January Wrap Up

January Dates
I have discovered that from Sept-December it gets pretty difficult to get our dates in. Just gets extra busy I suppose! However, it will not keep us from that special 1-1 time the other eight months of the year!

Tucked away in a corner booth at Panera with your favorite 7 year old, that is my kinda date. We played I Spy, Hangman and Super Tic Tac Toe.

Breakfast burritos and a pet store were Lorelei's request this month! Loves her Dad time!

Winter Art
It just goes to show how terrible I have been at making sure we fit some special art time in these last few years when an art project gets its own category in a post! For two years GCA had art as one of their specials, with an outstanding art teacher, so I really didn't feel too terrible for not doing much at all at home in regards to art. This year they replaced art with PE to meet accreditation standards, and I have been terrible about making sure to fit in some art time at home. After my nice long break I must have gotten just motivated enough to fit in a winter craft! Woo hoo! They turned out so cute!

Something New
So, we decided to forego any extracurricular activities other than DI fall semester. We have loved having our Saturdays where the kids can just play. We are definitely not keeping with the suburbian norm, but it has been the right fit for us for at least a bit. Makin isn't leaning toward one sport at the moment, and is just enjoying being a kid in his spare time. While we are sure he will eventually get busy with activities, we are going to enjoy this time until he is asking to get back into something. He really enjoys any golf he can fit in with Brad, so they plan to hit range balls a couple times a month.

Waiting To Go Into Class

Lorelei wanted an activity this semester and would try just about anything. She has showed interest in continuing gymnastics, swimming or karate and occasionally said she wouldn't mind doing dance again. Some of these are way more time-consuming than we are ready for, which has been one of the main hang ups for me. However, one friend mentioned an extremely affordable program that offers dance classes, one which being Hula Lessons. As we discussed all of her options for starting an activity this semester, considering time commitment, affordability and interest, Lorelei thought this seemed like a fun class. The first class she left with a huge smile and talked on the drive home about how nice the teacher and her classmates were. She also learned quite a lot of info about Hawaii as they must have fit in some talking time as well. So far she is really enjoying her time and we hope it continues!

Sci Tech Museum Field Trip
The school is picking up their field trip game this semester. These kiddos love seeing their friends outside of school. They work so hard in school they don't feel like they get nearly enough social time with these friends. Friday they worked hard to complete their school work before leaving for a school field trip to the Sci Tech Discovery Museum. Then they had a great time doing their own thing with friends while we were there. Its a small local museum, so we felt comfortable with them heading off on their own. It did make it harder to get pics, but I got a few keepers.

My Favorite...Giant Bubbles!

Racing Lego Cars
(after building them of course)

Building

Air holding up beach balls...or making your hair look really crazy. :)

Bits Of Fun

The weather worked out perfectly, which we are always super thankful for in January, to play a few games of corn hole in the backyard on a Sunday afternoon.

Ever since Grandpa and Grandma taught Makin Kings On The Corner, he has snagged a chance almost every evening to play a quick game of two with Brad while Lorelei showers. Its a fun new little tradition, although it does make him zoom through his lunch-for-school packing a little too quickly. ;)

School Moments

As I have mentioned, its hard for me to know when to throw in the random school pictures I take throughout the year. Since January is kinda low-activity I figured this would work! Plus, who wants to see pictures from November when I wrap up in May? :)


One thing I love about our library days...each mom pitches in where needed. This particular day Albertina pitched in quizzing the 1st graders for us. So sweet.

Just couldn't resist this picture of our little library stow-away!

Oh the sweetness!

1st Grade Library Crew

Cozy Fireside Homeschool

P.E. Snowman Relay

Makin's class worked hard to make a book from one (or more) of their journal entries.
Makin was quite excited to write about "Glitch" the robot and the book turned out great.
They presented their stories to the class.

First day after Christmas break blues aren't quite as bad if you work from Panera!

Bookworm Bliss after a hard morning's work.

And just in case it looks like all pinwheels and cupcakes around here when it comes to homeschooling....some days you...

Eat soup for a late lunch at 2 pm while your kiddo is STILL doing their work...:(

Are delighted to hear your 1st grader accidentally dumped the entire bottle of glitter into his snow-paint...

Okay back to the good stuff...;)

We have been soooooo thankful for the gym this winter. Lots of indoor recess for these chilly Texans!
This mom was so excited to see they were jumping rope like back in "my olden days". ;)

What a neat experience!
A Civil War reenactment solider whose great, great great, great (ish) grandfather
 fought in the Civil War came to speak to the class.
(They were supposed to look serious...in case you are wondering about L's face!)

Curriculum Brag Warning! I am amazed by GCA's writing program. Lorelei is writing papers with things like quality adjectives and verbs, alliterations, who/which clauses...it amazing. These last few weeks she has worked on three papers that are more report-like and is going to combine them to make one big report. Just love the amazing skills they are learning. Oh, and I'm thinking typing games this summer? Mrs. R recommended they type these papers to make the extra editing easier for this paper...L has done better than I thought, but I'm sure she would love the typing to go faster!

When your history teacher makes it "optional" to make your own teepee and you are Lorelei...you make one before breakfast and then invite everyone to eat in it with you. :) Annnnd work out of it the rest of the day of course.

Winter Break

We got lots of time at home over break. I didn't plan many outings with friends and had a long to-do list I wanted to make progress on. It feels like when school is going its hard for me to make much of a dent in that list. Plus it was cold, plus Drover (our Dodge Durango) was acting a bit off and we tried to limit his outings before we got him fixed up.

Anyway...here are some of our events of break. However uneventful they might be. ;)

Lots of rollerblading.

Building, reading and being creative.
The top picture had a ferris wheel, so naturally you need to add a pizza truck and you have a carnival.

Lorelei got the gift of a horseback ride this year. She and I went together. She says she would love to go again. It was only in the upper 40s/low 50s so we were quite chilled by the end, but overall had a great time.

New Years Day Afternoon
Brad watching the Rose Bowl game, Lor crafting and Makin building Legos. Happy Crew!

We had some cabin fever moments.

Both kiddos love any extra dad time they can get in. Makin really wanted to make their own ferris wheel that held Lego people, so they had some K'nex building time figuring out how to make that happen.

Makin built his second option (first he built a guitar) on his new Lego set
 and has loved programming the robot to do various steps.

We read through the Ralph S Mouse series a second time because Makin received two of the books for Christmas to complete his collection. We also read The Magicians Nephew and then started one more book. When its cold all you want to do is cuddle up on the couch and read right!?

It finally reached the 60s towards the end of our break, so we were so thankful for a trip to the park!

Hoverreading ;)

Three full weeks was really an amazing amount of time to fit in Christmas and still recover from first semester. We were all ready to get back to routine by the end and the kids were extremely excited to get back to school to see their friends! So thankful for this much-needed recharge time!!!