the TREE is up

We left all of our artificial trees behind with the move so we went with a real tree this year. It's so fun to decorate it with the kids. We have been collecting ornaments each year for each year that remind us of something they did/loved that year. They absolutely love to hang their own ornaments on the tree and talk about each one. Maggie has a sledding one from her 2nd christmas because she was a sledding fiend :) Jackson has a Jango Fett from his 5th christmas because he was a little obsessed with Star Wars and dressed up as Jango Fett for Halloween that year. Hailey has a ballerina from the year she and Maggie took a dance class together. Caleb has a spiderman from last year :) and a powerranger from this year. I'm working on getting them all into little picture books so we remember who got which ornmanent and when. It's already getting a little hard to recall!!

Hailey is playing with our two Lego Advent calendars. They LOVE these. Caleb and Hailey will play with them for an hour each day when we open new doors. A little hard to keep track of all the Lego pieces though. They are fairly well trained to keep them right with the calendar boxes...... :)

Ice skating

These crazy littles were pretty awesome skaters this time around. Which is amazing since it's been a year since we've been skating..... Last time Caleb had to be held up and lasted all of 15 min. This time he could go it alone and it took him all of 5 min to figure out the toe pick. He would use them to stand up after falling down. Hailey was zooming around on her own too. Last time she used a really big cone and pushed it all over. Maggie was off the wall and all over. Last time she would barely let go. And Jackson...... who learned how to do a few 360's in a row. He said he just taught himself. We go skating again in a week. They will be even more confident and crazy! These are both online school sponsered activities. I love that their online school has a lot of outings like this to give them social opportunities but they are a little farther away so it's not people we could easily make playdates with.

Sledding

First real sledding this season. there was hardly enough snow to cover the grass but the kids were so excited to be out sledding! They had a great time. Caleb absolutely loves it. All of our kids have become sledding fanatics at age 2-3 and they have yet to grow out of it :) It's pretty fun to see the joy they get from it. I remember so many fun days spent sledding with my siblings. We had an awesome sledding hill right outside our front door. That was excellent.

Dinner theater

As a date night - I took the girls to a dinner theater show of "The Nutcracker". It was pretty fun. It was just at a regular restuarant and the actors perform around the tables. The kids got to interact with the performers A LOT. They would get up and dance during the songs and help with little things throughout the show. They loved it. They are begging me to take them to see Cinderella around Valentine's Day.

School

By far, one of the best things about homeschooling is the freedom to drop everything and do something else for a little or a long while :) We took an impromtu field trip to a bird refuge that's nearby. The kids loved it. I thought they might get bored because it's an hour of VERY slow driving and there really were not very many birds around there this time of year. There should have been swans and eagles but we only saw a few swans. They had a great time checking out the different stop points. They even made some videos pretending they were hosting a nature show.
While I miss the freedom it gives me when they attend a regular public school, I love the freedom that homeschooling gives them.

Just another day

Costumes play a big part in day to day play at our house :) This was a week or so ago. Caleb even insisted on wearing the Batman out and about. At Costco, he would stand there with his hands on his hips and then wave to anyone who walked by. It was very entertaining.
Hailey loves her bee  costume from Halloween. She wears it often. Years of Halloweens have kept our costume box well stocked.