I'm going to work a little bit backwards and maybe even scattered since all my pictures in a weird order! I know it's been awhile, but once I got behind on posting, it just kept piling up. Now I have a few minutes and can catch up before we begin our second semester. This is Matt and Karen. Matt has been friends with Dax since they were 14 and he is really the best host there is. I'm glad the kids could see so well how one might treat house guests. We were in Knoxville for this part of our Christmas tour of Tennessee. The kids love this couple and last time we were here, Chloe ate some pistachios Matt had in a bowl on his table. Since then, she's loved the nuts and talked about Matt mostly in relation to them.
Dax and his brother loving some stuffed animals.
Add in some cousins. I think Alex is missing his Stokes beard. Notice how they're all shaped the same.
Backing up, before we left, the kids participated in a couple of service projects. They performed Christmas pieces on the piano for the nursing home residents.
The moms and kids of the co-op also put together these little nativity scenes as table decorations for the nearby monestary. They asked for 23 sets! This was quite tedious to put together, but everyone had a great time.
Anna monogrammed some Christmas hats we can use every year now.
The kids are showing off all the hand-sewn Indian outfits- Colin's being a suit I believe he requested. He also got some cowboy boots. He does live in Texas after all.
I love these kind of pictures best.
An attempt at all the Santa hats at once.
Dax was pretty excited to participate in Tuba Christmas this year. They sounded great and the crowd definitely loved it.
After that, we took the kids to Chuck E. Cheese as a surprise. I had told Colin that when he pronounced it correctly (rather than saying "ch" as "l") I would take them. Chloe is so unconcerned with earning tickets. She uses all her tokens in the portrait booth I found a whole stack of poses at our table. I do think she has the hang of it : )
Nana gave Hannah some play makeup for Christmas and as usual in this house, you pretty much have to share. The house is too small for much privacy and the girls too close in age to feel like one is old enough or young enough to have something exclusively. I set up the bathroom mirror and they had some salon time.
I'm just posting these two because they make me happy : )
Every year we go to Bass Pro Shop for pictures with Santa. They have a few activities for kids without being overwhelming and there's almost never a line.
At one point, our friend John told us he and his wife were pig sitting. He was so nice to bring the pig over for about an hour. Tallulah got along with the kids and Oreo great.
Chloe talks about the tree lighting all year long. Last year it rained and was close to doing so this year, but turned out clear and relatively warm. I was excited to see a St. Nicholas there!
It especially cracked us up when Chloe sat in on the manger scene. Other kids were doing that and taking a picture, but Chloe just parked herself there and smiled at the family. We walked off a bit to give her some space and after a few minutes she got up and they all called, "Goodbye, Chloe!!"
The girls played beautifully at their piano recital. It was Chloe's first performance ever. Neither girls were nervous and both played with awesome musicality. This is one of those photos I'll cherish forever. Sweet girls.
With some of the performing students.
As an extension of the last book we left you with, Cranberry Thanksgiving, we did a few extra activities. One was trying silhouettes. They look so alike in their funny little profiles.
Here is the book picture.
And then ours.
We read a book called Snowflake Bentley, about the first man to photograph snowflakes. It was a great book and made us realize it wasn't that long ago that people had no idea what a snowflake truly looked like. Since the illustrations were all woodcuts, we tried a few different materials to experiment with printing. First was styrofoam. Although it printed the best, it was a terrible material to use since all the pieces flew everywhere : )
This one turned out a little better. We also used cardboard- terrible. And play dough- not too bad.
We found a terrific online snowflake maker and the kids spent hours cutting virtual paper. I decided we should at least step out of the 21st century and cut our own to hang up.
One day I also set up "stations." This has been recommended to me plenty of times to help the kids play on their own but with a little structure. It only worked somewhat. I had 5 stations. The girls were excited to rotate every 15 minutes, but along with it came "Is it 15 minutes yet??" Yes, I had a timer, and yes, I told them not to ask, but they were so obsessed with the timer, they could barely play! Also, Colin disagreed with the theme of almost all the stations so he was a bit of a troublemaker.
This little play store was most popular, but overall, I'm not going to do it again, at least the way I tried it, anytime soon.
Just for fun, I'm sharing this picture Chloe drew of "Two Swans Wearing Red Shoes."
Colin surprised me with quite a detailed play dough dinosaur. He's never created anything this clear before. He's not excited about writing or drawing, so maybe he'll be a sculptor instead : )
Due to his very sweet but also very stubborn personality in the last few months- okay maybe so far in his life- we weren't sure if Colin would actually perform at his Christmas program. He only downplayed it whenever we brought it up, so I thought he might be one of those kids who just stands there pouting, which is always funny if you aren't the parent haha. He got right up there and sang every song proudly and did all the hand motions. I think he cooperates best when you just hang back a little and let him do it. After 4 years, that was our very last pre-school Christmas program. I can't believe it.
I'm sure I'm missing tons of pictures and most of the ones of my family are already on Facebook.
After Christmas we realized we didn't even get pictures with many people! I wish we had since it will be so long before we see them again.
During the break I tried to get some school planning done and am working on getting the preparation more streamlined. So far, that has equaled more preparation. We are continuing with Five in a Row for at least a few more months- probably until we run out of material, but I'm also adding in some books from Charlotte Mason's curriculum. They are quite a bit more advanced than picture books, but the girls have caught on quickly. Eventually we'll be switching to that and a mixture of classical methods to go through the historical periods. Till next time, which hopefully won't take as long!
