This week has been a slow and wonderful week. Truly. 

We started off the week driving home from upstate NY where we had been visiting Rick’s family after Christmas. It was COLD, you all.

Saturday was a balmy 16 degrees, so the kids were excited to go ice skating at the local rink. That lasted less than an hour, but hey – they did it, right? 

We returned home with crazy low temperatures at -22. Yep. We were ready to head back home. :) 

One thing I am so thankful for – we invited two families over to spend New Year’s Eve with us. One family spent the night (best idea ever), and while the adults enjoyed sitting and talking for hours, the kids all ran off and occupied themselves with cookie decorating and food. It was truly wonderful. 

And in that white bowl above is one of the BEST APPETIZERS EVER. Super easy and unbelievably yummy – bacon wrapped mini potatoes. Served with an aioli sauce, you may want to eat the entire bowl. Ask me how I know. 

Ringing in the new year with friends though was really the best. We all had so much fun catching up, laughing, and relaxing together. 

Somehow I misjudged our time off before Christmas, thought we had another week that we would be able to take off, and then managed to mess up our break. Whoops. 

We decided instead to tack the extra week off during the first week of January since Laurianna hasn’t started classes at the community college yet. And it’s bone-chilling cold here as well. 

All of the Christmas decorations were packed away, the house cleaned and organized, and we are ready for the upcoming week (well, almost). The fireplace has been on quite a bit as well, helping keep the house nice and toasty. Meanwhile, I’ve been curled up with a GREAT book (seriously, it is amazing how timeless the points in the book are), we’ve been playing games, and just BEING without needing to be anywhere or doing anything in particular. 

And that is a lovely thing. 

Next week, we’ll be back in the school routine (and I have some new routines planned for the kids to hopefully kick us out of some habits and add some new things in). 

How was your week? 

SNOW!!!! 

We honestly had no idea it was coming, so when we woke up to the ground covered with fluffy whiteness, it was a huge (and beautiful) surprise. This is another one of those times that I love our road because the snow blankets the trees and it’s just lovely. 

This year, one of my closest friends and I haven’t spent as much time together because both of our girls are taking classes at the community college – so our co-op time has been limited. Over the last two years we have always spent at least one, if not two, weekday afternoons in high school co-op (and then inevitably chatting together). With the girls in classes, we see each other every other week very briefly, so we’ve had to be intentional about our time together.

We signed up for a wreath-making class along with another friend who couldn’t attend last minute. During the class we were trying to divide our time between the three wreaths and it was a bit comical – losing wire, clippers, etc. We went ahead and made a wreath for our friend as well (fortunately we waited and did hers last so she had the benefit of our learning curve – ha!). I ended up waiting to decorate mine until we got home, but it was definitely fun and something we’ll have to do next year, but this time after we gather our own greens and such!

Tuesday our group co-op met up for a Christmas party and the kids all had a chance to make blessing bags for a local homeless shelter. There was also much yummy food involved.

We typically keep the bags fairly simple: socks, gloves, chapstick, combs, lotion, soap, some snacks, toothbrushes/toothpaste, gum, and a few additional items all put together in a ziploc bag. The bags are then handed out when our church helps out at a local overnight shelter. 

A few weeks ago my aunt sent a special butterfly puzzle to our family, and we finally pulled it out to start working on. I haven’t worked on a puzzle in quite some time and honestly forgot how much I enjoy them (and how sucked into them I can get!). We set up the puzzle at the beginning of the week and throughout the week, the kids would try to work on a few pieces here and there. 

Let me tell you – I don’t know that I will ever, ever again work on a puzzle that DOES NOT HAVE STRAIGHT EDGES. Ever. The above was one of the edge pieces of the puzzle we are working on together. I had pulled out all the pieces I thought might be edge pieces. Only about half of them really were. I thought I would lose my mind. 

By Wednesday, we had a good chunk of the puzzle worked out and when we got home from a Christmas party that night, we all stayed up and finished it together. It’s amazing how you can look at a piece so many times and not realize where it’s supposed to fit until the last moment. 

And really you all, we had some fun conversations while working on the fitting it all together. Enough so that I have a Christmas puzzle on order for us to work on over the next few weeks. My aunt texted me today and told me she has worked on the same puzzle each year at Christmas since 1977 – think on that for a minute. 40 years!! And she has never lost a piece! (That’s a small miracle in and off itself.)

Laurianna also finished up her semester classes – two college classes down!! She is still waiting on a final grade for one of the classes (English), but she pulled an A in her anatomy class (YAY!!). Her PSAT scores also arrived this week, which was an added bonus and now incentive to start working on her SAT at some point this spring. 

Other than that, the rest of us had typical weeks. School. Life. Repeat. 

How was YOUR week? 

We are still decorating around our house. Even though we started the Saturday after Thanksgiving, the process of moving things all around leaves me wanting to clean off my shelves and make space. So it never ends up being a simple process. Right now there are boxes of books we are trying to sell and meanwhile find a spot for the decorations we love. 

I may also have the Hallmark Channel on as often as I can. Typically the tv isn’t on in our house, but since Thanksgiving when the Christmas movies started…well, that’s a little different. Where we live we can’t get cable, so we are trying a month of Sling TV (it’s still a little hard to buffer live). 

For decorations this year we added a creche. Growing up we had one (see it behind our hilarious tree?). This picture is one of my favorites of me and my brothers because it has so much of what I remember from being young. 

Last year I asked my dad to make a creche similar to the one we had and have our boys help. He finished it up this weekend and we set it up in our bookshelf. We found some figures for it and I love it. My dad is going to make some for my brothers as well and then hopefully we can make one for each of our kids too. I’m all about passing along traditions to our kids, and this one definitely is one to keep going.

The boys and I have spent a lot of time reading this week. Years ago our entire family read the Gregor the Overlander series (so good!!), so when the boys asked to read this again, I was happy to oblige. 

You all, I really do enjoy reading out loud. Sadly, I’m easily distractible and will admit that with the boys it’s harder than it was when the girls were involved. The girls could sit for hours and the boys aren’t always as thrilled. I haven’t been as committed this fall with reading out loud, so we are trying to remedy that. 

Now that we’ve finished this book, I have a few on hand for the boys to choose from, so we’ll see what happens after Christmas. 

My bed has been the place where quite a bit of Kaleb’s learning has been happening this week. It’s warm and cozy in my room (and snuggling can happen). Kaleb has wrapped up his handwriting book and will start on typing after Christmas, so in the meantime I’ve had him do a LOT more of his own writing in his workbooks.

Writing is honestly one of Kaleb’s least favorite things. He doesn’t mind handwriting books (go figure), but when it comes to completing other assignments – the eyes roll and the whining begins. It hasn’t gone like sunshine and roses, but he is getting to the point now where he is mostly ok with it (grins). 

On Wednesday, Kaleb was having trouble getting the laptop to work, so we put his math aside for the day and instead pulled out Numbers Sequence and played a few games – thus fulfilling my love for games and a bit of fun for the day too. :) 

After we finished school for the day, Kaleb helped me make a Dutch cookie recipe. I have one cookie I remember having when we were little, but my mom can’t remember what in the world I am talking about. 

I did a little research (it wasn’t a sweet cookie, but more of a savory – if that makes sense) and the closest thing I could come up with was a cream cheese cookie (super simple for the most part).  I want to try them again, but this time minus the jam, since that will be a little closer to what I remember. 

One of the chairs in our living room lost a leg this past week, so we brought up a huge recliner we have in the basement. The kids are rather enjoying it, and have decided that it is a fabulous place to do just about anything. 

Thursday morning, I had a doctor’s appointment and just before I left, looked over to see this happening. McKenna was working on her Geometry, and Kaleb decided to sit and watch with her. She was explaining how to do the problems and it was hilarious because he was figuring out some of the problems in his head. 

Three of the kids headed out on Thursday night to go to a swim meet all day Friday. Laurianna and I get to spend the morning together working on Pre-Calculus together – exciting times, no? :) 

That’s about it for our week – what have you been up to? How was YOUR week? 

Here we go – back to school. Even though we only took a week off (it’s a bit hard to do school when my hubby is home), getting back into the swing of things can be…fun. I went all out and made my self a cup of FULLY caffeinated coffee to start off the week, in a mug with a fun reminder to myself. :) It’s the little things, right? 

Kaleb turned 11 the day after Thanksgiving, and we celebrated with a pumpkin pie ice cream cake. He rather enjoyed it and loved his gifts too – mainly focused on items he needs to join our local Boy Scout troop with his brother. 

After getting the house decorated for Christmas on Saturday, I found a book of Christmas Mad Libs, so the boys and I had a bit of fun working through a few of them. And truthfully, it’s grammar (and hilarious), so a win-win since the boys want to do a bunch of them. 

Along with all the decorations, out came all the Christmas books. While we do have other books to read together, Kaleb and I are having fun reading through the picture books together (Gingerbread Pirates and Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree are two of our favorites). We’ll move back to reading Boxcar Children soon, but this has been a great treat and something he enjoys – and since reading is usually something he isn’t fond of, I’m more than happy to go along with this reading time and build his confidence. 

Mid-week my sister-in-law and I took a break to do a little something together: Paint Night at a local restaurant. It’s something I’ve wanted to do for awhile and finally managed to schedule in. 

We were also back to our group co-op this week as well. Kaleb has been loving his science class. One of the things they made was a version of homemade lemon-lime soda (we’ve heard nothing but praises for how it tasted JUST LIKE SPRITE) and then a wet battery cell made from layering coins and lemon-soaked paper towels (you can find the experiment in this book here). 

And finally – a good week deserves a milkshake, no? The peppermint chip is back at Chick-fil-A – one of our favorite places and our favorite treats around Christmas time. :) 

Otherwise, we are pushing forward since we have about three weeks, maybe less depending on how dedicated the kids are to working hard, until our Christmas break. McKenna has really been digging in the last bit and trying to get ahead on her work. 

That’s about it for our week – what have you been up to? How was YOUR week?