Christmas Day 2016

 This year we enjoyed our Christmas day at home with breakfast made by Daddy and then time opening presents and reading Song of the Stars and the Christmas story and then heading to church.  This year, Michael helped preach for Christmas Eve and our pastor did Christmas Day.  Then we spent the afternoon with cousins.  Josiah got a potty seat and TP from Uncle Ben and Aunt Laura- he has been one to clog our toilet a lot this year with stuffing TP down it.  We went with some friends to see the live Nativity with donkeys and sheep.

Family Christmas Pic 2016

Gingerbread Houses...

 Friday we had some friends from co-op over to make Gingerbread houses.  We used graham crackers and tried to make it easy.  It worked out really well and the kids did a great job!  They had lost of fun building and decorating! 

Cousin Crazies...

Learning to Read...

This week we finish Book A of our Logic of English Phonics book! 

We are going to do a little alphabet celebration though I am not sure what that looks like yet. 

So proud of Jeremiah for persevering and learning slowly how to read.

Ok- so this is a big feat for Mama too!  I labored and labored over what reading curriculum to get for like months and just could not pull myself together to pick one until I was at the Homeschool Convention and called Michael and he told me jus to pick this one. :) 

O Christmas Tree...

 This year, we headed back to Home Depot for our Christmas Tree.  I grew up with the tradition of cutting down your own tree, alas, when you live in a city is definitely not cheaper to go out into the woods and cut one down.  We ventured out to a tree farm that I thought would be the place we could chop one down this year- only to find the trees were only 2 feet tall.  So we headed back to Home Depot.  I was not expecting how much the kids would love to decorate this year but they were so ready to pull anything and everything out of the box to decorate whether I was ready for them or not! 

Advent Candle...

I finally made an Advent Candle wreath out of materials I had at my house. 

It is small but works well with the kids.

The Nutcracker...

Resources...

I am always looking for good Advent ideas and these two podcasts have just been so encouraging in thinking through advent traditions to help our little ones and us look to Christ in this busy season!

Read Aloud Revival- Christmas and Advent Readings\

God Centered Mom-  Christmas Traditions with Little Ones

God Centered Mom- Every Bitter Thing Is Sweet

I listened to this podcast last week at Thanksgiving and was reminded of the importance of giving thanks and adoration and praising the character of God in the midst of hard times!