Tonight is Christmas Eve!

Well, not really, but it is for us!! My family is coming over tomorrow to exchange Xmas gifts. This is the only weekend that works for them. Which means that tonight is Xmas eve!! We are going to have a sleepover downstairs...ALL of us. TV is showing Polar Express tonight at 8, which is the perfect Xmas eve movie. Then tomorrow morning we'll give the kids their gifts, wait for my family to get here and then exchange gifts with them! I Love double Xmases!!!
Merry Christmas!

Thanksgiving Pics

Abuela and grandkids!

A5 and her cousins on Thanksgiving!

Christmas Tree Pics

A5 and X3 standing in front of our Christmas tree! A5 is holding her little Nutcracker!

A5 and all her little Xmas friends! She loves Rudolph.

The Shack

I just finished reading The Shack by William P Young! There are too many things to say about this book, I need to read it a second time. If you want to read a great book about what its like to have a real relationship with God through Jesus, overcoming grief and God's real love for us, this is the book you should read!

The Nutcracker Unit Study

After a whole week off from school, traveling, shopping and eating turkey the kids and I are ready to get back to our normal routine. This week we are doing a unit study on the book The Nutcracker. This book is not what A5 is used to, it's much longer than the books we are used to reading for school. Luckily the book comes with a cd which I'm probably going to be using instead of reading the whole book myself. It also contains the music by Tchaikovsky which both my kids love! I also have the movie, well I have two; Barbie in The Nutcracker and the original Nutcracker movie.
A5 is really looking forward to all the activities I have planned for this week. I have to say since I have all of my X-mas shopping done and the house has been Christmas-ized, I can just relax and really enjoy the next few weeks of school 'till Christmas gets here.
We are going to get to read so many X-mas books in the next few weeks...but that's another post!

Say Cheese!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Unit Studies

Our homeschool curriculum is Five in a Row, which is a manual containing mini unit studies based on different childrens illustrated books. We really enjoy doing school this way.
A few days ago I purchased this book: Unit Studies Made Easy by Valerie Bendt.
It gives me the tools I need to pretty much do a unit study on any topic, book, you name it, that my kids may be interested in. Some may take only a week, other studies can take four weeks to a whole semester. The best thing about it is, if both my kids want to learn about dinosaurs or Noah's Ark, I can teach them both at the same time using the unit study. Of course the younger one would not be required to do the same amount of work as the older, but that way I don't have to teach A5 one thing and then teach X3 another. They can both work together, do research together etc. I'm already planning a few unit studies for next year!!

Mini Pre Thanksgiving Dinner

Our church is having a Thanksgiving Eve service tonight, so we decided to have a mini thanksgiving dinner before going to the service. The truth is A5 wanted to eat "Thanksgiving" turkey so bad that we decided to buy turkey drumsticks just so we could give her a little Thanksgiving dinner at home, since we are going to Grandmas on Thursday!
We'll be having mashed potatoes, corn & gravy with stuffing and of course turkey.
So by the time Thursday comes I'll already be sick of turkey. :)

Book List

I've been reading this book by George MacDonald; The Fisherman's Lady. I have to say I'm really enjoying this book. Now one thing you need to know about this book, it was published in 1875.
The edition I'm reading's actually an updated version of the book published in 1982.
The book starts with a dead body and so of course there's a mystery surrounding this death.
The first few chapters were a bit hard to get into because of the language. I'm just not used to reading old English or Scottish, whatever it is. But once I got used to it I was able to really get into it. The funny thing is, even though this book is over a hundred years old some of the themes are alive and well today. It amazes me to see how far we've come in terms of technology, education, and so on but as far as people we are all still the same. If you ever come across this book go ahead and read it, you won't be disappointed!
I've been told that if you love C. S. Lewis you'll like George MacDonald.

Christmas All Around!

Today we had our Christmas parade. Yes, I know it's the 16th....of November!!!The parade was schedule for Dec 1st, but for some reason 'sboro had it today. A5 is a Daisy Girl Scout and she was supposed to be in the parade. However she still has a bit of pink eye. I say a bit of pink eye because yesterday I bought Similasan Pink Eye relief eye drops and her pink eye is all but history. Still, I didn't want to risk it so I decided not to send her.
We went to Walmart instead...WOW!! Xmas is here!! We spent almost three hours there just walking around looking at everything Xmas. So many toys, so many things to give as gifts and sooo cheap!!! Needles to say I got all of my Xmas shopping DONE!!
Now my new mission from this day on is to avoid Walmart at all cost! :)

Pink Eye

X3 has had a cold for a few days now, two days ago his eyes were red with a heavy discharge.
We thought it was allergies, this morning his sister A5 woke up with a "pink eye". So here we are, at home instead of Clubs because of pink eye.
They were around a lot of kids yesterday, I hope none of the other kids got it.
I hope I don't get it!

House Cleaning Day

Today is our day off. We have a four day school week and Wednesday is our day off, well off for the kids. This is my day to do laundry, vacuum, clean the bathroom... you get the idea. I like having this break in the middle of the week, A5 seems to like it as well. She knows that after two days of school we have a day off. Of course once the kids are older I'll start to enjoy this day more!!

My Very First Post!

This week we are doing a Thanksgiving Unit. We're reading this book I found at Booksavers: The Pilgrims' First Thanksgiving. I have to say we are really enjoying this book, it has so much info on what happened that first year in Plymouth.
I'm trying to find a movie about Thanksgiving but other than Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving I can't think of any other kids movie that deals with this holiday.

I'm looking forward to our week off from school, after that three more weeks and then X-mas vacation!! We've been homeschooling since June and a three week break sounds very nice! I like our year long school schedule but next year I think I'm going to take the whole month of July off.