Scenes from Christmas Day

I always forget to take pictures when family is in town, so I rely on everyone else to take pictures and send them to me . . . which of course takes time. Here, finally, for your viewing pleasure are some random pictures from Christmas day.

While Lutece poses for Grandma, I'm playing with Connectagons.

Tim and Liz gave Scott an antique catcher's mask. Pretty cool . . . you know, if you're into baseball.



Hmmm, can't you just smell the cinnamon rolls?

The kids both got beanbags from Santa. They tested them out in front of the television later that day when we watched Fantastic Mr. Fox (thanks Courtney and Aaron).

The kids weren't the only ones who enjoyed the movie. Ahem.

Christmas Jammies!

Thanks to Grandma and Grandpa DuBravac, the kids went to bed on Christmas Eve in their new Christmas jammies (pajamas to my more proper readers). The kids picked out their own jammies this year and were delighted with the results. The only downside? The kids down care if they match, like here, here, or here. I LOVE tradition!

Ughh. Are we done with pictures yet?

Advent Calendar, Day 24

Go bowling with friends. Our church ward here in Lexington has a tradition of going bowling on Christmas Eve morning. Everyone shows up at around 10:00 a.m. and bowls for the next couple of hours. It just wouldn't be Christmas without it.

Lutece was pretty pleased with herself. She just got her first strike.

Phoenix was less pleased with himself.

Arrrrrgggghhhhhh.

Advent Calendar, Day 20

Make popcorn and watch a Christmas movie.

Earlier in the day, the kids asked me if we could do caramel corn. I hemmed and hawed. Popping popcorn is easy; making caramel corn takes more time and I just wasn't up for it. Then, that VERY day, we got a package in the mail from Grandma and Grandpa, and guess what was in it?? Caramel corn, chocolate corn, even peanut butter corn. It was truly a Christmas miracle.

Advent Calendar, Day 19

Have a special game day with family. Everyone choose your favorite game.

Advent Calendar, Day 18

Make sugar cookies.

Those of you who've been reading my blog with some regularity know that this is normally one of my least favorite activities, but this year it was fairly enjoyable and stress-free. WHAT?!? It just doesn't feel right to say that.

The kids are getting older. There was much less craziness and much more cookie-cutting. Things went smoooooooothly.

They ate so many scraps that about half-way through the cookie dough, they got too full or too bored to continue making cookies with me.

And then I was on my own to finish up. I guess things don't change too much.

Advent Calendar, Day 14

Make Christmas playdoh! I just invented it, because it sounded fun. It's homemade playdoh in Christmas colors.

They spent over an hour after school playing at the table with it. Definitely a hit.

The only bad part was the cleanup. But what can you do? I usually send them outside for playdoh, but that's kind-of hard in 15-degree temperatures. (Don't think I didn't consider it.)

Does it seem like a bit of a jump from day 7 to day 14? Here are some other fun activities of which I didn't get pictures:

* Have hot chocolate with all the fixings (since we do that every day now, the novelty has worn off).
* Build a fire and roast marshmallows for s'mores (my friend Rozalyn clued me in on using Keebler fudge shortbread cookies instead of graham crackers and chocolate. Better tasting and easier to manage).
* Make cookies for teachers.
* Make cards for said teachers.
* Build a winter fort with pillows and blankets.
* And many more that you don't want to know about . . .

Advent Interrupted

Have I mentioned the snow lately? Ohhhhh, the snow. And the ice. The snow is now encased in a layer of ice. Last week--the week before winter vacation--school was canceled three of the five days . . . and there was a two-hour delay one of the other days. The first day, I included Lutece in our homeschool schedule. It was not a fun day. The other two days there was no homeschool either. I am not stupid.

These pictures were taken before the ice came. You cannot make a snowball with a half-inch of icy shell covering everything.

Lutece is in a new phase of "absolutely no pictures." I got a ton of pictures of Lutece running away from me (see above picture . . . lucky me, she looked over to see where I was) . . .

. . . or simply walking away from me. Welcome to our winter wonderland.

Advent Calendar, Day 7

Take a bubble bath. (Note to self: Don't let child add own bubbles to bath next time.)

Advent Calendar, Day 4

Watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Of course we have the book, which we read religiously at Christmas time. However, this is one of those rare instances when the video version is *just as good* as the book. Who can resist Boris Karloff singing, "You're a mean one, Mr. Grinch"? I, for one, cannot.

Day four was actually supposed to be "Go pick out your Christmas tree . . . ," but since it had snowed three inches the night before and continued to snow throughout the day (remember these pictures?), we traded days with something more tame.

Advent Calendar, Day 2

As tradition requires, we've been getting along on our activity advent calendar for December. We started doing this four years ago, and as I shuffled through old blog posts from past years, I thought to myself, "Wow, this looks like so much fun. How did I do this many activities with the kids and not go crazy during the month of December???" The answer is simply, I did go crazy. Every year I have a mental breakdown, but then I forget it by the next year. It's like childbirth that way.

I've taken pictures of a few of the advent activities, but just haven't posted them (although, "Go pick out your Christmas tree and cut it down" was the activity for the 9th . . . so I guess that's one). On day two we made cards for teachers and Santa. I let the kids design the cards, and they chose to do monoprints. Last year I bought two sheets of plexiglass that we use to put the paint on. Then we press the paper on it and, voila! Print!

Here are some of the final products. (Actually, the top one is from a different art project that Phoenix and I did . . . sponge prints . . . but I have no pictures of the process, so there you go.)

Lovely!

Over the Ferry and Through the Woods

The first year we went to cut down our Christmas tree, we got to the farm via I-75 . . . not very scenic and fairly banal. The next year, we discovered that we could take a more rural (and direct) route to get to the farm. Much to our wondering eyes, we also found that we got to cross a ferry en route. Needless to say, that's the way we've taken ever since.

Not only is it neat to be conveyed via small ferry over the Kentucky River, but we also get to experience some true Kentuckiana (I think I just made up that word):

Since 1785, the Valley View Ferry has serviced the residents of Fayette, Jessamine and Madison counties. Located on the Kentucky River at Tates Creek Road (State Route 169), the ferry transports passengers between the three counties. It is the oldest year-round ferry service in the United States and the last ferry remaining on the Kentucky River.

Founded seven years before Kentucky became a state, the Valley View Ferry's charter was signed by Virginia Governor Patrick Henry.

The Valley View Ferry is a free ferry service. It operates with funding from the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet, the fiscal courts of Madison and Jessamine counties and the Lexington-Fayette Urban County Government.

Truly, I love Kentucky.

The Christmas Tree Tradition

For the fifth year in a row, we drove down to Richmond, KY to cut down our Christmas tree. This December has been so snowy and cold that we had a hard time finding a day that all of us could go (what with Lutece in public school this year). We finally just took her out of school one Thursday afternoon and headed down there on the first day the temperature got above 30 degrees.

It turned out to be a lovely day, and we had the whole farm to ourselves.

We narrowed it down to three or four trees, and then the kids made the final decision. Magically, they agreed on one!

But not without much pondering and deliberation.

Ever the helper, Phoenix (with Stayc) loaded the tree onto the cart, . . .

And started the long trek back to the shed for hot chocolate.

Victory!!!

Homeschool Roundup

Contrary to what you all believe, we actually do STUFF for homeschool . . . educational STUFF, that is. Here are a couple of examples:

Phoenix has been studying "habitats" this year for his Kindergarten year. November was the month for the Amazon rain forest and Phoenix wrote a book about it. It is AWESOME. Seriously, make sure you read it when you visit us.

Phoenix found this activity/craft in the back of a book on animals of the rain forest and was very persuasive in getting my help (read: I did everything but paint it). Still, he was very active in directing me.

You may think it's a crocodile, but in fact it is a caiman. It is also too heavy to stay on a small child's face . . . or a large adult's face. It is just TOO heavy!

I kept the best for last. For some reason (I can't for the life of me remember what it is--but I think it had to do with the rain forest somehow . . . ), we decided to see if we could grow mold. Enter the Mold Terrarium.

Yummmm! This is after about three weeks. FYI, the cauliflower grew mold first, the soggy cheese last, but the bread mold went out of control. SO educational!

Winter Came Early

Saturday morning we woke up to two inches of snow. Snow throughout the day dropped another two inches or so. Do you think we were upset about this? Nooooooooo sir. (Ok, maybe I wasn't too happy, but the kids were ecstatic.)

Phoenix was the first one out there . . . followed by me . . . followed by . . . actually, no one. Just me and Phoenix to start. He swept the snow around a little.

Then he got down to business.

Snowball fight!!!!!!!

Since temperatures are down in the teens this week, I don't think the snow's going anywhere for a while. Welcome to winter!