Winter Break

What is winter break for?  In this house it's not for a break.  I decided to take some time out of our leisurely boring schedule of lazily doing nothing of any consequence to work on some stuff with the kids.

Creeper has really been struggling with school.  He does really well with the math, but the reading and writing is a little more trying for him.  Instead of having a carefree winter break, we've been working on some school stuff.

Of course, this really makes me think about the whole situation with school.  If I'm having the kids do all of this work at home, would it be possible to just homeschool them again?  Would this be the best option?  It's something that's been really tugging at the back of my mind.

Since it's winter break, I'm not worrying about that too much right now.  My main goal is to get Creeper back on track, which seems like a productive use of this break from school.  I'm glad he's able to get some work done, even though winter break is half over.  It's good to feel like we're accomplishing something for all this time off.

Then there's Bear.  We've been doing some work together outside of the computer.  I've got to admit, Bear has been trying my patience on the peaceful parenting thing.  I'm trying to get away from using tactics like time out, but it's not easy when Bear is so worked up over the past week.  It's been pretty crazy around here.  It makes it hard for Bear to concentrate and focus.

Still, Bear has managed to get some good work in.  We've started working with the workbooks Bear got for Christmas.  This has been trying with the lack of focus and the suddenly hyper behavior.  We've had to work hard to keep focus and stay on task.  Overall, I'd say we're making some pretty good progress.

Today we worked with some tracing lines, drawing lines along a path, and (as you can see here) tracing letters.  Bear seems really eager to learn these skills.  If Bear could keep a little more chill and focused, I think we'd be making some pretty good progress, but that wouldn't be Bear, now would it.  Instead we've been plugging away, trying to work on focus and attention span along with getting the work done.  I think that's maybe the hardest part of this whole thing, the attention span aspect of it all.

This whole thing has me considering the homeschooling thing with Bear too.  So far we've been doing pretty well.  Most of what we've been doing has been on the computer with Time 4 Learning.  I'm also considering Starfall, which Bear loves the free version of, and it can be played on all of our devices.  Now we're adding in more workbooks.  The whole thing is coming together pretty well.

All of this has my mind set to homeschooling.  There are a lot of reasons for this, many of which I don't feel belong in this blog, but the root of it all is that it doesn't seem to be working out for my family.  The long and the short of it is wondering if perhaps this is where our lives are taking us again.  It's a lot to consider, and definitely not a path I'm ready to jump onto now.  For now I'll be happy with doing our vacation work and calling it a day.

Painting

I know it probably hasn't been talked about here, but we needed to paint the walls.  There was a serious graffiti problem because Creeper decided to go through a phase of putting murals all over the walls.  He roped Link and Bear into the whole thing.  As a result, we had to paint several of the rooms, pretty much all the bedrooms and the downstairs hall.

Pinkie's room was the first one we painted.  As you can tell, it's her favorite color, pink!  We wanted to do each of the rooms in something that suited the kids.  Her room needs some touch ups with a stain covering primer and a paint over, but overall it looks pretty good.

We don't plan to leave it at just pink.  We're planning on doing all of the trim in her room at some point.  Then, once that is done, we're going to be looking for some balloon stencils to go up around the border of her wall.  Then she can have a room that really looks like something inspired by Pinkie Pie.

Eventually we want to do up her room entirely in My Little Ponies.  We want to get bedding for both the bunks in My Little Pony print.  Then she can really have a pony inspired room.  For the time being she'll have some pretty bright walls.  It goes really well with her bright, white dresser.  Her room is definitely more cheery now.  Best of all she absolutely loves the color.  It suits her, and not just because she's pinkie.  Her favorite color is pink and it's a bright, cheery color   While I would call her anything but a little ray of sunshine, the color certainly boosts her mood.

The next up was the hallway.  This we decided to do in green.  Originally I imagined more of a sage color, but I wasn't the one that went to get it.  This is a bit darker than I'd thought of going, but it looks pretty nice.  I'm not disappointed in how it turned out.  It looks much better than the stark white walls.

The walls look streaky, I know, but this is when they were freshly painted before they had a chance to dry.  I did some touch ups over areas the roller didn't want to hit well, so it looks kind of streaky here.  I suppose I should have waited for it to dry.  Unfortunately, you can't really see it in natural light because the natural light is so incredibly dark in that hall.  It's also not really that dark or grass green either.  It looks pretty nice.  I like it.

The most challenging part of painting the hallway was the little alcove upstairs.  It's pretty clear the two bedrooms used to be one.  There's some weird little features to the rooms and the hallway that make that pretty obvious.  For example, the hallway has a weird doorway into it that leads to two rooms.  Two of the rooms have ridges where a wall was clearly added in.  The doorway on one room has a weird little nook where the doorway was built in.  It's all a very odd architectural thing.

After the hall was done, the next room to be tackled was Creeper and Link's room.  Their room is blue.  As much as they wanted green, we didn't want to have that much green in one room, so we did Rainbow Dash blue.  We're going to go back in later and do the trim in green, which I think they'll like.

Their room is the biggest room, and the most difficult to work with right now.  They've got a large bed in there, a bed that used to be mine.  There's no safe place to put their bunk bed in there, so when we decided to swap the rooms around, they ended up with my old bed.  After the new year we're investing some money to put two twin beds in their room in it's place.  For now they share one huge bed.

Overall I like the way their room is slowly starting to turn out.  They got this room rather than staying in the room with their bunk beds because it's the biggest room.  It just made the most sense to put the two boys in the biggest room and leave the smaller two rooms for Pinkie and Bear.  There are two of them and they need the most stuff.  We're also going to be getting at least one new dresser to go in their room, which will make it so much easier to store all of their stuff, something that would have been a challenge in their old room.

Last of all was Little Bear's room.  Originally Bear wanted Elsa Blue, but after some consideration, purple was settled on as the perfect color.  It's a little darker than I was originally thinking, but I really like it.  Again, you can see the streaks from the drying paint.  It looks pretty good though.  I think this room, out of all the rooms, we're going to have to paint over when we leave.  It's so dark the landlord won't be thrilled to paint over it, but he told us we could paint and told us just no black or nothing really dark.  This isn't even as dark as it appears in the picture.  And we can always go lighter if he really objects.  The important part is Bear is happy with the results.

Bear's room we're planning to accent with Elsa blue and perhaps paint snowflakes around the top edge of the room.  We're going to be painting the dressers blue with snowflakes as well.  That will really brighten up the room.  I'm really hoping that will make Bear's room more comfortable to be in.  Right now Bear doesn't want to be in there much, but that may change.  Best of all, it covered all the graffiti on the walls.  That was what we really needed it to do.

So now all the work is done and we're ready to move on to other things.  It seemed like a never-ending process, but it's finally taken care of.  We're all pretty happy with the results.  It's looking pretty sharp!  I think we could get used to having some color in our house.  It's so much better than stark white walls!

Christmas 2016

Yup, it's Christmas again.  While the kids are busy playing Minecraft, I thought I'd take some time out to write a little something about our morning.  The kids are pretty well occupied and are having lots of fun, so why not?

This year, obviously, Minecraft is a huge hit this year.  Creeper and Link got Playstation cash to use to buy new Minecraft skins, maps, and texture packs.  They bought a whole bunch of stuff, including their new favorite, the Fallout map.  They're loving the chance to explore the world and ask about absolutely everything from the game.  Since they don't play Fallout (too many drug references for me to be comfortable with that), they want to know all about it.  I mean, they know some of the basics, like about Dogmeat, and Nuka Cola.  They don't know the world or anything about what they're looking at it.  They just love the world because the adults in their lives are pretty much all Fallout fans.  Their world is surrounded by it.  Besides, my dog gets called Nika Cola and I joked about changing her name to Dogmeat.

Actually, it's hard not to have Minecraft take over their lives.  They love the game and especially love to build and create.  It's a good outlet for them.  They mostly play in creative mode, so it's all about building and designing.  Minecraft is like LEGO blocks, in a way, but digital and totally changeable.

This year Pinkie's presents were all about the art.  She's been complaining about a lack of art supplies, so that had to be fixed.  She got pretty much nothing but art stuff, with some books and a Doctor Who necklace.  Some of the art stuff she got was pretty complex.  The book in the picture, for example, has all sorts of detailed pictures to color, something that will take her a lot of time to work on.  It's not like regular coloring books that take her all of two seconds to work through.  She'll be busy with that one for some time to come.

In a way she was a little disappointed at the lack of toys this year, but she's getting older.  The older she gets the less toys are going to be showing up under the tree.  Besides, I'm pretty sure she's happier with the art supplies and the Pokemon cards than she would be with a whole bunch of toys.  It suits her maturity level better.  She's been very much into art as she's always been.  She was so happy with the art supplies.  With the way she's going we may have to consider getting her more art supplies for her birthday too.  I've never seen her light up quite like she did for the coloring book and the geometric origami.  It's a little sad to see her so grown up, but at the same time it's really cool to watch her grow into the young adult she's becoming.

Link didn't get a whole lot of toys either this year.  He did, however, get a lot of Pokemon cards.  I think he's getting to an age where toys matter less and he's getting into other things.  I'm not going to say he's not into toys anymore.  He very much is, but he's getting to a point where other things are super cool too.

As you can tell by the picture, Link got a lot of Pokemon cards.  He should be able to build a pretty good deck with all of those  cards, especially since some of them are from the newest set.  He's got the special Pokemon set that goes with the Pokemon Moon game.  The set came with a few booster packs, some special holographic cards, and the Pokemon figure you can see in the picture.  Can you tell he was excited for his Pokemon stuff?

I think this is going to be a growing theme for Link.  I'm not going to say I don't want to buy him anymore toys but it's nice to be able to get him something that takes up less space and is equally fun.  Pokemon requires reading skills, logic, and a sense of tactics, making it an educational choice as well.  He's been more into video games than toys lately, but new cards should allow him to make more competitive decks, allowing him to win a bit more often.  It might be a good way to reduce screen time, as well as possibly a way to make new friends at Pokemon League events.

Then there's Creeper.  Creeper's big gift of the year was Minecraft for the PS4.  We had it before for the PS3, but that required changing between game systems, which was sometimes a bit of a pain.  Having it for the PS4 means he gets to play more often without having to change between systems.  This makes for a very happy Creeper.  He couldn't wait to play and didn't want to wait for the new stuff to download to play.  It was an exercise in patience.

There was a bit of a Minecraft theme to his presents this year overall.  Aside from a really cool Hulk figure and some art supplies, he got a bunch of little Minecraft mystery boxes and figures of Alex and Steve.  I think if Creeper's every present could be Minecraft themed from now until the end of time he'd be pretty happy with that.  He was super excited to get more Minecraft stuff.  It's just too bad his birthday and Christmas are right on top of each other.  He could get Minecraft presents twice a year to keep the present flow going.  We might just have to make half birthdays a thing, even though it'll be right around the corner from Bear's birthday.  At least it gives him a chance to get stuff at a different time of the year.

Then there's Bear.  Bear was positively spoiled this year.  Aside from the requested Batgirl costume (in nightgown form), there was also a lot of Frozen stuff, a Rapunzel tiara, a Barbie doll, some DC Superhero Girls action figures, arts and crafts stuff, and some stuff for Bear's baby doll, La-La, a gift from Bear's first birthday.  However the best gift of the whole lot was a little ceramic tea set.  Twice today I've been roped into playing tea before noon.  The only distraction was when Bear decided La-La  was hungry.  Then it was time to break out all the baby stuff and play with for a while.

Now, moment of honesty here, it's sometimes hard to get people on board with getting presents for Bear.  Bear was born male, so people often default to trucks and action figures.  However Bear prefers nightgowns, tutus, dolls, and apparently tea parties.  A lot of people aren't comfortable with that because it buck traditional gender roles.  Some days Bear wants to be a girl, and I'm okay with that, but a lot of people aren't.  I'm just really glad I was able to get Bear some really awesome and enjoyable stuff, and that we were able to have such a nice tea party together.  That really made Bear's day!

Even Nika got some nice gifts for Christmas.  She got a stuffed dragon and a Hover Disc from Ruffwear.  She's honestly not quite sure what to do with the Hover Disc.  I got it on a whim thinking it would be good to use out at the park, whatever parks allow dogs to be off leash.  It would be a good alternative to a ball and it's less strain on my elbow to throw a disc anyway.  That's why I'm able to go disc golfing.

More than anything Nika seemed incredibly confused by everything that was going on.  She didn't know what to do with all the noise, chaos, and paper flying everywhere.  Not sure what she was supposed to be doing, she chose to lay down in the middle of it all and watch the chaos from there.  I would think that would be the most overwhelming spot, but she seemed to like it well enough.  She was the calm at the center of the storm, I guess.  She was so overwhelmed that she barely wanted to hold her disc, though she carried it around for some time.  She didn't even play with her dragon toy, even though I know she loves those kinds of toys.  She likes to snatch them up, chase them around, and toss them.

Overall I'd say it's been a pretty successful Christmas, and this is just round one!  We've got two more Christmas events to go yet.  My parents are coming over tomorrow to celebrate Christmas with us.  Then the day after that my aunt and uncle are coming over.  I don't know what the kids are going to think of all that.  I'm sure they'll feel pretty spoiled after all is said and done.  It's also going to be chaotic for us.  We don't usually have that many people coming over to the house in such quick succession.  We've had our game nights, but that's about it.

The day started out the right way with presents then pancakes for breakfast.  We had our big turkey dinner last night, so tonight we're going to be getting Chinese food.  It's a Christmas night tradition.  I think that's my favorite part of the Christmas tradition.  The kids particularly love it too.  We didn't do it last year because we went to a friend's house for Christmas dinner, but I hope to make it our regular holiday thing again.  If we end up visiting on Christmas in the future we may have to swap things around and make it a Christmas lunch thing, but I particularly like not having anywhere to go on Christmas Day.  It makes for a wonderfully chill day!

Christmas Eve 2016

This was a Christmas Eve to be remembered.  The kids all got new pajamas to wear for Christmas Eve.  Pinkie got DC Superhero Girls.  It looks like this will be the last year Pinkie will be getting pajamas from the kids section.  These were almost too small for her.  Link got Star Wars pajamas in a favorite color, purple.  Creeper got Mario Bros.  Bear got Batgirl "nightgown costume."

This picture happened later in the evening, after all the kids had dinner and settled in to watch Prep and Landing, followed by Prep and Landing: Naughty vs. Nice.  This has become a yearly tradition.  It's also a tradition that makes me realize how much television companies must hate families on the East Coast.  The shows weren't even over until nine!  That meant the kids had to be hustled off to bed so that Santa could come.  It was an exhausting night for me.  Thankfully the kids went to sleep almost as soon as they were sent to bed.  I think it's because they all wanted Santa to come.  We watched Santa's launch on Reindeer Cam, then watched our shows.  We even tracked Santa on the Santa Tracker.  I think that helped motivate them to get to bed on time.

Of course, that wasn't the start of the day.  We began the day with lots of cleaning.  To keep Bear out of the way we decided to make a Christmas potholder.  I'm an evil mom.  I made Bear work on patterns.  Bear picked a pattern for the colors and we had to follow them.  Now there's a Christmas potholder hanging on the tree.  I suppose that's a good place for it.  As always, I realize just how challenging those things are for little hands!  I can't imagine how I must have done them when I was a kid!

Pot holder making wasn't the only bit of creativity we had.  The printer I got as a Christmas present to the family was set up, so I printed out Christmas themed coloring pages for the kids.  This kept them busy and out of my hair while I served up dinner.  We had our big turkey dinner then instead of on Christmas day.  Christmas Day is always Chinese food for dinner, unless we go over a friend's house.  The coloring pages were a brilliant idea.  I get the feeling I'm going to be shelling out a lot in printer paper, between school workbook pages (which the kids surprisingly like doing) and coloring pages for the holidays, I think that thing's going to get a workout.  That's not even taking into account the things that I may need to print up!

As things settled down for the evening I was able to finally start to relax.  The kids got to put on their pajamas.  Bear particularly loved the Batgirl nightgown, especially because it had a cape.  How often do you find pajamas with a cape?  Especially one as sparkly as this one has.  I'd gone out earlier in the day to get the pajamas, braving the cold, rain, and crowds.  It was our special Christmas Eve present, which they got on Christmas Eve, combining two traditions into one.  Usually the kids all get at least one present on Christmas Eve.  There's also a tradition where someone has to go out and buy at least one Christmas related item on Christmas Eve.  Usually this ends up being some kind of chocolate for the stockings.  This year it was pajamas, an afterthought really, but I had a gift card, and surprisingly they were all about half off, some even more than that.  At the end of it there was money left over on the gift card and I'm pretty proud of that.  Since we usually aim to get the kids a pair of new pajamas every Christmas, I guess you could say this blended all three traditions, and it wasn't all that expensive.  Unfortunately, waiting until so late made for incredibly limited selections, but it all worked out in the end.

Finally the night ended with all the presents neatly under their respective trees.  Bear had the live Norfolk Island Pine.  Creeper used his Christmas cactus.  Link used our sorry looking bonsai that's looking more like a Charlie Brown tree these days.  Pinkie, being the oldest, got the biggest tree.  I almost wish I'd swapped Pinkie and Bear's gifts as Bear had the most of all.  Bear, being the littlest, got spoiled, which is okay by me because Bear is usually the one left out or forgotten about.

If you were to look at pictures of the number of presents this year in comparison to last year, the amount is far smaller, aside from Bear's.  I have to admit, I'm pretty happy with the turnout though.  It feels good to not have our tree spilling over with stuff, Here's the shocker.  Next year we might even be able to fit everyone's stuff under the same tree!  I guess that's the joy of becoming a little more minimalist.  We're filling the house with less quantity and more quality than we have in the past.  Then again, we have two more rounds of Christmas to go before the holiday is over.  I just hope their Christmas is as good as I hope it's going to be!

Happy Birthday Creeper

Today we celebrated Creeper's birthday.  Though his birthday is close to Christmas, he's taken to enjoying Christmas as the theme to his birthday celebration.  He always wants to have a gingerbread decorating party for his birthday.  I can't say as I can blame him.  Cookies are yummy.

Instead of having a typical party, we all sat around the table with our friend, Sable, decorating cookies.  We didn't have as many supplies as we have in years past, but we had a lot of fun with it.  We used some premade cookies that we decorated.  Lacking a rolling pin, we decided that was the best way to make cookies.  Next time we're thinking of using the ninja cookie cutters we were given to make some really cool ones, but this year we did things differently.  We went with what was easy.

The kids really enjoyed making cookies together.  I'd hoped we'd have a bigger turnout, but it didn't work out that way.  In other years past we've had quite the crowd over to decorate cookies, a tradition that started before Sander was even born.  The year Sander was born he made his appearance on the day the gingerbread party was supposed to be, putting the breaks on any holiday celebration.  Since that day we combined his birthday with the gingerbread party.  I figured in time he'd want something not Christmas themed for his party, but he's really taken to it.  It's a tradition he's really grown to love.  I have a feeling this is going to be a tradition we keep for some time to come.

The best part of the gingerbread party?  Eating the cookies, of course!  It seemed at first that they were going to eat them as fast as they made them, but they slowed down eventually.  I can't blame them though.  If I could eat regular cookies I would have been all about it too.  I guess they were all safe because they're not gluten free cookies, so I couldn't have any.

I think next year we're going to plan to have more supplies.  The jelly frosting ran out too quickly and I think we needed more variety of sprinkles and candy to put on them, but it seemed to work out okay.  Bear in particular didn't want to put much candy on the cookies.  Instead each had a cluster of candies.  Bear said that was their "Yo-Kai watch."  Can you tell there was an influence there?  Next year I think we need more red because we had a number of zombie cookies.  There was also a ghost.  Sable made a penguin and Violet Beauregard from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  We seemed to have just the right number of cookies for the number of people we had.  I think if everyone showed up that originally planned to there wouldn't be enough cookies, or enough room to decorate.

The highlight of the party was, of course, Creeper's cupcake with candles.  It wouldn't be a birthday without cake and that was exactly the right size.  It almost wasn't big enough to hold the right number of candles.  We only did seven because I've never been one for the extra candle for good luck.  It somehow seemed silly to me.  I couldn't imagine trying to do an extra anyway.  There just wasn't enough room!

We did the whole birthday thing without the song, because that's what Creeper wanted.  We just lit the candles, said "Happy birthday!" and let him blow them out.  Of course, he made a wish, but you have to make a wish if it's your birthday.  He was so super excited about blowing out his candles.

After all the cookies the cupcake was divided up among anyone who wanted a taste.  Creeper was very good about sharing with everyone, even though he didn't have to.  The cupcake was for him.  He's such a good sharer, at least when he wants to be.  it seemed like the perfect end to the gingerbread party.  He had his cake and everything was good.  This was definitely a successful birthday.

Not only did his birthday go well, but we found the perfect cupcake for his birthday.  The frosting was green, Creeper's favorite color.  It was an extra large cupcake, so perfect for sharing.  Best of all, we were able to find some LEGO block candles, which really set this cupcake well above everything else we've done in the past.  The cupcake was a little Christmas themed, but it wasn't too bad once all the candles were on.

I have to admit, I'm pretty happy with how that little cupcake turned out, though I think next year we either need smaller candles or a bigger cake.  That thing was full to the brim.  As it was the candles were already trying to topple over.  Thankfully Creeper didn't care.  He was thrilled with his cupcake just the way it was.  I think his favorite part was being able to make a wish anyway.  I can't blame him.  Wishes are some pretty awesome stuff.

Overall, I'd call this a pretty successful birthday, perhaps one of the most successful one's we've had.  I'm really happy with the way everything worked out, even if it would have been nicer to do it with more friends around.  We didn't really have room for more people, so it worked out.  Creeper didn't seem to care that his friends weren't there either.  The whole day included MineCraft and watching The Wizard of Oz and Wreck-It Ralph, so I think that totally added the finishing touch.

A Cold Day?

I've heard of snow days, but this one was a first for me.  School was delayed not because of snow, but because it was so cold.  They wanted to give it time to warm up before the kids loaded up on buses to go to school.

Well, I'll admit it, I'm a bad parent.  Instead of sending my kids to school, I decided to keep them at home.  I'll be honest, a two hour delay makes the school day almost not worth having.  On top of that, it was just as cold when the buses rolled out.  It hadn't warmed up at all, though maybe the wind had died down some.

Instead of school we decided to spend the day watching movies and the kids played some MineCraft.  Yes, I know, it shouldn't be surprising that the kids were playing that game again.  I really value it as a part of their education.  It allows them some creativity and they're able to play around with a lot of different concepts.  I'm seriously thinking about looking up some ideas for using MineCraft as an educational opportunity.

Now it's still cold, but the snow is rolling in.  By the end of the weekend it's supposed to be warm and raining.  That's going to be a nice change of pace from the cold we've been having.  That also means we can go pick up some more paint and get cracking on finishing up the rooms.  I'm really looking forward to that.

For now I think we're going to start up some hot chocolate, something to keep us warm on this cold night.  We'll do something nice and warm for dinner, though I haven't quite decided what.  That leaves bean soup right out of the running, since I should have started that this morning, but we've got a few other options.  It's going to be a night of raiding the pantry and the fridge to find the warmest meal I can conjure up.

Well, it's about that time, so I'd better start cracking.  I'm thinking we're going to do one of my cold weather favorites and cook up the shepherd's pie we have waiting to be made.  That would really make for a good meal tonight.

Getting It Done!

There are so many things that need to get done in this house.  Most of them involve some sort of struggle or fighting.  No one wants to do chores.  No one wants to help cook.  No one wants to take out the trash and recycling.  Most of all, no one wants to do homework.

It's been a constant struggle since school was started to get the kids to do their homework, even the good students when it came to homeschooling.  Once the kids got home from school, they wanted to do fun stuff.  They've been doing school all day.  The last thing they want is to do more school work, especially Creeper.  He gets home latest of the kids (4 pm) and still has to do homework.

As I'm sure you can imagine, the last thing he wants to do is homework, so we try to work someplace fun to work.  The other day it was on the bed in my room, which seems to be his favorite place to work.  This gives him a great chance to have a little more control over his working environment, so as much as he has to do his work, he can at least have some say in how.

How long it takes him to do his work varies.  He's pretty good with math, so that takes him almost no time at all.  It's the writing that ends up being rather time consuming.  He takes a full half hour to do his work on a good day, an hour on a bad day.  It time for me to make dinner by the time he's done with his work.

Still, in spite of it all he manages to get all of his work done most days.  When I'm in charge of his homework he does every page.  When he's left to do it on his own he makes some excuse about how he was told he didn't need to do it.  Then he leaves his homework at home instead of putting it in his bag.  It's been a struggle to get the assignments complete and in school on the day they're due.  It seems like he'd rather not have to do the assignment at all if he could at all help it, and I don't blame him.  It takes him so long to get it done, then has to do his reading on top of it, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes either.

Today was also another great adventure.  We went out to meet a friend at the train station today.  That led to an interesting walk home, and a wonderful snack of donuts and fritters.  Pinkie was with us after a trip to the ER yesterday.  She wasn't hurting too bad so she opted for the walk.  It reminded me of what things were like when we used to homeschool.  We always used to go on the grandest adventures.

I miss the days I went out with all the kids to the library or just out for a walk.  We used to have all sorts of adventures, or moments like this tree hugging one here.  It was fun having them all along, and it actually meant getting out of the house more.  We had so much more to do all the time, which helped.

I'm looking forward to more days when we can get out of the house, especially when the weather gets nicer.  It's going to mean we have more freedom to go out, though that's a long ways off.  I really miss having the freedom to do that any day, but I think we'll just have to make more of our weekends.

That's one thing I miss about homeschooling.  The name was so misleading.  We were almost never home.  We were out having adventures, hiking in the woods.  We had so much more to do.  I miss that.  It was so much better than being stuck in the house all the time, waiting for this bus or that one.  True, I was able to go back to school easier once the kids were in school, but my class availability is extremely restricted because I can't even leave my house until almost 9 and have to be home by 2.  That means cramming all my classes into the morning.  It's been a good week, but it's been frustrating too.  I really miss homeschooling and the kids do too.

Thanksgiving and Gearing Up for Christmas

Thanksgiving went really well this year.  We got up early and watched the parade, then the dog show stayed on while Pinkie and I prepped and stuffed the turkey.  Pinkie had never done it before, and since she's interested in cooking, I decided it was time, especially if she wants to go into culinary.  It's going to be necessary to learn how to work with raw meat, as much as she doesn't want to.  She was pretty proud of having helped make dinner for Thanksgiving.  Then the kids did their favorite thing to do ever, played lots and lots of Minecraft.

No, I'm sure it's not surprising that the kids played Minecraft, but this time they played in Festive world, which is the Christmas world on Minecraft.  We listened to the "Friendsgiving" station on Pandora while the tree was brought up from the basement.  Though it's not a traditional Thanksgiving thing to do, we set up the tree.  The kids loved watching it go up in the background while they played Minecraft.  They had a lot of fun exploring all the different places they could go.  They found things out like the presents were made of wool.  It was great to see them working together to build their house, and to hear their comments as they flew through Santa's Workshop.

While that was fun for the older kids, Bear got quickly bored of watching them.  Together we sat to work on something we'd gotten started with a long time ago, making potholders, though I guess they don't call them pot holders anymore.  We picked out "Frozen" colors, though the lighting isn't good to see it here.  It's dark blue, light blue, pink, and purple.  And, no, Bear isn't hiding because I don't want my kids' faces on the internet, but because that's what Bear wanted to do for a picture.  Silly Bear!

I absolutely love the idea of making these little pot holder things.  They're great for the manual dexterity thing.  It's not exactly easy to weave those loops through each other to get them hooked at either edge.  It takes patience to work through each segment, making sure that everything is crossed the right way and over or under both sides of the loop it's passing.  I ended up weaving the edge together because that part is frustrating and challenging, even for me, and I'm an adult.  As much as I used to love doing those as a kid, I can't help but think how complicated the craft really was.  The funny thing is I used to love doing them when I was younger, but now it boggles my mind how I did it all those years.  It's kind of a pain to work with.

And oh my goodness the food!  We had so much food, more than we could ever possibly eat in one day, or so I thought.  This is my stove.  On it are gravy, mashed potatoes, peas, corn, green beans (dressed up with breadcrumbs and Parmesan cheese), and carrots.  As you can tell, my little four burner stove isn't quite large enough for the amount of food we made.  All of that was being kept warm by the heat coming off of the oven roasting the turkey.  On top of all that and the turkey, we also had stuffing and cranberry sauce.  It was quite the feast.  Of course, the turkey was started so late that we ended up eating crazy late, but it was totally worth it.  We snacked on round one of the meal while watching Turkey Hollow and went through round two towards the end.

I'll be honest, I expected to put half of what we made away for later.  Instead we ended up eating most of it.  There were no potatoes left, only about a single serving of green beans, not enough corn to save, a decent amount of cranberry sauce, and small bowls of both stuffing and carrots.  Of course, there was a decent amount of turkey, but the leftovers only lasted us one more day.  I didn't plan for that at all.  I mean, we are a big family, so that's something, but those kids can really put away some food!

As the weekend went on, we decided it was time to finish the tree.  Out came the ornaments and the lights for the little tree and we went to town.  We started with the big tree.  We don't have a lot of ornaments for the big tree yet, so only the front got finished, and we don't have a tree skirt or anything fancy, but it turned out pretty well.  Most of the ornaments on the tree are handmade.  I even have a few that are possibly older than I am that my mom made.  My mom gave them to me last year when she heard I needed ornaments for my tree.  I'm surprised at just how much coverage we have on the whole thing.  I was expecting it to be far more sparse.

Eventually I'd like to get to the point where the big tree is decorated with nothing but ornaments that were made by the family.  That would really make me happy.  That's a tall order if I were just going to keep it to the immediate family, but there are some nice pieces that will stay from my extended family as well.  I just really like knowing that the ornaments each have a history, they were made by someone and that makes them special.  That means a lot to me.  I'd even be happy to extend that to friends who are close enough to be family.  Whatever gets the tree covered with pieces from important people in our lives.

The little tree, on the other hand, doesn't have the same flair.  Its branches are small, which means it can't hold the heavy ornaments the other tree can.  Instead of going for handcrafted ornaments, we've opted for some cheap ones with glitter on them.  The lights are a bit large and heavy for the little tree, but it definitely looks pretty.  They change colors gradually between blue and white.  Between the colors and the lights, we've dubbed that tree "the Frozen tree."

Last year we had four trees, the big one, the Frozen tree, "the owl tree," and "the weird tree."  Each kid had a tree of their own where their presents sat.  This year we're going to be doing the same, with some modifications.  Each of the kids has picked their "tree."  I use that term loosely because Creeper decided he didn't want a tree this year.  He wants to use his Christmas cactus instead.  Link is getting "the weird tree," which is nothing more than an overgrown bonsai style tree.  that poor tree has taken a lot of abuse and kind of looks more like a Charlie Brown tree these days.  The big tree goes to Pinkie, just like last year.  The Frozen tree goes to Bear, since Bear was the one who selected everything to make it the Frozen tree in the first place.  Finally, "the owl tree," which is another Norfolk Island Pine with a glow in the dark owl post stuck in the pot, belongs to the adults that will be celebrating Christmas with us this year.

Family Traditions, Or Lack There Of

Tomorrow is Thanksgiving.  We're not doing the usual big thing everyone else does.  Instead we plan on having a Thanskgiving/Christmas season change.  We're going to be setting up all of our Christmas decorations while eating turkey and enjoying other holiday foods.  This is new for us.  Usually we end up going somewhere or hosting our own Thanksgiving, but this year is different.  We're spending it at home with lots of food to anticipate having.

I'm actually kind of looking forward to this.  It's kind of fun to break tradition.  We had very strict "no Christmas before Thanksgiving" rules in our family growing up, so it's fun to be able to buck tradition and do something so different.

It's not just that tradition that's been shifted.  We have a tradition of setting the house up for Christmas on Black Friday instead of shopping.  This year we've got a birthday party to go to, and Pinkie and Link are going to be staying overnight.  We're not going to be able to do it that night and include everything, and we don't want to push it too far into the weekend.  We're definitely ready for Christmas around here.

Of course, it's not hard to be ready for Christmas.  We've already gotten so many offers to help with Christmas for the kids.  It's hard not to be ready for Christmas when we're already talking about what the kids want.

So what do the kids want for Christmas?  Pinkie is really craving some new art supplies.  She's always been the artist in the family.  She's also dying for Pokemon Sun.  I know she's not going to be reading this, so saying she'll be getting the game for Christmas is safe, for now.  Link wants anything Minecraft, as does Creeper (no surprise there).  Bear want's everything DC Superhero Girls.  All three of them are going to be getting Animal Crossing A New Leaf, that way they can play together.  Aside from the games, you'll just have to wait and see what they get for Christmas until then!

On top of it all, we found out that Kiwi Crate offers four different crate products.  Technically they've got five because there was a thing about a newborn box.  Obviously I don't need to worry about a newborn box.  We're thinking of getting the Koala Box for Bear, since it's for ages 3-4, even though it'll be for kids younger than Bear halfway through the year.  I don't think six months of the wrong craft will really be a problem.  The Kiwi Box is for kids 5-8, and that would be perfect for Creeper.  Then there's a Doodle Box of art supplies which would be perfect for Pinkie, and a Tinker Box, which would be fantastic for Link.  Both are for 9+, so that suits their ages too.  We really want to do a year's subscription.  While it's a decent amount of money, I have a feeling they'll get more attention than a magazine subscription.  If it works out we may decide to do it again every year until they kids are grown.  At that point we'll probably go back to more conventional gifts.

As you can see, I'm already ready for Christmas this year.  If it wasn't for Thanksgiving being tomorrow, I'd already be dragging out the decorations and setting up the tree.  Clearly I'm going to be ready to jump on this first thing tomorrow!

Pup Pal, Minecraft, and Mom's Night Out

Last night I got a call from Bear.  "Mama!  Mama!  I can't move now!"  I had no idea what to expect when I was called to see the silly why it was Bear couldn't move.  It could be anything with these kids.  I never know what to expect.

This is what I saw.  I guess this was Nika's revenge for all the times Bear has laid on the dogs.  Bear is always trying to lay on the dogs, or sit on them, or cuddle them.  Sometimes they're not really a fan.  Nika, in particular, doesn't like when people lay on her.  However, Nika has no problems laying on me when I'm in a chair, pretending to be a lap dog.

Now Bear couldn't move.  It was a cute moment.  She's not usually one to cuddle with the kids.  She prefers to keep her cuddling to my feet, or putting her head on my bed and looking pathetic.  It was wonderful to see her snuggled up with Bear.  I think she's really getting comfortable with the children.  Besides, Bear has always been her favorite.

It's funny to see the way she is with Bear.  I guess it's all the time the three of us walk together.  Even when Bear is in the stroller she likes to keep her head even with the seat, that way she can check on her kid as often as need be.  If Bear is upset and crying, she's always the first to respond.  Though she's supposed to be my dog, I can't be upset about the way she's bonding with the kids.

As for today, it's been a quiet day.  The kids have sat around playing Minecraft.  Actually, if I must be honest, Pinkie, Link, and Creeper have been sitting around playing Minecraft.  Bear is still too little to play, but that doesn't mean cuddling with Pinkie is out of the question.  They're playing in creative mode, building their own city.

I almost wish we'd had Minecraft when we were still homeschooling.  It's a great way for the kids to be creative.  They've also been playing all afternoon while getting along perfectly well.  I'm sure when we homeschooled this would have been some great time for too, but it's especially good to see now.  The kids fight a lot more now that they're in school.

I have to wonder if the fighting is a factor of how little they see each other now.  They used to see each other all day every day.  Now they only spend time together in the few brief hours after school.  Since their arrival home is so staggered, they barely have time with Creeper, who seems to be having the hardest time with all of this.  It's hard on them.  They did so much better over the summer when they had all day together.  It's sad to see them so distant from each other, but moments like this remind me that it wasn't always this way.  I hope we have more of them in the future.

And on a completely not kid related note, I got to go out and have a new experience this weekend.  I was brought out to the range by a friend of mine.  This was the first time I've ever used a firearm.  From everything I can tell, I didn't do too badly at it, as I'm sure you can see.

We use some regular paper targets so I could get used to it, then we got some zombie targets, just for fun.  I had a really hard time hitting anything but the center of the target.  It was a challenge to try and hit the other figures, but I definitely feel that if "Z Day" were to come upon us, I'd be qualified to deal with the incoming zombie hoard.  Of course, not owning a firearm, that could be more challenging, but you get the idea.

Now all the kids want to go with me next time.  I think Bear, Creeper, and Link are still to young to want to take with next time, but Pinkie could probably go.  Instead of getting to go, the kids decided on where the zombie targets would hang.  Now they're posted on either side of the television, that way the kids can see them while playing their games.  It's definitely something I'll do again.

Even The Most Mundane Things.

Today was just one of those errand days, you know the kind, the ones where you've got to do something seemingly boring.  Today's mission was a trip to the pharmacy.  It's about a 3 mile walk, round trip, so right about normal for what the kids are used to.  Pinkie was at an overnight, so we just had Bear, Creeper, and Link.  They love having the opportunity to go for walks, even if it's something that promises to be boring.  I suppose I should have learned by now, even walks are never boring with these kids.  They end up being the source of crazy made up games and wild stories.  This trip was certainly no exception to that rule.  They had quite the time chatting away.  Bear in particular had all kinds of stories to tell.

The weather was beautiful out.  While we started with jackets on, it quickly got warm enough that we didn't need to wear them anymore.  Considering it's November, we're all glad we've still got the warm weather.  It's only a matter of time before it's too cold and snowy to enjoy being outside for a walk.  We're going to try and enjoy every moment of it we can.  I can foresee a number of walks like this in our future, at least until the weather starts to turn.

Getting out always means Bear has to be in top style.  Out of all the kids, Bear's the only one that cares at all about looks.  Today's look was complete with a hat I made, something that's become a constant accessory every time we leave the house.  The Frozen sunglasses matched with the shoes.  It was quite the look.

This has been something we've had to get used to with Bear.  All of the other kids have had their own quirky senses of style, generally sending the message of "don't care what I wear."  Bear, on the other hand, is a total fashionista.  This has been quite the experience, and sometimes means it takes a bit to get moving out the door.

The tiger you see here has been with us for some time now.  That was gotten for Creeper when he was still little.  Today he decided to come along for the ride.  It was fun to hear the kids all enjoy our little tag-along.  The big tragedy of the day was the tiger, named Ra-Ra, falling from Bear's lap in the stroller and getting run over.  Thankfully it was only the tail, and Bear was able to "poof" it back to healthy again.  This meant for a story about the tiger's adventures, which was particularly funny.

No trip out is complete without hungry kids commenting that they wanted lunch.  We joked about how the only way they'd get to have lunch out is if they worked in the kitchen to earn the money to pay for it.  We were going to barter them in exchange for pizza.  They all seemed to find this a funny concept and were arguing over who got sold to the pizza parlor so the rest of us could eat.  I was really surprised they didn't volunteer the dog to work as a dish washer!  She'd do such a good job.  Instead we ended up doing the traditional thing and actually paying for the pizza, of course.

Still, this gave the kids an opportunity to think about what it actually takes to get food.  You don't just walk in and order a pizza.  The money has to come from somewhere, so how do you earn your money.  What is labor really worth?  We didn't get into a serious conversation about it or anything, but they did talk about how much pizza costs and whether or not we'd have enough money.  A part of me really wants to shield them from the idea of their parents needing money and how much things cost.  I don't want them to worry.  At the same time, they may value what they have more if they actually have to think about how expensive everything really is.

We all really enjoyed our time at the pizza parlor.  We went to a little local joint, because those are always the best.  The kids each got to pick out a soda.  While it's cheaper to just get a 2 liter, it's a hassle to pick something everyone likes.  Since this was a special treat, why not make it more special.  It's not like we get soda every day.  Even I splurged and had some, breaking my almost two week streak of having no soda, but we were all getting spoiled, so I figured why not?  I can always go right back to having no soda again.  If we keep this up we might end up a soda free house, and then it will really be a special treat.

The kids got their own pepperoni pizza, with more than enough left over for dinner.  They probably would have eaten more, but we got a huge batch of french fries to go with it, which were happily devoured.  There's something special about pizza parlor french fries.  They always tend to be the best.  The kids commented on how incredibly good my salad looked, but none of them wanted to try any.  I know if Pinkie were there she would have devoured my tomatoes and olives.  Overall, it was a fantastic little adventure for our family.

Reviving The Blog

Okay, I'll admit it, I did the bad blogger thing.  Four years ago I just lost the bug and stopped blogging.  Since then I decided not to pick it up again because, well, I just didn't feel inspired.  Part of that was finding another place to blog where I felt happier communicating with the world, but also because I just didn't feel like keeping this one up anymore.

Now I'm in a place where I want to start documenting the cool stuff the kids and I do again, like the trip Pinkie (formerly Bunny Boo) and I took to the art museum with my sister for her birthday.  We don't get out and do a lot of cool stuff anymore now that the kids are in school, but it would be fun to get it all started up again.

One of the first big trips we took as a family after our big move was going out on a hike.  It's a location we plan to go hiking at again, as soon as our car is on the road and once the weather's nice again.  I used to hike there all the time.  The kids particularly loved it out there.  They've always been big on nature.  As you can see, they really loved being able to kick back and sunbathe.

That's one thing we've always loved doing as a family, getting out in the warm weather and enjoying a good trip into nature.  I can't wait for opportunities to get hiking again.  Of course, coming into winter that might be a bit trickier.  Walks to the library just aren't the same.  However spring will be here sooner than we know and we'll be able to get out there and hiking again before long.  It's great exercise and helps build life-long healthy habits.  It's something I always loved as a kid and I love being able to share with my kids.  Best of all, aside from cost of transportation, hiking is generally completely free.  That makes it one of the best opportunities for family time out there!

For Pinkie's last birthday, as I mentioned, we went to the Museum of Fine Arts.  They were holding an exhibit on one of Pinkie's greatest influences, Picasso.  The whole thing was a surprise, but she was super excited when we got there.  I could probably write a whole post on the whole experience, but seeing as this is just a catch up, I figure I should stick to the fact that the whole trip was awesome and a huge success.

Pinkie seemed really inspired by that experience, and it's one we're going to have to repeat again some time soon.  It's just hard to find a time to take her all the way into the city to go with school and everything else.

Pinkie has grown up so much and really come into her own.  She's starting to pick up skills as a writer and wants to get more experience with it.  Maybe next time I can have her write about the trip in her own words.  That's one thing that's nice about having a blog for family adventures.  Once the whole family is old enough, there's no reason they can't participate in the writing as well!  It would be such a good experience for them.

We also decided we were going to try our luck at gardening this year.  Bear was the most excited about that one.  We got some supplies at Home Depot and put together a lovely little garden.  We set the whole thing up on our back porch, taking up almost all of it.  It was impressive to see the way everything climbed around and overgrew.  Our porch became a little Garden of Eden.

The kids all wanted to help with this project, from carrying pots and containers to planting and watering.  Their favorite part was when the plants began to flower, showing their hard work was finally paying off.  We had some really great talks about the life cycle of plants.  Almost every day they wanted to come outside to see the progress, and every day they were so excited to see how much everything had grown.  I didn't think they'd see terribly much difference from day to day, but they always swore they did.  Best of all, there was always something to discover, from the mushrooms that grew when it rained to the different colors of flowers for each different color of bean in the garden.

Of course, the favorite part of it all was getting to eat the final product.  We didn't have much in the way of results this year.  We had some problems with pesky squirrels getting into our tomatoes.  The beans were fine, but the other plants didn't really produce much.  We learned a lot for next year.  However the foods we did get were fantastic.  As you can clearly see, Pinkie's favorite part was the tomatoes.  We grew a few varieties, but the Lemon Boy and the cherry tomatoes were her all time favorite.

Some day we'd love to have a place where we could have a large enough garden to keep us fed all summer.  I won't put myself under the illusion that we'll be able to keep ourselves fed through winter.  Putting up that much food would be difficult.  With four kids in the house we eat a lot of food.  However, I'm definitely happy that they gravitate towards the healthy stuff.  They'd pick garden fresh vegetables over junk food just about any day of the week.  That's how it should be, right?  At least I know they'll grow up healthy.

The summer brought with it a lot more adventures, like going to see the fireworks in the city, something that was a tradition every year.  We went two years in a row, but last year just wasn't what it usually was.  The fireworks were held really late.  Bear and Creeper (formerly Piggy) almost slept through the whole thing!  The wait was worth it though.  Also, I was able to score this rare picture of Link.  He's not a fan of having his picture taken, so that was a real tough thing to manage.

The fireworks display itself was beautiful.  It was every bit as epic as I'd hoped it would be.  The kids, though tired from the long wait, loved watching the fireworks and the way they reflected on the river.  We may not have a chance to get into the city for them again in the future, if they even continue to run it, but this was a memory we were glad to have.  We even had a friend along with us, making it extra special.  That whole trip was quite the adventure, but in the end it's a night we were definitely glad we had.  The kids even talked about it being the best night ever for a while to come.

Then there's Pinkie's newfound love of role playing games.  She's gotten involved with the D&D club at her school as well as playing in games with the group of adults that plays at our house every week.  She was so excited when my friend and I took her into the city to get her first set of dice for game.  She came home with her own dice bag.

Once we were done at the game store we went for a walk around town.  She said the best part of town was the rainbow sidewalks.  If memory serves they were painted that way just after gay marriage was legalized in all fifty states.  Pinkie's become a part of the GSA at school as well, which seems to be something that's become really important to her.  This might be another good thing for her to write about, when she gets a chance, all of it, actually.  I can imagine how much she'd have to say about her involvement in clubs at school, games, as well as going into town whenever we've gone.  I bet she'd be quite the writer.  This could really be a fun experience for her!

Then there was the trip to the aquarium with Bear.  Again, Sable (the friend who went on all our other adventures) took us on this one.  Bear was so excited about this trip.  It necessitated finding the perfect outfit, because you can't make the trip into town without the perfect outfit.  This was also Bear's first solo adventure with the adults.  This was a very big day.

Though the aquarium was crowded, Bear ran from fish exhibit to fish exhibit.  The major excitement early on was finding Nemo.  Then there was an exclamation of "I found Dory!"  Then all the other kids at the aquarium started shouting they found Dory too.  Bear felt really proud to be the first one to find Dory.

This trip was talked about for weeks, which is something impressive when a four year old is involved.  Typically Bear moves on to the next thing pretty rapidly, only bringing out the adventures when something inspires it, like they day we went apple picking.  The fact that this stuck out so much really said a lot for how much fun it really was.

Yeah, we've been up to a lot in the past few years.  The kids have grown up quite a bit.  We've seen a lot of changes in that time too.  In all this time we've made friends and lost them or grown apart.  We've gone on several adventures.  There was a lot of unstructured fun too, as you can see with Link playing on the tire swing in the back yard.  It's been quite the amazing few years.

Now it's time to get back to the roots and start talking about the new adventures we're going to have.  There will be new challenges and new interesting stories.  Hopefully Pinkie will start to write some of her own entries.  Maybe in a couple of years Link will want to join her.  This could be a brilliant account of everything we do together, a way for our friends and family to keep up on what we're doing, even if they can't see us all the time.  It's a snapshot into our world, complete with pictures sometimes.  There is so much happening in our lives, so much going on, that even having no one else read it, we'll be able to look back as a family and see where we've been all this time.  That alone will be wonderful.