We're Doing Our Best

 I'm not sure why I'm so full of self-doubt and complaints as I am right now, but it's a reality.

I'm healthy again.  

Just left with the sniffles and occasional congestion that will probably follow me until spring.

But no fatigue or weepiness anymore.

I got the Christmas books ready.

I suppose we need a prettier basket, but I'm quite pleased with how many fabric gift bags I've sewed this month . . . and how pretty they are.
(That baby gift bag on the left is how Lola chose to package one of her gifts to a sibling. 😆 )

On Monday afternoon, I sat with the kids and read all of the books we'd missed from the first to the 9th.  It was a lovely time with so many expressions of joy and remembrance as favorite books appeared.  With the fire burning and the Christmas tree lights glowing, it felt like Christmas!

Their assignment that day was to choose one illustration from one of the books--each child had his/her choice--and reproduce it as well as possible.  I didn't get pictures of most of the kids' work, but I found Beowulf's lying on a table, and I captured that one.

This is the cow from Christmas in the Barn.

On Tuesday, I took the kids (at least most of them) ice-skating!!!

Nature Angel had to work, so she wasn't there (She got to go the next evening on a date!), but she gave us permission to go without her.  I sat near one of the fires and froze in my layers and layers of outdoor gear while the kids skated and peeled layers off claiming it was "too hot" for coats.

We came home in time for me to make chili and cornbread for dinner while the kids watched the movie Klaus.

A perfect Christmas school day.

Our Christmas read-aloud on Wednesday was The Polar Express.  After we read it and talked it all out, I assigned the kids to write their own Polar Express story with themselves as the child narrator. 

I accepted first drafts that afternoon, and on Thursday, I met with the kids individually and gave them feedback on how to improve.  With younger kids, it was simply a matter of correcting spelling and punctuation. With Ladybug and Mister Man, I talked them through how to write more descriptively and gave them specific direction about where their stories could use some development.

They read so much that their prose is actually quite good!

My plan was to work on their stories and have them produce final drafts on Friday, but Christmas shopping and food preparation sucked up all of the hours of the day, so I had to be content with the kids counting money and writing lists and making decisions in the stores as real-life school.

I LOVE Christmas shopping with my kids.

Every time I listen to them talk out their decisions and watch them light up with satisfaction as they find the perfect present, I'm just so charmed!

Thursday evening was busy with each youth group meeting in a different location!  The older girls had a white elephant gift exchange Christmas party at their youth leader's home.  The older boys were supposed to go bowling, but they couldn't get enough lanes for the size of their group, so they played games at the home of one of the youth leaders.  The little girls went ice skating.  The little boys made gingerbread houses at the church.

We divided and conquered with other families to get everyone where they needed to be and then home again.

Like his dad and Pixie, Beowulf is fascinated with geography.  
I love how he chose both an easy-to-read, exciting fantasy and an atlas as his bedtime reading books, but he's deep in the atlas.

All of the kids did math every day.

In addition to our picture book Christmas readings, the kids and I finished this book:

The teens and I resumed our American Lit. reading.  We finally got Huck and Jim free of "the King" and "the Duke."  We're filled with anxiety for Lennie and George because as Nature Angel said, "This is so identifiable as John Steinbeck.  He's setting up so much hope, and you just know it's all going to be dashed to pieces."

Yup. 

She knows Steinbeck.

Little Princess had her final Mandarin class for the semester.  She'll resume classes the first week of January.

The kids are deep in a Monopoly-playing trend.  I need to document this with some pictures, but for now, I can say with absolute truth that they play Monopoly for sometimes 6 hours in a single day.  Sometimes they argue over what can and can't be done, so I have to look up a rule, but for the most part, they are able to handle sales, purchases, making change, following rules, and resolving conflict on their own.

It's the season for end-of-semester elective productions.  We're attending lots of shows that friends are in . . . and I'm feeling sad (sorry for myself?) that we cannot participate in these activities, too.  Other kids are spending time with friends.  Other kids are learning new skills.  Other kids are getting awards and adding to their academic/extra-curricular resumes. 

We're at home playing Monopoly and building fires in the woodburning stove.

I love our games and fires.

I know we need our home time and white space.

I believe that if we needed those activities, God would provide a way for us to afford them (and I've looked for ways!).

Our homeschool is ours.

It is unique to us.

It is what we need.

(Ugh!  I want to blow away the clouds of self-doubt and inadequacy I'm feeling right now!)

In the week ahead, we're going to have lots of reading and math.  We're going to celebrate a couple of birthdays.  We're going to welcome grown children home for the holidays.  We're going to eat and tell stories and laugh.

It is enough.

It is enough and to spare!