Our Week Off (Christmas)

Back again! We had a wonderful week off of school (and the blog). We did do a few worksheets this week but they were the bare minimum. Mostly they were a few math worksheets, creative writing, and a couple cursive worksheets for YCJ. We won't really be back into the full swing of things until January 6th. This next week there's no school on either Tuesday or Wednesday and only a half day on Friday. We don't attempt to do school on New Year's Eve or New Year's day as everyone wants to stay up to watch the ball drop. 

So, what did we do with our week off other than worksheets?

Well ... of course there was Christmas!!!

We finished our Jesse Tree and Advent lessons. Nope, we didn't finish our colored books for Advent but we'll do that next year and I'm sure I'll have some crossword puzzles and word searches added in by then. This will make it more fun for all three children and will allow me to use Holy Heroes again next Advent for even ECJ (due to his love of both crossword puzzles and word searches). YCJ was even more excited than Peanut when last construction paper link was removed from the bell to count down until Christmas.

 Christmas morning dawned and there were chocolate muffins for breakfast (made the night before). And plenty of gifts for each of the campers to enjoy unwrapping. Surprisingly, other than YCJ's recorder, the clothing was the biggest hit of the morning.

We then packed our lasagnas into the car and ourselves and went over the river and through the woods to Grandma's house. In our case this is pretty much a literal description. We posed for our yearly Christmas photo in front of Grandma's fireplace.

Then four out of the five children went and changed their clothing. This has become a tradition of sorts ever since YCJ was a baby, all the kids would rather be more comfortable and I'd rather not get dinner on their "nice" clothing. The lasagna was a giant hit (there's still a mini one in my refrigerator for dinner tonight). And, as always, Grandma outdid herself with the rest of the giant spread of dinner. Then it was time for gifts and socializing.

Christmas Eve I had spent about an hour or so making my first sock snow man for a friend of ours a few doors down who likes Harley Davidson. I sewed most of the components due not only to my lack of a hot glue gun but my wish for all of the pieces to stay put for a really long time.

Christmas night these three campers fell asleep watching a movie together in Peanut's bed.

 Just a few shots of the campers working on their worksheets Thursday and Friday. Yup, PJ days! No reason to get all dressed when all you're planning on doing is spending the day relaxing inside. ECJ did end up getting dressed both days as he had a new friend from just down the street who came over (yes, both days) to hang out in the house and have snow ball fights outside.

YCJ spent most of Friday working on learning Hot Cross Buns on her recorder! She'd spent a little time on Thursday doing this as well but actually had the song down (most of the time unless she's nervous) by the end of Friday afternoon. She'll be spending several hours a week learning how to read and play music over the next several months. ECJ will be doing the same, only he'll be learning on his brand new acoustic guitar.

Everyone did manage to get a decent amount of outside time in this week. With everyone totaling 8 hours, except for ECJ who had 10! That brings our year to date total for the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge to 154.75 hours! I'm not going to count ECJ's extra two hours in our grand total, though I am adding each of our times up separately for my own records starting next month.

We've crafted and watched movies. We've laughed and we've prayed. We've visited and relaxed. Now, this Mommy is actually ready for school to get back "in" so that we're back to our regular scheduled programming around here.

I hope that all of you had a wonderful Christmas and that your New Year's will be brilliant! 

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