Advent Season

We are celebrating Advent again this year. On my kitchen table I have a centerpiece. It's a simple box with five votive candle holders and some rocks in the bottom. For the fall I added an autumn cloth underneath and some miniature pumpkins in the box. It looked really nice but I forgot to take a picture until it was cleaned up.

For advent we make it our advent wreath. It is not quite perfect as it is not round, but it works for us! And we eat dinner on Sunday at the table with the Advent candles lit. We are trying something new this year with the rocks. I dumped them all into a bowl and whenever someone does or says something nice, helpful, etc for someone else they get to put a rock back in the box. Our goal is to have it filled up by the end of Advent!

I was so tickled to find this burlap cloth in one of the Christmas boxes. I had forgotten all about it.

We are reading this book again for the third year in a row. The kids absolutely love it and it comes with an Advent calendar too.

We are leaving Baby Jesus out again until Christmas Eve. I put him in a drawer but Mia said he was in Mary's tummy so she put him behind Mary.

And the Wise Men are across the room again this year. They will make their journey starting Christmas Eve when they see the star in the sky. They will have to travel a little faster this year, on turbo-charged camels. We are leaving for a trip on December 27th so Epiphany will be coming early to our house!

Happy Advent everyone!

Money Savers

I have been saving money right and left lately. I recently found out about Ebates from Beth and since I buy almost everything online I'm racking up the money. It goes into my Paypal account and the only thing I use Paypal for is to pay the chicken lady. She delivers fresh-from-her-farm eggs to our door every Wednesday. No more guilt about shopping. It's paying for quality food for the family!

I've also been using Groupon to try some different indoor activities for the winter. A few weeks ago we used a Groupon to go to a glow-in-the-dark miniature golf place.

It was a blast! Anna only lasted about four holes actually golfing, but she climbed on everything the rest of the time. Mia golfed her little heart out and really loved it.

It was a chilly day but we were nice, warm, and glowing!

Thanksgiving 2014

Last Tuesday we headed out to Palm Desert for some sun, fun, family and food! It was nice here while we were gone, but it wasn't in the 80's. We hit the desert just right. It was in the 80's for three days, the three days we were there!

Our first stop - as always - was In n Out. This was a sign of things to come. Food, food, and more food. Can anyone say pie for breakfast? Seriously.

Our first day we headed up to Dar and Sean's. Boggle is a game Dar and I play EVERY TIME we are together. Mia played for the first time. And she actually made her own words! About half were real. We let her have points for dux and sif and many more phonetic words. She was so excited to play with us and lasted the whole ten rounds!

The next day we picked up Beth and Greg at the Palm Springs airport. We had lunch, went Christmas shopping, food shopping,and checked into our hotel. The girls were pretty exhausted and Anna had her quote of the day: "I don't feel good. I'm sick of being in the car."

In the morning the whole family, plus Aunt Helen and Uncle Bob, and minus Joey's clan, went for our own Thanksgiving Turkey Trot. It was pretty short with a two year old, four year old, and five year old in tow. Basically, we walked to the front of the resort which was about half a mile. We ended at a little park and then walked back and had cinnamon rolls, eggs and bacon for breakfast. Beth organized the whole thing!

After breakfast we headed to the pool. Joey and Brittany arrived around that time too. We spent a couple of hours there and then got ready for Thanksgiving dinner at the hotel restaurant. All 19 of us (the thirteen of us, plus Aunt Helen, Uncle Bob, Sean, Darlene, Dani and Michael.)

I have no pictures from the dinner! But I know someone has them as I remember the waiter taking them. Hopefully I'll get them soon! Dinner was pretty good for a mass production and I didn't have to cook or clean-up. Score.

The next day the guys went golfing. Greg's dad joined them. Yes, it does seem that almost everybody we know was in Plam Desert for Thanksgiving!

The girls took the kids to the activities center to play while the guys golfed.

For dinner that night we had "fake leftovers". Dan bought some turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes at Costco so we could have some leftovers. The funny thing is, there was so much food at dinner at the restaurant that we did in fact have real leftovers!

It was also Arek's birthday, but we had no matches, lighters or even a gas range to light the candles. Dan tried the toaster. Nope. But we sang anyway!

After the little celebration we opened a few Christmas presents for those that brought them and then headed out to Wild Lights at The Living Desert. I was thrilled not to be at a light display where it was in the 20's!

Sweet babies all together!

We came home on Saturday hoping to avoid all the people. It was still very crowded at the airport, but apparently nothing like Sunday! Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving Coop

Thanksgiving is over and we are now well into the Christmas season. These last two years, with Thanksgiving so late, have caught me a little by surprise. I am not where I usually am with Christmas preparations!

The Monday before Thanksgiving the girls and I went to a Thanksgiving coop with our homeschool group. There is a good group of kids close to our girls age this year and we are getting to know them through the coops.

It started off with learning how to draw pilgrim hats.

Then they made their own pilgrim and Indian hats.

The readers were pilgrims and the nonreaders, Indians. Mia raised her hand to be a reader when I was out of the room!

She did pretty well reading the script with a little help from an adult, considering she kept her script on the floor!

Group shot!

Lastly they made Indian bracelets.

After all the crafts and stories we had a feast of lunchmeat, cheese, bread, fruit and veggies with cookies for dessert!

Atelier Homeschool Art DVD's

As part of going to a public school on Fridays, we get to borrow curriculum from the district. The main things we use, All About Reading, Abeka math, and Handwriting without Tears, are not items that they stock. But I did check out a DVD art curriculum. I had looked at it online in the summer but decided not to spend $300 on something I wasn't sure about it. But now it was free to check out!

We brought home Level 1 of Atelier Homeschool Art DVD's. It is for 4-6 year olds. I told Mia she needed to finish the lesson, but Anna could do as much as she felt able to do. Anna finished the practice page and then went off to play.

The lesson was about lines. After analyzing the lines in a Matisse portrait, they practiced making lines on their practice paper. The DVD shows the teacher doing projects but also students working too. I like this because students often want to quit when they can't make it "as good" as the teacher.

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After practicing all type of lines, the lesson taught Mia how to make a caterpillar and fill it in with different types of lines.

Mia added legs to hers. The finished product was pretty impressive.

The only bad thing about this program is that we will have to turn it in for the summer and wait until fall to check it out again!

Surprise Breakfasts

I think I posted on this before, but since this is our family photo album it warrants another post for memories.

The girls like to sometimes make "surprise breakfasts". Basically, when they want to eat something we don't usually eat for breakfast they come downstairs before me and make a surprise breakfast.

They smelled the chocolate muffins I had made the night before, hence their gracious willingness to make breakfast for me! The muffins were for Friday night dessert and movie. I don't keep anything in the house anymore that is not fairly healthy so it wasn't a big deal. They also got chocolate chip cookies out of the freezer too. Both of these are made with almond flour and honey and have no dairy in them so they really are better than what a lot of people eat for breakfast every day.

They added some popsicles from the freezer (banana and raspberries blended together) and they called me down when it was ready.

Then I asked what these other plates were for.

Decorations of course, Mom!

Puppet Theater Coop

On Tuesday we went to a Make Your Own Puppet Theater coop with our homeschool group. The girls brought cereal boxes which we turned inside out and cut a big hole in.

Then we embellished them.

You can tell that one of the girls prefers to do all her own work these days.

We used popsicle sticks to make the puppets. The girls have been working some more on them at home during Quiet Time. It was fun!