Merry Christmas

Hope your Holiday is Blessed.
I'll be back to regular blogging by Monday.
In the mean time here are a couple of photos from our week.

A Few Decorated Cookies


A Christmas Lights Display at a home in our area
We stopped to see them Christmas Eve after church
It was such a warm evening for Dec.


More views of the lights (above and below)


These are all in one man's yard... he has so many lights and displays that the Electric Company had to give him his own transformer so he did not blow the lights on the whole street. He has a donation box and lots of people, including us, like the lights enough to help pay his electric bill.

I had to take a picture of the Grinch... in honor of the unit we did this Christmas!



And, Last but not least a picture of my dear, beautiful daughters. Dressed up after just coming home from the Christmas Eve service, where our family sang accapella as a part of the program. Hair curled and down is Jessica - Hair naturally curly but up is Rachel.

Honor the King of Kings this Christmas and all year long,
Merry Christmas,
Debbie

The Simple Woman's Daybook - December 22

FOR TODAY... Monday, December 22nd

Outside my window... This morning when I wrote this it was...bright and sunny and cold,
thank goodness after many days of rain, sleet, and gloom Now it is dark and cold and I am trying to stay awake and wait for my dh to come home... the rest was written this morning but posted tonight since I got busy and did not get back to add the picture and post it until now.

I am thinking... "when will my mom get here" concerned about her driving the 1 hour
drive from my sister's place where she lives to our house - she is 86 this year and still driving but it concerns me sometimes... will she get here without getting lost like she has in the past?

I am thankful... that the books we ordered from Vision Forum arrived today!!! We were not sure they would get here in time for Christmas! And thankful for the great deal we got... over $140 in free books due to the sale they had!!! YIPPEE!! More Great reading times ahead!!! They were gifts from my mom. Rachel got 4 books, Jessica got 5 books, Nathan got 2 books and a Henty on CD, Christopher got 3 books and I got 4 books. Thanks Mom!!!

From the learning rooms... finishing up on Nativity Lapbooks (two mini books today and two tomorrw then they just need to be glued together, otherwise on Christmas Break until Jan. 5th

From the kitchen... dd Rachel finishing the buckeyes and the kids and I, and mom if she arrives in time will be decorating some sugar cookies with icing. Pictures, I am sure, will be on my dd's blog later today or tomorrow.

I am wearing... blue pants, snow man turtleneck, snow man fleece top and slippers

I am creating... special Christmas ornaments, look for pictures later today on my blog.

I am going... shopping later for last minute items we need for Christmas day and for other regular needs like... we are out of dishwasher soap!! I have to wait for my mom to get here though so I can use her car. Dh is working 7am to 11:45 pm today and tomorrow so he can have off on Wed. and hopefully off on Friday! Pray for him if you will, those are two looooong days. He want to work this morning, he left at 6:15 and he will not be back until it is tomorrow morning at about 12:15 then 5 hours or so of sleep and then back to work for the same schedule on Tues. Also, pray the boss keeps his word and lets the guys all have Friday off!!

I am reading... Two from Gallilee but I have not had much time to read it lately, but I can't wait to get my hands on my new books from Vision Forum

I am hoping... we can go look at lights Christmas Eve since we have not had time to do that yet, and that it will be good weather that night for it.

I am hearing... noises from the kids watching Christmas movies and chatting loudly enough for me to hear them but I can't here what they are saying

Around the house... all cleaned up and ready for Christmas and for my mom to come

One of my favorite things... making a new ornament for each family member each year so when they get married and leave us they will have a stock of ornaments to take with them for their first tree with their new spouse.

A few plans for the rest of the week:
finish the ornaments, finish grocery shopping, finish my mom's gift - a calendar with pictures of our family on it, sing at the Christmas Eve service at our church, Christmas Day - enjoy the kids and time together, play games with the kids and my mom, finish the puzzle we are working on... whatever else comes up!

Here is picture thought I am sharing
Our Christmas Tree with gifts under it

Click the link to find the details of what to do for The Simple Woman's Daybook

Have a Wonder Filled Week,
Make a Memory with your kids,
Debbie

Meme - I've been tagged

I have been tagged for this Meme from my friend at http://daybydayinourworld.blogspot.com/

These are the rules: Pass this on to 5 blogging friends. Open the closest book to you, not your favorite or most intellectual book, but the book closest to you at the moment, to page 56. Write the 5th sentence, as well as two to five sentences following that.

Since I am sitting at my computer desk I have numerous books available and at equal distance to my reach. These include: Senior High: A Home-Designed Form+U+La, All Through the Ages, The Complete Home Learning Sourcebook, A BUNCH of Homeschool Magazines, Homeschooling at the Speed of Light, Books Children Love, Little House in the Big Woods, Building Blocks for a Building Marriage, and Inspirational Christmas Crafts.

But the book I choose to do my tagging on. Age of Opportunity: A Biblical Guide to Parenting Teens by Paul David Tripp. Page 56 the 5th sentence says " The Bible presents God as someone who is near and active in our lives." The sentences follow with," The psalmist says that he is an "an ever-present help in trouble"(Ps. 46:1). There is no divine 911 telephone line because God is already here and already active. There is never a moment in which God is absent or inactive. There is never a situation, location, or relationship that he does not rule."

I am tagging:
Rachel and Jessica (my dd's) at Young Homemakers
Chasity at Seasons of a Godly Woman
Leslie at Journey to Simplicity
Michele at Ramblings
Heidi Jo at Bahama Homeschooler

Debbie

Unplugged Challenge from last week

Fluffy - Pom Poms for Peace (Weekly Unplugged Project)

I have been busy with Christmas preparations and have not taken the time to blog so this is late.

This also counted as one of our Advent Calendar Activities since I put the Unplugged Challenge on a card in their Advent Calendar.

We had a "ball" (LOL) making the pompoms today. I made a giant one for my room as you will see from the pictures below.

These are the pompoms we sent to Pompom International




Nathan and his pompom

Christopher and his pompom

My pompom

This pompom I made for my room!!

The purple pompom 3 1/3 inches wide - the big multi-color pompom 5 inches wide.

There is still time to join the fun for this week, go to Unplug Your Kids for details.

Debbie

Wordless Wednesday and Advent Crafts

Directions for Candy Cane Hearts click link then scan down or just look at ours and make your own

Christopher's Heart

Nathan's Heart

Snowman Ornament - we made it instead of the magnet or pin click the link for instructions

Christopher's Snowman

Nathan's Snowman

Debbie

The Simple Woman's Daybook

FOR TODAY Tuesday, December 9th ...

Outside my window... cloudy and cold looks like it will snow

I am thinking... that I have a lot to do today

I am thankful for... my daughters

From the learning rooms... we are working on many Advent Activities including a Grinch Lapbook

From the kitchen... nothing much... my dd 22 has been taking over that department

I am wearing... my bathrobe still... I need to get in the shower

I am creating... Christmas cards and a Grinch craft with the boys today

I am going... to Bible study later - studying Daniel by Beth Moore

I am reading... Two From Galilee for myself, Dragon and the Raven to the boys, and Christmas books to the boys, and Little House in the Big Woods to the boys

I am hoping... to be able to make my ornaments... I have supplies I still need to find locally or I will have to make something else

I am hearing... music from my daughter being on my husband's laptop.. she does not like the music and is trying to turn it off and can't figure it out LOL she just found it now I only hear the trucks on the street, her occasional comments, and me yelling for my son to get out of bed

Around the house... decorations are up.. I have some cleaning and organizing to do... have to unpack from my weekend at my mom's

One of my favorite things... blogging

A few plans for the rest of the week:
Advent Activities, Grinch lapbook, More Reading

Here is picture thought I am sharing...

Our Bethlehem Village decoration - it lights up

http://thesimplewomansdaybook.blogspot.com/

Homeschool Weekly #16

This week we started our Christmas Unit. We are doing the lapbook You're a Mean one Mr. Grinch from Live and Learn. You can find it at CurrClick if you want to check it out for possible purchase.

The boys did three mini books a day.

They are also continuing to do activities from our Advent Chalendar, see the post Advent Calendar Resources by scrolling down or clicking this link.
Advent Activities for the week included:
A Christmas Carol Quiz of sorts
Picking Jesus Helpers
Doing the Think Challenge
Doing the Unplugged Challenge
Read a Christmas book of their choice
Give a Hug Day
Wear Red or Green Day


We are continuing our Artist and Composer Studies. This week they did mini books for Bach that I got from HomeschoolShare.com. I got three mini books from their site. Here is the direct link to the first pdf. Here is the direct link to the second pdf. Here is the direct link to the third pdf, it is a Composer Childhood page that can be used for any composer. Here is the link to the page I found the pdf links on. It is a page of Miscellaneous Lapbook Templates, scan down to Composer to find the Bach and Childhood pdf's. And, you can find more study tools here including a pdf of some notebooking pages and many other things to enhance your study.

or you can do notebooking pages from NotebookingPages.com scroll down until you see the pdf for Bach.

They filled in the mini books using information from The Gift of Music and from Color the Classics - Color the Godly Composers

They also listened to Bach's Brandenberg Concerto #6 again and Mr. Bach Comes to Call on cd.


Math the same as usual.
Copywork/Language Arts the writing for the lapbook on the Grinch and the Bach mini books.
Grammar - continuing with Operation English Grammar lapbook


Hope you had a Joy filled week,
Debbie

Unplugged Challenge

You can find the Unplugged challenge here:
http://www.unplugyourkids.com/

The challenge for this week was weather.
We decided to play with the fake snow that we purchased a while back. It was really fun.

Here is the website where you can buy some for yourself
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/product/1445

or check out the other quantities and products at
http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/category/weather

close up!!

Nathan and his batch of snow


Christopher and his batch of snow

As I said on the Think Challenge post this counted as one of our Advent Calendar activities.

Have a great week,
Debbie

Think! Challenge of the Week

You can find the Think! challenge here http://kidswhothink.blogspot.com/

The think challenge for this week was to tell your kids to collect 7 rocks. Don't tell them why. Just tell them that they should be bigger than 2 inches and different sizes and shapes. When they come back, have them stack the rocks as high as possible. As always, send your pics.

Here are our pics:

Nathan's First Try - 4 inches, pretty good


Nathan's Second Try - 5 inches - Great!


Christopher's Choice of Rocks and his pile - 3 inches - Pretty Good!

This counted as one of our Advent Activities too, I put a card in the pocket for each week of our Advent Calendar for the boys to do the Think Challenge and the Unplugged Challenge.

Have a Great Day,
Debbie

Advent Calendar Resources

I used the Advent Calendar pockets from

click on the box above then scan down to Gifts and the Advent Calendar I used is gift #3. I decided not to use the verses since we are doing other devotions as a family. Instead of using the verses I put cards with activities for each day in the pockets. I gathered the activities from around the internet and will list some of the sites below. I have tried to choose a variety of activities. Some of them take some planning and some extra purchases and some of them only require what we have on hand at home or are activities we would be doing anyway.

Each week on Sunday I have put a card in for us to choose people to be Jesus Helpers to. For details of this see my dd's blog at http://younghomemakers.blogspot.com/2008/11/jesus-helpers.html

Here are some of the other sites and activities:

Make Candy Cane Hearts Glue candy canes(2) together into a heart shape. Make a ribbon loop & glue to back at junction of heart shape. Glue jingle bell onto bottom of heart point & glue bow on top of heart point.

Make the Hershey Kiss Angel

Make Cinnamon Ornaments Mix 1 cup cinnamon and 1 cup applesauce with 1 Tablespoon of white glue. You want a consistency that can be rolled with a rolling pin but not quite as sticky or it will stick to your counter! Sprinkle counter with cinnamon and roll out dough and cut with cookie cutters. Cut a hole in shape with the straw so you will be able to hang them. Let dry about 24 hours. They shrink as they dry. Cut lengths of gold thread, make loops and hang. they will keep their scent for a few years. Refresh scent with cinnamon fragrance oil.

Make Personalized Ornaments to Treasure

About.com Christmas links

specifically the Advent Calendar activities and a homeschool mom's post

Go Christmas shopping at a dollar store for your brothers and sisters. Wrap your Christmas presents.

Make Christmas cookies and share them with friends and neighbors.

Make and eat a special Christmas treat.

Read the family's favorite storybook about the birth of baby Jesus.

Visit a Live Nativity Scene.

Watch the family's favorite Christmas movie together.

Walk or drive around neighborhoods to see Christmas lights (bring hot chocolate and think "sleigh ride").

Give a Hug Day.

Have a candlelight dinner complete with Christmas music.

"Jingle Bell Day" (Wear jingle bells and sing "Jingle Bells).

"Wear Red or Green Day"

Make a bird seed treat for our fine feathered friends.

Family Game Night

Make a Christmas ornament.

Pretend to be a newspaper journalist and write a news article for the Bethlehem Post for the day after Jesus was born.

Write your part to go into the family Christmas newsletter.

Help stuff and stamp Christmas cards.

Write a note about what makes your brothers or sisters special and put it in their Christmas stocking.

Family Photo Night (look through the old family albums and tell about special Christmas of the past.

Make and Put on The Nativity Story Shadow Puppet Play from Homeschool in the Woods Mini-Study of Christmas scroll down the page to pdf of the play, a red button that says Click Here for "The Nativity Story" Shadow Puppet Play.

Decorate Every Door of your house

Watch The Santa Clause, The Santa Clause 2 and the Santa Clause 3 all in one day.

Make a Card for a Soldier in the Armed Forces mail to:

Holiday Mail for Heroes
PO Box 5456
Capitol Heights, MD 20791-5456

details at http://www.redcross.org/email/saf/

Other sites with good activities:

Online Advent Calendar

Christmas Printables at A to Z Teacher Stuff

Christmas Activities at Activity Village

Christmas Activities at ABC Teach - some free some for members only (I am not a member)

Creative Kids at Home

Christmas World

Ultimate Winter Resource for Teachers

All Things Christmas

DLTK holiday site

Enjoy your Christmas Season

Make memories with your kids,

Debbie