The Most Exciting Day of the Year

Christmas morning. . . the height of anticipation! The kids were under strict orders to not get up before 7:30. Even that was way too early for a couple of us who had only been asleep for a few hours, but Bean, who we have trouble waking up at 9 every other day of the year, was awake at 6:30, just waiting.

Santa came through with a new bike for this girl who had outgrown her old one months ago.

Dinosaurs AND Legos--how can it get better than this?! Bug was ecstatic.

And a new kitchen for Peanut! We got rid of the toy kitchen in Charlotte, thinking (correctly) that we wouldn't have a lot of room here, and that the kids were aging out of it, but Peanut hasn't stopped talking about it ever since. It was all he wanted for Christmas (well, besides a sign from Santa with a colored-in letter T--why? I have no idea? But Santa came through.), and Santa decided to make a little boy's wish come true. He can get back to cooking (as soon as I figure out which box his little pots and pans ended up in).

The kids were really excited to give out the gifts they got/made for each other, and they really did a good job thinking of what everyone would like. It almost makes the tears and last minute frantic finishing of "one last thing" worth it. . . almost. Their love of giving gifts ends up torturing me, but it's the thought that counts, right? (Next year, I am setting a mandatory end to all gift making before Christmas Eve. I say this almost every year, but I'm holding everyone to it in 2017.)

Once the gifts were all opened and the cinnamon rolls eaten, we headed outside for a few minutes so Bean could try out the new bike. It was a beautiful morning and pretty warm in the sunshine (although I don't think it was quite short-sleeve weather). 

Then, we went to church for the special Christmas service.  Our church doesn't have a service on Christmas or Christmas Eve, unless it's on a Sunday, which means on those years that we do, it's a little hard on the kids since they are used to spending Christmas day in their PJs, I was actually looking forward to it, and the choir in this congregation is pretty good, but of course it didn't play out to be the peaceful hour I was hoping for. Peanut was kind of a mess and I had to take him out twice and missed about half the service, while Daddy-o kept falling asleep in the corner of our pew, haha. Oh well. By the next time we have Christmas Day service, the kids will be a lot older and we can probably enjoy it.

Daddy-o's parents, brother, Isaac, and family came over for dinner, and this was the only picture I took, but it's a pretty cute one. Baby N loved the lights over at Deacon Dave's, and we loved being able to see family on Christmas. It's good for us to be building some memories in Livermore and starting to make this feel like home. And overall, Christmas day was a great day. 

And that's a wrap. Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve Construction

 Gingerbread house time with Grandma and Grandpa. They stopped by for a few hours today so we saved this activity tondo with them.

 Not sure if they thought that was a good idea or not 😉.

 We went with the mini houses so everyone could do their own.

 Add way too much candy and frosting and you've got so happy kids and a bunch of sick feeling people an hour later.

Peanut and I did this one.

Grandma's train.

Grandpa's chalet.

Bean's little villa.

 And Bug's Christmas cottage.

You'll notice that Daddy-o is the only one who didn't participate yet he was the one who seemed worn out by afternoon.

Other going's on:

Christmas secrets, making gifts, more secrets, wrapping, and unwrapping.

We did Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa before they took off to go to the next brother's house, so some of the gifts were unwrapped as fast as we could wrap them.

Look at these beautiful jams Grandma made--we're pretty excited to try them.

And now, because we are major procrastinators, there is still a lot of wrapping to be done. At least the kids are finally done with all the present making. Every year, I say I'm going to set a deadline for homemade gifts, and every year, I've got kids who are frantically making one last present on Christmas Eve. Gotta love their giving spirit and creativeness.

Merry Christmas Eve! May your night be filled with magic, and at least a little sleep. I'll be up making cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, and wrapping gifts :)

City Sidewalks, Busy Sidewalks

We thought it would be fun to take the kids over to San Francisco to see some of the big Christmas trees and decorations over there on Saturday. Parts of it were fun; parts of it were not so fun. Going anywhere crowded with three kids is always a little stressful, and Union Square a week before Christmas is packed. Plus there was the getting there, which should have been easy because we decided to ride BART in, but a (false-alarm) emergency bathroom stop in the not-so-great part of Oakland that cost us $10 made it a little less fun. 

We eventually made it to the city and to the big tree in Union Square. I used to come here with high-school friends the Friday after Thanksgiving to Christmas shop--in fact, we did that the first Thanksgiving Daddy-o and I spent together, just before we got engaged. I think we have a picture just like this of the two of us.

(This kid is either all sweet, or totally sour--not a lot of in between.)

Kids liked the windows at Macy's. 

And the Neiman Marcus tree.

This was the point that we realized how long it had been since we'd been here. We really wanted to take the kids to F.A.O. Schwartz, but when we looked it up, we found out it had closed in 2003!

There were quite a few street performers out. This one totally freaked Peanut out. He isn't a fan of people in costumes, and he didn't even realize this was an actual person at first, and then was very startled when he began to move.

The bagpiper was a little more his style.

We found this fun fountain by Ruth Asawa that depicts scenes from around the city. The kids recognized a couple from our trip to the Legion of Honor last week.

Lombard Street--we haven't ever done this on our trips to SF, but we'll have to some time. I just remember the lines being crazy long.

Next stop--Chinatown!

Our own little "Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil."

Such a fun city-in-a-city.

Bean was loving how all the buildings have such a different look, and loving all the souvenir shops. We made it out with just postcards, but they were all pretty tempted.

Then, we climbed a REALLY steep hill to get to the Fairmont.

It was worth the climb to see their beautiful decorations (and hotel.) Apparently a lot of other people thought so too. I'm not sure I would want to stay somewhere like this at the holidays when there are so many people coming through constantly.

The big draw is this 28 foot tall gingerbread house that you can walk through. 7700 gingerbread peices, 1500 pounds of royal icing, and 700 pounds of candy.

The other decorations around the hotel were beautiful, too. 

We got dinner at a cute 50's diner, and then headed back to Bart with a stop at Macy's for a few minutes of shopping (once we found the Christmas and toy department, the kids didn't think it was a long enough stop and we had to drag them out.)

Beautiful city, beautiful Christmas, but glad we don't live around quite so many people!

This Week

Hot cocoa sales have gone well. Kids are frustrated that another kid who is closer to the Deacon Dave line also has a stand going some of the nights, but they've already pulled in over $100 in two and a half nights (we ran out of milk really early one night). They hope they can get out there a couple more times this next week.

We took a field trip to the Legion of Honor museum in SF with some new friends. Because of an accident on the Bay Bridge, we came into the city from the south and the view was totally worth the longer drive. That is such a pretty part of the city.

I don't think I'd ever been to this museum--the building itself is really impressive.

And the art was amazing, too. The kids really liked this ceiling from a Spanish palace.

Imitating the art--they got a little silly after a couple hours.

We've also done some Christmas crafting and baking. Bug had been learning to multiply fractions, which went along perfectly with making 1 1/2 recipes of our favorite sugar cookies.

We also got together with some other new friends to decorate the cookies after school. People are still pretty sad about having left NC and all their friends, so I'm trying to get the kids out and about with other kids as much as I can. And we're trying to keep some of our same traditions, so inviting a family over to decorate cookies with us seemed like a great fit.

This is Christmas through Peanut's eyes. Peanut had a rough end to the cookie party. The ceiling fan in his room hangs over the edge of his bunk bed, which we knew was an accident waiting to happen, but I'd wound the cord up and hoped that would deter anyone, and our kids know they can't turn it on, but I didn't even think about warning anyone else, and the end result was me walking into his bedroom and seeing him up on his bed with red streaks all over half his face. At first, I thought it was marker, but he started screaming that he was fine, which of course means he isn't actually fine and it didn't take me long at all to figure out what happened. Head wounds look a lot worse than they are, and this wasn't our first one (that would be this one ) or even Peanut's first (that's here), so I didn't freak out too much. It was hard to get him to come down off the bed, though. I don't know if he thought he'd be in trouble, or if he was just scared and upset, but he kept yelling at me that he was fine, as blood dripped down his face, and then, when he finally realized it was blood, he started screaming for a bandaid, but didn't want anyone else to see him cry, so he refused to leave his room. Once people cleared out of the house, he finally let me carry him to the couch where we snuggled and he took pictures of the dog and our Christmas decorations. Poor little Peanut.

And that was our week. Can't believe Christmas is only a little over a week away. We are definitely letting a lot slide this year, which still trying to do enough of our normal fun to keep the kids happy. 

Homeschooling Rollercoaster

When I tell people I'm homeschooling, I get a lot of the same response: "I could never do that." I'm just going to tell you, I'm not sure I could ever do it, either, haha. But here I am. And even though it's been far from easy, I do want to do this. I think that is the key to whether or not someone can homeschool. 

It's not our first time--this actually our third year of homeschooling--but I'd say this is the most difficult. Three different kids, with some big differences in ability and interest levels, and all with strong personalities makes it a challenge for sure. Then, there's the whole move--we are all missing friends, some are missing school, we're still getting unpacked and finding things, both in the house and community. We are all learning new routines and figuring out how to use the space we live in.

Then there is the actual schooling. I was so busy with selling our house and packing up to move, planning a cross-country trip and a couple birthdays that I had almost no time to plan for homeschooling, and I'm paying for it now. It's been a crash course in how to homeschool in CA (it's not actually that hard) and what is going to work for us. I'm not anywhere close to knowing all the answers, but we're working on it.

It's a steep learning curve with lots of hiccups along the way. People comment on how much patience I must have, but I think anyone who knows me well knows that I don't have some magic personality that makes it easy for me to get along with my kids all day, every day. We've all been in tears at times, I've gone days without being alone for even a minute, and a certain little Peanut has been sent to his room to calm down more times each day than I think he can count to (we should keep track for math one day :)). So, yeah, I'll agree, homeschooling is REALLY hard, and I get why people don't think they can do it.

But now, for the pros:

Right now, it is 8:41 and only one of my kids is up. Bug has done his math and is reading and taking notes for a social studies project he's working on while snuggled up in his pjs. My other two are getting the rest they desperately need because they can. The flexibility is a huge plus for homeschooling.

Without the other two around, I'm able to help Bug with his math most mornings uninterrupted. Last night, I actually stayed up with Bean for 30 minutes after the boys went to bed so I could help her with her math, which isn't ideal because I like my evenings and am ready for a break by then, but it worked for yesterday. We're figuring out how to find the one-on-one time they each need and let them work on their own schedule.

Field trips! It is so much more fun to go places and see things like science and history and cultural topics, along with reading about them. So far, we've gone to the Oakland Museum of CA, hiking, the beach, an international Creche exhibit, and to the local fire department to see the longest burning lightbulb. We've been able to observe and interact with history, geography, geology, social sciences, biology, ecology, physics, and art. I'm so excited that we get to explore our new state this year and really learn about where we live.

Family time. It's not always fun and giggles. All these kids have strong personalities and are still learning the art of negotiation and how to deal with difficult people (each other!), but they also all love each other and love to help one another and teach each other. And now, their interactions are spread through the whole day, every day because we have so much more time to work together and play together and learn how to get along.

I especially love seeing how Bean and Bug both step in to help Peanut. They've each had days where they basically did all his schooling with him (it doesn't take long--kindergarten is the best for homeschooling) and he has been loving all the attention from his siblings who are around all the time these days.