I'm still here....

Honestly, a lot has been going on, but I've had an apparent case of writers block lately.  Also, both cards on my cameras are full and I have not backed up my photos on the computer yet, so I don't want to erase the memory cards.  If I would just take the time to do that (what, 45 minutes, tops?) I could move on.  But I'm not feeling motivated.

So I will just share a few new photos I've taken (by erasing the ones I don't really care for on the camera, thus making room for new ones) and let you make up your own stories as to what's been going on lately.

And if you notice that Jacob is missing from the homeschooling photos, it's not an omission on my part.  He is now being governmentally schooled in our local primary school.  He has a wonderful teacher who is also a friend of mine from church.  I feel so blessed that she is the one God has chosen to spend about seven hours a day supervising Jacob.  It was a very hard decision for me to make in removing him from homeschooling, but this has been a good move for him, and our home has been much more peaceful during the morning and afternoon.  He has cried several times that he misses home and would like to be homeschooled again, but I think we're going to have to wait until he gets some of his impulsive behaviors under control before we try it again.  Hopefully in the next year or so.  I would like to have him back home, too;  as tough as it was with him here, it feels like one of the eggs is missing from the nest sometimes.

Anyway, enjoy the photos.

Girls whipping up some dinner.  Washing dishes is required knowledge in this house, starting at age 2.  Katie Mei doesn't get enough practice, apparent by her smile.

The girls get some age-appropriate sewing lessons.

Helping Daddy with the new bathroom paint.  He thought this was a good  idea until he saw her footprint on the wall in the wet paint.  Surprisingly, she got none on her clothes!

Playing Mummy Math on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Naps are still in.

Merrilee started taking a Chinese painting class and is doing very well.  These are first tries.

And finally, I got a coupon to a pottery shop and the girls got to paint their own teacups and saucers.

Sunday Sweethearts

 Can't help it.  Katie Mei was so cute when she got ready for church last Sunday.  I had to take photos.  And then I noticed they all looked pretty good, so I make them all pose for a photo before we headed off.  Love 'em all dressed up for worship!

Demise of the Confectionary Architectural Structure

One of the many fun things about having children is making new traditions and enjoying them year after year.  In our family, the kids have come to love making the gingerbread house prior to Christmas.  I always buy a boxed kit because I just don't have the talent to make the cake myself, nor do I care to experience having one or two walls fall apart and have to start over to bake a new one.  So we stick with the tried and true Wilton gingerbread houses, known for their sturdy (read that "hard as rock") structural integrity.

After the kids decorate the house, we set it on the dining room table where the frosting is able to harden to the likeness of cement, and the house itself becomes a dust magnet.  For some mysterious reason, my kids never touch the house.  I always expect Jacob to snitch some candies off of it, but he never does.  He'll sneak cupcakes out of the kitchen, but he won't touch the candy on the house!  I don't think they ever noticed, but I ate most of the Smarties off the house before it January ever arrived!

Our tradition follows that after the first week in January, the kids may then demolish the house and eat of it whatever they want until Mom says "Time's Up!" and we throw the rest in the trash.  I've learned that we must do this portion of the ritual outside, so we almost always wait until we have a nice, warmish day after the first of the year.  I pick one child to do the honorary cake bashing with my meat hammer, and then I let them at it.  This year Katie Mei had the privilege of being the Chosen One who smashed the cake.  She also got to eat a few bits of candy off the roof prior to the demolition.

Let the festivities begin!

A New Year

Happy Birthday, Jay!  Our New Year's Baby had his 52nd birthday on the first of the year, and the kids and I had a little party for him.   Katie Mei got the privilege of putting the "trick" candles on his cake, and Merrilee (who was in on the secret) just about peed her pants cracking up as Daddy tried so hard to blow them out. 

The kids thought the relighting candles were the greatest new invention ever made for birthday trickery!  It was more fun to watch them laughing than it was to see Jay pretending to huff and puff and blow them out over and over.  All the soot left on the cake wasn't so cool, but the whole scene was pretty funny. It got quite smokey in the room with all the relighting and blowing out, so I was glad when the last candle finally was extinguished.

One of Jay's gifts was Wii Party, and the kids and I had a blast playing it later in the evening.  Jay didn't enjoy quite as much as we did, but I do believe he has enjoyed his subscription to Netflix.

Happy birthday, Jay!  We love you!

Christmas

In the interest of trying to finish out the year of blogging, I'm wrapping it up with some pre- and post-Christmas photos.  The children enjoyed a day of crafting prior to Christmas.  I hardly ever get arts and crafts worked into our homeschool schedule, so sometimes its fun to just take some time to do nothing but crafts.  They had gathered pine cones from a park on the Marine Base last week and turned them into Christmas trees.  Jacob was allowed to use the hot glue gun for the first time, and he did pretty well with it.  But after getting hot glue on his fingers about ten times, he decided the excitement had worn off and he wanted me to finish gluing his "ornaments" on his tree.

They also beaded pipe cleaners to make ornaments for our tree, and Katie Mei put together a foam Nativity scene.  She does quite well with craft projects on her own, so I let her have more leeway than I ever could the other two at the age of three.  She often asks me if she can use glue and scissors and I can tell her "yes" without having to provide too much supervision.  However, I did notice today when I was upstairs in our classroom that all four glue sticks were empty and had been put back in their proper place instead of in the trash can.  Wonder when she used all that glue?  Hmmmm.

On Christmas Eve the children watched the Muppets version of A Christmas Carol.  Merrilee remembered the story from seeing another version of it last year.  But Jacob and Katie Mei hadn't seen it before, so they were a little more tense in some of the "ghost" scenes, even if it was done with puppets.

Christmas morning brought its usual fun and excitement, and Jacob was the first one up this year.  He's usually our sleepy head, but not on Christmas morning!

The kids got their annual nutcrackers.  I was so happy to have found some less common ones this year.  Two were snowmen, and for Merrilee I found a baker.  I hope the kids love their nutcracker collections when they're grown ups.

The top item on Katie Mei's Christmas list was a suitcase.  I ordered a fun purple "Trunki" case for her, which is actually made to be ridden like a pull toy, for ease in getting through an airport.  I don't know if we'll ever get that far with it, but she seemed to like it.  The day after Christmas she innocently informed me that she had seen the "purple suitcase" in my closet a long time ago.  So much for my private hiding place for gifts!

Jacob didn't ask for a guitar, but he was very excited to get one. He has been longing for one since Merrilee got one almost three years ago, but he's not very good with his toys (or other people's, for that matter) so we were unwilling to buy him a guitar in the past.  This year I decided he might be okay with one. 

Well, within 40 minutes he broke one string and removed a second.  The day after Christmas he filled his guitar with bathwater; I tried to stay calm and meticulously dried it out, reminding him of what a nice guitar it was and how he'd have to treat it well.  And yesterday I found it in his closet stuffed full of wet Sunday school papers and loose silica gel beads that he apparently found in the guitar box and dumped in there.  Needless to say, his guitar ownership has been postponed.  Maybe he can have it again when he's 37.

He also got a fun Spiderman watch.  He was quite excited about the watch, and so far it's still intact!

Merrilee had been wanting some kind of a crystal kit for almost a year, so I found one that lets her "mine" crystals from a block of plaster.  She was head-over-heels excited about her gift!  The day after Christmas she sat down and did some mining and actually got her first amethyst from the block.

I didn't want Katie Mei to be the only one without a guitar, since she's our real musical child (believe it or not, this quiet one really does spend a lot of time singing despite her lack of stage presence at church musicals!).  She was happy to get her guitar, too, and so far hasn't abused it.  Although she did leave it on the steps once and had it taken away temporarily.  We had no idea guitars were such high-maintenance gifts!

Merrilee had also asked for a pogo stick; she said she just wanted to try it. I warned her it was pretty hard (Lord knows I couldn't manage to stay on one when I was her age!).  Well, she proved me wrong as usual.  That child is just built for athleticism!

The cats mildly enjoyed the morning.  Cinders found the Shiatsu foot massager more than thrilling, and we couldn't turn it on without her getting in on the action!

Dusty was nowhere to be found, and Linus made his point clear that Christmas is way overrated.  It's either that, or he just can't hold his catnip very well.

The older children helped with Christmas dinner, preparing the olive and cream cheese-celery stick tray.  The day after Christmas, Katie Mei and Merrilee made pizzas.  Love having them old enough to help in the kitchen now and again!

Our family hopes you had a lovely Christmas and wishes you a blessed New Year.