Christmas 2011

Posting this for my own info.  Sorry Everyone!

Sunday  (Christmas Day) was super nice with our regular morning and then we took a meal to a single lady, visited our friend that is in the hospital, and visited with our friend Laura.  Her mom passed away on Friday and she lives alone in assisted living.  We sang her some carols and played with her dog:)  It was nice.  We came home to overcooked chicken (oops:), yummo mashed potatoes, veggies and dip, fruit, and lemon-blueberry cake.  It was a tasty.  We then read Christmas books until bed time, left cookies for Santa, put the kids to bed, and then watched 17 Miracles.  Man, emotionally draining for me!  It was extremely moving to watch these stories.

Our Christmas on Monday was quiet and uneventful.  The kids got us up about 8am and we opened presents and then stockings.  Fun!  Then we stayed in Jammies all day and ate candy and soup:)  The kids helped clean up the house (woa, it was bad!) and then they went to bed while George and I worked on school stuff.  I am planning a unit on Ancient China and he is writing a program for his blackberry where he can type in a word in Russian, Spanish or Arabic and hear the correct pronunciation (he got 3 books for Christmas...First Words in each of those languages.  He plans to read them to the kids.  He is currently doing Chinese with Sam and Seth because he already has that one!)

A nice relaxing Christmas.  Is that even possible with 4 young kids?  I guess so:)

Polaris Press: Explorers

Yes, I am still homeschooling...though you wouldn't know it by the content of this blog:)

Explorers of North America is our new unit study.  I am using a curriculum/workbook called History Pockets.  It has 10 explorers that you learn about and for each, there are a couple of activities.  They are things like tracing maps and routes of the explorers, writing a letter to Christopher Columbus telling him what job you would like on his ship and why you would be good at it, and making "hardtack", the hard biscuits that the sailors would eat at sea. (The kids loved hardtack and decided they could all be sailors, until we read about scurvy.  They all changed their minds pretty quick!)

I like it because all of the info is right there in the book, but it's hands-on enough to keep the kids interested.  Today, we learned about John Cabot who sailed for England and landed in the Newfoundland area.  Because he claimed that land for England, the pilgrims were able to go there and colonize and thus begins a huge chapter of history. I had no idea!

We are also working on our All About Spelling with some tweaks.  We got fairly burned out at the beginning and I realized that the program caters to every kind of learner and it was too much for my kids.  So now I just do the parts that fit their learning style and it goes so much smoother.  Yay!  I really liked the program, but couldn't figure out how to make it work for us, so I am glad it's working now.  The kids are also willingly doing dictation, which shows me how much they have grown up in the last 8 months!  This used to be the cause of many melt-downs!

George is teaching  Chinese on Wednesday nights and I am teaching an art lesson on Fridays.  When we are home, school goes pretty well.  (We are often not home!) It's nice, especially since the beginning of the school year was really rough for the kids and for me!  We also had an awesome Ancient China unit in January.  We ended it with a Chinese New Year celebration on Jan. 23. That was so much fun and so interesting for all of us.  We went to Lego club one week and Levi had built the Great Wall of  China and was explaining all about how and why it was built.  Awesome!  Though I don't think his buddies were as impressed as I was:)  Our next unit is Pioneers, though I haven't decided if it should be 2 or 4 weeks.  If we just do pioneers, we could do it in 2, but if we include the California Gold Rush, the Native Americans, or any of the wars that were going on at that time, I am sure we could fill up 4 weeks.  Our read aloud is "Little House in the Big Woods" and they really like it, so we may spend some time on it.  After this unit, we will probably focus on some science units, as that seems to be where I slack a bit.

School is going well and that is a good thing:)

Hair

Hair has been the focus of my existence for about 2 years now...well, not really the focus, but it comes up a lot!  So, the new hair news is...I got it straightened...like professionally.  Yeah, I know.  I am a curly girl!  And really, I still am, I just have straight hair for now.

It's not a permanent thing.  4 months the hairdresser said.  It's called a Keratin Complex treatment and it's so nice!  I wake up and my hair is normal.  I shower, wash my hair, dry it off with a towel and go about my day.  My hair dries quickly and looks fine.  I have hair like other people!

The only problem is I find it a bit boring (am I never happy?).  It just lays there, flat against my head.  It is shiny, though, which mine has never been.   I hope I don't get too used to it because the treatment is crazy expensive...especially every 4 months!

The long and short of it is I like it, but I'm glad it's temporary:)

R2D2 Cake

Sam's birthday is today and I stayed up late and made this R2D2 cake (with the help of some very talented friends, Carisa and Brittney).  It took us from about 9pm-2am...I gotta learn to start earlier! 
Here are the pics:

  The cake is made from 4-8in cakes stacked on the bottom, a dome shaped one on the top and rice krispie treat legs.  I used the middle of a sugar ice cream cone for the little projector thing, iced and rolled in sparkly sugar, a cinnamon candy for the red eye thing, and lots and lots of icing.  I hope it's yummy, but at least it's cute:)

Moving Christmas

A few days ago, I was telling the kids that if we got any video games or the like for Christmas, we would have to wait until Monday to play them, because we don't do any screen time on Sunday.  Levi suggested that we just wait until Monday to have Christmas.  He and Natalie are both "in the know" and Sam and Seth don't worry about the calendar too much, so it could work.  I thought this was a CRAZY idea, but the more I thought about it, the more I loved it!  Spend Christmas day actually focused completely on the Savior?  What a great idea!  So, I think I will add one more thing to my to-do list and plan a very spiritual Christmas day...and then we will spend our day after Christmas enjoying the "presents" part of Christmas.  We'll see how it goes:)

The To-Do List

Things to do this weekend and this next week:

• Make a fabulous R2D2 cake for Sam
• Make pool noodle light sabers for Sam's party (can you get pool noodles in December?)
• Make Christmas treats
• Deliver treats
• Zumba party
• Clean the church
• Go grocery shopping
• Plan and do a cub scout meeting
• Plan the next unit study (about China)
• Make 4 photo books online
• Buy some last minute presents
• Wrap all presents
• Attend 2 Christmas parties
• Do visiting teaching
• Do more Christmas crafts with the kids

I love this time of year!  I am only a little stressed.  Making the cake makes me nervous, as that is not a talent I have.  Luckily, a few friends are going to help me out:)  After the cake is made and Scouts is done, the week will be less stressful and more enjoyable. I hope you all enjoy your 8 days before Christmas!

Turkey Day...not for the faint of heart:)

Logan, Joseph, and Levi holding a big turkey they caught.

 *Note:  There are chicken/turkey pictures that might be disturbing, just so you know.  But I left out the really gross ones!*

My older two kids plus 4 of their homeschool buddies went to an outside science program that was turkey butchering and anatomy.  I was worried that some kids might freak out so I asked Grandma to babysit and took the kids myself and stayed for the program.  This was an amazing program.  They divided the kids into 3 groups.  One group did the catching/butchering first.  The next group did bird clean out and organ identification while the third group did bird anatomy and how and why birds are built the way they are.

Tyler proud of his chicken..it's still alive though it looks like it's headless.

 First, the kids went out to the pens and caught chickens and turkeys.  Natalie  caught a chicken on her own and Levi caught the BIG turkey with 2 other boys.  They loved this part!  They carried the birds upside down and they were so calm.  I was amazed.  The kids laid their heads on the chopping block and the birds just laid there.  It was quick and hopefully painless.  The kids were thrilled when the chicken and turkey bodies ran around and flapped with their heads cut off.  This may seem disgusting, but I was really impressed on how calmly and almost reverently was done.  We said to each bird how thankful we were that they gave us their bodies energy so that we could continue to live.  When the bodies calmed down, we then dunked their bodies in boiling water to make it easier to pull out the feathers.  This was quite a big job.  I think there were about 8 birds in all!

Joe caught a chicken by himself and was oh, SO proud.

Bird clean out going on here.  A little bloody, but very interesting.

 Second was the bird cleanout.  This was actually the first place my group went and I was amazed at how willing all the boys were to stick their hands in, pull things out, and inspect all the organs.  I had to chuckle after all the organs had been pulled out and our teacher said it was done, Ty says, "But where's the organ?":) The staff here keep all the birds and organs for eating throughout the year. 

The girls just kept saying, "Eww, gross!"

Cute pics of boys before we went outside. Ty's face showed how he felt before he went out.  About halfway through the process, he turns to me and says, "I LOVE this!!!!"

Had to have a picture of the girls too.  Kailey on the top, Sophie on left and Natalie on the right.

The last part of the butchering day was learning the anatomy.  This was done by a lady who knew her stuff and it was fascinating.  She talked all about why birds had this and that and what it was all for.  The highlight for the kids was when she pulled on the tendons of a foot and made the claws move.  Natalie cleaned out the gizzard on her bird.  That girl is not grossed out by anything.  I believe that she looks for the gross parts!  Maybe she gets it from me?  I didn't watch the chopping, but I was extremely interested in all the rest.  The blood just doesn't bother me. 

By the end, I was so impressed with the staff and the facility.  This was a great learning experience that the kids really want to do again next year.  And I want to go with them:)