December Photo Project: Day 7

No ornament painting happened today.

Instead, we watched some classic holiday cartoons on Netflix. Mostly they were funny, but they did have some awkward moments. Like when the crocodile slammed into a tree and turned into several purses.

This mama is tired and worn out.

But the same can not be said for the kids.

December Photo Project: Day 6

In preparation for the Christmas tree coming this weekend, the kids and I got to work making some ornaments.

2 cups of flour, 1 cup of salt, and 1 cup of water later . . .

The kitchen is trashed, and I'm procrastinating cleaning it up.

I wasn't able to take many pictures during most of the adventure. Lila was far too eager for me to step back. But she and Yonah lost interest before too long, and I had a chance.

Tomorrow, if I'm feeling adventurous enough, the kids and I will paint them.

The hand prints were tricky. We needed the dough to be thin enough to be able to hang in the tree, but thick enough to keep the hands from going through. We erred a bit on the thin side . . .

December Photo Project: Day 5

I had the perfect moment to snap some awesome shots today.

Five days late, the kids and I were finally putting together the days-til-Christmas chains. Natural light was streaming in the window next to us . . . The kids were doing it all mostly by themselves . . . There were smiles, and pride in personal achievements, and much happiness . . . 

And the camera sat untouched on my desk through all of it. Sigh.

So instead, I am sharing some (kind of half-assed) pictures I took of our current indoor Christmas decorations. Kim and I are planning on bringing a tree home this weekend.

Hoping to have something more interesting to look at tomorrow.

December Photo Project: Day 4

Most people know by now that we "officially" started homeschooling our kids this year.

It's been (mostly) a blast for everyone, in part because we're keeping it pretty casual. Our primary focus right now is learning to read. Though we have "real" school for reading and math, everything else is picked up throughout the normal day.

I like to think that I'm pretty awesome with how I pull lessons out of whatever we're doing each day. But Kim was the one with the brilliant idea to start teaching Yonah how to type.

I snapped this shot of his "type school" (a.k.a. Mavis Beacon) today.

December Photo Project: Day 3

Lights, Camera . . . 

December Photo Project: Day 2

Today we had a Christmas party with Kim's unit. While usually military shindigs lean toward the side of boring, the kids being old enough to actually participate in things made it more fun. Especially since they aren't old enough to participate in things without some parental involvement.

They responded to their first encounter with a "real" Santa as I expected.

Arabelle was the only one courageous enough to sit on Santa's lap, even though she wouldn't give a real smile.

I had to beg Yonah to stand near enough to have me be able to take a picture, and even then he would only do so if he got to hold his new Angry Birds puzzle.

Lila required both cookie incentive and Kim holding her down long enough for me to get a shot.

Kim took some pictures, too.

I especially like these ones. Usually I'm the one behind the camera, so I don't have very many pictures of me with the kids . . . Or me at all, really.

December Photo Project: Day 1

I was shocked to see that my last post was almost 5 months ago. Wasn't it last week? Wait a second, you're telling me it's December now? Sheesh. Where has this year gone?

I've decided to use the month of December to strengthen two habits that I can safely say are nonexistent. It started like this:

My friend posted a link to her blog today, in which she shared the first of a month's worth of photo-a-day pictures. It reminded me of how awful I am at updating this blog, and how awful I am at remembering to take pictures every day. So here I go. I am trying yet again, with the optimistic hope that I will be successful . . . and the pessimistic feeling that I won't.

I'm opening the door now for anyone interested to harass encourage me to see this through to the end.

There's also still time to join in if you want to.

Dreaming of Snow