Last Year's Pictures, The New Year, and the Start of our New Semester.....

The Girls waiting for the Santa Run

 Hannah & Avery with Santa and Mrs. Claus

Christmas Eve

Hannah and Avery opening the gifts that they bought

each other.

Christmas Day

Princess Avery 

Playing Twister

The first snow of the New Year

With a new year comes the start of a new semester.  Unfortunately for us it comes with a terrible cold too.  Hannah, Avery, and I are all sick.  We are keeping our fingers crossed that Daddy doesn't catch it. We were supposed to start the new year off with a Unit Study on Measurement and a fun project.  Since we haven't been feeling well, our plans have changed.  We've been keeping our studies pretty simple.  Hannah does her spelling and math and we keep doing out multiplication drills.  We read the biography of Walt Disney.  It was so interesting that we read the entire book in one day.  (It is written at a children's level, so it was easy reading)  We've also been reading the Kit American Girl Book Series.  They take place during the Great Depression.  So far they are one of my favorite American Girl book series.  Avery and I have been working more on letter sounds and word families.  She has learned so many words already.  It's only a matter of time before she is reading the beginner readers.

We started learning about the Solar System today.  We will be spending the whole month learning about space and the space station.  The girls seem to be very interested in the subject.  I'm hoping for a clear night, that isn't too cold so we can take our telescope outside and search the sky.

Some of our upcoming goals are:  Arkansas, Multiplication up to 6, and learning from our new cook book.  Kids Cook by Betty Crocker.  It starts with the basics.  Covering kitchen safety, nutrition, the food groups, measurement and conversion and then of course cooking.  It's a really great cookbook for the beginning cook.

We have a lot of ground to cover before February when our semester will change again.  With the start up of co-op, we will be changing our schedule completely.  We are all very excited about joining the co-op though.  It's going to be so much fun for the girls and for me.

December and Our Holiday Activities....

December is such a fun time of year.  We suspend our normal table time activities and concentrate on the holidays.  We did a lot of crafts and made a lot of ornaments and gifts.  We also spent a lot of time in the kitchen baking.  We all enjoy baking, not only is it educational, but it is fun and yummy, it also warms up the house.  We attended two homeschool Christmas parties.  The first party was a craft/gift party.  All the children made gifts and then wrapped them.  It was a lot of fun to watch as they became secretive about their surprise presents.  The second party that we attended was for the coop that we joined.

Hannah and Avery will start the CHARM COOP on Valentine's day.  We are really looking forward to it.  It will be every Friday from 10:00 - 3:00.  They will each have 4 classes.  It will be the first time they participate in homeschool classes separately.  I think the COOP will be good for them.  It will give them a chance to be in a classroom setting with many other children.  It will also give them many other adult perspectives.  I am really excited about this opportunity.

Our December in pictures:

The girls with their very own Christmas Tree

Our Christmas Tree with Pandora (Hannah's baby) and Avery

Making our annual salt dough ornaments

Our snowmen

Hannah's Manger (she made this all by herself using her imagination)

We attended my niece's Holiday Concert

Hannah and Avery at the Craft/Gift Party

These pictures were taking at the COOP party

Our family gingerbread house

Daddy decorating the kids too....

Avery eating a donut at Dunkin Donuts on her special day.  I took both girls Christmas
shopping and out to lunch and dessert.  It was special because I had one on one time
with each of them.  While one was with me the other was spending special alone time
with Mimi.

These are pictures of the local manger.  Hannah and Avery love the story of Jesus's birth.
They have been practicing the words to "Away in a Manger" all month.

Merry Christmas everyone!!!  It is our wish that everyone has a safe and happy holiday!!  And a Safe and Healthy New Year!!!!!

November......

Family and Friends.....

These pictures were taking at a friend's birthday party.


Hannah and Avery on Thanksgiving...

The girls at Memere's house on Thanksgiving...

Memere and the girls on Thanksgiving...

  These are the moments that make us thankful.




November was an easy month for us. We concentrated on academics.  The semester also ended for us.  In December we do not do our "Normal" Table Time.  We will continue to follow our Abeka Spelling and Math Curriculum.  Other than that, we concentrate on Christmas and what it means to us.  Last year we learned about how different countries around the world celebrate the holiday and we created a book based on what we learned.  This year, we will read the book.  It will be an interesting review.  We will do a lot of baking, present and ornament making.  We also spend a lot of time reading Winter and Holiday stories.  What better time of year to spend cuddled up on the couch with a good book.