So Much to be Thankful For....

This Thanksgiving was full and rich, along with feeling a little bittersweet.  We were so grateful to have family to celebrate together with, but we were really missing Father, as this is our first Thanksgiving without him.  We enjoyed getting together with Jay's mom at the home of his sister and bro-in-law.  We were also happy to see his niece, her husband and kids there, too, as they had driven across the country from Rhode Island to stop by Colorado on their way to California and then on to Hawaii, where Dan will be stationed for at least three years.  So thankful for God's provision of such a wonderful group of relatives.  I still remember praying that God would answer my prayer for a husband and to take away my loneliness.  He graciously answered that prayer with such a wonderful family, besides my own biological family, as well as my extended family as part of the Body of Christ.  I'm sure that Penny is also overjoyed, too, to have family members to celebrate with.  Here are some photos of our highlights of our Thanksgiving trip.

While we were down there visiting Jay's sister, we took a little drive around Limon.  We saw the many windmills that they've put up nearby.

It was definitely open country around there.  

And we could view Pike's Peak far away.

And we also stopped at the train museum where we got out and took a little walk.  Penny and Jay spent more time exploring than I did.

As you can see, it became warm while we were there.  The day that we drove Mother back home, it got up to the upper 60's.  We were very thankful that Dan and Linnea had made it across the country before that snowstorm hit the Northeast.  Hopefully you and yours all had a safe and blessed time to spend reflecting on what you have to be thankful for, too!

An Early Christmas Tea

Penny is part of a wonderful home school enrichment group, which just happens to meet in our church building.  Notice I did not say, "church", since the real church is really all of the people who love the Lord Jesus as their Savior.  We have been so blessed by the kind and godly folks that we have met through Home School Etc.  It was through this group that we started to feel a little more at home when we moved to the big city about two years ago.  Now we have people we can trust to call up if we need something, like a trusted plumber or sweet kids who like to play with our kitty when we're out of town.  It's sad to know that this is the last year Penny is eligible to be a part of the group.  However, since they meet at our church, and I also work, part-time, at the front desk, I'll still get to see a lot of those dear people at least once-every-other-week.

Now that I've elaborated on what a great group of people they are, I'll show you a few photos from the nice Mother Daughter Christmas Tea that HSE sponsored.  Here are candid shots of the people at our table.

I wasn't good at getting posed shots of anyone.  I'm not very good at even remembering to take pictures of people at most social events.  I think it's because I'm trying so hard to focus on what they are saying that I never stop to think, "Oh, let's interrupt this moment for a picture."  When I do my family members usually moan and tell me that I'm being too "Japanese", like a tourist always taking photos.

Speaking of Japanese, I decided to host a table and give it a Japanese flair.

 So, I used my Japanese tea pots, served genmai-cha (Japanese roasted brown rice green tea), had o-hashi (chopsticks) at each place setting, folded origami paper cranes and made an attempt at an ikebana flower arrangement. 

I was delighted that all of the ladies at my table wanted to try the tea and actually really liked it.  They also were all good sports and tried to use chopsticks for at least a while.  It was nice that Penny and I found another mother and daughter with whom we felt very comfortable chatting with.  We are more on the introverted side, so while we don't like big crowds, this felt like a warm, safe environment with dear friends.

What I really liked about this Christmas Tea was that it was all "homemade".  Every table was hosted by volunteers.  We all volunteered to bring our own food.  And the entertainment was all put on my kids playing instruments or singing.  It was truly like a simple, old-fashioned home grown celebration.  What a wonderful way to start off the holiday season.  My favorite part of the program was a dramatic reading done by one of the parents that touched my heart and brought tears to my eyes.  While it was quite a bit of work, it was really special to share this moment with my daughter that will bring back memories, hopefully for years to come.

 

Experimentation

Penny and I both tried something new, lately.  She tried out a new method of painting.  I asked her to make a Roccoco-style painting (that is, light and airy) by dabbing the pastel-colored paints on with cotton balls.  She chose to draw a rabbit, first and then dab the colors on.  Here is what she came up with.

I thought she did a great job!  This week she'll be learning about 18th century art in England and America.

My own experimentation did not meet with such success.  Someone had given me a pre-made package of some Indian lentil curry mix.  I thought it'd be fun to make it and add vegetables to it.  I like lentils and I like curry.  So, here is what I tried to make.

And, the conclusion was…. a big THUMBS DOWN!  We all agreed that it had a taste and texture akin to DIRT!  Never again!

However, the rest of the food that I made was delicious.  I made Thai sticky rice….

And tandoori chicken….

However, I did not add the food coloring that they usually do.  And my conclusion is that baking it at the highest temperature possible makes the bird shrink too much and makes it hard to scrub my pan off, afterwards.  So, I think next time around I won't follow the directions to cook it at such a high temperature.

On the home schooling front, we are keeping busy.  Here's what a typical day looks like when I'm at home.  I'll be washing dishes and checking my teacher's answer key as Penny asks me if she's doing her work correctly.  Here the book is our English grammar book.  She is currently reviewing all that she's learned so far, including things like proper verb usage, punctuation, verbals, gerunds, infinitives, etc.

Yes, recipe book holders come in very handy when you're homeschooling.  It typically holds algebra, American government, and grammar books more often than recipe books.

Hope you all have a great week!  We hear that our temps are supposed to eventually get back up to the 50's around here.  Woo-hoo!

From Fall to Winter and Trying to Keep Up!

Here in Colorado we like dramatic changes, especially when it comes to the weather.  We can be enjoying 80 degree weather when it's close to Halloween, like the day we took our trip to Anderson Farms (notice the short sleeves).

And we can go from raking leaves on a beautiful day in November like this….

…to having the temperature plummet by 70 degrees and shoveling snow in the next couple of days like this…

Needless to say, you never want to completely pack away either your cold-weather nor your warm-weather clothes, because you never know what you might be wearing within the next few days.

In the midst of such unpredictability it's nice to try to have a handle on something in your daily life.  One of the areas of life that I try to keep organized is that of our homeschool planning.  Here is my main tool for keeping organized….

It is simply a yearly calendar.  But, without it, I'd be lost!  I look to it each and everyday to see what it is I'd like to accomplish with Penny.  It's not set in stone.  We often change things up.  In fact, my calendar  typically has lots of arrows directing you to different days, as we change the days when we actually tackle the assignments.  It looks something like this in a typical week…

You'll notice, too, how I highlight the different classes with different colored highlighters.  That way, I quickly can see which class it refers to.  In the very front of the calendar I have taped in my go-to plan of what curriculum I'd been planning to use for the various subject areas I want us to study.  In that master plan, the different courses are also highlighted with the particular subjects, according to color. 

That way, throughout our three-and-a-half years of homeschooling, we have always referred to certain subject areas with certain colors.  It's quite helpful, as even Penny has learned how to quickly find which subjects she needs to study on certain days.  She knows how to grab my teacher's planner and check, for herself, what she needs to study, say on the days when I'm working at the church and am busy packing lunches and haven't had time to write down her assignments for the day.  There are five main different colors, designated for the general subject areas of:  English, Math, Social Studies, Science and Bible.  On my shelving, in our homeschool room, I have six totes for textbooks (including those five subject areas and one for the teacher ).

Those, too, are labeled, but not color-coded.  I'm not quite that OCD!  What I typically do on a day when I'm working, outside of the home, is to grab the teacher's tote and put all of my teacher textbooks in it, to haul along with me to work.  That way, on my lunch break, or during a slow time at work, I can pull out my teacher's planner and books and do a little grading or planning.  Penny knows when I have my lunch break, and will typically call me at those times with any questions she has about the homework assignments that I've given her for the day.  We only have to do this two days per week.  The other three days I am at home or once every other week, she's at work with me, after her homeschool enrichment group.  Those are the days that we typically schedule the harder subjects, like Math and Science.  It's a system that has ended up working really well for us.

What are some ways that you have learned to bring some order to your "constantly-changing" everyday life?