Christmas Memories

I didn't expect it, but homeschooling seemed to slow the entire Christmas season down and overflow it with meaning for us. Our home was really filled with the spirit of Christmas as we took time to carefully select gifts, create goodie plates for friends, study Christmas and other holiday celebrations, and just enjoy our time together. Even though I didn't take many pictures to capture how we spent our time, I do want to throw a few up with the hope that they'll help me remember what a special time of year it was for us.

The kids acting out the Nativity on Christmas Eve.



Shepherd Micah & Wise Man Gabe (who insisted on the upside down headwear) visiting the baby Jesus.

Autumn and I making Christmas morning cinnamon rolls in our darling aprons my sister Eve handcrafted for us. Even though mine seems to be shrinking by the day, we are getting tons of use out of them both!!



We each took turns opening gifts, which is why 3 children have stopped to see what their older brother received. So much more enjoyable for everyone this way!



Gabe had to immediately change into his Thomas pj's. Another one bites the dust to the train obsession!

Rewind... and Happy Birthday, Micah!!

So I'm 4 months late with this post. At least we celebrated on time!
Micah excited about his new snow boots. This is one boy who is very easy to please! Just let him gorge himself at an all-you-can-eat buffet, give him a few birthday gifts & then some cake and ice cream to round out the day. He knows what he likes.

Gabe caught wearing Micah's new snow boots, while the older kids all ran off to test out the new toys. What a little lumberjack.


7 is a lot of candles for one guy!! :)

Not-so-super powers

Gabe loves to dress up. To his sister's dismay, he's moved on from princess attire, and can regularly be found wearing boyish get-ups. As I was cleaning up costumes he'd flung all over the family room floor, I realized he had yet to discover our stash of capes. Today, I rectified that. I was trying to explain what these costumes were for, sort of stumbling in my description until he looked me in the eye and said, "Superman." Moments later, he fell flat on his face, picked himself up and muttered, "AWW-AWWW!! I tan't fwy!" Thankfully, he attempted take-off from the ground.

just so you don't get the wrong idea...

Let me give you another glimpse into me the mother.

Two days before Christmas, we took the kids sledding with some other families. None of those families was allowed to go down the bigger of two hills at the sledding park. I'll admit it... I thought that was sort of lame. We'd been down the big hill dozens of times with no incident. (You know what's coming, don't you? But I didn't.) I'd been hanging with Gabe on the smaller hill, then made my way over to the big one, to let Clint and the other kids know their friends wouldn't be able to join them there. Jonah was already lying in a heap on the snow, upset. He had gone off a jump, flown two feet in the air and landed on his shoulder. After checking it out, I smartly decided he was overreacting. He sat on a bench for the remaining 45 minutes or so, still upset. We took another look at it, decided it must just be bruised, and that was that. Of course, he wasn't using his arm much for the next FOUR DAYS. I still thought he was being ridiculous. Until Clint convinced me to take him to the doctor's, who sent us to the x-ray tech, who took a picture that looked an awful lot like a broken collar bone, which the doctor confirmed was in fact a fractured collar bone. Which left me feeling like that elusive mother-of-the-year award had slipped away... again.

The afternoon schedule...

...which we have NOT been keeping at all lately! And that has made our holiday season so much more enjoyable. But soon, we will be back to our routine. Every afternoon brings something different.

On MONDAYS, we stay home and enjoy unit studies together. We'll be studying inventions and inventors in January. So far this year, we've studied the ocean, wetlands, Thanksgiving and the Wampanoag Indians, and Christmas/other holiday celebrations. Here are the kids in front of a local wetland:


One of our favorite homeschooling activities is TUESDAY science club. We've joined forces with two other homeschooling families in our neighborhood. They each have a boy Jonah's age, a boy Micah's age, and a girl Autumn's age. Kind of makes me feel like someone else is watching over us! ;) For three weeks every month, each age group goes to a different home to learn about part of the animal kingdom. Then we all go on a field trip together the last week of the month. We're studying mammals in January. Here's our September field trip to a local aquarium:



WEDNESDAY is time for unit studies again.

THURSDAY, Jonah goes to his Knights of Freedom group. Basically, he gets together with other homeschooled eight to eleven year-old boys and they learn about various people. This year, his group is studying mountain men. They read one biography a month and then have weekly activities which usually relate to the person being studied. Afterwards, they play a group game and have their weekly sword fight (with swords made of water noodles.) Basically, he's in boy heaven! And while he's away, Autumn and Micah play like the best of friends.

FRIDAY is our homeschool P.E. group. A homeschooling father teaches a group of children from around the valley different games and sports. We have learned that the homeschooling community is a very generous and talented bunch!

Of course, there are ballet lessons, basketball games & practices and piano lessons scattered throughout the week. But since we have no homework (well, I guess it's all homework!), these are welcomed additions.

Daily Schedule

Several people have asked what an average day of homeschooling is like for us. Of course, no two days are exactly alike. It's part of the beauty and also the challenge of homeschooling. But I have found that an organized day makes me a happier mom and better teacher, so we lean toward the more scheduled way of doing this.

In the mornings, after we eat breakfast and the children feed the animals, I send them downstairs to start writing in their journals. This includes writing down the day's date and then writing and/or drawing about a topic (Autumn draws with a little writing, Micah does about half-and-half, and Jonah almost exclusively writes). I've started assigning topics to give them ideas, but sometimes they have other things to record. I love it when that happens! This is when I clear the breakfast mess and look over the day's lesson plans, plus take just a minute or two to get myself mentally ready to begin (i.e., eat a piece of chocolate, look at a blog, check my email; you get the idea.)

Next comes our morning devotional. This is basically a song, prayer, often a recitation of something we're memorizing, then reading scriptures. We end the devotional with a read-aloud. Currently, we're working through the Little House series. And I've learned to let the kids (this is particularly important for my boys) take out toys to build with... it helps them be better listeners!

After our devotional, we jump into our academic subjects. The exact scheduling took a couple months to work out, but our typical morning looks like this:

	Jonah	Micah	Autumn
9ish	Math	Handwriting/Silent Reading/Phonics	Phonics/ Handwriting
10ish	Handwriting/Grammar Workbooks/Spelling/Poetry Memorization (on alternate days, writing workshop)/silent reading	Math	Math/Silent Reading
11 or so	---Language Arts with Everybody---

I'm nearly always working with one child (usually on the couch) while the others are doing independent work (normally at our school table). That was truly my biggest challenge in the beginning. I felt so overwhelmed trying to teach kindergarten, first grade & third grade math lessons simultaneously!! Our schedule has saved my poor brain!

By the time we're finished with this, it's time for recess & lunch. Also, someone always finishes before it's time to move on to the next subject. During that "down-time," they either play with little brother or choose between certain independent activities. Gabe needs that time to be played with; and we need him to be happy!! Today, he was especially grumpy. On days like this, an empty room apart from where we homeschool provides the perfect sanctuary (for playing toys or, like we resorted to this morning, watching a favorite DVD.)

By now, you're probably sorry you (or someone else!) asked. And, because this post seems WAY too long already, I'll share our afternoon schedule tomorrow.

blog change

Sometime in early June, we'll be changing the name of our blog, because someone new is coming to join our family. We'll wait until it's official, and then plan to change to sevenredheads. [And that will be this blog's final name. :)]

Also, I want to tell my family and Clint's thank you for their prayers and their fasting so that this little one could stay with me. Several weeks ago, we thought we had lost our growing little baby, and I am humbled by the answer Heavenly Father chose to give to our prayers. I felt I would have accepted if He'd said no, but I also tasted the difficulty and sadness that would have resulted. My heart aches for those who have experienced miscarriage, and also rejoices in the tender mercies of my Heavenly Father.