End of Week 1: Kicking It Off Right

It's been a great start to the year.  We've gotten so much done!  I can't believe the strong start we've had.  Somehow I always think we're going to just slink into the year, not making much effort to really get into it, and that's what we always end up doing.  Slowly we start adding more until we're in full swing, but then we have periods of slacking and not getting through as much as we'd intended, paired with an all-out scramble to catch up once we fall behind.  It's getting everything done, but it's more than a little stressful.

Creeper working hard on his phonics

This year has been different.  We took a week off before really getting into it, but we jumped in and completely committed, straight from the start.  I'm really impressed at our ability to progress through our lessons and just keep going.  I wasn't expecting such a smooth transition.  Normally getting the kids back into the school routine results in resistance and struggles, but this time it was smooth sailing.

I started with attempting to make a schedule for the kids, but that went out the window fast.  It seemed like things didn't want to sit in the blocks they were assigned for, and with the kids doing lessons by Skype with our aunt, that made it challenging.  I think that one was on me, though.  I just wanted to be organized.  In my head there was just so much to be done, but as it turned out, it wasn't nearly as much as I thought it would.  Science and history, which I thought would be long and involved were both pretty easy and quick, at least where I was involved.  Getting their language arts done simply flew.  The only subjects that took a little more time were phonics and math, which I knew would be more time consuming anyway.

Bear's first copyork!

This year was Bear's first year doing copywork, and the first time we've decided to do any significant practice of copywork.  Pinkie and Link have done copywork before, for a co-op we used to go to, but they would only do it once a week.  Now Bear and Creeper are doing copywork three times a week and Link is doing dictation twice.  I expected them to find it boring, but they're really quite enjoying it.  Better still, they love the sentences coming from their literature.  I think that's their favorite part!

Already I'm seeing improvements in their handwriting.  Between the copywork and all of the writing for their phonics programs, they're really starting to become a lot more careful and neat.  This is especially obvious for Bear, who used to hate writing neatly.  He liked to treat his writing like it was a form of art, but that gave it the impression of being almost hieroglyphic in nature.  It was sometimes hard to read.  Creeper's work wasn't always the easiest to read either, which didn't help.  I have a feeling their copywork will be far different between the beginning of the year and the end of the year.  I even took pictures to compare at the end of the year.

Bear's first copywork of the year

Creeper's first copywork of the year

This was really exciting for us.  This is the first year we're going to have something significant to compare at either end of the year.  We've never been all that into portfolios, so we haven't kept a lot of work samples.  Most of what we've kept has been workbooks so the kids can see how far they've progressed.  This time things are different.  They're going to have two things to hold up and compare, which is going to be a lot of fun for them.

Creeper doing his literature by Skype

The biggest success of the year so far was getting things started up for Skype.  They're loving those lessons.  I think this is fantastic because it's not just a chance for them to have some educational time with someone other than me, but it's also a chance to build a relationship with another member of their family.  They get exposure to a really good reader as well.  I'm loving this Skype arrangement.  More importantly, the kids are loving this whole Skype thing.

This is also just a really funky way to homeschool.  It's given me the idea that we may want to start budgeting for some other online classes, maybe through something like Outschool.  There's something special about having a chance to work alone in my little office without any distractions, and have someone's attention just on them.  I think they'd love doing classes online this way too.  It could be something to think about for our future in homeschooling.  Maybe we'll have to consider getting them each on an online class for their birthday or for Christmas.  That could be so much fun.

Link working in the comfy chair

In other news, while this is the first week of homeschooling for Link, it may also be the last solid week of homeschooling for Link.  We just got word back that he's off the waiting list for the charter school we've been looking into for him.  While it makes me sad to think of how much I'll miss out on with him being in school, I can't help but think how good this will be for him.  The school has a reputation for having a great program, with lots of support for special needs.  It's entirely science and technology based, which is really Link's thing.  Most of all, it means he'll have a chance to make some really good social connections and make some friends, something that's been kind of lacking in his life right now.  Without a car our opportunities for socialization are limited, and he's really of an age where he needs to expand his social circle.

It's going to be an interesting transition for us, should we decide this is the best path for Link.  He's super excited and ready to go back to school.  He wants friends his own age and a big social network.  He's already a morning person, so getting him up and out the door shouldn't be hard, and adapting our lives to work around when he's on and off the bus shouldn't be hard, but it's going to be a very different dynamic only having two at home.  It will be a big change for almost all of us.

All of us except Pinkie.  She's already back in school.  Her first week back was in her landscaping shop, and apparently it was wonderful.  She's looking forward to a great year there, though we're not sure how great it will be yet.  We won't know what she really feels until she gets into her academic week at the vocational school, which happens when she goes back on Tuesday.  So far it looks like it should be a good year though.

Pinkie has really taken off on her own this year.  She started volunteering at the local food pantry over the summer and plans to continue on one day a week throughout the year.  She's moving on into an honors class.  She's decided it's healthier to walk to and from school, so she's been doing that because she wants to stay in shape, which is especially important with her shop.  She needs to stay strong and capable.  In some ways it's hard to believe we're one step closer to her being out in the world, but at the same time, it seems right.  It's going to be a hard change when she's finally off to college or living on her own.

But this is only the first week of school.  We've had a couple victories, things the kids are wicked proud of, particularly Bear.  He's feeling especially accomplished this week.  We've even caught on video two very special moments:

Bear reading Mac and Tab (Primary Phonics)

This is Bear reading his first phonics reader, Mac and Tab, done by Primary Phonics.  I have to admit, when I first learned about this program I wasn't in love with it.  In fact, I kind of hated it, but Creeper was doing okay with it, so we kept with it.  Now that I'm seeing the incredible impact it's having on the kids' ability to read, I'm really pretty impressed with it.  It feels like we're really making progress with reading, and this program has so much to do with that, especially with the readers, which are right on target and perfectly timed with the levels.  I couldn't ask for more!

Bear recites "from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage"

Also, this is another huge accomplishment.  The kids are all going to be memorizing poems this year, even Link, who has decided to continue with his poems even after he goes back to school.  Bear was the first one to have a poem due, and he did wonderfully!  He's so proud of himself and I'm so proud of him!  This year is going to be full of poetry for the kids, which is fantastic because they're totally loving the memorization and are so excited to show off to the world!

Haircuts by Daddy

In an unrelated to school front, Bear decided he was sick of having long hair (as I'm sure you've noticed in the second video), so he wanted his hair cut.  His cute new style was given to him by his dad, and it turned out great!  More often than not our idea of haircuts are clippers by the sink, or paying someone else to do them, but this worked out really well.  We may have to do more haircuts by Daddy!

Now Bear says he has "princess hair, like Mommy," which I think is the cutest thing.  It's great that we've been able to give him a new style for his first year in an actual numbered grade.  He's no longer a little kid anymore, he's a first grader!  Now he has more of a big kid style to go with it, or at least that's how he feels.

As for going forward, we're really excited about continuing our work for this school year.  We've got some really great stuff coming our way as the year goes on.  The plan is to keep at least weekly updates, possibly more often if we're up to fun and interesting things.  It's shaping up to be a great school year already!

First Day Down

It's morning, and that means I'll be getting into it soon, but I figured I'd at least pop on and give a little bit about how everything went yesterday.  After all, it was the first day of school!

First Pinkie went back to her high school, which was great.  I guess she was in shop for her first day, which meant she didn't have terribly much hard stuff to do, but talk about starting off on the right foot!  Shop is her favorite, so that was a perfect way to start the year!

As always, she started off the first day of school late, apparently.  I guess she's taken to walking to school, which is good!  It's definitely healthier for her than just taking the bus!  She didn't really talk about it much, but she was in a good mood the whole day, so I guess that's a sign that her first day went pretty well.  At least there were no complaints.

This is going to be a more challenging year for her because she's got her first honors class.  It's going to be interesting to see how it goes once everything hits full swing with academics again next week.  I have to wonder how much that will change how she feels about school.

As for the rest of them, it was a rough start.  Bear fell to pieces somewhere around lunch time.  He didn't get much sleep and that resulted in a really rough spot for him.  I ended up carrying him to bed and staying with him until he was sleeping, so he didn't finish his work.  It was frustrating, but at least he hit the big points.  We got through his literature, history, and science, which left us with only the subjects we've been really going hard at to get on track.  Having one day off isn't really going to hurt him at this point.

Creeper did great for his first day.  He kind of broke down on his reading at the end of it all, but it was a long day.  I can't blame him for just being done with the whole thing.  It's a longer day than we've had in the past couple of years, so it's going to be a challenge for him.  Plus, it's an adjustment with a new routine and a new curriculum.  He doesn't love the idea of having to do more work, but we're getting through it.  At least he knows some of it is fun because his science had him drawing space yesterday.  That was a lot of fun for him.  It worked out pretty well!

For Link, I think, it was the hardest.  He wasn't even done with his work on the computer until almost five, and then he still had his math, phonics, and science to do, as well as some more reading.  As it stood he didn't finish his math.  We didn't even start with his science until this morning, and he's finishing his reading now.  We're going to see how this is going forward, especially once babysitting starts.  He's not going to want to work once there are more kids in the house.  I'm hoping we can just start finishing his day by 4:30.

But that's our start to the week.  I'm wondering how things will go from here, but I'm thinking now that Bear is more well rested it's going to make all the difference.  I have a feeling there's going to be some adjustments we need to make, but one we get it settled out it'll all be just fine.

It's Only Been, I Don't Know, Forever?

We're back!  We're moving!  And it's about time to start school again.  No, I'm not kidding, we start school tomorrow.  I already have the stack of books sitting beside my chair for the first two weeks and everything.  All we need now is the schedule to be tacked to the wall and we'll be good to go.

So what's coming up for us this year?  Well, I'm glad you asked.  This year we're going to be starting a whole bunch of things on the homeschool front.  We've kind of scrapped our old unschooling ways in favor of more involved pursuits.  However, it's going to be a really fun year and I think the kids are going to absolutely love it!

But before we get to that, I'm going to talk about Pinkie.  This year is going to be Pinkie's sophomore year in high school.  Yes, high school!  She's studying landscaping at our local vocational school, and she's in love with it.  Part of that was being able to drive a tractor, but most of it is her love of working outdoors and being involved with plants.  It's always been a thing of hers, ever since she was pretty little.  She's always been into plants and animals.

But what about the homeschooling crew?  We're checking out a new program (well, new to us) called Build Your Library.  It's a secular literature-based curriculum, so basically everything we need.  I found it through a group called Secular, Eclectic, Academic.  I don't remember how I encountered them, but I used them to vet out other literature-based programs available.  While I have to say I wasn't worried about "truly secular" curriculum by their definition, I think I definitely found my home with Build Your Library.

So, why did I choose this one?  I'll be honest, I loved some of the book selections and I got excited that the creator chose things like The Hobbit and some other more modern titles.  It also helps that it wasn't a small fortune to purchase the books (though my aunt did do us a huge favor and got most of them for us used!)  As I explored the curriculum and learned more about the creator, I got more and more excited.  The woman who put it all together is really my kind of person.  She loves to read, but she's also into fantasy and science fiction, and we even watch some of the same shows.  She reads comic books, too, and goes to the local Comic Con.  There's definitely something appealing about a curriculum written by someone that's my kind of people.

Truth be told, I wasn't even looking for a curriculum when I started finding them.  People just started referencing them and I got curious.  This resulted in me checking them out, and then finally starting to really get drawn into the idea that these kinds of curricula even exist!  Next thing you know I was trying to figure out in the budget how I was going to afford to provide one for my kids, and then the whole idea of unschooling went right out the window.

Against what everyone recommends, I've decided to do a different level for each of the kids.  This is in part because of my own personal discomfort at the idea of having them work off "grade level" and instead having to modify the whole thing to make it appropriate for all of their skill levels.  On top of that, there's something nice about being able to give them each the individualized attention of their own plan and assignments.  Yes, it's more work, but I think it will result in each one of them getting a little bit more individualized attention.

So this year Bear is going to be in level 1.  That means we're going to be studying the ancients in history.  This is paired with some great literature, including a couple books that actually tie into the history, something that must have been challenging to find.  It's hard to find a book that appeals to that age level and matching that period of history.  There isn't a ton of lit written in that period.  This is all put together with a nature study, which seems like a really good "introduction to science" kind of thing.  Finally, we'll be adding our own math and phonics, sticking with what we're already doing, since it works so well for us.

Creeper gets to study the middle ages, though we're going to be including a little bit of a gloss-over for the ancients.  We've done it before, but it's been a little while, so this will be a review.  More than anything I wanted to get the timeline figures up there for him so he can have a full timeline when he's finished.  He's also got a great lit selection, which I've really been enjoying.  Science for him will be broken up into Earth science and space.  It should be a fun year.  Also, he'll be doing the same math and phonics, just like Bear.

Finally, there's Link.  He's doing the first level of American history.  I could have had him work on grade level, but as one of the things they learn is the 50 states, half in each year of American history, I thought we should start at the beginning.  His books are pretty good too, and they provide the link between his history and science.  For science he's doing biology, and it seems like there's a little bit of emphasis on diseases, which should be fun because I'm highly interested in infectious disease.  It all just packages together so neatly!  This is also going to be his last year in the elementary math books, as next year he's going to be doing pre-algebra.  We're also going to be working on finishing out his phonics curriculum, so that should be one thing to mark off the list.  I still can't believe he's already in middle school!  They grow up so fast!

And we're not homeschooling in isolation during the day either!  My aunt is getting some time in with the kids via Skype this year, which is huge.  Now, I'm not excited about this because it means I have a little less to worry about every day.  Yeah, she's taking some of the burden on history and poetry and almost all of lit.  However, this is a chance for her to build a strong relationship with the kids!  When they grow up and think back about their family, they're going to remember all those times working on the computer with their aunt.  She's a great, engaging reader.  She's always ready with funny comments to keep things lively.  The help with homescooling is just an added bonus.  It's also great to be able to have a resource who used to work in education and knows tips and tricks that I'd never even thought of before.  I don't know what we'd do without her insight.

Okay, time for a little nostalgia...  Thinking back about my aunt helping me out, I keep going back to the same thought over and over again.  Years back, when I was still pretty young, she made me a collection of poems.  She illustrated the book and everything.  I had that thing for years, and my parents might even still have it in their basement somewhere.  It was my favorite thing to pull out to read, and I still have one of the poems, a very short one, memorized.  It's one of those things that stuck with me for years.  Having my kids work with my aunt, it feels like it's that kind of thing, only less physical and tangible.  They may not have had a book to pull out and look at, but they get to see and talk to their aunt daily, which is great.  When they grow up they may not have memories of a collection of poems she made, but they'll remember reciting the poems they memorized to her.  They'll have memories of the books they read together and all the conversations they had.  They're going to be close, and that's wonderful.

But that's basically it for our planning this year.  I'm sure I'll have more to write after we've kicked off the year, which is tomorrow!  I still have things to do to get ready, like writing up narration cards and getting all of that sorted out, but we're almost there.  It's down to the finer details now, and anything that doesn't come along perfectly smoothly will be sorted out as we get rolling.  These first couple of weeks are going to be a challenge, but we'll get there, and it's all going to be so much fun!

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!