Trust me, the chocolate lovers in your family will fall to their knees and

praise you to the heavens. My husband loves this cake SO much! And you can’t

taste the alcohol at all. Which for us, is a good thing.

This is our gingerbread house for this year.

I say they are flowers. Don’t they look pretty all gathered together in little vase?

I love my aquarium these days. For the last year I’ve been having trouble with my aquarium. Whoever says keeping a healthy fish aquarium is easy, is crazy! I’ve struggled with temperature, ammonia, and nitrate amounts. I’ve had fish after fish take the lonely, sad road to everlasting life down my toilet. But lately I’ve been having great success. I can say this because these fish have lived quite a while now and seem to be perfectly healthy. I made a spontaneous decision to put a little extra money into my aquarium and get some bigger fish. The little ones just didn’t make it. And unfortunately they are the cheaper ones. So, I got some Parrot fish. They are stunning, and my favorites! I love to watch them flit around. They are extremely skittish and hide in the pots a lot. As soon as I walk over to the aquarium they high-tail it for the pots… but it’s funny to watch. Then they start peeking out of the holes in the pot, and eventually come out and swim around.

I now have three Parrot fish, Darrin, Sam, and Esmeralda. I have two Convict fish, Scofield and Kate. I have one Swordtail, Aramis. I have one Giant Danio, Ditto (he used to be part of a pair, but Dot didn’t make it). And I also have two large Tiger Barbs, Raja and Cleo.

I think my Tiger Barbs are doing a little mating dance here…. They do that a lot!

This is Scofield, my Convict fish.

Christmas Chromatography

Today we isolated the various dye components that make up an ink or other composite dye using chromatography. Dyes are molecular and can be dissolved in either water or alcohols,
and carried by capillary action through a porous material, such as a coffee filter or blotter paper. The individual dye components travel at different speeds and disperse along the length of the porous material. So, we made a strand of Christmas lights using this process.

Crystal Snowflakes

We also learned how different crystals are formed, and observed crystals in the making. We observed with a hand lens the growing crystals and cited the geometric qualities, and related the necessary natural occurrences needed to create crystals. We used a white pipe cleaner and shaped it into a snowflake. We attached it to a string. Then we boiled water (about 3 cups) and stirred in one cup of borax. Then we suspended the snowflake in the water/borax solution. We left it overnight and observed the growing crystals at different stages.

And for more snowflake fun, there is a whole “What is Snow” freebie unit study available at Hands of a Child.

Stephanie over at Throwing Marshmallows gave this link (I had to switch it to youtube because I wanted it to be embedded, but it’s the same video), and I wanted my family to see it. I only wish these people were my neighbors!!! So super cool

This one is cool too! Same song, different house. Unbelieveable!

Today was almost totally creative, and I loved it! We did sneak in a little Math (I feel guilty compelled to keep current in the curriculum). We started off making some cookies to give to our friends. GB was very serious while he concentrated on getting the frosting just right!;)

Then we started on our annual Gingerbread house. I have to admit… I just love making these houses every year. It is way more fun to do with little kids helping…. So, I better always have one around handy. GB had a great time decorating and licking his fingers to get the frosting off, and “clean” his hands…. **Warning - to those who like to nibble off these houses**

While the walls were drying, GB started working on drawing his Christmas Tree from a grid. He did an excellent job of duplicating the mirror side and then colored the whole thing.

We worked on our Christmas lapbook, adding more countries to our Christmas Around the World in 25 Days mini-book. So far, he has done 11. Today we learned about Italy and a witch named Befana. They believe she was asked by the three wise men to visit the baby Jesus when he was born. She claimed to be too busy, but later changed her mind. Alas, she couldn’t find the Wise Men or Jesus and looks for them to this day. She visits each household, on Twelfth Night, that has children and leaves gifts, just in case one of them is Jesus.

On a different note, I am SO glad to have Aquagirl home from college. On Friday, we had to make an emergency trip to Harrisonburg to bring her home. She was so sick that the Doctor had called the campus police to come bring her back to her dorm. When she got back, she instant messaged us to “come get me”, and I was VERY happy to oblige. She’ll have to take her exams after the Winter break is done, but I’m hoping she’ll retain what she learned and do much better than she would on death’s door. Already she has improved a lot. Her sore throat is much better and she can actually eat now. But mono takes months to recover from, so it may feel like a long road to her…..

Tomorrow, GB and I will continue with our Christmas Unit. I’ve updated the page with a few new pictures.. Go take a peek

I love all the decorations this time of the year. Traditionally, we spend the day or two after Thanksgiving decorating our house. And every year I try to do just a little bit more… a little bit nicer. We have a friend who lives down on Monument Avenue. And he always decorates so beautifully that it inspires me to try not and forget the little parts of my house (like the bathroom). I especially love my little New England village that I set up in my Dining Room. Since I will probably never live there again, I feel as if I have a tiny piece of it here in my own home. I call it my little Longmeadow, because that’s what it looks like. It has the Village Green in the center of town and the big clock and lots of activity. I try to improve my village every year. Last year I got a really cute, old-fashioned phone booth and mailbox, which isn’t much. So, this year, I’m hoping to get a decent sized piece. I’ve looked at a ski-slope (which I love) and a little greenhouse. I’m hoping that my dh will get it for me for Christmas this year.

Anyway, I got it all set up, and here is a picture. It’s getting hard to get everything in the viewer. My favorite piece is the little hair salon in the back corner. It’s hard to tell which one it is, so you’ll just have to stop by and take a personal peek.

Jabem was a calm, in the storm of my fury…. He is very methodical and I get frustrated by dumb stuff. We had such a time getting the lights working on our tree. And my dh said he’d throw the tree away and go get another one if we couldn’t get it working… I just think that’s a waste of money. I’d rather have more pieces for my village..LOL

After fussing with the lights and branches on our “easy” pre-lit tree, and getting all the ornaments just right, Aquagirl and GB were all worn out…LOL