Christmas 2014

Merry Christmas!!!  It's been a great, stressful, wonderful, crazy, ridiculous, awesome Christmas!  The kids did an awesome job in our church Christmas pageant last night and then had an exciting morning of opening presents.  There were a few glitches along the way, like forgetting to put out cookies and milk until after the kids went to bed (Santa still got to eat them, don't worry!) and the fact that everyone got new boots for the country except for Ruby whose boots plummeted into the Atlantic Ocean when Prancer sneezed (luckily he's sending a new pair in the mail tomorrow!).  The best part of Christmas is watching the kids enjoy so many fun new things and actually behave and get along (for now!).  We keep saying things like, "Next year when we're in the new house..." And even though that line is overused, I'll say it again...Next year when we're in the new house for Christmas, things will hopefully be a little less stressful and a little less harried but that is also part of what comes with Christmas no matter what.

And, with Ford's Emmet jacket, I feel the need to state for the record, I'd rather listen to "Let it Go" any day over "Everything is Awesome"...boys need to stop complaining about music from Frozen!!!

Closed for Winter Break!

i can't believe we made it to the last day of school for 2014!!!  With all the anticipation in the air, the kids have been CRAZY!!!  That is a truth no matter what kind of school your kids attend!  Everyone did a great job with our Science unit on the human body.  Ford and Rachel have been doing great with our new spelling system.  Ruby is anxious to have more school work and Baxter and I are both anxious to be in our own school house, not a basement!  Speaking of the house...the framing is finished, the tar paper is on the roof, we even have a carport!  Next is all the rough-in stuff like electrical, plumbing, and HVAC.  All but two windows are in and they'll go in Monday along with the three doors (front, back, and carport.  It's really looking and feeling like a house now.  It was a little surreal to drive down the driveway yesterday and come out of the woods to an actual house!!  We haven't been out there much because of the mud, and when we do go out we go through Ms. Kathie's field, bit yesterday it was dry enough to go the whole driveway and it was awesome to see the house at the break in the woods!  Hopefully the weather will cooperate to get the porches, stairs, and chimney completed soon.  It's amazing to see it all come together in such a short long time :)

A torn frenulum and no pacifier

One week ago I lost Baxter's pacifier.  He only had one and I kept saying if he (okay, if I) lost it, we'd be done with the pacifier.  Maybe it had something to do with unpacking from our Thanksgiving beach trip, or the fact that we were driving a strange car truck since the Suburban broke down, or maybe it was just a lack of sleep that causes me to misplace the doggone thing, but the pacifier was gone.  I checked the diaper bag a million times.  I checked the truck a hundred times.  I did not go back to the library (the last place I remember him having it) because let's face it, a pacifier that's been on the floor of the public library that long might as well be thrown in the trash!  So, here we are a week later and my sweet little 11 month old who busted his mouth and tore his upper lip frenulum yesterday hasn't cared one bit that his pacifier's gone.  This was the easiest pacifier transition I've ever known.  So glad to be done with that!!!
I guess now I should catch you up on school...
It's Science time and we are knee deep into the study of the human body.  Ruby and Ford are learning all about their five senses. Rachel has learmed about the skeletal system, muscular system, and circulatory system...next we go to the digestive system and nervous system.  Next week we'll all talk about taking care of our bodies (sleep, eating healthy, exercise and such).
Ford will be starting addition this week.  Rachel is adding three digit numbers and rounding to the hundreds place.  She will be adding money in a couple of days.
Everyone is finishing up poetry this week.  Next week we'll write some Christmas poems.  We've been talking about alliteration, personification, similes, and speakers.
Rachel is getting close to cursive, Ford is almost finished with lower case letters, and Ruby is about ready for a handwriting book.
Ford has been reading Clifford books which focus on certain letter sounds and combinations.  Rachel has almost finished all of the American Girl books.  Ruby is getting antsy to read, so I think in January we'll start the pre-reading Bob books.
We have been doing lots of Christmas crafts and hope to build gingerbread houses this Friday.  We've also been reading Christmas stories every day.
Some days are great, some days are hard, and every day is exhausting, but I do feel like we're learning a lot (myself included!).