Merry Christmas!

So our big plan was to take a really nice family picture to send everyone for Christmas this year. That didn't exactly happen. Between the wacky Virginia weather this winter, 2 boys that would rather do anything else other than sit facing the camera and smile, and other trips and errands to be made, this is the absolute best we could get. We went through a lot of pictures to get these few.
Even though it's several days past Christmas, here is our Merry Christmas to you and Happy New Year to boot!

Tonight

I should be: making a delicious and nutritious dinner.
I am: reading blogs about food and homeschooling... and whatever else looks interesting, really.
My kids are: ruining their minds with video games.
My husband is: at Target buying things for me!
I'm really really glad we have nothing else better to do tonight. :)

Getting the Holiday Started

Christmas has always been a month-long celebration in my mind. To pass that along to my own kiddos, we've been finding little things to do along the way to the big day.

(The boys looking at gold, frankincense and myrrh)

This weekend we visited a local church that was set up like a modern day Bethlehem. You visited people along the way all talking about the star and the coming Messiah as well as taxes and the census.

I found it all pretty interesting. Towards the end, you actually see Mary and Joseph with baby in a stable of sorts. Then there were candy canes, cookies and cocoa.

We've been incorporating Christmas into our regular little projects at home as well. I'm not a big fan of gingerbread, so we made graham cracker houses. We just used M&M's to decorate for a couple of reasons. First, I'm cheap and didn't want to spend a fortune on candy that was just going to go stale while we looked at it.

Second, M&M's are my favorite. It seemed like a good reason to eat the leftovers.

Today we borrowed an idea from another homeschooler's blog and decided to decorate a tree on our easel. It turned into a lesson on sharing and negotiation, which was unexpected, but I imagine by the end of the day the tree will be beautifully colored and decorated by both of our boys together. A girl can hope, right?
And yes, sometimes we do school in pajamas... and sometimes the boys aren't really great at finding matching pajamas. I'm not terribly concerned.
I hope you're enjoying all the season has to offer already as well. For now, I'm off to turn up some Christmas music!