Sun Kissed Sky

Sun Kissed Sky
The sunrise kissed clouds by our house

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

From Thanksgiving to now an Update to A Merry Christmas.

I've had a busy few months.  We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year for the first time in almost eight years!  My 16 year old brother accidentally turned our oven off and we didn't notice for hours (don't ask I realize we should have but it was crazy lol) dinner time was rolling around and I found the cold turkey.  We ended up eating burritos and waiting until around seven to eat.  The following day everyone returned for left overs and we had a second Thanksgiving dinner.  It was really nice to have everyone here. 
Our turkey.  We cook it in a brownpaper bag to hold in the moisture and 
give us that nice golden look.
Yes we still stuff the turkey and boy was that good stuffing!

We also went to our city's Christmas tree lighting and that was okay.  They had a small jazz type band play and then the Major hit the button to light up the tree.  The tree did not light though.  It took them several times to get it to  work which was quite funny.  The children then got to see Santa.  Mr. A asked him for an
iPad but luckily Santa was smart and said 'That's a big present have you been doing your chores?' He then began listing off a bunch of chores including dishes, making his bed, cleaning up,
sweeping, mopping, taking the trash out, and mowing the grass.  When Mr. A
said he hadn't been doing all that Santa said 'Well your old enough to do all those you need to start.  No iPad this year.'
I could have kissed Santa. 
Mrs. Claus had the most beautiful earings I really want to know where she got them!  My pictures didn't turn out that great I had my camera on the wrong setting oops but if you can see them and know where to get a pair like that please let me know!
Our downtown Christmas tree pre-lighting.

The tree again from the side.  I love the tree with the leaves and the lights!

My littlest sibling with my littlest child.

The band with kids surrounding them.  They let the children sing along with them on some songs which they just ate up.

Our tree finally all lit up.

Santa came to town with his beautiful wife (and some photo bombers to the side lol but they do look nice)

Santa the gentleman helps his wife out of their carriage.

Mrs Claus entertains the children while they wait for their turn to see Santa.  See her pretty earrings!!

Santa with Mr. A on the left, Monkey in the center, and Pumpkin on his lap.

For school one day I decided the boys should play with their lincoln logs so I told them they had to make a house out of the blocks.  For some kids this may seem normal but my children do not like to make things with blocks and so they have no skills in that area.  
It took them some time but these are their structures.
Monkey's house

Pumpkins house

I've really got to start checking my camera settings because I'm ruining pictures ahhh!  
Next up was the boys Christmas concert at our Wednesday night church.  It was at the Hanging of the Greens which I love!
Monkey in the back 

Mr. A who was not right in front of the mic but a ways back.

Having seen that picture of Mr. A from the concert you will understand why these next pictures had to happen.  P.S. you must know that I have not cut hair before without just buzzing it all off.  So there are a lot of mistakes and we are just living with them :P










Pumpkins hair was the hardest.  He has so many cowlicks in the back that it made it all look uneven even though it was even.  I have to keep cutting and cutting.  It looks better now but his head is definitely the hardest.  I still need to cut Monkeys but after Pumpkins I got scared so his hair is still long lol.

For dessert one day we had smoothies.


Which of course the boys wore.

My mother and I did some Christmas crafts.
The deer as we started with it.
The deer afterwards

Glittering ornaments
A finished ornament drying on a candle

My mom glittering her sleigh she's had for years

The sleigh almost finished


Glittering old fashioned Christmas light bulbs

Our Christmas tree pre-decorations

All decked out now oh wait we forgot the candy canes and angel...

The Budweiser Clydesdales came to town and the boys wanted to see the horses.

I thought this dog looked so regal but maybe minus the bling.

The moon 

We went to a churches Live Nativity and it was a lot of fun they had different tents with activities 
along the way leading to the star and stable where a real baby waited with his parents and a 
real donkey was in his pen.  PS I want that donkey her was beautiful and so soft.  My camera 
died though so I didn't get a picture of it :(

First vendor Monkey (in the train hat my grandma made) got to make a felt pouch
to mimic the leather ones they used.

Working hard at it.

Pumpkin in the blue hat also made by my grandma, trying his hand at rolling oats for bread.

All three of my boys stirring some bandannas in a purple dye.

Mr. A making some rope.

Monkey making some rope.  Next to this booth they saw a man making some 
bricks.

Monkey (train hat again) making some pottery

Mr. A and Pumpkin making a wooden sheep toy.
They had other booths at one the boys made me some perfume, another they saw baskets being weaved, and at another there was food to be had.  They had french bread with on olive oil and herb dip,
fancy olives (I don't eat olives so don't ask what kind they were just fancy and I ate them) on top of
goat cheese, almonds and bread, and grape juice.  There were barrels with fire to warm yourselves and animals to be pet.  The had two llamas, a sheep, and some goats.
We went into the stable and saw the little family
then headed back out.
There were more things but remembering is not my strong point.
I can say that it was a lot of fun and the boys really enjoyed it and it was educational yay!


The next thing we did was our homeschool groups Christmas party.  We started off the morning at a friends house.  It was really nice to sit down and visit with them the children all get
along so nicely!
We then rode with them over to an elderly care home and sung Christmas carols with our group and handed
out some Christmas cards that the children made.
After the caroling we headed over to a church were we had pizza and desserts while the kids played together.
It's so nice to have such a large group and one that cares.  We have been blessed by them they are beginning to feel like family.

Today we were supposed to go with our MOPS group to carol again and have our Christmas party but 
after I took my mom out Christmas shopping all day yesterday to not get in until after one 
I just didn't feel like it plus Pumpkin has been under the weather and 
he was also out late with his dad last night so he needed
his rest.  We are sad to miss it but looking forward to seeing them in the 
new year!

Christmas is coming so fast I can't believe it!  How did is sneak up on me?  I need to go get some wrapping paper and get working!  Are you guys ready?  
My sister and her husband are coming into town on Saturday and Sunday we head
up to the mountains for our Christmas vacation with the whole family. 
My mom rented a house up there so they could go skiing.  They decided that there really
wasn't anything they all needed so they bought only a few presents
and spent the rest on this vacation.
For us we bought presents it will be a meager year but a happy one.  While they are skiiing
we will be playing in the snow with snow ball fights and sledding.
We will also go skating and maybe tubing. 
Can't wait for the hot chocolate and fireplaces!

Blessings to you all and Merry Christmas!!

Mommaraff














Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Schoolhouse Teachers Website Review!!





I was given a chance to review The Schoolhouse Teachers website from The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.  Right when I logged on I was impressed there's so much there!  It starts at PreK and goes all the way through high school.  There are different tabs across the top for different areas including the Lesson Archives under Teacher, PreK/Elementary tab, middle school, high school, family, dailies, extras, a library, samples, and a tour.  I went under the Pre-k/Elementary link since that's where my kids are at right now.

I spent a lot of time just reading about the authors and I love how their sections have a little bit about them and their topic and why they think it's important. My favorite section I clicked on was the classical history where I read about how learning the Egyptians gods can help illuminate the Bibles plagues on the Egyptian peoples which really meant a lot to me.  I have been thinking about eliminating the study of the gods since I recently learned that people still believe in the gods and that we know some of those people.  I can see now why it's so important to learn it though and we'll be learning it here along side the Bible.

History is actually one of the things that I have been slacking in this year which is probably why I was so stuck on that section.  I just didn't know where to start or how.  We've had so much going on that we've skipped history, art, science, languages, and music.  I know...I'm actually embarrassed to mention that.  We are going to continue with our easy schedule until after Christmas and I'll be adding in these classes back to the schedule for January.  That will give me the rest of the month to print, organize, and schedule!  I am so glad to have this site to help with that!  I had heard about it in my emails but kept brushing it off after all I'm busy I kept telling myself.  Boy what a loss!  I was missing so much!  If you have excuses for not visiting the site trust me throw them out the window this site is amazing!

There is so much on the site that I will just share the history lesson we did and then at the end talk about some different things I looked up and really liked about the actual site.  I feel like sharing the lesson is a really good sample of what we were looking at and doing though. While we do not do Classical Conversations (CC) I really want to and so that's why I stuck with the Classical History.  Since we are new to the site we went all the way to October and got started on week one.  I am going to have to get the book and some of those history cards from CC!  My son loved the lesson!

 I pulled up a map of Mesopotamia I didn't see one on the site so I just looked one up on Google.  Mesopotamia was the first lesson on week one and we followed along pointing out the different things we read about and then we watched the clip that was linked which spurred on some great questions on the vocabulary used along with questions about the people.  I printed out the coloring page of a Ziggurat and he sat down to color it.  We don't have the books mentioned in the further reading so we just used Google to look up some more information which was fine if I didn't owe the library an arm and a leg we could have gone there and looked for the books yikes.  Don't worry I will be paying them for my late fines in the new year!

There was also a link in it to a video that said it was for older students but my eight year old, Mr. A, watched it and it got him so fired up.  Suddenly he was saying God's real!  Can you believe this and that and look!  He was so excited.  I wondered what I'd been doing.....I had to ask and he just didn't know.  I'm very glad he watched it obviously.  Yay Mesopotamia study!  Now having said that I also must say it was a bit much here and there and he did get confused on some of what it talked about so please do preview the videos when they warn you!


I talked with my husband showing him a little of the site and what it offered us while Mr. A told his dad all about Mesopotamia.  My husband isn't into homeschooling as much as I am he just lets us do our thing but he was impressed and when he saw what was on the site he was very happy that we have it as a resource.

I was also very happy to get this years Schoolhouse Planner which is available as a free download when your a member of the site.  That will really come in handy since I didn't buy one this year thinking I could go without a plan and I was wrong!  It really seems to me like there is so much on this site the only thing I need now is to go buy some more paper and ink!  I'll be printing out quite a bit starting with some Egyptian lessons this week!


Schoolhouse Teachers is running a special right now and it really is worth it to look into it just click on the name here and you will be taken to their promo page.  They are offering this site up for one whole year for just $49 usually this site costs $64.26 for a whole year!  (This price is for the U.S.A alone for Canadian buyers you can call 1.888.718.4663 to pay an additional $25 for shipping.)  There's more that goes along with it including a tote bag so do check it out.

To see what other reviewers are saying please check out the Crew website!



Disclaimer:  I received a free copy of this product through the Schoolhouse Review Crew in exchange for my honest review. I was not required to write a positive review nor was I compensated in any other way. All opinions I have expressed are my own or those of my family. I am disclosing this in accordance with the FTC Regulations.