Hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving yesterday!  We had a lovely day, enjoying not only good food, but great fun.  I wanted to share a couple of fun projects we did together.

Philip made “conkers” with the boys (girls were not much interested) to engage in the classic English school game of conker fighting.  There are actually conker fighting championships in England.  A conker is a chestnut with a hole drilled in and then a string inserted through the middle and secured.

Two children take turns holding their conkers by the string and swinging at each other’s conkers until one breaks.  Philip said kids he grew up would do all sorts of things to toughen up their conkers, like soaking them in vinegar or aging them for a year.  Our conkers were softish but Philip and the boys had fun going at each other.

Philip had his tried and true conker moves to show the boys.  Dominic was a little freaked out at first by having another conker flying at him:

But before long he got his game on and had a few good whacks at Dad’s conker:

Love that look of  triumphant joy on Dominic’s face!  The girls and I had fun with conkers without hitting each other with them. 🙂  Actually I did play conkers for a while with the boys but I hit myself in the leg more than I hit the other guy’s conker.  Note: conkers hurt when self-inflicted!

The girls and I made little conker critters out of chestnuts and other bits of nature, like leaves, cranberries, grass, and even popcorn.  Claire made an adorable conker bunny:

Cute, heh?  This weekend we’re looking forward to welcoming Daisy’s puppies.  She’s due tomorrow!  We can feel the puppies kicking and squirming and Daisy is beginning to nest.  Things are starting to happen so we’ll have new puppy photos to show soon!  Here’s Daisy yesterday waiting for a little turkey skin:

Have a great weekend!