'17/18 Week 16

      It ended up being a short week. As we started school on Monday, we had no clue Friday would end up being a snow day. A Snow Day! We caught the first snow flurries on our way home from taekwondo. At home the children went outside right away and started catching what little flakes were whirling around. After sundown, however, the clouds started dumping great amounts of snow everywhere. None of us stayed indoors. Although it was cold, we were outside building snowmen and making snow angels. The most wonderful thing of all - the snow stayed until around 10 the next morning. I did not have the heart to keep them inside, so we declared a snow day and went outside to enjoy the snow as long as we could before it all melted away in the December Texas sun. What a memory made!

Morning at our house. Saara double checking her assignments.

Sometimes morning is a good time to practice piano.

And it is always a good time to read.

Science. Looking for oxygen in hydrogen peroxide solution. Raw meat makes it visible in bubbles.

Science. The abundance of oxygen should have relighted the blown match, but our peroxide was old and had lost most of it oxygen already. The match did stay glowing much longer than normal.

The glorious snow. There was enough to make snowballs and to build over a half a dozen snowmen.

Next morning resembles winter wonderland.

Saara had her birthday party last week end as well. It was the most educational one we have ever had.

The local science museum we had the party at had a very fun and fact filled presentation about the marine life among all the fun games and activities. 

A relay game saving sea turtle 'eggs'.

A museum wide scavenger hunt.

'16/17 Week 18

The way Christmas and New Year fell this year, gave us a whole week to do school. It went by fast. It feels like the whole year has gone by too fast. But here comes 2017 with 18 more weeks to go.

Science. Saara took some nature pictures of things that caught her eye. Later she wrote a paragraph about each photo.

One of Andrew's science lessons was about the roll of medicine  in our lives. We took a stock of our medicine cabinet.

A fun winter project. The kids and I went to the forest one day to gather supplies for a terrarium.

We collected some rocks and a few plants.

And the new year came with lots of sparkle and fun time with friends.

2016 Christmas Break

Christmas break for us was full of activities. Some of them were our family's traditions, like making and decorating gingerbread cookies or going to a candle light service on Christmas Eve, and some were brand new, like making popcorn and cranberry garlands for the first time. 

We made a huge batch of homemade gingerbread cookies. Kids loved choosing the shapes and cutting them out of the rolled dough. Later, we spend about an hour decorating the cookies. 

Popping popcorn is one of the kids'  favorite things to do. This time they did not devour the bowlful of corn, but strung it on a thread with cranberries. We came up with different patterns and made a rather large number of strings.

Later, we took the popcorn garlands outside and hung them on the trees for the birds and squirrels to enjoy.

Warm Christmas day was ideal to test some new toys the kids got for Christmas. Andrew learning to operate his new drone.

Warm day brought out our ponds 'monster' turtle. This individual is bigger than my dinner plate.

Using Stencils

Andrew and Saara need to send thank you notes for all their Christmas gifts. Instead of using store-bought cards, we decided to make our own. A Facebook post by County Woman magazine brought us to a craft that uses stencils (Watercolored Handmade Cards).

I found a free bird stencil pattern online, printed it onto card stock paper, and carved it out with a craft knife. Because my stencil was made out of paper, I had the kids use a cotton swab instead of a brush. That way, they would not flood the stencil, and the color would not seep under the stencil. To my surprise, it worked. The kids' work was so good, it made me want to frame the pictures rather than make them into cards.

Decorating Christmas Cookies

One of our fun Christmas traditions is to decorate cookies. The kids are old enough now to handle the frosting themselves without making a major mess. :) This year they actually showed a lot of creativity. Sweet-tasting creativity.

The Lights of Tejas

For Saara's birthday we took a short trip to see the Lights of Tejas. It was a lot of fun!

Decorating a cupcake.

A cupcake for Jesus.

And a cup of hot chocolate for us.

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Our renering of Joy to the World in a small chapel.

Watching the fireworks.

"Pottery Barn"

 

 One of the Christmas gifts under the tree this year was a pottery wheel. It did not take Andrew long to fall for this creative pastime. Saara enjoys shaping the clay too, but Andrew could run out of batteries before he is willing to part with the wheel. In the process, we also learned new phrases, like 'wheel throwing'. :)

Baking and Decorating Gingerbread Cookies

Chirstmas is not Christmas without gingerbread cookies.

This was the fun part!