It's a New Year Already!

This is a good representation of how we're living these days.

 We did it.

We did Christmas, and we did New Year's Eve, and we rested.

We had the most hilarious family nativity ever!

Rose Red filmed the whole thing (a video far too long to share here), and we watched it twice over because it felt so good to laugh and laugh and laugh.

Finding no room in the inn

This shepherd is "sore afraid" of the angel!

"Unto us a Child is born!"

I was reading the story as narrator, but I like to feed the kids lines sometimes.  I think I told Beowulf 4 times in a row that his line as a shepherd arriving at the stable was, "Is this the child?"

He walked right up to the manger and said, "Is this the sheep?"

We howled until our sides hurt.

It took a while to get back on track and finish the story.

Sir Walter Scott was a grumpy King Herod.

The wise men look uncertain.

But they made it to the baby.

Such a patient sheep!
(Wearing a costume and everything)

Our cast is shrinking, but our spirits were bright!

And now that we have so many adults in the family, we have more and more audience each year.  Though once Super Star's baby is born, he will have the chance to be Baby Jesus in next year's show.

 

A few days before our nativity, we'd met to have a family supper and make graham cracker houses.

Everyone was there but Pixie, who couldn't arrive until Christmas Eve.

This is Mr. E--Super Star's husband.  He was willing to be photographed, but his wife was specific about not having any pictures of her posted anywhere because she's "too puffy and pregnant."  

My favorite new feature were the Christmas trees the kids made out of Grinch cereal.

Belle's present to her siblings was taking them to see the second Wicked movie.

Beowulf, Baymax, and Lola finished their handwriting books, and they'll be starting Christian Light Education language arts booklets tomorrow (Monday).

Little Princess worked hard all "break" long.  She found time most days to do math or physics or writing.  We were supposed to have a progress meeting this week, but we didn't manage it, so I'll be interested to see where she is tomorrow morning.

She got her ACT results, too.  She made a decent showing for taking the test with zero preparation.  She was disappointed to find her highest scores in reading and language arts.  I had her take a practice math portion this week, and her score jumped dramatically.  

She walked away angry at herself for doing better on a practice exam than on the real one.

I told her we'd practice some more, and the next official score would be excellent.

We read all of our Christmas books, and we've started The Princess and Curdie (which was a family gift from Santa).  The kids cheered when I opened it and showed it to them because they liked The Princess and the Goblins so much.

There were so many sweet sibling moments--even if the pictures caught them at awkward moments. :)

We did some cleaning projects.

Admitting that we've outgrown our geoboards

Organizing the game closet

Taking pictures in order to remember special creations before admitting that it's time to let them go

The teens went to three different New Year's Dances--one on the actual Eve and the other two this weekend.

One of the dances was Roaring Twenties themed.

Pixie took Brother to her gym to work out with her one afternoon.

He beat her at arms, but she beat him at legs.

As of today, Pixie is back in Idaho, and Belle is moved into her new apartment at BYU Provo.

Sir Walter Scott went with them, and he'll be home tomorrow afternoon.

We've spent a lot of days just being.  

Kids have played games, read books, and slept late.

I took walks, binge watched TV shows while cleaning, and tried to organize my brain via planners and journals.

I also slept late.

I told the kids today that I'd like to just keep going the way we are . . . but we have a legal obligation to get back into a school routine . . . besides, we're going to like it once we get started.