February 2nd was Candlemas Day, the day winter is halfway through. Long ago, families would use this day, to make sure they had enough candles to get them through the rest of the winter. If they didn't they would make some more. We have a tradition of making our own candles together on this day and lighting them for the whole night, using only the candle light to help us see.
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I have been wanting to teach Audrey how to finger knit, as a first step to learn knitting, for quite a while now. Finally, we spent some time learning this skill. Audrey was able to make a finger knit necklace for herself and a scarf for her favorite pony, Rainbow Dash.
During the month of January, we spent some time learning about and enjoying the winter weather, snow and ice! We learned about snowflakes and how they are formed. Then, we made oil pastel and watercolor resist snowflakes. We also made icy and sparkly snow paint and created snowy scenes with it. We baked snowdrop cookies too! We learned about animal tracks in the snow. We practiced making some of our own in the play dough snow and then went outside to look for some real ones. Audrey went ice skating with some of her Girl Scout Daisy friends.
We celebrated Sophie's 2nd birthday at home with our family. Sophie had a stack of two birthday pancakes with two candles, syrup, and sprinkles on top for breakfast. She tried so hard to blow out her candles and she did, with just a little help from her big sister and brother. We baked a vanilla cake with pink frosting for Sophie's birthday cake. She wanted to decorate it with lots of sprinkles. You can see her signature "hair in the eyes look" as she adds more sprinkles to her cake! Then we lit the candles and sang "Happy Birthday" to our little 2 year old girl.
We usually decorate Christmas sugar cookies twice every Christmas, once with one set of grandparents and once with the other. It is always something we look forward to!
We spent Christmas afternoon with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. We opened presents and shared Christmas Dinner together.
Merry Christmas! Our family awoke to a morning filled with love, presents, and a yummy Christmas breakfast!
We filled our fun Christmas Days with many family traditions. Here is a look at some of our favorites. December 1st is always our North Pole Breakfast Day. This year, we ate Santa pancakes with strawberries and whipped cream. We wrote our letters to Santa and left them in our mailbox one night. The next morning, our letters were gone, but Santa left everyone a chocolate Santa and a candy cane. Sophie absolutely loves candy canes now! Every year, we make our own homemade marshmallows and hot chocolate. I got a lot of help making them this year from the girls. Ethan was more than happy to help eat the marshmallows though. We love to craft homemade Christmas Tree ornaments every year to put on our playroom/schoolroom Christmas Tree. This year, we made sparkling wooden stars. We read The Story of the Fir Tree. It is a sweet story of how a little fir tree wants to give a gift to Baby Jesus on the night He is born. The fir tree does not believe he has anything to give, but then the moon shines down on his snow covered boughs and makes the tree sparkle. This makes Baby Jesus smile. We then did some Christmas Tree Art. We made stained glass Christmas Trees and Snowy, Sparkly Fir Trees. We had some friends over to celebrate the Swedish holiday of St. Lucia Day with us on December 13th. We served St. Lucia Crown Bread with candles on top, made St. Lucia crowns for the girls and star boy hats for the boys, read a St. Lucia Day story, and sang some St. Lucia Day songs. One of our all time favorite Christmas traditions is baking Christmas Cookies. We try to bake some new kinds each year and of course, bake some of our old favorites. Each year, the children get a new Christmas book to read and add to our Christmas book collection. We celebrated Santa's reindeer by reading Rudolph and The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett. We played reindeer games, like "Pin the Red Nose on Rudolph" and "Pass the Red Nose". (One person starts with a big dot of red lipstick on her nose, then passes the dot of lipstick from her nose to the next nose. Then that person passes it from their nose, until everyone has the red nose.) We then baked reindeer cookies with M&M noses and pretzel antlers. The last thing we did, was make our own reindeer grain (oats and glitter) to sprinkle on the driveway Christmas Eve. It will sparkle in the moonlight and help the reindeer find our house. Plus they will like to eat it too! We have a Gingerbread Party at our house every year. This year we invited some friends over to read Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett, make gingerbread men to decorate, and to put together gingerbread houses.
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WelcomeHi! I am Allison. I am a happy homemaker, wife, and mother to four sweet babies. I am also a Classical, Christian homeschooling mom trying to make every day a celebration of love and family. I love to bake, cook, garden, read, do art, and spend time outdoors with my amazing family. Archives
October 2017
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Our story of loving and learning at home...
"Let them be little, 'cause they're only that way for a while. Give them hope, give them praise, give them love every day. Let them cry, let them giggle; let them sleep in the middle, oh, let them be little."
- Written and Sung by Billy Dean