End of January Musings

It’s hard to believe tomorrow is February — that short little month that flies by — and then it will be March and Spring Break and a birthday (10 years old!), and April with my trip to Germany, and then May and the end of the semester and another birthday (7!)…

Oh dear, deep breaths.

So, January.  Everyone is solidly back at school, so the last few weeks have been largely uneventful as we’ve readjusted to our routine, continued to get over our Christmas colds, and prepped for classes.  But the Spring semester brings thoughts of spring and summer activities, so we’ve enjoyed planning for those.

• Several big projects I’ve been working on at ACU are wrapping up.
• We’ve started Sabbath time on Fridays evening to Saturday evening, no electronics and no errands.
• The girls are starting to prepare for their Spring Dance Show, which is Under the Sea themed.  Molly is a baby mermaid (ballet) and an ice fish (jazz, to “Ice, Ice Baby), and Jane Anne is sand (ballet), a seahorse (ballet), and a love fish (lyrical).
• The girls and I are planning on accompanying Bill to Albuquerque for a conference in a few weeks.
• I’ve signed up JA for summer camp where she went last summer.
• Molly’s deciding between art camp and pony camp.  A *very* difficult decision, mind you.
• We bought train tickets to travel to Chicago in July.
• I’ve been working to finalize details for the conference ACU is hosting (and I’m serving as Local Arrangement Chair for) next month.
• My friend has convinced me to run a 5K with her and provided me with a much-need incentive to exercise.

I’ve enjoyed a mostly uneventful month, but I’m looking forward to crossing some things off my list and to many more adventures with my family and friends.

Art Club

Molly’s been a bit jealous of Jane Anne’s book club, wanting to start a club of her own.  According to Molly, books aren’t her “habit,” so she wanted to do something a little different.  She loves to do any kind of art, so we thought it would be fun if she started a monthly art club.

She invited three little girls from church, a couple of whom I knew loved art as much as Molly, and we had our first meeting last week.

Here is everything ready for the artists to arrive.

 

After a rainbow snack,

 

I read Look, Look, Look, which just introduced different ways of looking at art — shapes, colors, lines — and about creating your own art using those approaches.

Molly said she wanted to cut out shapes and use them in the project, so I found a great activity that used different media all in one. They seemed to have a great time working on their projects.

 

And there were fantastic results!

And, finally, Christmas

Today’s been a month since Christmas, and that means I’m almost caught up from my blogging break.  It was a great day that we spent at our house in the morning and at my parents’ in the afternoon.  Great gifts (we did want, need, wear, read for the whole family), great food, and great time with family.

 

 

An Advent of Books, Part Two

I’m going to confess that I wasn’t as structured with this part as I was with part one.  Once school was out for me, I got a bit out of my routine.  And I’ve also packed away the advent calendar with all it’s cute little cards, so I don’t remember as well.  Still, here’s a quick list.

I’m so glad that we did our countdown this way.  The activities were super fun — and have always been — but the books forced us to slow down a bit and take time to read, even in the busyness of the season.

Dec 13 — The Trees of the Dancing Goats  by Patricia Pollaco, make tissue paper ornaments  (This is a wonderful book, probably my favorite that we read.)

Dec 14 and 15 — I was on my trip with Molly, and JA was having special time with dad, so no activity

Dec 16 — I don’t really remember what book we read (or of we read one), but there would be lots of options about making something for friends, etc — we made treats for our small group

Dec 17 — Russell’s Christmas Magic by Rob Scotton, get Mom’s Christmas present (the book and activity really have no connection in this one)

Dec 18 — Stranger in the Woods by Carl Sams and Jean Stoick, make pinecone bird treats

Dec 19 — pick out new Christmas book and read it.  They chose Who’s that Knocking on Christmas Eve? by Jan Brett

Dec 20 — The Polar Express by Chris van Allsburg, drive around and look at lights

Dec 21 — I planned a treasure hunt with clues and they found the movie Brave at the end of it, so we have movie night.  We didn’t have a book with this, but you could easily do If You Take a Mouse to the Movies

Dec 22 — Carl’s Christmas by Alexandra Day, go buy presents for our pets

Dec 23 — Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, take an evening walk

Dec 24 — The Night Before Christmas by Robert Sabuda, get ready for Santa: make reindeer food and Christmas cookies

Angels We Have Heard on High

 

 

On the Sunday before Christmas, our church does a small nativity pageant with the kids dressing up as Mary, Joseph, wise men, shepherds and angels.  A whole lot of cuteness.

 

 

 

 

Class Christmas Parties

Because we often are already traveling the last week of the girls’ school before Christmas, the girls have missed the last two years of their class Christmas parties.  Molly didn’t even really know what it would be like.  Bless her heart.  She was 3 the last time she had one.  I felt a little guilty.  And then I attended both parties.  And remembered that class Christmas parties are overrated.  Fun, but messy and loud.  And I felt less guilty.

Still, they had a great time.

 

Jane Anne’s book club also had a party — appropriately held in the library — with cookies, and story time, and a book exchange.

 

Weekend away with Molly

Since I had taken Jane Anne for a special mom/daughter weekend in October, it was Molly’s turn.  Molly has a very different personality than her sister — she doesn’t love to travel (but insisted on getting out of town), doesn’t love to shop, and is hard to eat out with (her food repertoire isn’t much wider than mac and cheese, pizza, and french fries) — so I wanted to make her trip about things she would really love.

We started the day with lunch at Brio.  (Pizza for her.  Eggplant parmesan for mom.)  Then we spent a while in the kids section of Barnes and Noble reading Christmas stories.

We stayed at the Gaylord Texan so we could enjoy all the decorations and do ICE.  We enjoyed wandering around the hotel, looking at all the decorations, and she loved ICE.  She slid down the ice slide over and over and over and over and over, until Mom was too cold to stay in there anymore.

 

 

 

The next day was a gorgeous, sunny, 70 degree day, so after a leisurely morning at the hotel and Five Guys for lunch (Fries for her. Burger for mom.), we headed to the Fort Worth Botanic Gardens.  It was a perfect way to spend the end of our trip.  We wandered the interpretive trail, reading the signs, jumping from log to log, eating goldfish and just enjoying being outside with no plan.

 

I sure do love this girl!  And I love the ways that she is uniquely Molly!

Back in the New Year

The day of the shootings in Connecticut I was in Dallas with Molly having a fantastic mother-daughter overnight date.  It was almost too much.  Having this wonderful time with my six-year old when, well, you know…

So I decided to be silent for a while.  Enjoy my break.  Love on my family.  Unplug.  It was wonderful.

The girls are back in school today, and I’m working some this week before things start up for ACU next week.  So I have lots of catch you up on in the next few weeks.  We had a fantastic break (despite some sickness) and I hope you did, too.

Happy New Year.