A Day in December

Homeschooling in December is amazing.  Yes, yes, it's the first day of December, but still.  I love that we can take advantage of the very small window of time where it's not dark and freezing.  I love that we can get our work done with plenty of time to enjoy the season and get projects and baking done.  I love that baking counts as reading comprehension and math....actually, I love that a lot :) 


Today was such fun.  We started our day off slowly, but got through our Primary Arts of Language work, math, reading, and some CC review by noon.  Logan's PAL handwriting has looped around to include uppercase letters, so I took the opportunity to match up Riley's work so that he can do cursive on the same schedule as Logan's printing.  It makes my life easier when I can get something to match up! 


We took a few minutes to get our rooms clean and put our schoolwork away, and then the kids helped me get a few snacks ready because we had friends coming over to play some games for the NWF.  The woman taping went to middle and high school with me and needed some kiddos to play, and I definitely have those.  My mom nearly had a heart attack about it because this person had been just right of center of some girl drama and foolishness that really hurt me "back in the day".  In fact, my dirty little secret is that after said drama (which involved both girls and church youth group, a lethal combo) I tried REALLY hard to be an atheist for two years.  


Don't worry- it didn't take.  


The self-loathing took, though.  I was good at that before it started.  However, as I told my mom, I'm not 13 anymore, and I grew up.  It makes my heart happy that I can be over things that, at the time, truly truly felt like the end of the world.  


I'm a grown up and stuff, people.


Anyhow, the kids had a great time, and it was truly great to see someone from the past.  So often, even when we see people on facebook, our ideas about people get frozen in the past and it's just not who people are anymore.  I really enjoy "meeting" people that I knew decades ago as totally different people.


The kids had fun playing games and being filmed (they're all talking about being movie stars now) and between "scenes" had a great time playing pretend with every toy in the house and, of course, Riley's birthday present from Uncle Kevin.

Her name's Caramelita (you can't see it- but she's caramel colored). She's the nicest bunny, ever, and if you let her out to hop with access to her cage, she won't even poop on the floor.  We're hoping that she and Bun Bun will bond, since our research indicates that female rabbits will form bonded pairs and live happily together, but Bun Bun keeps trying to....umm....do things that make us worry BunBun is not, in fact, a female.  It makes me worry.


After our friends left we had a very successful first night of our pantry challenge with baked potatoes stuffed with pulled chicken and sour cream, cole slaw, and broccoli.  Savannah helped make the chicken, which turned out really good!  We did 3 (VERY LARGE) chicken breasts with garlic powder, chopped onion, a pinch of cayenne, a bottle of honey bbq sauce, 1 cup of diet coke, 1/2 cup ketchup, 1T honey, and 1t cumin.  We probably could have just done the bbq sauce and water, but Savannah really loves to add stuff to the pot so we just kept adding and it turned out really good! All the boys went back for more, I cleaned my plate, and Savannah categorically refused everything on the plate because her arm was too tired to pick up the fork, which she's done every night for the last month.  


She eats breakfast like a champ, though!


While I was finishing dinner the boys make some Russian Tea Cakes with pecans instead of walnuts because that's what I had left over from Thanksgiving.  They did such a great job following the directions, and just needed help with "granulated" and "confectioners".  Rolling the balls into equal sizes was a little challenging for Logan, but he got it down in the end! We did one cookie each for our Advent treat and the rest were put into a tupperware to go in the freezer until we're ready to do cookie plates, which is the plan for the cookies we make tomorrow night, too.  I usually do a baking marathon over a weekend to get cookie plates done, but spreading them out over the month and using baking as a lesson is going to be so much better and less stressful!

Advent devotion tonight was about how God had a plan for salvation in creation.  We read from Genesis and talked about how even in the beginning God knew he would send Jesus to reconcile man to himself.  Savannah Lynn blew my mind with this little conversation:
"Momma, I knowed that!" 
Okay, Savannah, that's good.
"No, Momma, I knowed that! I knowed Jesus was from the beginning!" 
Good Savannah, let me finish reading.
"But Momma, In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God and the word is Jesus, Momma"

Huh.  I guess two things.  One- wow, that CC memory work is really taking (she did the sign language, too!) and two- man do I love that Jesus came as a baby.  Is there anything more powerful than the faith of a child or the profound impact of such a tiny person telling us such great truth?