Over Christmas Break

So, I stopped blogging technically on December 22nd  of 2016 (because I finish my weekly wrap up's on Thursdays) and it's now 2017! Lot's can happen in that amount of time and we were off of school for most of the time. We were celebrating Christmas at home and with family, we were enjoying plenty of free play inside and outside of the house, and we had a bit of an early birthday celebration for ECJ with Noni on the 3rd! (ECJ will be turning fifteen next week!)


Let's cover the most important day first! Christmas Day was awesome y'all! We woke up (well, Daddy and Peanut barely slept) at 6:50 AM! I started the coffee pot and laid down for a couple minutes to fully wake up during which time all the campers began to creep around the house. We politely reminded them that Mommy and Daddy need a cup of coffee before gifts are opened and they agreed to eat breakfast while they waited. Gifts were opened and excited campers bounced around as they got most of what was on their list this year, they really were pretty good guys this year. After that we all got dressed, grabbed deviled eggs and banana pudding, snatched up the gifts for Grandma's house, and out the door we went! Stopping at Grandma's to drop everything off and give hugs before going to their church for mass during which Papa sang with the choir. After mass we spent several hours helping Grandma get everything ready for supper, Auntie and the cousins showed up with Uncle, and we all got to chatting. Gifts were opened with everyone being thrilled with what they got and then we all had supper. After which Buddy and Baby Girl stopped by with their mother to visit, Buddy stayed for a few hours and Baby Girl went to the movies with her mother. We didn't get home until around 10 PM, y'all! It was a great day but long so the day after Christmas we all slept in, stayed in our pajamas all day, watched movies, and played with our new gifts that we'd gotten on Jesus's birthday.

And y'all ... Y'ALL ... I got an electric pencil sharpener for Christmas! I know you can feel my absolute joy at this!!

I did some researching between Christmas and the New Year on what books we may need to purchase towards next year's curriculum. I'll be purchasing this boxed set of The Magic Tree House books for Peanut (we may end up with a couple duplicates but that's just fine, it's less expensive to buy the big set than buy the books even in the four book packages). I'll also be purchasing the Life of Fred series, or at least some of them, to help bolster our math courses. And the series A History of Us to help out with our History, we've read a couple of the books before by borrowing them from the library and I like their pace and rhythm. All three of these things are being added to what we already use for our curriculum. Seton for everything except math and Saxon for the math. Is it because I think Seton or Saxon isn't enough on it's own? Far from it! But, I know my family and I have to add some fun things here and there to keep our textbooks from becoming too dry and the routine of doing them from getting stale. We like using our textbooks but by spring time if I don't add other things in the campers are chomping on the bit to get away from them.

I also completed my goal in December of 31 preemie hats to donate in 31 days! I made the decision that while I have many other obligations to do crochet wise, and otherwise, in my day to day life that I'll make one preemie or newborn hat per day each month this entire year to donate. I will donate several times this year because of this but it is something that I enjoy and feel I can do.

Noni came out on the third of January, when the weather was warm even though we were getting rain. By warm I mean that it was in the 40's, so not really that warm but warmer than we usually have in Michigan this time of year. Noni's birthday is on the 17th and ECJ's is on the 8th so this was sort of a birthday for both of them. Noni got her gifts from us, a pair of homemade slipper socks that are oh so warm and cushy and a snowman carry/storage bag (I added a few dollar scratcher lotto tickets to the bag). Noni gave ECJ his small birthday gift of a few used Nintendo DS games, her large gift to him will come later in the year as she has offered to pay for his first level of driver's education! We've decided as a family (because we have a large two wheel drive truck) that ECJ will begin learning to drive once the weather is warm so either late spring or early summer. Needless to say he is very excited for it!

** Just as an aside to some of my previous posts CNN Student News is changing it's name to CNN 10. **

We went back to lessons on Wednesday, the fourth. It also happened that that was the same day that Peanut got her new glasses! Lessons went super quickly and we were done with everything inside of an hour and a half! The girls are chomping at the bit to do a new art project that they got for Christmas, but this mom still needs to pick up a couple of items to be able to do the projects. Perhaps I'll pick them up in the evening while I do what little running I need to do. The bottom dropped out of the temperature on Wednesday too, so we're down in the 20's without taking the wind chill into consideration, which is about right for Michigan in January. This also means that I busted out a new exercise video for us to do to keep us active during the cold weather.




Thursday we did lessons really quickly, in less than two hours and then we took all of the beds out of the house. We methodically cleaned each room of the house and then Daddy and I went out and picked up a new bed for everyone! Look! I got a king size bed for my Christmas/birthday/anniversary gift this year! On Friday (today) we did lessons again and it didn't take very long, under two hours again. While YCJ was finishing up her math, Peanut was working on Teach Your Monster to Read, and ECJ did the breakfast dishes. We don't have much planned for the rest of the day... we may do the girls craft project this afternoon or we may do it tomorrow.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!

You may have missed the following posts this week:
Survival Guide Book Review
New Year's Resolutions

Linked up with Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers for the Weekly Wrap Up.