Christmas is gone already and we are spending the rest of the week just relaxing. We are supposed to take a drive to Amish country today but my husband stayed up late reading the book I got him for Christmas…so we may not go anywhere today. We had a very busy but nice Christmas.
Over the weekends the kids got to help ring the Salvation Army Bell at Wal-Mart. My husband has rung the bell every year (he might have missed one…I can’t remember) since we moved here. The kids like to ring the bell too so I usually walk around the store for an hour so they can take turns. This year a gentleman who must have been in his eighties wearing an old but still nice suit and bow-tie (“just like Doctor Who’s!!!!” Oldest told me) brought a pickle jar full of change to put in the Salvation Army bucket. The kids helped him put all of the change in the bucket. He left the pickle jar. My husband and the kids
decided to bring it home and fill it up again for next year. I have no idea who you are Bow-tie Man but you made a beautiful impression on my family. We’ll bring that pickle jar back next year…and it will be full.
I spent Monday in the kitchen making goodies getting ready for a get together with friends and for family. Several people have asked for the recipes so I will post those on here before the end of the year. We spent Christmas Eve with friends over at Mrs. Cuddle-me’s place. The kids love going over and honestly so do I. We went shooting,
ate lots of yummy food and just enjoyed hanging out together. The highlight of the day was watching Middle Boy play Christmas songs on her organ. He had never played an organ before but you would not have known that by listening to him. Middle Boy loves music.
Christmas morning was fairly quiet for us. We opened stockings and then I made the annual Christmas pancake breakfast. Later we went to my husband’s sister’s house for the family Christmas dinner and gift exchange. I was a little worried over enduring a repeat of the Thanksgiving Day anxiety happening again…maybe more than a little worried. Anyway, I did manage to keep myself mostly under control and spent most of my time bouncing between the kids. I am not sure what I am going to do when the kids are too old for me to hide behind…
Yesterday the kids and I cleaned the house and then they played with all of their new toys. We had a nice quiet day. So nice that I almost forgot about piano lessons…almost. The amazing moment of the day was when Littlest wrote his name all by himself. I had no intentions of teaching him how to write or read until he was much older. I guess he didn’t like that idea and taught himself how to write! I may need to revise my plans. We’ll start school up next week because my crew (and their mom) really need their routine back. We are close to wrapping our current studies up and so I need to start gathering supplies for our short semester and planning out next school year’s courses and activities. I was advised by Rea Berg (founder of Beautiful Feet Books!!!) to find some books by Edwin Tunis to aid in our history studies. Since she is the author of our favorite curriculum I took her suggestion as gospel and found seven ex-library copies to add to our shelves. One of the books came with a child’s drawing on the cover. The library (Pacific Grove Public Library) had even covered the drawing with plastic to protect the art work. I thought about removing it but decided to leave Mr. G Powell’s aged four years cover art…it just adds character.
in pursuit of wild things 
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