November Wrap-Up

December is here, ya'll. Tomorrow. Can you believe it?

Our holiday celebrations are well under way, but they are about to get even busier. I wanted to take a minute to dump any lingering pictures or notes I have about what we've been doing this month so that I can begin to focus all of my thoughts and energy on Advent.

If you've been keeping up around here, you already know that we've been busy this month! I'll let you read through all of November's posts to see all of the fun we've had. I just wanted to drop a couple of more things here that have not been written about elsewhere.

We finished reading the first book in the Narnia series. We absolutely loved it and cannot wait to start the next one. But, that is on hold until January. We have way too many Christmas books to read this month, so we have decided to make A Christmas Carol our chapter book read aloud this month. We'll be reading that in the afternoons, our baskets of picture books in the mornings and then reading from our Advent storybook in the evenings.

Speaking of books, did I mention the few we read aloud for Thanksgiving? I had a basket filled and the girls did some reading of their own, but the only ones we really read aloud were Balloons Over Broadway (Melissa Sweet), Thanksgiving Is (Gail Gibbons), Squanto's Journey (Bruchac), Over the River and Through the Wood ( ) and Thank You, Sarah (Anderson).

The Princess did a 2-mile walk workout with me the other day. She was so cute. She was really proud of herself that she had walked two miles ... in the living room. :)

The Hippie has been reading up a storm. She's read The Story of Holly & Ivy and The Twenty-Four Days Before Christmas, as well as several of the picture books. She read The Legend of Saint Nicholas aloud to the Princess and I this morning. She is also still working on Pilgrim Stories by Pumphrey.

The Princess has also been reading the picture books in the Christmas baskets. She is still working on Charlotte's Web {slowly}, though I admit it seems harder to get her to read it now that she is into Christmas. She did read a lovely Christmas book aloud to me the other day ~ Little One, We Knew You'd Come.

We're still writing in our gratitude journals in the morning and today we prepared 100 strips of paper for our Jesus stocking. Starting tomorrow evening, we will each write down one thing we are thankful for after dinner each night. We will read all of those on Christmas day. That was a lovely part of our holiday last year and we look forward to doing it again!

The holiday celebrations are in full swing here. The girls watched An All Dogs Christmas Carol the other morning and we listened to the audio books of The Christmas Story (from the Bible) and Dewey's Magical Sleigh. We also listened to Frohe Weinachten ~ a German cd of stories and songs about Christmas. We've been listening to Christmas music all day every day, switching around between Celtic Christmas, Classical Christmas, Traditional Christmas, Country Christmas, Christmas Hymns, plain old Christmas Music and our collection of Christmas CDs. We all curled up on the couch to watch How the Grinch Stole Christmas and Shrek the Halls last night. And, our Christmas lights and candles have been on all day.

How about  you?

I'll leave you with a few more pictures from recent days.

 

 

Until next time,

~ Irie Momma

Today ...

Today has been a perfectly lovely day and I don't want to forget it, so I thought I'd share it here.

The day began with the lighting of our Yankee Candle "Holiday Berry" and some Celtic Christmas music on Pandora. The girls also got to dig into the first round of picture books I got from the library last night. We've got at least 20 more requested, not to mention all of the ones we own that we'll be breaking out tomorrow. We've got plenty to read over the next month!

We are two chapters from finishing the first book in the Chronicles of Narnia series and I would like to go ahead and finish this today or tomorrow so that we can focus solely on all of these Christmas books (we love reading our Christmas picture books) until after the holidays. So, while the girls ate breakfast, I read a chapter of Narnia to them.

As I prepared and ate something myself, the Hippie read aloud to the Princess from the Little House Christmas Treasury. She read "Christmas in the Big Woods" to her.

And then I joined them on the couch. We sang together "Deck the Hall" while reading this lovely book by Sylvia Long.

We followed our lovely singing by my reading aloud of The Baker's Dozen: A Colonial American Tale by Heather Forest.

And then the fun really began. The Princess and I spent three solid hours in the kitchen cooking together. She and I made the pumpkin cheese cake, the stuffing and the squash casserole, all from scratch. It was such a joy to share all of this with her. And, she now has an appreciation for how hard Momma works every year to provide the feast! It was hard work and we are both worn out!

At some point we switched over to Classical Christmas music on Pandora and on more than one occasion, all three of us had to stop what we were doing to head into the living room an dance about together.

The Hippie spent some time reading Pilgrim Stories and playing Legos. She was also a huge help by making lunch while the Princess and I finished up our work.

To round it all out, the Princess read aloud to me the story, Little One, We Knew You'd Come.

 
 And finally, I read aloud to her The Christmas Story from the Gospel According to St. Luke from the King James Bible.
 

And, here we are. The Princess is playing quietly with Legos (and the dogs), the Hippie is working on some mysterious craft she's been doing for Thanksgiving tomorrow and I am about to fix myself a nice big cup of hot tea.

Heaven.

Now, if only I could find a way to summon that cleaning fairy! I believe every single dish I own is dirty. Ah well. They can wait just long enough for me to have my tea.

How is your Thanksgiving-Eve going?
 
I'll leave you with a few snap shots of the morning.
Until next time, 
~ Irie Momma

Still half asleep. :)

Ready to make Momma's home made pumpkin cheesecake ~ YUMMY

The Hippie reading to the Princess

My little helper ... she loves to cook with me!

Moving on to the stuffing ...

Making a glorious mess while her sister and I cook. :)

Last, but not least (for today anyway) ... squash casserole.

Making lunch for the girls

Thoroughly exhausted ... moving on to her other joy ... Sweet Pea!

Wishing you a blessed day!

Tuesday's Poetry Tea Time ... with a twist

One of our favorite things about our home education lifestyle is our Poetry Tea Time on Tuesdays.

We usually do this in the afternoon. At around 4:00 I set a nice table with a table cloth and special dishes that only come out for Tea Time. I put the cream into the little ceramic dish and break out tiny spoons and everything. It is also an opportunity for the girls to get a special sweet treat. We either bake muffins earlier in the day or I will break out some cookies that are not eaten on any other day.

Today I decided to surprise the girls with something a little different.

When the girls came out this morning, we first curled up on the couch and I read a couple of Thanksgiving books to them. Then, I sent them off to get ready for the day while I made breakfast.

But, instead of just making breakfast, I went ahead and set us up for a morning tea time. I set the table cloth out. I set out our tea cups and the cream and the sugar. I baked some yummy biscuits and fried us each an egg. I fixed up a quick fruit salad and set out the jams and knives. I brewed up some Sugar Cookie Sleigh Ride tea for the girls and some green tea for me. And, I lit a candle for the final touch.

Once I had everything just so, I grabbed these two great books from our Thanksgiving book basket (you can click on the picture and it will take you to the book on Amazon) and called the girls to the kitchen.

Giving Thanks: Poems, Prayers and Praise Songs of Thanksgiving

The Book of Giving: Poems of Thanks, Praise and Celebration

*****

They were so thankful for the lovely surprise. I said, "Who says we can't have a Poetry Tea Time with breakfast?".

We each spread jam on our biscuits and fixed up our teas. We enjoyed our breakfast and then we set to reading aloud all sorts of poems and blessings, giving thanks to God for His many gifts.

It's really amazing how loved this simple gesture makes the girls feel!

What a beautiful way to start our day!

Until next time,

~ Irie Momma