Little House in the Big Woods Family Dinner

***By the way I've used this idea of a Family Dinner Book Club and modified it to the book we were currently reading.  I did not come up with this supremely awesome idea.***

Last night while the snow was falling, we had a cozy dinner and Family Book Club.  We just finished up Little House in the Big Woods this week, so along with the kids we brainstormed some ideas and set them into motion on Saturday.  We choose a menu based on foods that Laura ate in the book: 

 

Roast, johnny cake (corn bread), mashed potatoes and peas

Peas were never directly mentioned but they had a garden so I just assumed ?????

 

Ava and Carter decorated place mats with favorite scenes from the book.  Although they both like the same story of Pa attacking the bear with a club and discovering it was just a tree stump.

 

 

We made butter!  Salted Cream and a marble and shake shake shake!

 

 

We looked at pictures of butter churns online and then made butter our own way.  (Full Disclosure: Daddy did most of the shaking.)

 

 

For our centerpieces we made the log cabin and the barn. 

 

 

Here is the barn:  Suki the cow was outside, and the bear is in the pen.  Look there is Ma (Belle) about to come and slap the bear thinking it is Suki!

 

 

Here is their house.  Pa and Mary are standing out front (Ava decided to use Mary from our little people nativity) and the horses hitched up to the Lincoln log wagon.

 

We had some really good conversations during dinner about the book.  I was pleasantly surprised some of the details that Carter and Ava remembered.  Most of this is all over Doc's head right now, but he's there slowly soaking it all in.  Mainly we discussed the differences between Laura's life and our own, such as how often they went to stores, how they took a bath, how they treated Sundays and why they had to work so hard to make food in the summer and fall. 

 

Daddy was very much on board with this whole project because PUMPKIN! PIE! FOR! DESERT!  He was singing about that all day long. 

 

Our next book we are going to read for our Family book club:  Charlotte's Web!

 

(Mike has already planned out a dinner of ham and bacon.  We'll see about that!)