Merry Christmas!

 I hope that where ever you are or what ever your circumstances may be this Christmas that you will find the peace and joy that comes from knowing that Jesus Christ is the reason for this celebration.

zoo lights

The zoo was a zoo last night!  But, it did not disappoint!  Even though we had to park a mile away and walk (because we didn’t want to wait what probably would have been an hour for the shuttle) we still had a great time.  Since it was Hubby’s work Christmas party we started out with dinner in one of the zoo banquet rooms, but of course I forgot to get a picture of it.  Then we headed out to look at the lights and ride the zoo train.  The lights were spectacular!  It’s quite the experience to be surrounded by so many different colored lights.
After dinner we walked around before getting in line for the train because we knew the wait for the train would take the rest of the night.  But, the whole time the boys were asking if we could head to the train yet. 
We walked by the little gingerbread house…
All the walkways were lit with these panels of lights.  The rainbow ones were really neat.





The trees were all just amazing, especially in this main walkway with the red and blue. 



The wait for the train was a long one.  I didn’t keep track of total time, but I’m thinking about an hour was our total wait time.  The excitement sure didn’t dwindle though by the time we got on the train.  It was a long cold wait, but a very enjoyable ride.  We got off the train around 9:45, I think, and it was time to head home!  We didn’t walk back to the car, we took the shuttle that time since there was practically no one left at the zoo. 

The sick house

In my life this week...  Sickness took over our house this week.  It started with baby Alexander throwing up on Monday night, by Wednesday morning Aric and Aaron were doing the same, Wednesday afternoon it was my turn, and at midnight on Wednesday April started throwing up as well.  In the span of about 2 days we all were down.  Then, on Thursday morning we all woke up and it all seemed to be gone mostly.  The boys were back in the kitchen scrounging for food, which they hadn't done for 2 days.  I had to keep them from eating too much at first.  Take it slow, is what I said over and over again.  By Thursday evening April was up again too.  All the while that we were sick, Hubby was in Japan, so I was by myself all week.  I think every quilt and blanket in our house has been washed at least once this week.  I'm still trying to catch up on all the "puked on" laundry. We all feel wonderful today, back to normal.  We'll be happy to get out of the house, and get some shopping done, and well, just to get out of the house.

In our homeschool this week...  I decided at the beginning of December to take it easy this month since we have been going since June (yes we did homeschool about half time over the summer).  So, we are doing a light or no school load this month.  I have been putting fun Christmas activities, creative writing assignments, Christmas crafts, and other odds and ends in their workboxes if we get the chance and/or if they feel like working on something.  April has done some everyday, so I've had to keep filling hers.  She's my little worker.  I love that she keeps working on things, but that means I need to keep putting things together for her!  That's okay, it gives me something to do during our long break.  I only fill about half her boxes anyway.  Aaron has not really touched his boxes, except for a few.  No surprise there.  I might encourage him  to finish them today.  As for Aric he has been asking to work on his school most days.  I love that.  It makes me happy that he wants to work on his things on his own and I don't have to ask him to.

I am inspired by...  A good friend who is blogging about her Christmas countdown.  Each day she has posted something simple they are doing for their Christmas countdown.  So, despite the fact that the countdown is half over I have finally decided to do something to countdown the remaining days until Christmas.  I am doing a mixture of my friend's activities, and also the truth in tinsel advent.  I love the simple ornaments for each day.  We missed a lot of it so we are just doing a few of them.

Places we're going and people we're seeing...April has her church girls activity days Christmas party tonight (the group of girls ages 8-11 from church).  I'm one of the leaders so I get to be a part of that.  We're pretty excited to do something fun.  We also get to go to the Portland zoo lights tomorrow with Hubby's work.  This has become a fun tradition.  They have a big dinner as well.

My favorite thing this week...  Having a picnic dinner around the Christmas tree with only the tree lights on and some candles on a blanket.  It was a Christmas countdown activity idea from my friend, and I loved it.  We had pizza because I had already been dealing with a sick baby and didn't want to cook a huge dinner.  That was our "last supper" before the big sick day.

What's working for us...Workboxes are working for us really well this year.  I think I've finally got it all figured out.

Questions/thoughts I have...Next year.  I'm already brainstorming a little bit for plans for next school year.  April will be in 6th grade, her first middle school year.  She's entering the middle years which I'm both excited and nervous about.  I want things to be challenging for her.  What kind of curriculum, or plans should I make for her next year?  I'll be thinking about that for a while.

I'm cooking...I made some yummy chocolate chip muffins after everyone was better, they sounded so good.  And, they were!

I'm grateful for...no more sickness!  I'm so glad that one passed quickly.  I was pretty sure I wasn't going to make it taking care of 4 sick kids and being sick myself.  I'm grateful that for the most part we are all healthy, and that we don't get sick that often.

A photo, video, quote, or link to share...

Some photos from our week:

Eating our pizza picnic in front of the tree with all the lights off except for the tree lights.  This bothered Aaron at first, but he got used to it.

Got this in the mail this week.  I finally ordered my blog book for 2010.  I love having the blog in a book, it'll be a gift for me for Christmas.  So many cherished memories to be flipped through.  The kids just love sitting and reading these books.

Some of the paper crafts we did this week.  I know, such an odd combination...angry birds and santa.  They just all looked so cute. 

What's in the workbox?

When I first started using the workboxes I struggled a little.  Okay, a lot.  It was a challenge for me to keep up with filling them, and so I gave them up for a while.  I just came across the post back in April of 2010 (at bottom of post) where I said I would not be using the workboxes any more for a while.  But, I knew when I said that, I would come back to them eventually.  At the time it was a relief, but I'm so glad I'm using them again, and that I've figured it out! 

Here is a look at what is in the workboxes for an average school day.  I love how the workboxes are working for us this year, especially since I have finally figured out how to change them every night quickly.  They also really help me to keep each child's work organized.  Aric has trays, and I only encourage, I don't force him to do school work.  He usually just loves to have his own work, and loves to be at the table with us.  But, there are times when he wants nothing to do with it.  I also have sticker incentive sheets for each child.  April really needs no incentives, but since I do it for the boys, I let her earn stickers too.  When they fill up a page of stickers they can pick a prize from the prize basket.  Aaron is the one that needs this motivation the most.


April's boxes (on the left shelf):
Box#
1.  Teaching textbooks math lesson 31
2.  Kaya book and list of questions to answer for American Girl club
3.  Zoology 1, to begin reading chapter 2
4.  Fall nature study book
5.  Evan Moore Creative and Critical thinking for grade 5
6. Language lessons for the secondary child
7.  Evan Moore Building Spelling Skills
8 and 9.  Christmas puzzle  100pc.
10.  Something, can't tell what's in there.
11. Lab Mice maze challenge
12.  Evan Moore Daily 6-trait writing

Aaron's boxes (middle shelf):

1.  Kindergarden math work
2.  Caps for sale book to read and lapbook activities
3.  Kumon word writing book
4.  Beginning geography (Evan Moore)
5.  Evan Moore Daily Science Grade 1 (he loves this book)
6.  Developing the early learner

Aric's trays (right shelf):

1.  A cutting activity (usually daily)
2.  Dry erase activity center
3.  Kumon ABC's writing practice
4.  Charlie Brown Christmas stickers to decorate a border for pin board
5.  Last of his letter H is for hammer tot school printables.
6.  Math shapes worksheet

Some things like Math, and writing just repeat each day.  I love the variety that I can have in the boxes each day even when things like Math repeat.  I can also include fun things like puzzles in between the more tedious boxes.  That's what's in the box!

Creative writing with paint chips

I found the best creative writing activity!  April absolutely loves it and wants to do it for her writing instead of writing prompts.  I have no problem with that because she has turned out 2 fun stories written on 2 different days.  It's called writing with paint chips, and I first discovered it at Chocolate on my Cranium's blog.  Then I pinned it on pinterest so I wouldn't forget about it.  Cocoa from Chocolate on my cranium did several other creative writing ideas that we might try as well.  We don't get a lot of creative writing in usually.

So, here's what you do:  You get some paint chips from the store with several different colors on it.  Then, you write a story using the names of each color in your story.  For example, here's April's first story.  She had a brown panel of paint chips.  The names of the colors on her paint chips were bon bon, belgian chocolate, tiny teddy, taupe tone, boulder brown, apricot buff, and egyptian papyrus.  Here's her story:

Color brown story

I had just finished doing my bon bon dance when I went to go get some Belgian Chocolate.  It was so good.  I went back home and found my little brother playing with his tiny teddy and my sister listening to a taupe tone CD.  I got in my jeans and went to go ride my horse named boulder brown.  I rode him to the Apricot buff tree.  We had one and it tasted delicious.  Then I put boulder brown in his stall and went inside to read my book titled Egyptian Papyrus.  I had a great time today.

Then, the next day she had blue paint chips.  Her words were dusty miller, newport mist, swan sea, distant thunder, colorado dreamer, common gray, and steel city.  Here's that story:

Color blue

It was dark as night at dusty miller farm in the morning.  It was as pretty as newport mist.  It was time to feed my horses swan sea, distant thunder, and colorado dreamer.  The sky was common gray now.  Even though it would rain today I'm still glad we don't live in the steel city.

Raise your hand if you are surprised that she turned both her stories into horse stories, ha ha.  That's no surprise there, but I thought it was neat to see what she came up with using the paint chips.  I don't have a picture of paint chips themselves, but here is a picture of the turkey's we made using paint chips last month.

Santa train and decorating the Christmas tree

 I have been wanting to take the kids for a few years now to see Santa arrive on a train at Salem Riverfront Park, and finally got to it this year.  It was the day after Thanksgiving, and he arrived at about noon.  There were so many people though that we didn't bother staying to try and see him.  We'll go back another day to the carousel and see him when it's less busy.


There was a cute little girl with red hair dressed up in an apron, wearing antlers, and a red nose that was handing out free hot chocolate while we waited.

It was yummy!

Some excited, smiling eyes, while waiting for Santa.

Finally!  He arrived on schedule.  The boys loved the train part too of course.  Mrs. clause came too.

Aaron was plugging his ears because the train was so loud.  We stayed behind to watch the train pull away.  It's always pretty spectacular to be up close to a train with all the sights and sounds. 

Then we walked by the river along the park on the way back to the car.  April was really bummed that we didn't get to ride the carousel (it would have been too busy to wait with all the people). 


The next day (Saturday) was Christmas tree time!

I didn't get any pictures of us getting the tree, I forgot the camera!  So, no pictures of that part, but I have lots of pictures from decorating it on Sunday.

So, remember that little girl we saw at the park?  Well, April thought it was cute so she did it too for decorating time.

I've had this candle decoration in the box for several years now.  It's never actually come out until this year.  Aaron wanted to put it together and see it work.  The heat from the candles make the fan spin which spins the angels, which makes a little dinging sound as it goes around and around.  Aaron loves this little decoration.  The candles are wavy because they were melted in storage, but they still worked!

Tree decorating was so fun this year!  All the kids were just so happy, and excited.  They loved seeing all the fun decorations come out.

Oh, and now all the kids wanted to dress as rudolph for decorating time. 

Alexander was even making all kinds of squeals of delight.  He loved playing with these little ball ornaments.

I LOVED that I was finally smart last year and packed all the decorations right.  I put all the kids' personal ornaments in their own labeled boxes so that they could just take their OWN ornaments out and there was no worry or confusion as to who was getting what.  It made things go much smoother, and everybody was happy going through their own box and putting their decorations on the tree.

After all the mess was put away it felt a little more festive in our front room.


Merry Christmas!

Almost 1 year!

11 things about Alex at 11 months old:

1. He has figured out how to climb down from the couch feet first to get down safely.
2. He makes a grunting/growling sound when he wants something, or is frustrated.
3. No teeth yet.  Not really too surprised though, none of my kids have gotten them before 1 year.
4. He is the sweetest, snuggle bug.
5. He'll get brave and take a few steps between things and between 2 people.
6. He likes to push the power button on the computer, and he thinks he's funny when he does.
7. He loves Mommy, but as soon as Daddy walks in the door he's at his feet with his hands up in the air to be picked up and loved by Daddy.
8. He has hardly touched the Christmas tree or ornaments, yay!  He loved helping get all the decorations out though.
9. He loves to be outside and feels left out if the big kids are out and he's not.
10. He goes to sleep between 7:30 and 8:00, and wakes up between 6:00 and 6:30.
11. He loves to help me unload the dishwasher.