Between Christmas and Epiphany

We've had a very busy, tiring, but fun twelve days of Christmas.

Pop-Pops helped Daddy build the dome.

We played with new Christmas gifts, like the fabulous climbing dome from Grandmom and Pop-Pops.

Our monkeys need more things to climb!

Mama moved the entire school room around, decided she didn't like it, moved everything back into place, made a few small furniture changes she did like, reviewed progress through two quarters, sketched out progress for the third quarter, and read ahead in subjects that need it, like catechism, history, and virtues. Mama also designed a whole new routine for the morning, which will merit its own blog post if it is deemed successful.

Margaret enjoying her new bicycle bell and warm hat.

We played games of Qwirkle.

Lunch at Cook-Out with the grandparents

Grampa Neil left, and Grandmom and Pop-Pops dashed up for a quick, two-day visit.

Mama read 'Treason: A Catholic Novel of Elizabethan England' and loved it.

We ate chocolate fondu on New Year's Eve.

Our sleeping routine got all out of whack, but maybe it's a good thing if kids continue to sleep in 'late' (between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m.) because Mama could exercise without their watching so much TV-as-babysitter. Experiments will continue . . .

We attended several Christmas dinners/parties, 

which was so fun and so tiring, 

until we got sick, 

and then we were just plain tired at home 

and had to cancel our last two planned social events.

Some might say I went off my lose-the-baby-weight diet, but I think that sounds so negative. Instead I like to think that I spent our vacation perfecting a diet that Hollywood starlets might use to gain a lot of weight rapidly for an upcoming big screen role. Think they'll pay me the big bucks if I share my weight-gain secrets?

We enjoyed two special Masses.

A yucky illness sweeping through our parish and city hit our house. You know Mama is becoming an experienced, homeschooling mother when her internal response is, "Well, better now when we still have some vacation left than next week when we plan to resume school."

We tried to snuggle in and read through 'The Indian in the Cupboard' before getting back to school.

Chris painted the interior of the garage, and installed useful and fabulous new shelving!

Children reading quietly with a baby playing sweetly

A woman a generation older than me remarked that "my mother used to tell us to go off and play or to go read." While my kids go off and play plenty--which almost always results in fights which I then have to negotiate or for which I have to dole out consequences, so it's hardly worth it)--it had never occurred to me to tell them to "go read" (outside of our regularly scheduled hour-and-a-half Quiet Time after lunch). So, I've tried it a few times. For example, when I needed a few minutes to do a task without them, and I didn't want them to "go off to play" (read: likely high volume, mischief, and breaking into fights), I instructed them to (1) pick up the den so it was neat, (2) put on an audio book (they chose 'Narnia'), and each (3) sit (4) quietly (5) in one spot and (6) look at a book of their choosing. I've tried this a few times and see that it can only work with a solid foundation of obedience already in place. We still have kinks to work out and I doubt I could over-use this tactic, but we're working on it and I love the results!

Tomorrow . . . the Feast of Epiphany! That means today I am gearing up by baking a three kings' cake, planning a craft of making crowns, having the creche ready, wrapping gifts, printing out three kings' pictures to color, finding the Bible story to read . . .