We celebrated Thanksgiving with my mom, sister, aunt, cousin, and his son this year.  The weather was great.  The food was fantastic.  And we even threw in some Christmas presents because we won’t see them again until sometime in 2013.

Hanny is the third little girl in our house to receive speech therapy and the second to have Mrs. C.  She looks forward to it big-time and is making great progress.

(way too soon!)

Wow – okay – the good thing about Thanksgiving coming so early is that there are more weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas for holiday-type festivities.

The bad thing is we decorated on November 18th in order to have our house Christmas-ified in time for Thanksgiving Day!

Tabitha was bouncing and elated as Daddy’ unearthed her “Buddies.”  She’s enjoyed her friends for years now. 

I was so happy last year to see how much the older kids could help with assembling the tree.  I am happy to say that I am almost out of a job!!

 

I still had to do the lights (900 of them) and the garland.  I won’t whine on here about how they don’t make lights like they used to and how they are just JUNK these days and only last one year.  But they are junk and they only last one year.

The whole time they were decorating they kept saying to one another, “Wait until Hanny sees THIS!” and “Oh, Johanna is going to LOVE this!”  They couldn’t wait for her to get up from nap. 

Her reaction pleased them tremendously.

The kids put the second tree up in the basement, too.  Again, I put the lights and the garland on and we opted to wait until Monday to decorate that tree.  Actually – they did that one themselves, too.

Two Valuable Animals of Highland People
Nigel B.

There are many ways people in the highlands use animals. The yaks in Tibet look like a buffalo but are a kind of ox. Their long silky hair is used for shoes, whips, and boats. People use their tails as fly chasers or ornaments. They make milk and the Tibetans use it to make cheese or butter. Their meat is usually dried or roasted.

Another good animal is the llama. Llamas are trained to haul tin, grain, and blocks of salt. They can carry up to 100 pounds, but if it is too heavy they lie down. Their wool is used for yarn or cloth. People also drink its milk or eat its meat. Even when it is dead their hides are used to make sandals and its bones can be made into weaving tools. These two animals can really help people.

 

And I am happy to report there were less tears and gnashing of teeth than usual.  (We still used ½ a box of tissues… but it’s an improvement.)

One of the best things about homeschooling is picking our children’s curriculum.  I believe the LORD has led most of our decisions about curriculum.  I do review the books, I do ask people’s experiences, but mostly I just pray.  I don’t like curriculum that is secular, or “nothing.”  With the exception of two early “begin-to-read-and-use-language-books” and our Maps, Charts, Graphs series, ALL of our curriculum, even our ARITHMETIC is now Christ-centered.  Oh, there is good “plain” stuff available.  But WHY would I use it when I can use books that point us to the Creator and the Savior?  (That is a rhetorical question.)

Hands down, in my opinion, the BEST books we use are our Rod and Staff English Language curriculum.  Review after review finds it strong and relentless.  Because the Mennonite education is groomed to be completed at an earlier age that tradition American education the publishers pack a lot more meat into the books at a quicker and less forgiving rate.  Each level is written as a spiral.  For example, all of my kids are working on verbs at the moment and stepped intervals.  It grows each year. 

It is so impressive to me. My kids are learning things I NEVER learned in 12 years of public school.  And I was in all the enriched English classes, from third grade on.  I can promise you I NEVER learned transitive, intransitive, and intransitive complete.  I never learned how to diagram and can not tell you how much more of a command of the English language I have at 40 than I did at 20. 

I never, ever, ever, ever knew the difference between lay and lie.  And I can tell you that most people I come in contact with at work (co-workers and patients) do not have command of this either.

So is that why I love this curriculum? 

Nope.

I love this curriculum because deep down, none of that stuff really matters.  I managed a Masters degree.  I married a dear man God chose for me.  I am enjoying a relationship with Christ that I never anticipated.  I have 5.625 children whom I love profoundly.  Understanding predicate nominatives and gerunds and dependent clauses are not REALLY that important.

But these publishers remembers what is.  Besides the fact that lesson after lesson uses Bible history as the material to work with they also include REAL LIFE LESSONS… like this!

All of the above photographs were taken from Rod and Staff Building Christian English Series – Building Securely, Grade 7, by Rod and Staff Publishers, Crockett, Kentucky. 

 

It was almost two weeks ago now, but I can’t skip the chance to share photos from our week of fun.  It was just one of those things that lead to having a week FULL of activities.  It was the 10th week of this school year and as good a time as any to squeeze in fun (much of which counted as school)!

Tuesday the girls had a field trip to a stable in Springwater to work toward their Horsemanship badge for American Heritage Girls.  While the miniature horses were fascinating, it was the barn cats that got the boys’ attention.  Hanny was tickled by the goats.

Wednesday was our regular morning at CBS.  See Hanny in her class?  She is singing and gently caring for her baby doll.

Then we went with our friends to Pizza Hut to celebrate two of their birthdays,

complete with cupcakes.

Thursday found the oldest three heading to Dayton’s Corners Schoolhouse in Penfield.  This is a late 1800-early 1900 school house that I got to visit for a field trip “back in the day.”  (No – not the early 1900s!)  They had to dress in period clothing and back an authentic lunch.  We put milk in mason jars,

wrapped our muffins in dish towels,

packed rolls, cheese chunks, and hard-boiled eggs.  (The latter was Marie’s idea.  She is so clever!)

Grapes also went in a jar.

We did cheat and put a bag of ice in the bottom of the bucket.  It was 70 degrees that day!

The little girls and I went to the Strong Museum.  It had been 365 days since we had been there last and the girls had SO much fun.  Johanna ricocheted from activity to activity.  Tabitha could have used about 2 more hours there.

Thursday I also squeezed in my ultra sound.  Heh.  It wasn’t all a barrel-o’-laughs.

Friday was Nan’s birthday.  Aunt Betty came down from Canada and we enjoyed the weather with an afternoon trip to the zoo.

Later in the day we had KFC and cake at our house.

Saturday evening Ba and Poppy came for dinner to celebrate THEIR birthdays…

It was a BUSY, FUN, week. 

And I remembered to take photos along the way!