Run Down

Wonder if I'll ever finish that Christmas post I started.


To serve as an excuse I will give you a run down of the past three weeks.

Week 1: Kids get fevers so we stay home all week and kids get cabin fever two days before Christmas.

Week 2: We have a lovely Jesse Tree Tea on Christmas Eve day. Next  day is Christmas full of presents, birthday cake, candy, cousins and plain ol' excitement. The next day some relatives come to stay for 48 hours, we spend much of those 48 hours at Grandmas house for some serious cousin time. Wednesday after Christmas we spend 12 hours out of the house. While we are supposed to drive 6 1/2 hours on Thursday I do no preparation due to my exhaustion. Thursday we wake up throw random stuff  the van and drive to Mena and Papas. The non-routine/spoiling continues for three days at Mena and Papas until we can take no more.

Instead of stopping at sister in laws on the way home we cut our losses and retreat for Christmas Detox.

Week 3: One of the better decisions I made while planning the holidays was NOT to do school this week. I had a feeling we would need a week to recuperate and that we sure did. Even though Demand has been curious as to when we'll do more school it's been nice to have some down time, regular naps and meals and time to get the house back in order. I mean, I just caught up with laundry today. Jeepers-Creepers! We did have swimming and Religious Ed this week but it's nice to gradually get back into the swing of things.

So the house is in order, meals are planned for the next week, and school is planned for next month. I've even started reading the book for this months book club two weeks earlier than I usually do,yay for me!

We are all excited to get back into the full swing of school again. We starting the next level of Math which I think might be second grade, but I'm not entirely sure. And we are starting "All About Spelling". I've only heard great things about this program. Since Demand is already reading I've heard this is a great next step. Speaking of reading Demand is enjoying "Book-it". Remember "Book-it"?? Well you can do it even if you homeschool. The "teacher" sets the goals and sends out the coupons a head of time for the free personal pan Pizza-Hut Pizzas.  I set the goal of Demand reading 10 books to get one coupon. Turns out, that is an easier goal to attain than I realized.  Demand has gotten to go twice. First off, it is HARD to find a sit down Pizza Hut these days! This last time we went the day after Christmas. The rest of us had Pizza Buffet and she got her personal pan. Next time I think we'll spend the day at the indoor pool at our gym and then head over for Pizza since they are fairly close to one another. Hows that for an inexpensive day of fun??

The next exciting news is that we are moving Happy into Pax' room. We knew it had to be done,and fairly soon but Pax is such a great sleeper we didn't want to ruin it. While at my parents we had no choice but to have all the kids sleep in the same room and by themselves. Something that's never been done before. For the first time in 6 years not on of our children screamed themselves to sleep at  my parents house. It was lovely!  Happy was  in an inflatable big boy bed he got for Christmas and was King of the World for all he knew. He was a little rambunctious at bedtime but Demand and Pax were tired and kept him in line. So it's very hopeful for a smooth transition. This will be stage one of the Great Happy Potty-Training Adventure.

I'll post Christmas pics when the children aren't eating chalk and harassing Mr. Sloth while he makes dinner.