Christmas

We had a very nice family Christmas this year. We began with an enjoyable dinner with friends for Christmas eve.

After everyone went home we read the Christmas story and let the kids pick a gift from under the tree. Then it was off to bed. The next morning the kids woke up to perhaps the most traditional Christmas gift - new bikes.

 (The market stand was made from this old TV stand I found on craigslist. I had already attached the posts, but you get the picture.)

Among the gifts was an accompanying cash register so the kids can now play store to their hearts content.

And then the whirlwind of stocking and present opening began.

 As you can tell, Xander makes the best faces.

 And when the Christmas whirlwind was over, you'd think it was the dogs that had a long night.

The aftermath

The rest of the day was spent playing with new toys, which due to the nice winter weather out here, included lots of outdoor time.

 Teah favorite gift has probably been the rollerskates, which here brother got for her from the thrift store for only a couple of bucks.

Xanders top gifts were definitely the building toys, both the magformers and legos. Indeed he is suddenly a bit obsessed with legos!

We rounded out the holiday season with a small new years eve get together that included using the fire pit for the first time for smore's and dutch oven banana cake, hot chocolate and a movie. The festivities were over by 8 and we finished the evening by enjoying a nice early bedtime.

Decemeber

As to be expected, December was a full month. We kicked off the Christmas season by caroling at an assisted living center with one of the home school groups. The links to the videos are below and just as a warning, it is a bit lengthy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w94tVEP6wo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwZUWyx2MQw

We also constructed our backyard firepit and began building the benches for seating. Here some pictures of Xander helping out his dad.

Another day we gathered our unneeded toys and clothes and took them to the child crisis center where the kids also did story time and sang songs with the nursery kids. For Christmas the kids went to the crisis center thrift shop and purchased gifts for one another.

We also built gingerbread houses as a family. Teah and Xander even cut out the pieces out of the gingerbread and did a wonderful job.

Xander made a snowman for his house out of marshmallows and chose not to "glue" it down, but rather use it as his gingerbread house "action figure". The snowman would move around the house, ride on the hovercraft Xander built for it, etc. However, the snowman's freedom did not last long because a day or two after we built the houses Marama ate it. It was a sad day in the Peeni house and also a lesson on what happens to anchored sweets in the presence of a toddler. The pictures were actually taken after the loss of the snowman, so Xanders house is the on the middle right, but alas there is no snowman on it.

Other activities that filled the month included taking food to and providing hygiene kit items for the migrant workers shelter.

We also did a Christmas around the world activity with some other homeschooling families where each family picked a different country and talked about various Christmas traditions in that country.

As part of the activity the kids made a Christmas card with a kiwi, an English Christmas cracker and Spanish pooping log. I think the pooping log was the highlight of the activity.

Teah also had her guitar recital. Teah's performance is in the middle of the clip. She is really enjoying her guitar class and loves her teacher, but is still not sure how she feels about performing :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpPTou7G_Ts#t=185

November

November begins with the celebration of Manu's birthday. We enjoyed some Asian food together as a family and taking time as a family to remember how blessed we are all to have him as a husband and father. With the changes in work schedules and everything else, family/daddy is a bit harder to come by, but it is wonderful to see how much the kids treasure daddy time now and the effort he makes to maximize the time they do have together.

November also brings Thanksgiving. The kids had a coop where they were able to learn about first Thanksgiving, learn to make bread, do a craft and enjoy a Thanksgiving meal.

For Thanksgiving we were fortunate enough to have some friends invite us over for good food and conversation. We finished the evening with pie and games.

In November, I also painted my dining room - cobalt blue. Manu thought I was crazy.

October

In October we took a fieldtrip to the pumpkin patch. The kids had lots of fun taking a tracker ride,

sliding,

going through the corn maize,

jumping,

looking at and feeding farm animals

laughing,

watching a pig run,

and selecting a pumpkin.

We had a previous activity where the kids made tye dye shirts to help us keep track of everyone.

October also means Halloween.

This year we had a butterfly, ironman, and a witch.