Our Homeschool Journal, Jan. 1, 2012

Join Sue and her bloggy friends by checking out the button above!

In my life this week…
We had a fun Christmas and simply enjoyed being together with family!  We hosted my hubby's family Christmas on Christmas Eve and went to our Christmas Eve Candlelight Worship Service that evening.  I sang "Oh, Holy Night" one of my favorite Christmas songs! Christmas morning our own family found gifts from Santa and we exchanged gifts with each other.  We had time to play and enjoy the kids new toys and games together, just our little family.  Then, I picked up my grandmother and took her to my family's Christmas gathering at my moms home.  We had a fun time with the littlest 6 month old cousin rolling around, exchanged gifts, and stuffed ourselves on Christmas supper.

Cousins at our house on Christmas Eve

Test photo for the group shot at my Mom's on Christmas Day

I LOVE this photo of my "Nini" and my 6 mo. old nephew!

The rest of the week was more quiet than the last few weeks have been!  We saw friends who were visiting from out of town.  J was sick for one day.  Then, later in the week I was able to make returns and catch up on errands. 

In our homeschool this week…
We have really enjoyed having a complete break from school!  The kids have enjoyed putting together some of their new Lego kits, sharpening their hand eye coordination skills with new XBOX Kinect games, and we have watched a few movies!

My favorite thing this week was…
I am so glad that I planned in advance and was able to get a birthday party together for my dear daughter! Last year, the party never happened and although we don't do a big party every year, I felt guilty.  This party was fun and not too much work for me, because she helped with it a lot!  Although a few friends could not make it with other family Christmas plans, she had a good turn out and enjoyed her gymnastics party. We had not been to a party at this gym before, but B takes classes there and the instructor led the kids in lots of fun activities and games so they were busy the whole time!

Birthday Gymnast

A fun group of friends

I also loved getting back together with our Supper Club friends for New Year's Eve.  Last year, we had so much fun that we decided to get together every month for supper and we pretty much stuck to that this year. 

Questions/thoughts I have…
When do you plan to return to your school work?  In the past we have jumped right back in when the neighborhood schools begin again.  This year, we have already gotten ahead of them in our number of school days counted for this year with summer 4H project work, performing arts rehearsals and concerts, and field trips.  With our old curriculum, I had 34 weeks of work to accomplish, so I never take a "light week".  Now, with our Classical Conversations curriculum, it is only 24 weeks long, so we don't begin again until later in January for our second semester.  It has been SO awesome to have the freedom to study other things or just have a light school load for awhile, then we will jump back in to our full load on Jan. 23.

A photo, video, link, or quote to share…

We got out the tripod and my husband helped capture this great shot on Christmas Eve!  No, the children are not six feet tall!  My hubby is bending down so the Christmas tree could be seen here.