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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Week 3 of Advent Begins

The third Sunday of Advent is Gaudete Sunday. Gaudete means rejoice. This is the day we light the third candle on our advent wreaths, the only pink candle. This is the Sunday where we rejoice that the savior is almost here. This is a day to lighten up a bit about Advent and rejoice a little.

In our family that meant that Mommy made Triple Chocolate Breakfast Muffins. This was the first time I'd made them and boy were they a hit! It probably helped that I bought a mix for these (well, I bought two mixes ... we're just saving one for either Christmas Eve or Christmas morning). The mix I bought was Duncan Hines Simple Mornings Triple Chocolate Chunk. This mix is great because it's just about as close to homemade as you can get without being homemade. There's no high fructose or preservatives. It does however contain soy (for those of you with soy allergies) and is prepared with eggs (again for those of you with allergies). There's obviously some missing from that plate, those girls dove right in the minute they were cool enough to eat (Ok, so did Mommy). ECJ was outside helping Daddy shovel the neighbor's snow and our own so they had theirs when they came inside.

The snow is still coming down and their calling for at least another inch of accumulation. Within minutes of the guys finishing the shoveling everything was covered again. ECJ had said that it was positively freezing outside when he walked through the door pulling off layers and changing socks that had ended up wet even though he'd warn boots. Daddy and I decided that tomorrow is supposed to be warmer and it would be more beneficial for the campers to head out to make the first snowmen of the year then.



Two of the family did play outside for several minutes today (I even stepped out without a coat to take a few quick pictures from the side deck). This is their favorite time of year to get outside and play. Probably because they don't get over heated while their doing it.

The girls spent their morning entertaining themselves in Peanut's room with her LeapPad Ultra. They're really getting a kick at how the colors of the room changed once we hung up the curtains. The ones hanging there I'd purchased and repurposed from the thrift shop. Daddy and I are still deciding if we'll be purchasing a new set, if I'll be making a new set when we buy our new sewing machine, or if I'll be crocheting a set. No matter what choice we make those are the colors we're sticking with.

The girls are now watching a movie together in Peanut's room while ECJ is spending some quality time with Dad watching Netflix in our bedroom. Later tonight we'll all watch Muppets Christmas together while eating dinner. Followed by our Advent lessons, "lighting" the pink candle, and adding another ornament to our Jesse Tree.

Holy Heroes is still a big hit around here and I'm sure we'll be taking advantage of their Lenten Adventure and their Summer Faith Adventure. There's also several "unique" gifts on their site that I'm eyeing for the Cracker Jack's as gifts once they make their First Communion this spring. I'm sure we'll also go back to them next Advent, especially for the girls.

My printer is still down, which means that we for sure will be purchasing a new one soon. It also means that there are no new coloring pages for Advent that I've been able to print off. Most of the campers are now caught up with all of their pages that they'd already had. This is OK, we'll print them off when we get the new printer or not. Either way it's something that I know I can put on next year's advent list to have ready, I'd really like for them to have these books made up that I'm thinking about. I'll be adding some of the word searches and crossword puzzles that Holy Heroes provides as well to keep ECJ busy as well.

Tomorrow night is the Children's Christmas Mass at our parish. It's pretty much mandatory for the catechism students (there was only one "real" catechism class this month). After they go back to their catechism classes Jan. 7th they won't have another break until the middle of February.

This week for Advent we'll be taking it easy. Our nightly Holy Heroes Advent Adventure "shows", our nightly Jesse Tree ornaments, and a reading done by either Mom or ECJ will just about cover it. Christmas is just around the corner and this is our last week of school before our one week break, we're taking a relaxed approach to just about everything this week.

The children are enjoying their first year celebrating Advent and so am I. I fully intend to make next year one to remember steeped in everything Advent related as I possibly can.

Advent Begins Week 2 ... and Other Tid-Bits

As we move into week two of Advent I have noticed how much my children look forward to the Holy Heroes video and audio clips. How they are enjoying coloring and "hanging" their Jesse Tree ornaments. And how well they are paying attention and retaining the information read to them from the Bible that corresponds with what we're learning during Advent.

We "lit" the second purple candle on our Advent wreath on Sunday evening, said prayers and began this week's studies right after dinner. We've been keeping to the right after dinner schedule because it seems to work best for the kiddos and then it doesn't feel rushed.


There are multiple coloring sheets that you can print out at Holy Heroes (usually one a day) along with other activities for the kids. We're working on making a Jesse Tree/Advent book for each child this year. So the night before I print off a coloring sheet per child and then the next night while I'm reading to them from the Bible they color it. Well, this was the plan but I'm not sure if we'll be able to finish them as my wonderful three year old printer is out of ink, prints blank pages (even when it has ink!), and has been skipping parts when printing when it does print the information on the page. It's probably time for us to purchase a new one but right now I'm not sure when that will happen. This makes me sad because it means I can't print off any other wonderful worksheets that I love to print for the campers.

Our Jesse tree is already looking full because each day all three children are putting an ornament on it. That makes 3 times as many ornaments than there "should" be on it. Which is fine because this year it is more about them all getting to experience each part and Mommy attempting to figure out what works for us. I plan on doing something a bit different next year about it though, because it does look really cluttered.


Something not related to Advent is a little tradition that we've had since Younger Cracker Jack was in Kindergarten. She came home that year from school and presented me with a lovely paper bell with a poem on it. Attached to that bell was a chain of construction paper rings. Each day from Dec. 1 - Dec. 24 you're to tear one of the rings off of the bell to count down until Christmas. This is a fun little tradition and it really cuts down on the "Mom, how many more days until Christmas?" question. We didn't do it last year so Peanut doesn't remember it, she's really getting a kick out of reading the poem every night and then counting the rings. Her favorite part is of course tearing off the bottom ring to make it one less day to wait.

And two things that have me feeling particularly orange right now is the fact that although I yelled when Peanut was screaming "I love you" to her sister who was less than a foot away and continued to do it after warnings. I yelled: "I love you toooo!!! Can we please stop yelling?!?! It hurts my throat!!" Which got giggles and the yelling stopped. And something that would have driven me over the edge not that long ago (though don't ask me why because I couldn't tell you) didn't bother me at all this morning. The picture below should explain it more than my words can ... and yes, she continued eating the cereal *cringegagcringe*.

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We Did What?!?!

It seems like this week we've done a little of just about everything here! The two week long oddessy of Peanut's room is almost 100% complete (and will be by this evening)!

Looked horrible didn't it?

This looks white but is a pale pale pink.

On the home improvement front we've spent almost two full weeks on just re-doing Peanut's room! I can hear most of you now, "It's one little girl's room. How much work could it possibly take?" Well, I'm glad you asked. We started by emptying the room and fixing all the cracks in the walls. And repairing and re-insulating a hole Mommy somehow put in the floor right by the heat vent (Daddy took out all the weak flooring to fix the problem). Our friends from Learning Life with 3 Sons came by last Friday to help us get some paint on the walls (you can check out last week's weekly wrap-up here , there was way more that happened on that visit).

 This week we got two coats of paint on the wall in our pretty pink paint (Peanut's favorite color) and decided to do most of the trim in the room purple because it was a TON of pink! We remembered to paint the trim around the mirror purple as well. That was pretty much finished Wednesday night. Thursday one of Daddy's good friend's came over and helped Daddy lay the new floor down. They were finished in just a couple of hours! Peanut was very excited that she could now "skate" in her room.

After Younger Cracker Jack (YCJ) and Peanut went to sleep Elder Cracker Jack (ECJ) stayed up to help us get things finished because we promised Peanut she'd be sleeping in her room Friday night. He was helping to sand some of the "shiny" off of the bed frame so that it could be painted pink and purple to match the room. All of the base board trim was painted as purple as well. ECJ stayed up almost all night with Mommy to get everything finished. Daddy got some rest and will be finishing up the room as soon as he gets up.

Tried a new faux finish and absolutely
love how it came out!!

Added a few pink details to YCJ's TV stand.

 You can't see it very well but those pink "blobs" against that purple is a moon, a cloud, and a bunch of stars, right at Peanut's eye level. This will all be put together by this evening with all of her belongings back in place. Of course I'll be sharing a picture of the completed project on Homeschool Camper's Facebook page.

In our homeschool this week we ended up taking an extra day off because we chose to take a field trip (more on this in a moment). This put us behind a day (although Peanut's caught back up and will be finished later today), which means that we'll do a bit of school this weekend either before or after we see Santa.

Third grade was a particularly interesting grade this week. YCJ spent a lot of time this week on her English lessons, really enjoying the fact that the little bit of green paper is helping to keep the letters in order. English is her LEAST favorite subject and yet she's doing very well in it. She also took another math review/test and aced it! Yay YCJ!! 

Sixth grade and ECJ are still getting along well. No, my book report on The Lord of the Rings Trilogy STILL isn't in. I'm sure it's a stall tactic now to attempt to avoid reading Little Women. While he stayed up with Mommy working on painting, he took some time between coats to do some of his Apalogia science. He breezed through two whole lessons and quizzes and completely aced them!


PreK/K has Peanut really enjoying her days. We've got it down pat now, as she says. She is almost completely finished with her Caillou PreK computer game and has moved on to some of her Caillou K computer game (though she does admit some of these are much harder). She's also more than a third of the way through most of her books! Mommy ordered her first "real" science book on Amazon.com last night. She really likes it when her big brother helps her out, in the picture to the right she's connecting the dots and he's praising her highly.

In religion this week we began our first year truly celebrating Advent as a family. The children are really enjoying this part of our lessons and look forward to it each day. We've discovered that no matter how busy our day is that we can find time each day to celebrate the advent right after supper. Our Jesse tree is much fuller now than it was on Sunday and Peanut loves that she can touch the "flame" of the candles on our homemade Advent wreath.

Loving the wagon ride

She was so happy she got to finally
hold the saw (upside down)

Our field trip (the first of a couple this month) was to a local tree farm to cut down our Christmas tree for this year. This was Peanut's first time getting a real tree and she really enjoyed it. She even picked out the tree. We got a nice, round, fluffy Scotch Pine. What we didn't know until we'd cut it down was that the base of the trunk was badly twisted. Still, we didn't think it would be too much of an issue, and we'd already cut it down, so home with us it came. Daddy trimmed it and had to cut a lot some of the trunk off so that it would fit right into the tree stand. When it was lifted up and we all looked everyone had to giggle. Our 6 foot + tree had shrunk! Peanut will have no problem helping to decorate it this year, and we all love it just the same!

On the non-yelling front (check out The Orange Rhino for more details on the challenge we chose to take) I have to admit that I had to restart this week. It's been a long week with errands, home improvement, decorating, field trips, and birthdays of deceased loved ones. It was on one of those birthday's (there were 2) that I lost it and yelled. That same night Peanut decided to melt the "evil yelling witch" with the "power of orange". There on the brim of the witches hat (found misplaced in our Christmas decorations) is a small square of orange construction paper, which our cat was highly confused to find in our hallway in the middle of the night. It wasn't until after I'd moved the hat that I looked down to find two little feet sticking out from under YCJ's bedroom door. I guess that Peanut had remembered a certain scene from The Wizard of Oz. From now on when I need to "think orange' these pictures are sure to come to mind.

We decorated the front porch and part of the house this week. Of course, even with yucky cold weather, we spent some time outside as well. Peanut even made a new friend with a little girl from the street behind us (both girls are redheaded ... I'm not sure how well this bodes as I'm a redhead myself). Not all of our decorations are up yet, though we're hoping to have them up tonight. We'll be busy tomorrow you see ... we have an appointment with Santa!

My tip of the week is to make sure you dedicate a pair of clothing just to painting. I hadn't as I "never" make too much of a mess. Now a pair of jeans I've only just begun to fit in are splattered with pink and purple paints.

Posts you might have missed:
School, Holidays, Outside and More (last week's wrap-up)
First Day of Advent and More
First Week of Dec. Menu
 When Orange Turns to Pale Peach
7 Changes Happening to Our Homeschool



 Who we're linking up with this week:
Homegrown Learners
Faithful Mom...
Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers
(though I reserve the right to edit and add more to this list as they come up ;-) )