Our Month of December

This month was all about Christmas. We put all schoolwork on hold and spent our time reading Christmas storybooks, watching Christmas movies, playing games, doing crafts, baking, cooking, card-making, painting, and having playdates. My hope was to be as laid-back as possible and spend time enjoying my kids. I tried to get us all outside as much as possible for morning walks, but it was a pretty wet month and we were indoors way too much! 

For the first time, we decided to start a celebrating Hanukkah. Armed with a new menorah, we got several books about it out of the library, watched YouTube videos, and talked to a Jewish friend about the history of the holiday and how to celebrate. I learned so much that I never knew before! The boys looked forward to lighting our menorah each night after dinner and listening to Mark read the blessings.

I got sick the week of Christmas. Luckily (or Providentially), Mark had already planned on taking the week of Christmas off, so he was around to help out. There were four days that I couldn't do anything except lay on the couch, so he got the kids out of the house as much as possible. On one day, they spent hours at Coyote Creek trail. They rode scooters, played in mud, and discovered a new creek. 

Mark and the boys shot off rockets at our local high school's sports field. They had a ton of fun.

We had a family hike to the halfway point of El Toro. The boys wanted to go all the way to the top, but Mark and I had the girls on our backs, so we weren't able to. 

Our Month of November

Now that I've been keeping track of what the kids have been up to, I'm noticing that they get really interested in one thing for a month, and then drop it. Stop motion animation. Toppling dominoes. Monopoly. Baking. RC cars. This month it was Perler beads. Early in the month I picked up a $5 bucket of beads at a trip to Ikea. We got home and they went to work right away. They worked hard on their projects every day for weeks! They decided to make Christmas ornaments out of them and sell them at our homeschool craft fair. It was neat to see them so motivated and work so hard on something.

We went to the beach.

We went to a storytelling workshop and listen to Jim Weiss tell stories, and they got to meet him afterwards. (He narrates a lot of the audio books that the boys listen to like Story of the World, Tale of Peter Rabbit, plus a ton more). I met him once before at a homeschool conference, but it was a first for the boys. Ben actually drew a picture of one of the stories he told and gave it to him. We made a mom-kid date out of it and Mark stayed home with the girls. It was a fun night!

Dominoes were rediscovered.

Painting

Tommy made these scene of our street out of powdered tempura paint, masking tape, and toothpicks. It was a huge mess, but worth it to see him be so creative.

I resolved to get out into nature more this month. We try to go for a walk every morning (it usually works out to be 2-3 times a week). It helps everyone's mood to get some exercise and fresh air first thing after breakfast, and helps the boys burn off some of their ample energy.