Second Semester School Updates *edited with a few more pictures*

We started back to school the week following New Year’s Day. We had a slow start because they had been on a light schedule during December. They are all ahead in their work, so we took the opportunity to do art projects and read books together about Advent and Christmas. They did a little bit of Grammar and math flash cards so they weren’t completely off track. The long “break” has made it harder to get back into the swing of things.

Judah (2^nd grade) is getting so distracted by everything from his pencil to his brothers, and he is getting work done at a snail’s pace.  

Bobby (Kindergarten) is adding numbers up to twenty in his head like a boss now and he is reading very well too. He’s read over 20 early readers to me since finishing his 100 Easy Lesson book. I’m adding in word searches and extra math books to slow him down a little and keep him busy.

Bob is perfecting his reading with massive quantities of comic books: Garfield, Calvin and Hobbes, and Zita.

The other day around 4pm, I found him reading comic books for the fourth time and asked him if that's all he'd done all day.  His response, "Well, I did my school too."  At that point I shooed him outside until dinner.  Only in our house do you have to force kids to stop reading and go play outside.

Drew (3^rd grade) is getting the hang of long division and still working on his cursive being natural. He and Judah are starting Latin this semester and we are trying a new program, Classical Academic Press’s Latin for Children. So far the grammar has proved challenging, but I’m not concerned that they fully grasp that yet since they are starting young. I mainly want the exposure and vocabulary so they can see it again and again and it be easier in the upper school years.

The big kids are back in school for only about a week now.  Hannah had grown quite accustomed to distance learning, but the other two were sick of the computer, missing the social interaction, and losing focus and determination in their schoolwork.  They had an independent study project that they all completed just before going back to school.  We are still adjusting to the new norms of traveling to school and back everyday.

Basketball season is wrapping up here in a week.  The girls are both on Varsity together, but they lost a lot of girls this year .  Their team is mostly ninth graders playing against juniors and seniors.  It has been a humbling and challenging experience.  It is fun to see my two daughters playing together again.  I am team mom and I have been running the books/clock this season for all home games so that I can attend the games.  My sister and I played on the same team in high school and my dad used to do the books for my games in high school.  It brings back memories.

This is what this year's support of their sisters looked like...

Judah's "Super Great" Dream

We had two nights of nightmares around here the first week of the new year, first Bob, then Judah. The third night there was no nightmares, and I inquired of Judah the following morning if he had good dreams. He enthusiastically said that he had a REALLY good dream. He told me it was Christmas again in his dream and he got "super great" presents. He listed them as follows: a giant bag of the best cereal ever (but he couldn’t tell me which cereal, but just that it was awesome),a Star Wars toy like his cousin got in the dream (but Judah’s had an extra part), and a big bag of candy that was like Skittles, but not exactly.

I got a big kick out of how excited he was about the cereal, because if you know my Judah then you know he LOVES his breakfast. We tease him that he eats breakfast until lunchtime because he asks for (and eats, mind you!) everything anyone comes in to the kitchen to make. He usually plants himself with his independent schoolwork on one of the kitchen island bar stools so he can eat his five breakfasts each day.

Here is a video that Brian came across of him on the exact day that this happened. I miss that age!

Then just a few days later, we got this video of him being silly.  We made him reenact what he'd been doing with his brothers.

A Pizza Oven and a Priest

Brian's dad gave us a pizza oven for our Christmas gift this year.  We wanted the first thing we cooked in it to be Flammkuchen.  It's a French-German kind of flatbread pizza with creme fraiche instead of tomato sauce.  Brian went hunting for the creme fraiche and the recipes.  We were all set for our favorite priest to visit and cook with us.  It took forever and we ate really late, but it was really good and a lot of fun to do together.

 Godfather Brian was only with us for about 24 hours, so we stayed up super late catching up and enjoyed every minute of it!

Christmastime

We went light looking in our city at a crazy crowded neighborhood that has awards and themes for their lights.  I was warned that it was crowded, but I thought, "Who cares if you're crawling along when there's cool lights to look at?"  Boy, was I wrong.  We had to bail after sitting still for an hour in the line of cars.  I just kept thinking, "How can people even live here when they surely can't get into their neighborhood after work?"  Anyway, it wasn't a total wash because we went off on the lesser popular side streets and still saw many award winners and lots of very cool lights.  

We also continued our tradition of making REAL hot chocolate and putting it in thermoses until we got to the lights.  Then I poured the drinks into disposable coffee cups with lids.  I also put marshmallows in them this year.  It was dark when I was pouring and apparently I was dropping marshmallows everywhere.  Several ended up stuck to the bottom of my pants by the end of the long evening of making memories.

Here's my one terrible shot of the evening.  Oh yeah, they also brought their candy canes from St.
Nicholas Day.

For Christmas, we went to my parent's house.  On Christmas Eve, we got all dressed up and headed out to Midnight Mass after playing cards all day.

This guy is almost as tall as me, keeping right up with Genevieve's giant growth spurt this year.

It was a very late night and so we slept in a little bit on Christmas Day.  We had pancakes that my dad made in the morning and then opened presents.

The day after Christmas my sister and her kids arrived.  Then we went over to my uncle's house to have dinner.  We also went Christmas light looking again after dinner before going back to my parent's house because there is a fancy neighborhood near my uncle that has really good lights and decorations.  We went in our big van and had Mimi and my sister and her two kids with us.  It was another late night and my little people were starting to get cranky by Sunday.

Sunday, we were blessed to have a very tiny outdoor gathering of just one of my cousins and his wife and son with my aunt and uncle.  The picture may look like it was a big gathering, but most of us in the picture were already staying under the same roof.   :)  It was the first time I got to meet my cousin's son, and he was so very precious!

The following morning, we drove home because we had a very special visitor coming.  Godfather Brian!  We had really grown accustomed to seeing him often and since moving back to the states it has become a rare occasion that we are blessed with a visit from him.  Anyway, we opened our presents to each other when we returned home.

The boys got these sumo wrestler suits for the trampoline.  Unfortunately, as I feared, they didn't last long.

 

Bazaars

We have been painting shells since we got back from the beach with such a nice haul of big, beautiful shells.  The children have worked so hard to paint a whole bunch of them to sell at the Homeschool Children's Bazaar.  Genevieve also has been making cards with her watercolors and hand-lettering skills.  Genna's cards were blowing down a lot and we were limited in space with our card table.

Wheeling and Dealing at the Bazaar

The problem we ran into with this year's bazaar was that we didn't have much foot traffic.  Nearly all of our shoppers were also selling stuff at their own tables.  This was mainly due to the pandemic and people not wanting to come out just to shop.  (We did have it outside for this reason.) There was a bunch of kids excited to make money off their goods and not wanting to spend all that money on other kids' tables.  However, they did buy some things.  Drew priced his shells super cheap and painted more shells than anyone else, so he did do the best monetarily.  Bobby sold his two painted shells, solely utilizing his charm and dimples.  Genevieve had him advertising for her and paying him a percentage of each sell.  It was a good lesson in business!

Don't know why these pictures came up upside down and sideways, but these are Drew's shells that he didn't sell.

Judah's shells

Hannah's shells

Isaac's Shells

Genna's shells- I have no idea why I don't have more pictures of her shells.  She had many, but this is all I can find.

I started an Etsy shop back in November.  My shop is called CaeliEtTerraCrafts and you can see what is available currently here.  An opportunity came available for me at our church to rent a table at the Christmas Bazaar.  I was hesitant at first because the initial investment was high enough to make me wonder if it would be worth it in the end.  I ended up splitting a table with another homeschool family to save some money and test out the waters.  Here are some of the items that I brought to sell.

Our Lady of Guadalupe- I drew the angel at her feet and decoupaged it onto the wooden peg.

Blessed Carlo Acutis- He has a hand-painted monstrance.

St. Faustina- She is painted with my drawing of the image of Divine Mercy shrunk down and decoupaged onto the doll.

Our Lady of Lourdes has painted roses on her feet and is holding a rosary.  

All, but a couple of my peg dolls, sold at the bazaar and most of them have since sold on my Etsy shop.  I brought the kids' shells that didn't sell at the children's Bazaar and I brought my own as well.  Here's two of mine.

In the end, I had very little inventory left to take home which is exactly what I wanted.  The ornaments sold out early.  The mugs were almost gone.  I sold both of my remaining 5 nativity scenes at the bazaar;  the other three had previously sold on my Etsy shop.

My table at the bazaar with my friends

My half of the table

We learned our lesson at the Children's Bazaar and put Genna's cards into a binder with their envelopes.  She sold a bunch and was very pleased!

 

My hand embroidered, memory foam-stuffed "Our Little Lady Doll"-  This one is Our Lady of Lourdes and you can see the detail of the three dementional roses on her feet in the following picture.

My second "Our Little Lady Doll"- Our Lady of Fatima has gold trim in her crown and on her veil.

I am currently working on Our Lady of Guadalupe "Our Little Lady Doll" to add to my shop.

Where have all the Christmas trees gone?

 If you don't get your tree before or on Thanksgiving weekend, then the pickin's around here get pretty slim.  We went the second weekend of Advent this year.  We tried a new place that brings in trees from Oregon, but it had only trees that were 10 ft tall and bigger.  The few regular sized trees that were left were marked "sold" and priced at hundreds of dollars.  So we went to Home Depot because it was nearby.  It had been totally picked over and only had 5 foot trees left...except the displays.  We got the most beautiful display tree and brought it home.  Only problem is it had been out of water for days before bringing it home.  We like to keep our tree up throughout the whole Christmas season, not just Advent.  As I write this post, in early January, it it sagging badly and very much drying out no matter how much water we give it.

The next weekend I got the lights on and we decorated on Laetare Sunday.  It was a beautiful tree, but so full that it was hard to fit our ornaments on it.  I am hoping to get a fake tree for next year that we can decorate too, so we don't have to cram the ornaments on.  All the kids have special ornaments that they have received as gifts from years past, though the younger kids have fewer ornaments by far.  I always unpack the ornaments and hand them out or make piles for everyone.  Then I put my special ornaments on, but this year I barely had room on the tree to put them on.  I used to be guaranteed the top was left for me, but now the three older kids are all my height or close.  

Bob liked to help me unpack them more than put them on the tree.

Brian is the picture taker for tree decorating every year.  He really enjoys the getting of the tree more than the decorating.  He puts on his five or so ornaments and then takes a million pictures.