This year's Halloween costumes - which, incidentally, will probably be the last year they dress up for the "holiday" under our watch. We are completely sick with how this holy day has been hijacked and satanized. I only ever did it for the free candy, anyway. Mini-rant over.
Natalie was an adorable and demure Mrs. Claus.
Clare, as zee French maid.
Ma belle Noelle. Sort of a cross between a princess and Belle.
Regina was a clown, and Theresa was awesome as an ogre. Her brothers dressed her up with tunic, green face, stout club. It was great, but I didn't get pictures of either of them. :(
Homeschooling. Most days my school table is a sinkhole with no room for anything. Um, guys? The bookshelves are, like, three feet away.
Another variation of the sinkhole, taken just moments ago. They say a messy desk is a sign of creativity. I hope a messy table is a sign of learning in progress.
I can spy with my little eye several math worksheets, one vocabulary book, one grammar book, one reader, and one math workbook, plus a pile of stuff that has to be taken upstairs. Oh, and THERE'S my purse. Sigh. I'll clean it off tomorrow.
I am perpetually cleaning off the school table, and refilling my poor, forgotten pencil apple.
These kids think that pencils just magically appear there.
Here is a shot of a random school day. Judging from the clothes, this must have been Halloween day. Clare's doing math.
Noelle's playing with mosiac pieces, and Natalie's doing tangram puzzle cards.
Fun, but I also find cards and pieces on the floor for two days.
Brian, playing the Best. Logic. Game. Ever.
The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis/
On to November. I spent a scant few hours this evening preparing my living room for Advent. I promised the kids I'd bring out/put up one decoration per day for each day of Advent, starting this Sunday. That way our house will slowly be getting ready to celebrate the birth of Christ, just like we will be.
But decorating my house always means cleaning and rearranging, since I have to make room for a Christmas tree in an already crowded room. We moved two chairs and a couch, relocated a shoe organizer, raised a shelf, eliminated some toys, dusted, and vacuumed every square inch. It's such a pleasant place now. I hope it lasts for longer than just overnight. :-/
The Christmas tree will be placed in front of the windows that face the street.
We don't have nice furniture, or even matching furniture. The green couch is breaking. The wood couch and chair have cushion covers that are fraying. But it's all comfortable (enough), and I can't see the use of buying nice furniture now, while the kids are so destructive young. This means you, Brian.
The mirrors are mostly clean, at least for a few minutes. What on earth was that woman thinking, putting in floor-to-ceiling mirrors AND light blue carpet????? And there's that beastly wood stove that keeps me up so many nights.
We enjoy sitting in front of the wood stove and look for shapes and figures in the dancing embers. Kind of like a winter version of "that cloud looks like a ...." Plus, that couch is the toastiest place to sleep in the whole
It's such a good feeling, though, when it's all cleaned up and put away. I love to rearrange furniture. The seating/lighting setup is better now, and we all sat downstairs to pray night prayers, then played a game where two kids were "it" and sat in the middle of the floor, blindfolded, listening for footsteps and reaching their arms out around them. The rest had to try to sneak past them without being touched, until everybody was caught, and then two different kids had to sit in the middle. It was hilarious, nobody got hurt, and it lasted at least half an hour.
It's amazing how they'll run and play in a clean room, but do their darndest to junk it up again as soon as possible. One of the Great Mysteries of Life.
