31 December 2023

 December was kind of a blur, and a very busy month this year.  I was not very well prepared for Christmas and it ended up being for stressful than fun for me, and overall was kind of flat for the whole family this year.  

We started the month with performances.  Rosebud's art was chosen for a show at the school district, so we went down to admire it.  Bobo's chorus had a Christmas concert.  He felt that they didn't have enough time to practice, but he enjoyed participating in chorus overall this semester.  It was really great to see him perform.

We did Cookies and Carols for three Sundays this year, since the fourth Sunday was Christmas Eve.  All the people from church that I invited initially chose December 17th, so I had to go invite a whole new batch of people for the 4th.  We had people from my work on the 10th, and we were unpleasantly surprised at how much they did not sing.  On the 17th we ended up with two sessions because there really was no way to host as many people as I had invited.  That went better than expected- we enjoyed both times!  My parents also came down on the 17th, so we got to spend some time with them on Saturday and sing with them on Sunday.

boys being awesome at an outdoor walk we did with Grandma and Grandpa

frosting sugar cookies:

One evening, we had a fire in the backyard, and then got tots from Sonic and went to see a spiffy light show in our neighborhood.  Rose Pink brought her portable radio/CD player and we stood on the sidewalk to watch it and dance to it.  It was a lot of fun!

Right as school was getting out, the flu struck.  Rosebud brought it home, and she had a pretty miserable Christmas because she was too sick to go shopping and too exhausted to really enjoy Christmas Day.  She shared it around, and we spent time at urgent care with Bobo (fear of pneumonia) and Nut Brown (to get an excuse for school).  Neither Bobo nor Nut Brown were well enough to go back to school when it started so they had extra time off to lay around the house and rest.  Mr. Brown and I also got to suffer through it.

Nut Brown amusing himself at the doctor's office

Once we were through with Christmas, we moved on to marking the twelve days of Christmas with the small treats that make those days fun.  And that was December.  It was really nice to have the week off between Christmas and New Year's.  No work, no school, no church... the vacation was wonderful, even if we were sick.

30 December 2023

 Rosebud learned how to do some very simple paper engineering at school and made a Christmas card for the family.

She hung it on the back of the front door (magnetic) and we opened it on Christmas Day as instructed. The snowman is sitting on a little popup block.

5 December 2023

Rosebud made a placemat for Thanksgiving dinner at school.  I was so charmed by the word search and the 'spot the difference' games that she included.  School definitely offers her opportunities that she would never have had if we were still homeschooling.

1 December 2023

One of the unexpected pleasures of public school is the joy of having other people recognize how awesome our kids are! Bobo came home with both of these items a week or so ago. His chorus teacher had just emailed parents asking for Kleenex, and I told him that she was now my favorite teacher so I was going to reward her with boxes of tissues. He thought that was pretty funny. It is such a wonderful thing to me when other people tell my kids how great they are. It's true and people who see it always raise my opinion of them!