December: Part 2!

We spent Christmas week in SC, seeing family, eating too much food, and even seeing an old friend from college. It was so sweet to see her again and meet her awesome little family!

Andrew is going to Germany soon and I'm excited to spend some time in SC, catching up with old friends and hanging out with family. I'm a little jealous he gets to stay in Germany (because there is almost nothing I love more than traveling!), but I'm sure I'll have a pretty good time myself.

Back to Christmas. Here are some of my favorite pictures -

Wow, that took a long time to upload all these photos!

I was going to caption them, but...maybe another day!

Dino Week!

This is pretty embarrassing, but we basically took Thanksgiving through New Year's week OFF from school. With two trips to SC and all the holiday busyness in between, it seemed impossible. But, as of Monday, we are back on track! We kicked off the week learning about dinosaurs. This eased us back into the school routine, because what little boy doesn't love talking all things dinosaurs?!

Besides our daily journal and worksheets, we added a couple fun dino activities. On Monday, we made peanut butter cookies. The recipe is here: http://www.creationsbykara.com/2013/11/old-fashioned-peanut-butter-cookies.html/.

I pressed mine with a fork, but the boys took turns stamping dino footprints, or fossils, into theirs. They turned out really cute and yummy!

Of course we talked about different types of dinosaurs and their prints, fossils, and we discussed the job of a paleontologist. 

Lastnight before bed, I saw another great dino-themed idea on Pinterest: dino eggs that actually hatch! They were easy to make and required a few items that most people would have on hand. 

I poured baking soda into a bowl, added a few drops of green food coloring, then slowly mixed in some water until I had sort of a dry paste. I pressed a glob in my palm, laid a tiny dino on top, then covered the dino in more paste in the shape of an egg.

The dino eggs hardened overnight and the boys were excited to break into them this morning (at 6:30 am...). I gave them droppers, a bowl of vinegar, and then they went to work. 

The eggs "fizzed" whenever the vinegar touched them and the boys oohed and ahhed. 

It was a cool activity, and even though Maddox was slightly disappointed that his baby dino wasn't actually REAL, they enjoyed their newly hatched dinos and named them (Jude's is "Casa" and Maddox's is "Sweethead").

We learned some neat facts about Maddox's triceratops and Jude's stegosaurus. 

Maddox's favorites about his dino: he was on TRex's lunch menu, he defended himself with his horns, and he weighed about as much as a truck (5 tons). 

Jude's dino was smaller (2 tons) and a slow-mover, but he used his tail to defend himself, his brain was about the size of a walnut, and he was a herbivore. However, instead of just eating plants, he also ate small stones, possibly to help "mash up" the plants in his belly.

When we talked about him eating stones, Maddox laughed then paused. 

"Oh, Mom! THAT explains why he moved so slow...BECAUSE his belly was full of heavy stones."

Oh, that kid.

He keeps me smiling sometimes.

December: Part 1

December was so packed with fun I didn't have much of a chance to sit down and blog about it! Here is a recap. I will try to make it as short and sweet as possible.

Andrew turned 29. Even though we had already celebrated with tickets to the Carolina game back in November, we still did presents and dinner at Longhorn. It's an important year...his last one in the twenties!

One of the reasons I love December is because of all the get-togethers. Tidepools (our group of helpers at church who teach the 0-5 yrs. classes) had a Christmas party and it was hilarious dressing up our team leaders as Christmas trees. We also ate amazing food, had a white elephant gift exchange, and you know, having a kid-free night every now and then is really refreshing!

The kids also had their own Christmas party with some local friends.

They played, received gifts from sweet Mrs. Stephanie, and made sparkly reindeer food (which we actually remembered to take to SC for Christmas Eve!).

I love that we have found great homeschool pals for friendship (and support!), plus Maddox still keeps in touch with his old preschool buddies and we all get together for monthly playdates. 

The boys have some special friends, for sure!

Before we left Florida for our one week vacation back home, we attempted to make gingerbread doghouses (for Snoopy, since they were on a Charlie Brown kick at the time).

It was not easy. It was not fun. It was not family friendly. 

Haha!

Next time I think we will stick to the pre-glued houses.

The walls refused to stick together, they didn't line up, and to top it all off, the icing was RED. Imagine what my bathtub looked like when I plopped this kid in it.

I love Andrew's look of fear in the background.

There is a local neighborhood that goes all out when it comes to Christmas lights. Nearly every house participates and it is A BIG DEAL. The traffic got a little frustrating toward the end, but the boys had a blast seeing all the light displays and shouting "Merry Christmas" from their windows.

Not only were the houses decked out, but also the yards, trees, and boats. 

One house's lights blinked to the rhythm of music played on a local station!

Talk about the Christmas spirit! 

It was wild.

And fun.

We even found Cocky!

Gamecock fans are everywhere. 

A December highlight for Maddox was new shoes. He had wanted BRIGHT "cool" shoes for a long time, and he finally found the perfect pair.

It took a long time before he would actually take them off.

;)

We gave Jude a present early - his Jake the Pirate big boy bike- since we wouldn't be home for Christmas. He loved it and still does! It scares me when he flies down the driveway, turns quickly, and has a training wheel tipping into the air, but so far no falls. I hope I didn't just jinx myself!

It was a good first half in December, but the other half was definitely my favorite.