Happy New Year!!!!

The kids decided they wanted to stay up until midnight and see the ball drop. Well it's 10:50 now. Molly is laying against me asleep. Caleigh is in the floor in a sleeping bag. She's still awake, but she looks really tired. I'm not sure if she'll make it. Chad asked her if she wanted him to wake her and she said no. Colin shouldn't have a problem. I sometimes find him reading or playing in his bed when I check on him before I go to bed sometimes later than midnight.

What will I do with Molly?

I guess everyone has one child who does it. I should have known it would be Molly. She found some scissors today and cut her hair. It's not terribly noticeable so it could have been worse. She cut a good chunk out of one side though. Molly said she thought it was okay because it's her own hair. Here's what Caleigh brought me when she came to tell on Molly.



Caleigh actually came to tell me because Molly was chasing Caleigh trying to cut her hair too.

While I was trying to comb it and see how bad it was, Caleigh said she knew how to fix it. She said just put Molly in the bathtub because her hair always gets longer when you wash it.   I guess I'll be taking her for a haircut tomorrow or Friday to fix it. It was only in May that I was able to let her get her first real haircut. I hope they'll be able to do something to blend it in without having to cut it all as short as that section. 

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas.

The Polar Express

Yesterday, we had a Polar Express party. I gave the kids new pajamas and invited some of their friends over in their pjs and watch the movie with us. I printed boarding tickets for each of them. Before starting the movie, I punched their first initial on the ticket. They had hot chocolate and snacks while watching the movie. I punched the letter for their last name on the ticket when the kids in the movie were boarding the train to go home. At the end of the movie, I gave them each their own bell.

Here's a pic of the kids waiting for their friends to arrive. I don't know what this face is that Molly is making, but she was proud of it. As soon as I took the pic, she turned and showed it to Colin and Caleigh and laughed about it.

Gingerbread House

The kids had a great time making their gingerbread house. Molly was more interested in eating candy. Colin and Caleigh actually worked on the house a lot though.



After finishing it, they were very excited to eat it. Now it's looks like this.

Gingerbread

Today, we read Gingerbread Baby, The Gingerbread Boy, and The Gingerbread Girl. Then we compared the stories. Then we made our own gingerbread men. Actually, they were snowman shaped because I couldn't find the other cookie cutter. Aren't my helpers cute?



Here are the cookies they decorated. Molly had already taken a bite of hers. She told me he didn't want to wear a hat so she bit it off for him.



Then we made some gingerbread ornaments. We started out using glitter glue, but the girls were having a hard time with it. They ended up finishing with markers.



Molly has been running around the house with her ornament trying to get everyone to chase her. She comes up to us and says, "Run, run. You can't catch me. I'm the gingerbread man." Then she takes off running.

An update, finally

Well, we've been busy with Christmas activities and preparations. For school, we've been doing math, handwriting, spelling, phonics, and grammar daily. We've read quite a few Christmas books. Some of them are: Cranberry Christmas, The Tale of Three Trees, Mortimer's Christmas Manger, If you Take a Mouse to the Movies, The Story of the Three Wise Kings, The Little Drummer Boy, Madeline's Christmas, and Silver Packages.

The kids made these trees from ice cream cones and frosting.







We've been out looking at Christmas lights. We went to one house that had their lights synchronized with music you could listen to on the radio. One night we went to a park about an hour away that you can drive through to see the displays.

Wednesday, Chad took the day off work and went with us to a play at the Charlotte Children's Theatre. It was called The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. We all really enjoyed it. The kids thought it was very funny.

Yesterday, I finally got a picture of the kids for our Christmas cards. I thought it would get easier now that they're older. I guess I was wrong. Getting three kids to all look the same direction without silly faces and everyone's eyes open is still difficult. Molly, who I can usually count on to pose anytime, didn't want to have her picture taken. This isn't one I'm using for our cards, but it makes me smile so I thought I'd post it.  A big smile from Caleigh when I'm taking pictures is rare.

Another visit with Santa

Yesterday, we went to a little party at Chad's work. The kids got to visit with Santa, pick a stuffed animal, have cookies and milk, and get coloring books. Once again, we only got pictures with Molly and Colin. Caleigh decided not to see Santa.





After that, we went to the parade. Here they are waiting for it to start.

December school

We got started back to school after our week break for Thanksgiving. Sometimes we don't end up getting to do all the fun things I find for holidays because of our other work so I've decided to actually schedule it in this month. It's a good thing I did because I ended up being sick all week and we didn't get to everything I planned. Normally, I would have seen holiday stuff as extra and it would have been cut out first. Colin will do spelling, math, grammar, and some history. Caleigh will do reading, math, and handwriting. The rest of our time will be spent on Christmas stuff. Most days we'll focus on one book. We'll read other books and do activities that go along with that book. We'll watch lots of Christmas shows, do crafts, and cooking.

One day, we read The Wild Christmas Reindeer. We also read Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer and watched the cartoon. Then we made reindeer ornaments (in the picture below).

Another day, we read Santa's Favortie Story and This is the Star. We made a foam Santa craft.



 We read a lot of other books last week, but these are the ones we liked the most are The Legend of the Candy Cane and The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey.

Thanksgiving

The kids were very excited all week that Aunt Heather was coming for Thanksgiving. They love having visitors.

Molly with her big turkey leg.

Colin

Caleigh after her wish bone victory.

 

Thanksgiving Study

We spent a couple weeks studying Thanksgiving. They studied the book, Cranberry Thanksgving for a few days. We talked about the New England area, cranberry bogs, and how cranberries are harvested. We used the recipe in the book to make cranberry bread. Colin liked it, but the girls didn't. Later, when Molly saw the cranberry bread on the counter, she said, "Why do we still have that? Caleigh and me don't like it so you should just throw it away."

Then we studied the pilgrims. We read books and did activities about their voyage on the Mayflower, their arrival in the New World, and the Wampanoag Indians. They really liked these books: Tapenum's Day, Samuel Eaton's Day, and Sarah Morton's Day. Each of them told about what a typical day would have been like for the child. Colin and Caleigh drew the Mayflower, Squanto, and pilgrims using Draw Write Now. We made pilgrim puppets. We also made turkeys. I had the kids each put what they were thankful for on the feathers.

Colin wrote family, house, food and his Wii. Caleigh put the whole world, Chad, Colin, Molly, and me, her house, toys, TV, and her bed. Molly told me so I could write it and said family, my sister, my big brother, dad, you- I love you mom, this paper turkey, milk, house, kitchen so we can make something to eat, dolls, paper, toys, eyes, and candy.

 

 

PE Class

Monday was the last PE class for this year. Each week, they did a different sport. They included baseball, basketball, soccer, hockey, volleyball, badmitton, and kickball. The kids enjoyed most of them. I think they liked basketball and hockey most. Molly isn't old enough to be signed up for the class, but they let her participate some anyway. Monday was kickball and she was allowed to play the whole time. She did really well even though she kept skipping first base. After a while, she told the instructor that she was too tired to play anymore. The woman told her it would only be about 2 more minutes. Molly said, "I can only do one more minute, not two."

Visiting Santa

We were at the mall today and Molly wanted to see Santa. Colin agreed to go take a picture too. I asked Caleigh, but she said she didn't want to. While I was taking Colin and Molly, Chad asked Caleigh why she didn't want to see Santa. She said, "I know he's not the real Santa so why should I waste my time."

So here are pictures of the other two. They are pictures of a picture so may be a little blurry.





Colin wasn't too sure Caleigh was right. Santa told him to stop picking on his sisters so much so he decided that might just be the real one.

Molly's Party

We had Molly's birthday party today. She was so excited. She had a great time playing with her friends.



She was a little shy while everyone was singing Happy Birthday and kept looking at Caleigh.





Here's a better picture of the cake. She liked it, but said I should have put more animals. I did plan to have a zebra, but just couldn't fit in on there.



After cake and presents, all the girls went upstairs to have a tea party with a tea set Molly got as a gift. The girls were calling it a water party since they had water in their teapot instead of tea.

My baby is 4!

I can't believe how quickly time passes. We always think of Molly as the baby so her turning 4 seems impossible. She is such a sweet, loving child. I think her personality makes her getting bigger a little easier on me. She's always hugging or kissing us. She loves to sit in my lap. She usually really likes being the baby.



 Today



We don't do school on birthdays and Chad took the day off work so we all could celebrate. We took her out to lunch. She wore a birthday girl crown the whole time. Then we went to Party City, where she got to pick a balloon. She got a big Tinkerbell. We also got an animal one to match her party theme for tomorrow. When we got home, she got presents from all of us and chocolate cupcakes with sprinkles. Happy Birthday, Baby!

A Molly funny

Molly says lots of funny things. Well, at least they're funny to me. I always mean to write them down, but I usually forget them before I get around to it. I was just thinking of something she said yesterday and thought I would go ahead and post it here before I forget. I was laying their clothes out to get ready for their PE class. Molly came in and asked where we were going. I said, "We're going to PE." So then she says, "Why? We have bathroom right here."

Oh, that made me think of something else she said. We took them to a track and they all ran a lap around it. Molly only ran a little and then would stop to walk. She seemed to be talking. We thought she was talking to the people walking around the track. She ended up cutting across the grass instead of going the whole way around. When she got there, Chad asked why she kept talking. While breathing heavily, she said, "I just had to keep telling my heart not to stop."

                              

The Story about Ping & China

 Last week, Colin studied ancient China for history and the girls were doing The Story of Ping so they all studied China together. Some books we read were Children Just Like Me, The Five Chinese Brothers, Tikki Tikki Tembo, The Story of Paper, Ma Jiang and the Orange Ants, Come Along Daisy, The Little Duck, Daisy Comes Home, and Giant Pandas. We also went to a Chinese restaurant, where the kids attempted to use chopsticks and got fortune cookies. We talked about buoyancy and experimented to see which things float.

Here is Caleigh's notebook page:



Under where does Ping live, there is a map of China with the Yangtze River drawn in and marked. She drew a duck and a panda using Draw Write Now. For counting Ping's family, we had a small duck card for each member (68 in all) and counted them. I printed out her name in Chinese. For the panda anatomy booklet, she told me about its coloring, size, eyes, paws, fur, and teeth and I wrote it for her. The Chinese counting book has a page for numbers 1-12. Each page has the corresponding number of objects related to China, our number, the Chinese number, and pronunciation. On each page, she wrote the number our way and then the Chinese way. She colored China's flag. Then there are some math worksheets using ducks in the story problems.

Asheville

Chad had to work in Asheville this week so we tagged along. Tuesday we went to the NC Arboretum. I wanted to see some of the fall colors and thought it would be good for the kids to get out of the hotel and run around some. The kids enjoyed it much more than I had thought they would and have already asked to go back. We walked some trails, walked through the gardens, and looked at the displays.

Molly complains anytime we go somewhere without her stroller so it wasn't long before she was complaining. She would say her legs hurt and someone needed to carry her. As soon as she would see something that interested her though, she would run to it. Here you can see that the cute face worked on Colin.

 

Today, we went to The Health Adventure Museum. It went along well with our school since Colin is just getting ready to finish up his human body study.

They were fascinated by this skeleton pedaling a bicycle.

This body had transparent skin. It would light up and talk about the different parts of the body.

They had a Curious George section, which was one of their favorite parts.

 

We also went to the Earth Science Museum for a little while since it was in the same building.

The kids said it was a fun trip, but we were all glad to get home tonight.

Zoo

We went to the zoo on Saturday. We used to go to the zoo a lot in KY and Texas, but we haven't been since I took the kids when we lived in Boston so it's been over a year. I think everyone was tired from Friday and it's a very spread out zoo. There are 2 sections to the zoo and we did get to see all of one side.

I think they liked the fake animals as much, or maybe more than the real ones.

 

Pumpkins

Last week, we studied pumpkins. Some of the pumpkin books we read were: Pumpkin Jack, The Runaway Pumpkin, The Pumpkin Book, From Seed to Pumpkin, and Five Little Pumpkins. We also spent a day on scarecrows. We read The Scarecrow's Hat, The Little Scarecrow, and Jeb Scarecrow's Pumpkin Patch.

Here are Caleigh's notebook pages:

 

On the left side is a finish the pumpkin pattern worksheet. Under it is a worksheet to fill in the missing letters (alphabetical order) in the pumpkin patch. The small pumpkin is a book where she drew a jack-o-lantern and answered questions about pumpkins. The larger pumpkin has seeds and string glued inside to look like a real pumpkin. On the right side are cards she put in order to show how a pumpkin grows. She had to draw in the correct number of pumpkins in the scarecrow book.

Happy Halloween!

It was a full day with a bowling birthday party for a friend of the kids and then trick or treating. Caleigh went out for about 40 minutes and then wanted to come back home to give out candy. She and Chad did that last year and she thought it was one of the best parts. Molly went for about 10 more minutes before she wanted to come home. Colin ended up being out for a little over 2 hours when I told him we had to go home.