Wordless Wednesday: Christmas Surprise

Of course the kids don't actually know this is what they're getting for Christmas ;) We just wanted to see which ones they liked.

Weekly Shopping Trip

A very divine part of Ryan's new job is that we get paid weekly.  I wish we could bottle how fabulous this is. :) So now I go grocery shopping once a week instead of every two weeks.  Since Ryan is gone the kids go with me.  I would usually rather sick needles in my eyeballs than take the kids to the grocery store, but over time it's gotten better.  Last week the kids wanted to get in one of the carts with the plastic cars attached to them.  I think this was our most painless shopping trip to date! You can see a little bit, but I actually have four children in the cart rather than two--Hannah's brown bear and Autumn's purple puppy.  I'm surprised there was any room left since Hannah was also wearing her new puffy winter coat. :)  Last week I happened to stock up a bit which is a good thing since I didn't plan accordingly the week of Thanksgiving--people shopping for last minute dinner items and of course the infamous Black Friday.  I shop at Kroger so it's not going to be crazy there, right? I'm not sure if I want to take that chance. :-p

O Christmas Tree

We actually put up our tree last week. Very early! But last year we didn't get out our Christmas decorations because we were getting ready to move. It was kind of depressing but no matter.  It was so great getting out the decorations since there was all kinds of stuff I forgot we had. :)  Of course the rest of our house is starting to look a little empty since we have packed a good bit of stuff in preparation for our move, although we are determined to keep the tree up until the very last minute.  At first I was worried I would constantly have to keep Autumn from messing with the ornaments, but she has pleasantly surprised me!

Thanksgiving Break

This coming week we are going to take our first extended break from school.  The past couple weeks I've felt myself running out of steam, and I'm sure Hannah feels the same.  We've never taken an official break.  We've had a couple days here and there when time got away from us and we didn't get anything done, but that hardly felt like a break.  I need to start finding some super fun stuff for us to do (baking, crafts, etc).  And if Hannah wants to do some school work, then I sure won't stop her. :) So far Hannah hasn't asked at all for any school work. LOL So far this break has been glorious! Our computer desk in the dining room is where we do all our schooling and such, and it's quite a mess.  I may just spend this week trying to straighten that up.

Unfortunately Ryan has to work on Thanksgiving (boo!), but he will have Christmas off.  I guess if I had to pick one, I would pick him being off for Christmas.  He's actually here in town now and goes back to Millington tomorrow.  On that front, all is going great! He found us a house to rent and he's actually getting the utilities turned on tomorrow after he gets back into town.  The house is super cute and little less than what we're paying now. God is so good!

Our moving date is also official...we are out of here December 27th! This past month or so has gone by so fast, since Ryan first started his new job, that I'm sure it will be here before we know it!

Be Thankful!!

Last night on our way home from church we were in a fender bender (my fault, blah).  Everyone was fine and there was minimum damage, so that alone I am so thankful! I don't even think the kids realized what had happened until I quickly pulled over and turned off their DVD.  Anyway, long story short the police came and did a report.  I got cited (yay) and we finally made it home a whole hour and half  after the initial incident.  Of course with any fender bender you  replay the whole thing in your head over and over. ugh. I hate that.  This morning before I had gotten the kids breakfast Ryan already called the insurance company and all should be fine.  Our deductible is low (praise the Lord!).  I hate how incidents like this make us think of all we should be thankful for, but I like to think that even when things are going good I'm thankful for everything I have going in my life.  For one, I'm thankful last night is done and over with. LOL I'm thankful my kids are okay!!!!!  I still hate that they were in the car with me during that, but ugh...if I think about the what ifs I will go nuts! I am thankful to still have a driveable vehicle! I can still get things done on a daily basis. I'm thankful for going to church and teaching my girls about Jesus. They always look forward to Wednesday night church.  I could easily say "If only we didn't go to church last night this wouldn't have happened" but I don't feel like that at all.  I had a great time at the homeschool support group and my girls had a great time in their respective classes. The Lord will work through this and all will be great in the end.

If I really wanted to nit pick, I would say now that this has happened I was thankful to have a dent-free truck. :-p But I'm not complaining at all!

Day 27-29/33

Another not so fab weekend. Please bare with me. :-/

Eating:
4124
2612
2987

Exercise:  No exercise on Saturday but the past two days I made it to the gym! Sunday I biked 11 miles and yesterday I ran 4 miles. Due to my lack of gym time the past week or so I'm pretty sore so I'm taking today as my rest day.

Food after 8PM?  Yeah, pretty much.

Bed by 10PM?  Yes except for last night. Got to bed a little after 11.

Week in Review #12

What a great week! It's like we hit the ground running and didn't want to stop.  I feel like we have been in such a great flow plus I find that I am so much more relaxed.  I cannot plan each day because it never works out.  I just write it down as we do it, and then over the course of the week I look at what we've done and try to make sure we've covered all the subjects evenly and we keep moving forward.

Science - We did four different experiments at 6:30 Wednesday morning! Wow! It was the first thing Hannah asked to do and I knew we hadn't done any science in a while.  We did experiments that involved showing how air works such as blowing air through a straw and making a styrofoam ball float in mid air (so cool).  It was a bit hard to do because it made her giggle so much.  Making the ball float with the hair dryer was pretty fun as well. :) The "bellowing elephant" was a bust since it was quite startling (to both of us!).  It's like when put a blade of grass between your thumbs and blow but it was so much louder!

Math - Hannah is doing addition out the wazoo! I make certain of that. :) Our text is introducing counting by 5's, so I'm counting my 5's really loud in a sing-song voice.  Anything to get Hannah to retain it!  Then on Friday at the library Hannah starts singing it! :-D I was so tickled!  But then she wanted to pretty much perform for the rest of the patrons in the library. LOL I just smiled encouragingly. :)

Reading - We have done a lot of her phonics readers throughout the week, which has been great practice for her.  Although we do need to get back to the actual reading text next week.  I am pleased to say that she can read all the phonics readers from the Level 1 package.  The one she's reading in the picture is "Elk Yelps!" which is considered the more advanced in the package. :) Along with the occasional read aloud from Level 1 readers, we will work from the text to prepare for Level 2!

Handwriting - I think if I had to choose a subject Hannah loathed it would be this one.  When I ask her to write her spelling words or practice writing her full name, she rolls her eyes and moans and groans.  Flipping through her writing notebook I've noticed a few pages where she's partially written her full name. Sheesh. I'm glad her name isn't any longer. My goodness--her middle name is only two letters!  I try to make it a trade off though by telling her she can choose the next subject to work on (which is almost always Early Learner).

Geography - We just started the next section of the workbook which is different types of landforms and bodies of water.  We haven't done a GeoPuzzle in a while, but I noticed that the third section in her workbook talks about different continents so I think we'll incorporate the puzzles into that.

Early Learner - Hannah has been doing the 3rd workbook which is noticeably harder than the first two. This is the subject she always picks to do first--she loves doing the mazes and separating various pictures into categories.  I wonder what we're going to do when she's all done with this...?








Other pictures from the week:



The out-of-place bath tub in the children's library :p



This week was also my Grammie's birthday and
we celebrated at my house with a spaghetti dinner
and cake and ice cream. 



Autumn sharing her Kix with Violet



Hannah loves playing computer games on
the PBS kids website, especially Dinosaur Train,
Clifford the Big Red Dog, and Sid the Science Kid.