Monday, December 31, 2012

Bye Bye 2012

Guess who caught a ride on Santa's sleigh and came for a surpise visit?
We had no clue. Nana and her co-conspirators were very good at keeping the secret.
A was very excited to show V her new LEGO Alphabet book.
Thank you thank you and thank you to the special people who made this NewYear's great.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Who's That Girl?



Wait a minute....how did this picture get in here?
When did these boys get so big?
 

Thursday, December 27, 2012

Does Not Compute

Our Christmas time visit with Grampy is coming to a close. We've had a great visit and made some super memories.
Today we had M's cousin and her family over for a visit. The boys were tickled to meet some more cousins and I wish I had remembered to ask for permission to put their pics on here so you could see how cute they are. You'll just have to trust me.

The holidays highlight a specific problem for me.

Electronics

I'm not a big fan of the kids being on them and I like to limit their use as much as possible. During the school weeks that's not really difficult. There just isn't that much time available after school work, activities and playdates etc.
But during school break....grrr-r-rr-rrr. It's near impossible to find that reasonable balance between what I want and what they want.

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

This Was It

Aaaw...aren't they sweet? E is loving his new hockey gear.
 
It's not just the girls who need to spend some time in the kitchen to get Christmas dinner on the table.
And voila! Food, food and more food.
More people = more fun
 
After eating the boys had some play time together.
 
And then we decided to really get the party started.
 
And I mean all of us. We were singing up a storm.
 
But all good things must come to an end eventually.
Before calling it an evening we grabbed a picture of us all.
Merry Christmas 2012

Monday, December 24, 2012

Eve

We made it to church.
After M and his dad worked their magic in the kitchen.
(Tomorrow we will be tasting some delicious stuffing.)
\ 
After the boys made some yummy and fancy gingerbread cookies.
(We didn't wait until tomorrow to taste these.)

The boys did have to wait until after church to get into their Christmas Eve presents.
(Looks like A knows how it's done.)
 
One of our house guests enjoying the festivities.
Here they are in their new pyjamas.
It didn't take long for them to fall asleep.
I gave them the 8a.m. warning. No wake up before that!!
This may be my new favourite picture.

Saturday, December 22, 2012

Countdown

I had one last gift to grab.
Done.
Here's my cuties. We're still working our way through the Narnia series.
 

Friday, December 21, 2012

Pre-Christmas Fun

There are times in our homeschooling year when I start to feel a little guilty for not doing more 'sit down-pencil to paper' work. When we have visitors to distract us....or when I'm feeling ill (there's no substitute teacher here).....or when we have company AND I'm sick. But I need to remember to keep it all in perspective.
The schools in our province have 194 mandated instructional days per year. The school days are 6.5 hours long. That's 1261 hours per year. Of course, not all of those hours are spent on core academics. We can assume an hour each day is recess/lunch (-194hours). And that at least 15 minutes is spent getting settled in the a.m. and getting ready to leave in the afternoon (-97hours). I conservatively estimate that about 30 minutes is lost each day to moving around the school (-97hours). This province requires a minimum of 20 minutes a day of vigorous physical activity and we have to factor in time to get to the gym! (-97hours).  There's also the prep. time for the class concerts at Thanksgiving, Christmas and the end of the year.....let's assign four hours to prepare for each concert (-12hours). There's assemblies and pizza days and pyjama days and craft days.......(-10hours??). And naturally there are those days the teacher is away and someone is filling in, those are rarely productive, maybe three of those a year? (-19hours). Don't forget the 'get to know you days' at the beginning of the school year (-18hours). And those 'almost the end of the year' days...that last week is pretty not academic (-30hours).
You see where I'm going with this??

Perspective. I need to relax and enjoy the pre-Christmas fun.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Code Milky Green

It seems everyone around us has been getting sick and now it's our turn. E woke us up last night with a low fever and congestion. Today he was laying around in recuperation mode.
This guy has already bounced back from his couple days of illness.
This is definitely one of the homeschool hazards. When one is sick....school is off. So by the time we all have our turn being ill....we have missed a chunk of school. We did get some done today though.
 

Grampy has proven himself to be quite the skilled board game player.
He has been trouncing the boys at Racko, MasterMind and Uno.
(Though M kicked his butt at chess tonight)
Though they normally don't stay still for long...they are cuddlier when they are sick.
So cute. 

Sunday, December 16, 2012

More Christmas Related Pics

My graffitti boys.
Remember that really cool spray snow?
I introduced the boys to that this week.
And even though it's doubtful our current snow will last the rain we're supposed to get tomorrow....
they got out in it for a little while at least.

This afternoon A munched one down until it was just eyes left.

Update Dec2020

My Guy A My Guy E School Rooms at Home Deck the Halls It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas