Getting Ready for Christmas

 

I can’t believe how quickly Christmas came around this year! While it’s honestly not my favorite time of year, I do love all the traditions that come around with the holidays, and I do love getting to see the kids’ faces light up as we get out all the decorations and do all sorts of fun activities. It’s even a little more magical this year because most of our Christmas adventures are snow-covered and everything is new—a new state and new activities we get to experience together.

We decided to get our tree earlier than usual this year, just because we had a free day after Thanksgiving. There are a lot of tree farms around here, many of which are cut-your-own, but we found one with pre-cut trees like we usually get and, as is typical, we ended up going home with one of the first ones we saw.

I tried to get them with the “Buy a Real Vermont Tree” sign in the background but then the car door opened! Abigail didn’t want anything to do with that cold snowy day so I had to hold her the whole time. Thankfully the whole adventure only took an hour or so and then we had our tree home.

 

Our usual family tradition is to have pizza dip and snacks and watch “A Charlie Brown Christmas” movie while we decorate the tree. The kids loved that they got to pick their own lunch like a buffet. (And you can see from Abigail’s plate that she wasn’t shy!) They probably ate more than they usually would because they got to snack!

 

Everyone really did get along well while we hung the ornaments and Andrew, especially, was eager to hang as many as he could. Abigail kind of threw hers’ at the tree and hoped they’d stick. Leah was a little more scientific about her hanging. Of course I had to do a little rearranging when it was all said and done, but the tree turned out so pretty.

 

 

 

We had to make some adaptations since we have no mantel for our stockings, but we were able to get creative and make the whole place pretty festive.

Some of our other traditional decorations:

The Charlie Brown Christmas tree, now complete with Charlie Brown characters.

I usually do some type of Advent Countdown Activities, where the kids get to do one fun activity, craft, or story each day leading up to Christmas. This year I hung them on garland downstairs in our school room. They look forward each day to seeing what we get to do! (And most of them are high up because I have a reader this year, and Leah would probably try to sneak a peek if she could reach them!)

And a new one this year: a musical carousel. Abigail is constantly asking me to see the “horsies” and tries to put her fingers on the horses as they go around. Andrew is also fascinated with this thing!

 

Snow Days

 

We were warned when we moved to Vermont that the snow would come, and when it did, there would be plenty of it. And now, the day before Thanksgiving, it came. We had a dusting last week, but not really very much. This time, it fell almost all day Wednesday and we ended up with about 8-10 inches. And it was the good, fluffy snow, not icy and dangerous. It was plenty more than any of us have ever seen (at least at our own house) and my Southern children were excited! They couldn’t wait to get out in it. Personally, I’d rather enjoy it from the warmth inside. But I still went out a little while just to see their excitement.

 

This was just as the snow was starting to fall. You can’t really see how much it was in this one.

Andrew can’t believe how much it’s snowing and can’t wait to get outside!

 

My family teamed up against me with the snowballs.

 

 

So thankful for the snow boots Grandma bought, the snow pants several different families provided, and the winter jackets I found really cheap at yard sales this past summer! Bring on the Vermont winter!

 

The kids’ snow-family!

 

Abi and I enjoyed the snow from inside. She really didn’t want much to do with it at all. In fact, this was her reaction the first time around.

She didn’t even want to touch it from inside the house. She could have cared less about the snowman when I showed her.

 

The next day, after the driveway had been plowed, the snow heaps provided even more fun! Leah could barely walk through the knee-deep snow.

 

 

 

I’m sure we’ll grow tired of this white stuff by the time March rolls around, but for now we are happy to see it and will enjoy it while we can!

What I Am Thankful For…

Our family has so much to be thankful for this year! Most of all we are thankful for our salvation and our ability to worship Christ freely. We are thankful for our freedom. We are thankful for our health and our own lives. We are thankful that God brought us out of a difficult situation into a new home in a new state with great new friends and an awesome new home.

 

Me? I’m thankful for these things…

8 years of marriage to this guy, who always loves me unconditionally, who leads us spiritually, and who always makes me laugh.

 

This big girl, who has such a huge heart for things of the Lord, loves everyone she meets, and always reminds me to find the joy in all that we do!

  

This little boy who tells me every day, 3 times a day how much he loves me; who cracks me up on a regular basis and has such an innocence about him that you can’t help but smile whenever he’s around.

And this little girl, who is learning new words and new things every day and constantly makes me laugh, who gets into all sorts of mischief but still loves to be cuddled at the end of the day.

For the ability to stay home with them all day and not have to send them away to school. Though many days I’d love to ship them off on the bus, the rewards of teaching them at home are so much greater and I love being able to see them learn and grow together.

For our new church home and church family, who show their love to us in so many ways, who have once again given us hope in Christian believers by letting us in to their lives and accepting us into theirs’.

  And for food on the table and a warm house to enjoy it in.

Thanksgiving this year was just our “little” family at home, and we were joined by our International Exchange student, Maria, from the Philippines. She attends college in the nearby town and we have “adopted” her both for the cultural enlightenment for our kids, and for the ministry opportunity. She is so sweet and just loves the kids. This was the first time she’d been to our house, and her first Thanksgiving in the States. We were so glad she could spend it with us! We enjoyed our usual traditions of watching the Thanksgiving parade on TV and really just being together all day.

School Lately

I have been having a lot of fun teaching these kids this year. Though there are days when I just want to give it all up and send them on the next bus to school, there are many days when I get to see the lightbulb click in their brain, or I get to see them begin to understand something—those times make it all worth it. I love that we can get up and get around slowly in the morning, head downstairs when we’re ready (and if they’re involved playing something really cool, school can wait), take as much time as we need, and then go run errands whenever we want to. We’re not tied down by a schedule, and we’re flexible to change up our routine if the kids are enjoying something more than another. I love that they are best friends with their siblings. And I love that we can incorporate our love for Jesus in all that we learn.

Leah is soaring with her reading. She is almost finished with our phonics book, which upon completion states that the student is reading at about a 4th grade level. While I don’t think she could technically have the stamina to read through a 4th grade book, I do believe she would have the know-how to decode all the words. She is a natural at it, which made things a breeze for me. Spelling, however, is a little more difficult for her, and she gets so frustrated. I try to make it fun and we play games and we use letter tiles and we write on the dry erase board, but since it doesn’t come naturally for her, she gets discouraged and we are working on learning how to learn. She’s pretty good at math right now as well, although I can’t say I’ve really tried to challenge her in that area. Our main focus in that area is learning the addition facts, telling time, counting money, and a few other basic things.

Andrew loves to sit and do worksheets while Leah is doing hers’. In fact, he usually can’t get enough! He especially loves mazes and connect-the-dots and is really quite good at them. He knows basically all his letters and letter sounds. We will probably start working on reading in January but I can already tell its not going to be as natural for him as it was for Leah. He isn’t really quite getting the blending of letters to make words, yet, but I have a feeling he’s going to be pretty smart! He is great at mathematical things, too, and sometimes figures things out that I would never believe he could figure out!

 

It is challenging many times dividing my attention between the two of them plus a destructive two-year-old who just likes to throw the school toys all over the floor while we’re working, but we somehow manage to make progress, slowly but surely. We do as much together as we can and we learn teamwork!

Some days they really surprise me by sitting down working together ON THEIR OWN. I love that Leah can now actually read to them so I don’t have to all the time!

And some days we scrap all the plans and just play games or color or build a fort. That’s the beauty of homeschool.

We are learning American history this year (and by WE I really do mean WE, because I am learning a lot that I did not know!) and one of my favorite projects so far has been writing our own Declaration of Independence. We made our own ink out of strawberries, dipped in our feather pens, and even made our own papyrus paper to write on.

And we’re participating in a postcard exchange through Facebook. Each month we receive 5 postcards from 5 different states. We send a Vermont postcard to 5 different states. So by the end of the year we will have received one from all 50 states. Leah is memorizing all the states and their capitals and doing very well with it!

In science, we just finished up learning about animals and animal classification, and now we’ve moved on to the human body. I have some exciting projects planned. The first one we did was make a model of a cell out of Jell-o and different types of candy. The kids thought this was really cool, and I think they learned a lot!

We also used a rubber glove with straws to see what our hand would feel like without bones.

We are really enjoying going to Burlington every Thursday for our Classical Conversations group. Although getting all our bags ready the night before and the drive there are sometimes tedious, Leah and Andrew both thrive on the interaction with other kids their age. They are memorizing tons of things I don’t even remember learning!

Andrew seems so small in front of the class for his presentation, and he is the youngest in his class, but he keeps up very well and other moms have even commented how mature he seems. He loves to try to do everything himself. Both kids actually do better without me around—I guess because they know they can’t get away with as much?

  

They recently had class pictures done. One of the teachers just took her digital camera and took the kids outside, so we get to enjoy them for free! And they turned out so cute. What great memories they are forming and great friendships!

 

 

Trick or Treat!

 

Halloween was simple this year. The kids all chose to dress up in a costume we already owned. (Well, Abigail didn’t choose—she wore what Leah wore when she was 2!) Since we live in such a rural area I was not about to get 3 kids in and out of their car seats to trick or treat. Add to that it was really cold (but at least not rainy like it’s been the last 2 years!). So we headed to the nearby college town, got out and walked down one street with maybe about 10 houses, stopped by a trunk or treat there, and then headed back to our own Trunk or Treat at our church. Abigail was a pro at grabbing the candy by the time we were done and when I asked her at the end of the night if she liked Trick or Treating, her reply was “can-y!” Leah and Andrew also seemed to have a lot of fun too and even played in the church nursery some with their friends while I was outside in the cold at Trunk or Treat.