Moon Sand

Knowing how much I love Play-Doh, my sister-in-law gave the kids Moon Sand for Christmas (okay, it was from my brother and their two girls too, but we all know who actually chooses, buys, and wraps the stuff!). Wow, what a mess this stuff makes! But the kids loved it, and it kept them entertained for over an hour, so it's hard to complain about a little grit when it occupies them so well. That reminds me, I need to start thinking about a birthday present for my niece...

Playing in the Snow

As we watched the snow fall yesterday, Ryan begged to go out and play. Unfortunately, the flakes were so small that the accumulation was very small as well, even though it snowed for the majority of the day. Finally when it looked like the snow was turning to rain, we let them go out to play.


The Weather Channel said it was 35 degrees outside but felt like 26 degrees. I believe it! It felt really cold to me, so I stayed inside and made hot white chocolate to warm the kids up when they came inside. It must have felt cold to them too because they wanted to come in before I even finished making the hot drink!

Christmas Day

It has finally happened. I wondered if and when it would. I remember having the same problem when I was a child. Ryan couldn't get to sleep on Christmas Eve because he was too excited. I was especially surprised because we have had such long days with no naps or quiet times, so I thought he'd just crash.


He did finally fall asleep, but he was up bright and early at 6:45 dressed and ready for the day. He was a bit impatient when I reminded him that we were going to wait for Abby to wake up and we were going to eat breakfast first, but finally Abby got up about 7:30 and we began the day.


We got our stockings down first. Ryan was pretty excited by a couple of things in his. I've been saving a Cars car, DJ, for a while to surprise him. He has been collecting all the cars (well, lots of them anyway) and this was one we had trouble finding. Then we opened presents from grandparents and cousins. As usual, our generous family sent way too many gifts, but we are grateful for their giving hearts!


After playing games (we got quite a few!) and enjoying our new things, we had a yummy dinner that even Ryan enjoyed! One of the best surprises of the day was the snow that fell all day long! It didn't stick, but it was such a joy to watch it drifting through the air throughout the day.

Christmas Cookies

We baked two different kinds of cookies to give to the neighbors as love gifts, and there were only a couple of each left. I also baked a favorite of mine growing up, Russian Teacakes, but it turns out neither of my kids really like them. Ryan has been wanting to make cut-out cookies for a while, so we made a batch of those to please him. I don't often make them, mostly because I haven't found a recipe I really love (anyone know a good one?). It's a lot of work and mess to roll out, cut out, and decorate cookies that really don't taste that great. I also get frustrated because they all seem to lose their shape so much, but I digress.


I tried yet another receipe, and the kids had fun rolling and cutting. Abby was overtired and had to be sent to bed for a nap, so Ryan did most of the fun job. He sprinkled a few with some colored sugar, but we saved the rest to frost with icing.


Little did I know we wouldn't be able to get back to frosting them until Christmas Eve! But then Daddy joined in on the decorating, and that made it even more special. Since he's usually at work when we do all the baking and crafts and fun stuff during Christmastime, it was nice to include him. In fact, he may have found a hidden talent...his cookies turned out really cute!


In typical kid fashion, both kids frosted about three cookies, and then they were done, leaving the rest for Daddy and I to finish. (To be fair, Abby would have kept going but we had to take everything away from her because she kept putting it all in her mouth!)

Something Different

We had a change of plans for the weekend before Christmas, and Sunday evening was spent at Daddy's office. Ryan was thrilled though because we let them each open on gift early so they could have something to play with while we were there all night. He opened the gift from cousin Alisha, a marble run!


I also brought a new Color Wonder packet for each, and Ryan enjoyed coloring for quite a long time. Finally, the projector was set up in the conference room, I popped some popcorn, and they watched a couple of movies on a big screen!

Christmas Program

Our church had its children's program Sunday evening, and after MUCH arm-twisting, Ryan finally consented to participate. I knew he'd love it once he tried it, and sure enough, he had a great time!

Decorating the Tree

Ryan has been dying to decorate the three this year, and finally we were able to do it last weekend. The kids did the whole thing themselves with very little guidance or help (not counting the lights, of course)!

Christmas Fun

The Daughters of the American Revolution are the caretakers of the museum in our little town. The Caples House belonged to the first physician in Columbia County, and the house and several outbuildings have been turned into a museum. They had a special Christmas festival this weekend, and we took the kids. We toured the neat old house, had a story read to us by "Mrs. Caples," looked at the old tool shed and its tools, and learned some history. They also had a bazaar and activities for the kids. Each child got to decorate his or her own gingerbread man, and they each got to hand dip a candle to take home!

When I Googled the name of the museum to get the URL of the website, it turned up another site with some, shall we say, interesting information about the museum.

Budding Librarian

I had to laugh yesterday when I saw what the kids were playing. They had taken our pile of Christmas books and some others and lined them up on the couch so they could play library! We visit the library A LOT, but I didn't know how much till I saw this cute game. I know it's probably a little dorky to some, but I'm thrilled they love books and the library enough to play a game about it!

Homeschool Challenges

Remember we were collecting leaves for a leaf book? Yeah, well, we did and then we forgot about them! We collected Bigleaf Maple, Red Maple, other unknown Maple, Yellow Birch, Oak, and various other leaves. We pressed them in an old phone book, and that was as far as we got. Then I was cleaning out one of our homeschool drawers (yes, the same drawer as the race car!) and found our leaves not yet put into a book. That's one of the challenges when you homeschool, at least when you don't have a room to do school in. We do all our school at the kitchen table, but we use the kitchen table to eat at three times a day too. So everything needs to be cleared off the table for mealtimes. At least that's my excuse for not getting it done yet...it got put into a drawer and forgotten about!


So we got out the leaves, paper, colored pencils, and got to work. We found a great leaf identification website (you didn't think I'd actually use a book, did you?), and we labeled, pasted, and put our leaf books together. Ryan did a great job! And at least we got it done before the official start of winter.

Doing Crafts

Ryan loves doing crafts, from the simple to the more complex. The last couple of months he's become pretty independent in doing them too. I picked up this race car kit at Michael's for $1 sometime last year, and he earned it probably six months ago for doing something that I can't remember now. We both forgot about it until we found it recently in the back of a drawer. So after finishing his school work (done in record time this particular day), he painted and put together his new race car. He did the entire thing himself with the exception of a troublesome axle that wouldn't fit into the wheel.

The Christmas Patch

We usually get our tree the weekend after Thanksgiving, but this year since Thanksgiving was a week earlier than usual, our preferred U-cut tree lot wasn't open yet. However, it worked out well since this weekend when we planned to go cut our tree, it was snowing at the lot...or as Ryan called it, the Christmas Patch! We may never have a white Christmas at our house, but it sure was fun getting a tree in the snow.


Since Daddy has a sore neck and because it was pretty cold, we chose a smaller tree near the parking lot instead of searching the lot looking for the perfect tree. It was kind of sad to knock all the snow off our tree. It looked so pretty covered in white!


After playing a while and getting our tree, we went inside for some hot cider and cookies. Each child got to choose a toy, and Ryan chose this little stuffed Pumba from The Lion King movie.