When Homeschoolers play School

You just have to smile when your homeschooled children play school.

To set the scene, dining room chairs are moved into the great room, tv tables are set up as desks and all chairs are covered with blankets since obviously schools must be cold! 

"O.k. class we are going to have a test."  says Dominic the teacher, he later becomes a professor when they change from school to college.  "You have 4 minutes to draw a dinosaur.  You may use these as examples. " (He has found all the miscellaneous dino's we have around the house and has set them on a table.)  "O.k. now let me grade them.  A+'s for all."  (The drawings were actually quite good. Though I am a little biased.)

Baby Olivia now moves to the front of the class to teach about animals, or at least that is what the students (Audrey and Lili) think since she is raising up plastic animals and babbling about them.

Instructor Dominic is back and trying to take control of the class but Olivia has now rung the recess bell (our Ohio Bicentennial bell, glad it is getting some use) and the students are racing around the house.  The class gets back into order, but here goes Olivia again ringing the bell and off they go.

After a few more recesses and a brief story hour they are off to do other things.  Such is the way when homeschoolers play school.  mom

Some Catching Up To Do

It's been a while, Folks.  Thanksgiving has rushed by, along with most of the Christmas shopping season (in this house? HA), and now it is time for all of those wonderful Christmastime Traditions that everyone knows and loves.

It started off the Saturday of Thanksgiving weekend, when we woke to find that Santa had sent an Elf on the Shelf to keep an eye on us over the next few weeks, after much debate we finally chose to name him Alvin and searching for his latest hiding spot has become somewhat of a morning ritual.
That same Saturday we decorated the house for Christmas, spreading over a dozen Santa's throughout the house, putting up the tree and hanging Christmas ornaments-and after having the tree stand break, the tree fall over, and a yellow light bulb burn a hole in our carpet, I'd say it looks rather glorious.-Though somewhat Blurry in this photo.

There has been many a beautiful snowfall up here (this photo was actually taken back on the eleventh of November.) currently there is over a foot of the white stuff on the ground, offering up endless hours of sledding, snowboarding, fort building, snowball fights, and endless other adventures for any excited child (or adult!) the best part about this snow? (At least in my opinion) The fact that it creates the perfect background for stunning pictures of my sister.

Two Sundays ago was the annual Yacht Club Christmas Party. All the Little's were given some awesome gifts by Saint Nick himself, (Thank You Santa!) They had a ball, though you couldn't tell from the looks on Lili and Livvy's faces in this picture.

Oh how I adore this photo.  It's been added to the file of "Blackmail for the Little Sisters".

Next up on the list of "Family To-Do's" was to take the family Christmas picture that would be sent out to the masses.

Do you see that? All of the Littles are smiling! Including Lili! For those of you who don't know why this is a feat, a short back story on Miss Lili:
Lili, though very loud and generally a more energetic child, is rather shy. Unless I am doing a 'private' photo shoot of Lili and only Lili, will she smile. In just about every family picture we have she is on the verge of tears.
So this year, I decided to offer up a bit of a bribe to the child who loves crafts and baking: "Lili, If you promise to give a pretty smile we'll bake and decorate sugar cookies." We got a stunning smile out of the munchkin! Yay!
She held me to my word though, not more than four hours after the picture was taken she comes up to me, sassy as ever, shrugs, puts her hands up, and says: "Sam. This is weird.  I did a smile and there are no sugar cookies." Safe to say we made some sugar cookies after that.

Can you see the icing next to her left eye?

After several hours of present wrapping, stamping, addressing, signing, and sealing one hundred and forty some odd Christmas cards, and going through several boxes of candy canes, Christmas preparations are in full swing here at the house of the Eight, up here there is an under current of Christmas excitement so contagious you cannot step into the house without catching it. But the stockings are hung and the lists have been written, a new tree stand has been bought and the demon light bulb removed, Christmas carols are playing and The Spirit of Christmas is in the air. So without further ado, Warm Christmas Wishes to You and Your Family this Christmas Season. We'll be sending some Christmas magic with your cards!

Cheers,
Sam

Don't Blink.

"Don't blink."

"Don't even blink."

"Blink and you're dead."

"They are fast."

"Faster than you can believe."

"Don't turn your back."

"Don't look away."

"And don't blink."

"Good luck."-The Doctor

For those that don't know, those words above are those of The Doctor from Doctor Who.

 Audrey was a Weeping Angel from the series for Halloween this year and this was the photo shoot I did with her before her two hour trek in the pouring rain on her quest for candy.

Family Rules

There has been an upstanding rule in the house of the eight for as long as I can remember, it regards writing utensils and how they should be used.  The rule is simple and generally easy to follow "Paper or People" and though some may have issue with writing on skin, in this house it is figured that it's a lot easier to wash Sharpie off of skin than off of wallpaper or the couch.  Choose your battles and whatnot.
So what Lili did today was completely in the right, though no rule was being broken, she still gave us a bit of a shock:

Comments like "Oh my Lordy" and "Goodness, Lili!" were soon quieted by the high pitched voice of a five year old saying these three words: "I'M A PIG!!!" with her goofy little laughter following.  It would be safe to say the entire house-who all were in earshot of this conversation-completely lost it.  Thank goodness she's not going anywhere today.

IMPORTANT MESSAGE:

This child, she is too cute for words.

I told her to smile and apparently she was eating chocolate...

That is all.  You may commence with your day.

Halloween Party

Today was the annual Yacht Club Kids' Halloween Party.

 Audrey was a Weeping Angel (A monster-type thing from Doctor Who), Dominic was Martin from Wild Kratts (a kid's TV show that he and Lili adore.), Lili was May from Pokemon and Olivia was a farmer, though she refused to wear her hat... Oh well.

Though the morning was hectic to get there-in past years the party always started at two, so we planned for two, only to check the invite this morning to discover it was at 12:30 this year-the Kiddos had an absolute ball, they played games like get the ball into the Witch's hat, and crush the noodle (Lili's favorite).  They had Ghost pudding and lots of candy-of course.  They got to go on a hayride and Trick-or-Treat for even more candy and just generally had a blast.  All the munchkins have now crashed from their sugar highs and are now asleep... Besides for Olivia.

SNOW!!!

Goodness gracious it has been far, far, far too long since my last post, but I'll admit that the months have gone by so fast I haven't had time to sit down.

But tonight I do have time, I've got a fuzzy sweater, a big cup of tea and something to talk about.

Snow. 

Sassy (the biggest snow person, the mom), Clinton (the middle one), London/Sassy Junior (the smallest) and Audrey

 

I woke up this morning with the thought "it smells like snow."-seriously, talk about a strange first thought-I looked out the window and I was right!  But being the only one awake I had no one to tell, so I went downstairs only to find that Audrey had gotten up before me and was already coming back inside from her first adventure in the fluffy white stuff.

 

By ten o'clock Dominic, Audrey, and I had fought in a great snowball war, made snow angels, and created a snow man family.   Lili had gone outside too, and Olivia had her first memorable experience with snow.  All in all a good day.

Dominic and the Snow Family

 

It's not very much snow though, and there was a lot more before we created the snow man family, but we are supposed to be getting... ohhh....  three to five inches tonight, so our snow-lacking issues will soon be over.