Because I homeschool, I get to be with my kids all the time. Literally.....all the time! Now being with your kids all day every day could either be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective. Or, maybe it could be both at the same time! I really enjoy getting to spend a ton of time with my kids. But, I will be honest, a little break is good everyone once and a while. And the old adage, "absence makes the heart grow fonder" definitely is true. But, getting to spend so much time with my kids makes me feel a bit like a kid again. I get to "play" what they play sometimes. I get to watch their play and enjoy living through them a little bit.
As a kid, I loved climbing--everything. I would scale the walls of our home. I would use the bars atop my canopy bed as monkey bars. Sadly, I ruined that bed climbing it all the time. I loved climbing trees. Hey, who am I kidding--I still love climbing! Luke also is passionate about climbing. I love seeing the joy that exudes from him as he climbs. And I can most definitely relate. Although, I have to admit that every time he decides to climb a get a bit nervous that he is going to fall. I am sure my fear is exacerbated by him having two broken arms already in his life though.
Luke and his climbing buddy, Austin.
I also love watching Abbey pretend. Most of her pretending involves pretend cooking. She loves to pretend to have a cafe. She can set up that cafe anywhere and everywhere. She takes orders, makes a food dish out of whatever is around her, and presents it to her customers.
Abbey and one of her friends making some soup at one of our favorite parks.
cuties
One of the popular things for the kids to play at our house--especially when friends come over--is spies. They play with the walkie talkies that Luke got for his birthday a year or two ago. Well, all of our neighbor friends received walkie talkies as gifts for Christmas. So, they have been having a blast playing with them all together. Over the past few days, the kids have been "calling" each other on the walkie talkies, and then meeting up at our yard. Yesterday, I decided to follow the kids around and join in on the fun a bit. I used the excuse of wanting to take some pictures, but really just wanted to play alongside them. First, the kids worked on a creation Luke had started a couple of months ago. Luke had been gathering large stones and bringing them over to the sandbox a couple of months ago. I wondered what he was up to. He began building something with those rocks and a lot of sand in the sandbox. It wasn't until yesterday though that I saw his work completed. Friends, Benjamin and Jack, came over after talking on the walkie talkies and helped finish the project. The goal was to create a water-tight fort---one that would not allow any water to seep into if the area was flooded. One thing I have learned is that playing ALWAYS involves learning. It is not just fun--although it is lots of that as well. Play is a child's laboratory!
carefully packing the fort
making sure it is packed tightly
funny conversations along the way...
Abbey's garbage truck was acting like a concrete mixer. She was bringing building materials to the job site.
Important discussions happened about the fortress's design.
Abbey helped with some of the design elements. She really thought the area needed some trees.
The fortress had a series of really neat underground tunnels.
Sifting some sandy onto the top.
Isn't their creation gorgeous?
The moment of truth: will the fortress withstand flooding in the river between the two buildings?
It worked! Awesome work kids!
Once the kids completed that project, it was onto pretend play. One of our other neighbor friends, Kaylee, came over with her walkie talkie. The kids played a popular game they play at our house: family. They are all a part of a tribe of hunter gatherers. Today, their friend, Kaylee, was the mother of the tribe. She prepared the family's meal with the ingredients the others gathered. They gathered "wheat" and berries.
Abbey was the sister. She was helping mom prepare the meal. As she does with me while I prepare our family meals, she did lots of chatting.
gathering wheat in the field
It was such a fun afternoon. So although being with my kids all day can be difficult at times, there is also so much simple joy in it! In ways, I get to be a kid again!
I can't believe Abbey is now 5 years old and we now have a 5 year old and a 7 year old! We decided last year that we would have big birthday parties on even years and "special days" on our odd year birthdays. So, since Abbey was turning 5 this year, she got to pick her own special day. On Abbey's special day, we met friends at the park in the morning, met Drew for lunch, and then watched the movie, Trolls, in 3d with friends. For dinner, Abbey requested homemade macaroni and cheese, with peas and corn mixed in. The birthday dessert she selected was homemade chocolate cake, with chocolate icing, and chocolate ice cream. The girl loves chocolate just like her mom and dad!
You love getting sung the "Happy Birthday" Song!
You were beyond thrilled to receive your first American Girl Doll.
You also received this Hello Kitty Mega Blocks Set (just like Legos). It has over 220 pieces and it is the first set you completed all by yourself. Usually, Luke offers to help you build your sets and you gladly accept. You did such a good job and finished building the set in record time!
Every year I make the kids a special book. This book is a photo journal of their past year, full of photos and commentary that highlights their personality. Also, I highlight big events that we shared as a family and other fun memories. Instead of writing a blog post all about Abbey, as I usually do on her birthday, I thought I would share print screens from her most recent "Year 5 book" that I made for her. I am so glad I began doing this for Luke's first year and I highly recommend every family doing something of the sort. My kids LOVE these books and I will be happy to give them all 18 of their books someday when they leave our home. Even if you have more than two kiddos and the idea seems burdensome, one idea is to create a family yearbook for each year. You could either buy each of the kids a copy of that or even just print one out per year. It's a really good way to do something with all those pictures you take every year, since hardly anyone prints photos for albums or scrapbooks anymore. The kids will love reading about their personalities at the different ages someday and will also love reading your special written words! Abbey is so excited to receive this year's book in the mail! We use Shutterfly, and we can usually find a coupon code for a big discount. Shutterfly has produced my favorite products out of the 3 different companies I have tried. Here are screenshots from this year's book for Abbey:
You may notice I took my longest break ever from blogging. It is just so difficult during the Christmas season to take the time to sit at the computer and blog. We have so much fun together as a family celebrating the whole reason for the season: Jesus Christ's birth. We are so excited about Jesus' birth, because without his coming to earth to live a perfect life as a human, he would have not been the perfect sacrificial lamb for our sins. He is our Redeemer! That's a lot to celebrate!
We always begin the season by decorating our house, inside and outside in twinkling lights and color.
And then, shortly after we have decorated, a couple of events take place that have become annual traditions for us: Follow the Star and Bethlehem Village (at Georgetown Stroll). Unfortunately though, these both took place on the same rainy weekend and both take place outdoors. We were able to visit the Follow the Star event though before the rain became torrential. During the Follow the Star event you get to walk through ten critical scenes of the life of Jesus Christ. The production includes professional sound, lighting and nearly 300 cast and crew members. It is distinct from other outdoor Christmas productions because it features, not only the Nativity scene of Jesus, but His death and resurrection as well.
The kids got to sing at a nursing home with their homeschool children's choir in early December:
The song they sang above is a beautiful benediction straight from Numbers 6:24-26. After praying each week to end choir practice, they sing this song together. It's great to leave with such a special blessing.
We got a special treat this year together as a family (thanks to Drew's awesome boss) as we saw Rodger and Hammerstein's Cinderella--front and center literally (on the first and second rows). This has nothing to do with Christmas but I have to mention it because it was such a fun experience as a family. The kids did so well during the performance (thanks to snacks) and I was amazed at how funny and entertaining the show was. Afterwards, we ate at one of our favorite pizza places that is nearby, the Backspace, and then checked out the spectacular artwork of gingerbread artists at the Gingerbread Village at the Four seasons hotel. This year, the theme was fairy tales (which was appropriate after our viewing of Cinderella).
In December, we held our Lego Club at an assisted living facility, building Lego creations with the residents. I always love seeing the elderly residents and our little kiddos build and interact together. I also enjoy the conversations that I get to have with the sweet residents.
Then, Mimi and Papa came to visit so they could see Abbey and Luke's first choir concert. We took them to the Austin Trail of Lights on the first night they were in town. It was a magical evening and so much fun!
I had about 4 layers of clothes packed for the kids, because I wanted to make sure they didn't get too cold. But, I didn't realize that Abbey had taken her coat off just before we left our house and the coat was left inside the house. But, thank goodness I packed for a blizzard. We didn't need many of the layers I packed (thanks to beautiful weather), but I had plenty for Abbey so that the coat wasn't even necessary. She decided she wanted to wear the batman warm hat though to keep her warm.
Batgirl in the bat cave of lights.
On the next night, the kids had their very first Choir concert. It was amazing! I loved listening to all the choirs and hearing the skill level increase as the kids' ages progressed. Their were some amazing singers in the bunch! And each song pointed us to the birth of Christ as the reason we celebrate. Luke and Abbey's choir is the first level beginning choir, made up of 4-7 year old kids. Although, in watching the video you will notice a sweet little 2 year old (actually she just turned 3) was allowed to sing with them, since she had been coming with her sister to practice and knew all the words. Luke and Abbey looked so extremely adorable in their little outfits.
When we were at home, we spent some time singing Christmas Carols, but then also just having Christmas music dance parties:
And as a family, we enjoyed going through The Austin Stone Community Church's Family Advent. It was awesome and brought us back each time that we did it to the whole reason we celebrate this season: Jesus.
Around mid December all the traveling began. We love visiting family, but it means a LOT of time in our car. We spent a lot of time singing Christmas Carols and it helped pass the time away. We enjoyed visiting with family in both Broken Arrow, Oklahoma and in Sugar Land, Texas. First, we visited my side of the family in Oklahoma.
We got to hang out with grandpa, cousins, aunts, uncles, great aunts, great uncles and second cousins. Abbey enjoyed reading to Grandpa:
We got back to our house a few days before Christmas. Our town had a wonderful "hometown Holiday Land" that we had a lot of fun at one night.
Luke and Abbey went on their first Ferris Wheel ride. Abbey was excited. Luke was a little concerned. Can you tell in that smile? This was before the ride began.
They had a free light maze, which was a lot of fun. We managed to find our way out after a few wrong turns.
And they had "sled" races. I loved this and actually participated in races a few times. This trike was my size!
At home, we had fun with various Christmas crafts:
The kids visited Santa at the Bass Pro Shops again this year:
They both wrote letters to Santa:
We went to Christmas Eve Service at our church, celebrated Christmas morning at home and then headed that afternoon to Sugar Land, TX to visit Drew's side of the family and celebrate with them. On the way down there, we made a stop for a hike and the kids got to try out their new hiking backpacks.
We had a lot of fun with Drew's side of the family--cousins, aunt and uncle and Mimi and Papa.
Drew scored this mask in the gag gift exchange.
Abbey used the other mask that was part of a gag gift and created her own birthday party.
Luke got to ride along on his first round of golf. He loved riding the cart with cousin, Mitchell.
Also totally not Christmas related, but we went to Brazos Bend State Park during our visit and got to see beautiful trees and alligators.
Oh, and I forgot to include a few photos I snapped of the kids right before we left for Oklahoma. My intent was that I would use them to make cards that we could send out. But, we ended up getting the envelopes only a few days before Christmas and then traveled back to our home, and by the time we arrived home, it was too late for them to arrive in time for Christmas if we mailed them. So, only a few went out. Sorry. But, you can see the photo that was used right here:
I captured a few others as well:
I will save the rest for future posts. This post is long enough! Anyway, that blog post caught you up on the highlights of our December. I am hoping to blog more in the new year.
