Christmas 2008

New Years Eve Bags

We did this last year and it was so much fun, Esther reminded me of it back at Thanksgiving that she wanted to have "the clock bags" again. We had paper bags with clock faces on them and each hour the kids opened up a bag of activities for the hour. I had a little rhyme about each one. Instead of counting to midnight this year, we are going to start at noon and countdown to church time (7:00). Then we can go to bed whenever we get tired! :)


New Years Eve, the Countdown has begun! Are you ready to count are your ready for fun? We will spend the day exploring space! With “Moon Rock Pizzas” We will feed our face! (**ingredients for personal pizzas)


10…9…8 Ready set go! Let’s blast off in rockets made with Play-doh!
(**Space themed playdoh set)


7…6…5… before its too late, lets pop some corn and enjoy the last movie of 2008!
(*The movie Space chimps and popcorn)

4..3…2…That movie was a trip! Let’s make some cookies that look like an alien space ship. (* Sugar cookies with green M&Ms on top to look like aliens)


…1..Blastoff!!!!Here we go!!! The countdown is over tick tock tick tock. Time to make an alien out of a sock! (*Materials to make alien sock puppets)

The fun keeps on going, lets not stop! Let’s read a space book and enjoy a blowpop. ( *A space story and a bag of blowpops)


Only 2 bags left, what going to be inside? A sticker book about space…from these aliens you can’t hide! (*Stickerbook)


Today we went to the moon and to space. We watched a great movie and stuffed our face! We played with Playdoh and with our socks. To remember your spacy New Years Eve enjoy some moon rocks! (*Poprock candy)

Happy Birthday to me!

For my birthday Gre g got me a Bosch mixer. For those who dont really know a lot about mixers, this is the best mixer ever! I love it! I have already made sugar cookie dough, pizza sauce and calzone dough with it!

Christmas Cookies

Steak and Shake and Santa Clause

Kernersville Christmas Parade

An Essie Funny

While working on school today ...

I said, "Esther, what rhymes with sold?
Esther:..ummmm ummm ummm
Me: Something Captain Jack Sparrow likes
Esther: Rum??
Me: No!! Not Rum! What else that rhymes with sold??
Esther: Booty??
Me: Esther, You know how to Rhyme!! Gold rhymes with Sold!! Gold!!
Esther: ( in her best pirate voice) Keep to the code Mum, Keep to the code, nevr speaks about ye gold!

Thanksgiving

soap making

Happy Birthday Abby

Abigail Grace had her 11th birthday this week. At her request Gramps made her a dollhouse and left it unfinished for her to decorate. Here are her before and after pictures.

Abby won't let me decorate the house until after her birthday, so I decide to decorate my blog instead. Festive, Huh??

A Merry Christmas lecture

I like Christmas. In fact, I have urges to begin holiday music around August, but usually hold off.
I have read a few articles in different newspapers and magazines this year about "stress free' Christmas and "How to simplify the holidays" and money wise, I think that is a very smart thing to do. I know our children have so many toys that it would not hurt them a bit for the bar to be lowered.
The thing I don't like about these articles is that they suggest we could destress our self following these ideas:

Don't sending Christmas cards ~ Well I happen to love getting Christmas cards and so I don't want to stop giving them. This is the only time of year I am in contact with quite a few people on my list. It would make me sad if all the people I enjoy getting cards from took this advice. I would think they didn't like me anymore.

Cook premade or store bought~ If you are not going to cook real mashed potatos and stuffing, in my opinion.... just don't bother. I love to bake and Christmas is a good excuse to spend a day in the kitchen listening to carols and baking away.

Say NO to church activities ~ It happens to be about Jesus birth and all, so to me it would be good if we give some thought to the real reason for the season.....I'm just sayin.

Stop shopping ~ Well now, asking me to stop breathing might be easier....:)

Tell your family you are staying home this season. ~ At Christmas,if your not going to appreciate the fact that you have a family and they love and want to spend time with you, well then I just don't know when ya will.

I guess what I am saying is by all means don't stress the season away, but don't simplify it to the fact that it doesn't mean anything special to you and is remarkably forgettable. Cherish your family..cook for them, love on them. Sing in the choir, send out cards, sit and listen to your family together and enjoy the rewards of your labors.

So, here is my first Merry Christmas of the year to you all!

Home School update

School is going really really well this year. I canot believe we are already at the 10 week mark. I really like starting after Labor Day. I might not feel the same about that in May, but for right now it has been working really well. Here are a few things we are doing:
Bible ~ We are reading Missionary and Wisdom stories with the Millers. I love these books. They are such interesting stories and lead to good discussions with the kids, We are also memorizing Psalms 100 for November.

History ~ Story of the World. The kids have a history notebook thye are working on as we study early civilazation. We are going to participate in an Around the World Fair in the spring and we have chosen Australia for our country. I think that will be a lot of fun.

Science ~ Apologia's Exploring Creation with Astronomy. Awesome. I love this book.I have never likes Science, but even I am learning with the kids.

We are using Math U See for math still and it is going smoothly.

Abeka still for Language and Phonics, reading and spelling.

We are in our second session of PE at the YMCA, Abby will begin basketball in December. We are looking for a guitar teacher for Nathan. We may join a coop in Walkertown in January if the enrollment is not full.

The kids are in a Christmas play at church and Abby is also in the teen play. We also have all kinds of Christmas activities to do at church,so we are staying pretty busy for sure! We love it here in NC and am so glad God has allowed us to move back here.

Election Day dinner

We are talking about the election this week in school and I got the idea to celebrate Election Day with a special theme dinner from a home school message board. Here is what we will be having tomorrow night:

Sloppy Joe Bidens
McCain-aroni and Cheese
Barrak-oli
Palin Pumpkin pie

Happy Halloween!

Trunk or Treat

corn maze

Here are some pics from the Dixie Classic Fair last week.

Happy Birthday Esther Hope Mullis

On Friday Esther had her 7th birthday. We were in western NC visiting with Greg's mom and dad at their new cabin. We were able to go on a train ride and eat at a really cool restaurant right on the river. Esther was sang to 8 times with family calling her and people who found out it was her Bday! She loved that. Here are a few photos of her day!