Not my regularly scheduled Thursday.

Today Ann and I are home instead of out doing our normal Thursday stuff. Usually I run errands and have lunch with my friend, and Ann and her siblings go to co op and Ann goes to her Scottish Rite class.

However, she has that lovely croup cough and a little fever. So I sent The Teenager off with his siblings to co op and Ann and I are here. Other than her not feeling well, it is probably a good thing.

I have much to do and can't get it done if I'm not home. I am trying to make several Christmas gifts on my sewing machine. The thing is, I'm a novice seamstress and the first time I make a project, it looks like a 6 year old did it. Needless to say it is time consuming to have to make two of everything. And on another note I have decided Double Fold Biased Tape is from the devil.

Also, I got our Christmas Cards in the mail yesterday. They look great. I love them. I would love them more if they came addressed and stamped.

I think I also may have promised Ann that we'd make Christmas cookies together since she is missing the Christmas parties and co op and SR.

Hummm.

Perhaps it is not good that on this day of a million things to do, I am still in my pj's on the computer at 10:30.

The Winner IS....

And now for the final reveal! I know you have all been waiting with bated breath to find out what photos we chose for the Christmas Cards this year. Well, wait no longer...

THE Winning Photos!






And here are the photos in the actual card I picked out...the names have been changed to protect the not-so-innocent.




The fact of the matter is, these are not necessarily my favorite photos, but they are the best ones that would fit in the space provided. The ones of us all together in a row were too wide to fit in the dumb cards. Someones head was always cut off. So, this is what we ended up with. Not quite what I had in mind, but not bad either.

Now to get them addressed and mailed...

This Years Christmas Photo Attempt: 2nd Try

Pose 1

An attempt at a couple photo. Sir D would not quit cracking jokes!


This one's not bad.

Pose 2

Eve looks thrilled to be taking part in the 'Family Photo' eh?


This one's pretty good of the kids. Though I do wish The Teenager would get rid of the pointy hair cut.

Pose 3

This is a nice photo of everyone but Sir D. Sir D was not very comfortable there on his tummy.


Bob! Look at the camera, not your dad cracking jokes!



Eyes open Tricia! That sun was at a really unfortunate spot on Sir D's head. Also, did you notice the toes in the bottom left hand corner of the picture? Those would belong to the teenage neighbor boy who was bribed into taking our photos so kindly took our photos .

We didn't use any of these in the card. Tomorrow I'll show you the winners. Though that's not saying much. My family is apparently not very photogenic.

Christmas FUN!

Today on the Hilltop we’re having a little Christmas FUN.

I was determined this year to not try to do it all. I want my kids Christmas memories to not be one of a crazed mom, scurrying around trying to MAKE IT A MERRY CHRISTMAS FOR GOODNESS SAKE! So this year all but the academic essentials have been put on the back burner for the month of Dec.

Today my three younger kids did their math lessons, copied the Advent verses (3 or 4 sentences) in their Journal, read 2 chapters in their various books, and did their chores. Then each of us (even Will, who was home from his college classes by then) took turns reading aloud from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. This is a yearly tradition in our house. It is a little bittersweet that I started reading this to two wiggly boys, an energetic toddler and a nursing infant, and now we each take turns reading aloud and no one needs my help sounding out the words. *sigh* another example of life marching on.

Then we started our Christmas craft.

I don’t remember where I got this idea, but we’re making gumdrop Christmas trees!



Originally we were going to make a wreath, but when I saw the little Styrofoam cones in the store I thought this might be a little easier.



This is all you need. Styrofoam cones (or wreath) toothpicks cut in half, a wire cutter because regular scissors don’t cut toothpicks in half well, trust me on this one, and some gumdrops. Lots and lots of gumdrops.

Take half of the toothpick and stick the blunt end into the gumdrop, stick the other end in the Styrofoam tree, lather, rinse, repeat, till the whole thing is done.

We’re going to add a cutsie little gift tag and give them as teacher gifts.



So there you have it.

Christmas FUN on the Hilltop.

Don't forget to check back later for the rest of the Christmas Photos from Casa Del Loco.

This Years Christmas Photo Attempt: 1st Try

Pose 1


Ann looks a little crazed in this one.



Will's eyes are closed in this one.



This one is not bad, but it looks like my kids have little slits for eyes. It was a tad bright outside.



Bob's eyes are closed in this one.

Well, no winners here. Come back tomorrow for pose 2, it get's better folks.

Sunday

Some of us here on the Hilltop are home from Church today. Sir D is on call this week and he has not been sleeping much so I let him sleep in. Seems every time we go to church when he is on call, which is only really once every 6 weeks, he gets paged in the middle of Church and has to spend the rest of the morning working in the car. Seems just easier to stay home.

I was planning on taking the girls to Sunday School at least, but my hands and fingers are killing me today so I wimped out. (consequently, that is why this will be a short post, because typing with throbbing fingers is a bit tricky).

This afternoon after the boys get home from church we're going to attempt a family photo for our Christmas cards.

Oh, boy.

I'll show you the results; the good the bad and the ugly. (I suspect there will be a lot of those last two.

Homeschool Stuff

FYI,
I have a few new reviews up on my Homeschool Curriculum Review Blog. They are all things that would be appreciated by parents, whether you homeschool or not.

Go see...

Tradition

We have a few traditions here on the Hilltop around Christmastime. We have traditions other times of the year, but for this post we’ll stick with the Christmas traditions. Otherwise this might take all day.

We do Advent and that entails a wreath and lighting of candles daily, and nightly scripture readings. We bake and decorate cookies for the neighbors and make gifts for Sunday School teachers and other influential people in our lives. The weekend before Christmas we have hot coco and drive around and look at Christmas lights. We also read a special book that has coordinating ornaments that explain with scripture the various names of Jesus. (Adornaments) This lasts the last 12 days until Christmas. We do Proclamation Ornaments nightly along with our Advent readings starting on Dec 1st. We hang the proclamation ornaments up as we read them. On one side of the ornament it has an Old Testament prophecy scripture, and on the other side it has the scripture explaining the New Testament fulfillment of that prophecy.



This is our Advent Wreath



This is where we hang our Proclamation Ornaments.



This is where we hang our Adornaments after we read them.

I don’t like to hang them on the tree because they get lost in the chaos of tree ornaments, and also, I don’t like to have a timetable by which we must have a tree to hang all these things on.

I used to always put a little stuffed animal in the kids stocking every year, but we became overrun with stuffed animals so I tabled that one.

I think I might be a little over the top with the tradition. See I don’t remember any Christmas traditions at all in my family growing up. Well, except the sheet cake. I love the sheet cake, but no real meaningful traditions. Nothing that I felt like meant something. Not something that made me identify with my family. Something that made me say 'We’re the ________ Family and that’s what we do'. I want to provide that for my kids. When someone says Christmas, I want my kids to think ‘We’re the _____ Family and we always do this or that.’ I want them to want to take some of these things into their own families and carry them on. I guess I want Christmas to mean something. We have a lot of traditions surrounding other holidays and special occasions as well, and I think it’s a family identity thing for me. I want my kids to grow up thinking; on birthdays we did this… On Easter my family does … I want them to identify with The Family. (And I don't mean that in the strange and Mafiaesque way it sounded.)

Now don’t get me wrong, we do all the scripture readings because I want them to understand the eternal significance of Christmas. Emmanuel; God with us. The biblical training that his behind the tradition is very important and I don’t want to discount that, but I also love the tradition of it all.

Sometimes tradition can feel like a burden. I didn’t have time last year to do the homemade Christmas cookie and decorating and the kids were very disappointed.

Tradition does not bring salvation. We don’t become Christians because we participate in religious traditions, I know that and my children know that. We are saved because of the Lords redeeming work on the cross and our acceptance of that gift. But tradition helps us remember.

I love tradition.

What are some of your family’s favorite traditions?

The Cursed Crayons

Okay, we are a strange homeschooling family. I think my kids need better entertainment. Perhaps more tv, but less violence. Don't other girls play with paper dolls and ponies?

This is what she does when she is bored. It also answers the question; where the heck did my camera disappear to yesterday? When it was returned to its spot, there were a few surprises on it. Including this video.

Crazy on the Hilltop

Today was a crazy day on the hilltop. I started it off by getting my blood sucked out of my arm by a maniacal syringe wielding nurse, to determine if I have Rheumatoid Arthritis instead of or in addition to Fibromyalgia. I’m not sure which is worse actually, but at least RA has some sort of treatment. We’ll see. I’d just like to be able to make a trip to Walmart without feeling like I just climbed Mt. Everest.

After I got back from that trip I got a call from Sir D saying his building got broken into. He spent most of the morning filing police reports, cleaning up the mess, ordering new computers and borrowing some from a neighboring city’s branch, calling a repairman to fix the back door and the dock door today (great expense!) calling the ins co, and doing things that do not make the branch and consequently our family, any money. Needless to say, he was discouraged. And I am sure he did not actually do all those things, surely he delegated some of them, right?

I spent the afternoon at Walmart taking back things of subpar quality (jeans worn once and the button broke! URG!) and standing in long lines. I also bought a vacuum. Does anyone like to buy a vacuum? They’re so stinkin’ expensive and they’re plastic crap! And you have to use it to do a job that you don’t really like anyway.

We’re taking new tack where the vacuum is concerned. We’ve always bought midrange vacuums and they have worked for a year, then we limped them along for the next three or four, having to do some minor repair almost every time we wanted to use it. (and when I say we had to repair it, I think you all know I mean Sir D, Will, or Bob). So this time I bought the cheapest (still $75!) vacuum they had there. Sir D said we just ought to plan on replacing it every 2 years. I guess the alternative is to buy the $500 SuperVac. But really, who has $5oo to spend on a vacuum?



On the upside, I put dinner in the crock pot before I left so I don’t have to cook and my daughter is vacuuming because she wants to.



Who says I can’t look at the bright side?