The Week of Winding Down – Homeschool and Life Happenings

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?