Christmas

Merry Christmas!

What a great week we've had.

On Christmas Eve Eve we streamed the Christmas Concert from Tenth Presbyterian Church into our living room.  Maybe next year we'll pack up the troops and head down to Philadelphia to be there in person.  But it was a wonderful treat to attend in our jammies.  A great way to finish off the final Advent preparation for Christmas.

On Christmas Eve Day we decorated the tree and house.  We had our main meal at noon - Filet Mignon (from our recently purchased side o' cow) with mashed potatoes and asparagus.  Yum!  Mark spend the afternoon and long evening at church, directing the music for the 4pm and 10pm services.  The girls and I joined him for our lovely 7:30 service.

Christmas Eve Dinner

Early on Christmas morning, Mark drove to the airport to pick up Uncle Kevin while I prepared a Birthday Breakfast here at the house.  We were so glad that he and Mika and Grandad were able to come too.  Angel food cake with berry compote and whipped cream, a crock pot egg casserole, sausage and sparkling cider were served.  We sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus and blew out all 24 candles - now changed from the white, purple and pink of Advent to Christmas red.

Christmas Day Birthday Breakfast

After breakfast Mark went to play at our church's 10am service while the girls and I stayed home to rest and clean up.  Kevin had been awake all night on his red-eye flight from Seattle so he passed out on the living room floor and made a great snuggle buddy for Claire as she watched the Nutcracker.

Here's a video:

And another.  Zombie faces...

We spent the rest of the day at my mom's house.  My mom and Doug, Alyssa and Chris, Nanny Henny and Nanny and Poppop Mike were there.  I love being with  my family.  They are really great people.  We were all lavished with gifts and love.  (I don't think we will need to buy anything for a whole year!)

My mom made a fantastic Christmas feast.  I supplied some appetizers.  Here is a shot of my first attempt at veggie and fruit Christmas trees. 

(Check out this very cool yoga swing that my mom got us.  The kids can use it and so can I!)

On the 26th we had "Christmas morning" with Mark's side of the family.  His sister's family was in town for the day and we had a nice meal and exchanged gifts.  Eleanor (Mika) is a wonderful hostess and cook.  Lots of playing and resting...

The next day was a bit of a break from traditional Christmas festivities.  We were visited this year by a Christmas Rooster.  On Christmas morning I had awakened around 5:30am to get breakfast started.  I heard a sound that I thought was a gust of wind.  But after realizing it was happening about every 30 seconds, I stopped to listen harder and realized that it was a cock-a-doodle-do.  Ohmygoodnessgracious.  A couple weeks ago Mark had remarked how large "Chicken Dora" was and asked if she could be a rooster.  All of the info online seemed to suggest that if she was a he then we would have heard it crow long ago.  It's been so cold I haven't been outside to really study them much lately.  It chose Christmas morning to make it's debut. I went out there and looked at it.  It was certainly a rooster.  The tail feathers and wattle looked different compared to the other barred-rock hen we have.  We can't have a rooster in the middle of Langhorne borough!!  It's a shame.  I would love the option of hatching fertilized eggs.  And I'm sort of sentimental about this one.  This is the same chicken that I nursed back to health after we procured it from a dirty farm.  (Here's a tip for any wanna-be chicken farmers out there - don't get pullets from just any backwater farm.  They could have a diseases or mites that might infect the rest of your flock.)  Anyway, it was covered with chicken mites and the two other chickens that came with it quickly died of the same thing.  Gross.  I itch just thinking about it.  Anyway, I gave it dust baths in diatamatious earth a few times a week and kept it in quarantine under close surveillance until it was healthy and mite-free.  It's a beautiful bird.  Was.  Now I'm sure it will be a delicious bird.

So, with Kevin's moral support we did the deed for the first time.  It went very well.  I was so glad to find this video online.  This woman is just darling and she has a wonderful respect for the life that she is taking.  Her way of slaughtering was very gentle.  So, that's what we did.  We watched the video and copied.  Our butchering went pretty much the same way that you'll see if you get up the nerve to watch her video.

Here is a video of "Chicken Dora" saying goodbye (don't worry - you won't see it being harmed):

Once the hard part is done there is the plucking and eviscerating to consider.  We all had quite an education!  Thankfully, the same woman posted a second video which gives all of those instructions.

Here we are doing the plucking:

In the end we are left with a beautiful butchered chicken which doesn't look any different from a roaster you'd find in a grocery store.  He'll go into the stock pot and make a delicious soup after rigor mortis goes away.  Yeah, there's that.  That part is a little unnerving.  :)  The 9 other chickens are starting to lay well even in the dark, cold winter, and they don't seem too lonely for Dora/Diego.

So this past week we've basically just been hanging out with family, doing a bit of killing on the side.

Mark's Mom said one of the best things about the Christmas season is the music.  Oh, it's so true,  Our family enjoyed singing together with Uncle Kevin and Mark's parents on several occasions.  Adding harmony and often piano to a melody makes me happy.  I like to joke that that is the real reason I married into the Shockey family - because I knew that I could go Christmas caroling pretty much anytime and "Happy Birthdays" wouldn't suck.

Lucy took some video footage while we were singing:

There are 12 presents under the tree, one for each day of Christmas.  Yesterday they opened a game called "To Bethlehem" that we played as a family.  Today they opened and watched "The Promise" DVD - it was surprisingly good, and a musical, which kept their attention.  We'll keep it going all the way until Epiphany.

Happy New Year!

Third Week of Advent

It's the rush before Christmas and for the first time this December I'm feeling it a little bit.  We do some sort of gift for an incredible number of people.  If you count edible gifts, the number is just shy of 100!  I absolutely love doing it.  I love thinking about each person as I am buying and making and wrapping.  I don't ever want to stop.  But I'm thinking that we might do a Christmas in July this year and use that month to do all of our gift preparations.  In light of that, I'm amazed at how relatively unstressful this month has been. Yoga continues to be a huge help.  Our Advent ritual and Ann Voskamp's devotional have been helpful as well in maintaining focus.

Nora and I spent the better part of Friday making fudge treats for pretty much everyone at church.  Well, not really, but everyone who has anything to do with the music department.  And neighbors.  We have about 60 of these little suckers to give away:

Brown paper packages tied up with string...

We finally got a tree!

We learned a few tips this year.  I'll share them with you.

Apparently when you go 5 days before Christmas there are only 5 trees left in the lot and they are half off.  Score!  But...you should probably check early in the month to make sure you have lights and not wait until your kids are all excited to decorate the tree and you have to make an emergency trip to the store.  When you wait until 5 days before Christmas to get your lights, you will go to three stores during this emergency excursion in search of the real white lights that you knew and loved as a child.  They are endangered.  You will not find them.  After walking up and down the aisle of the third store for 15 minutes, staring at the sparse shelves and hoping to see the white lights magically materialize, you will settle on an enormous roll of large LED lights, since, what the heck - "go big or go home".   And they'll be on sale so at least you'll think there is something redeeming about them.  You will ask your husband to put them on the tree so that you can start cleaning up the fudge explosion in the kitchen.  When you emerge, you will stare with horror at your radioactive tree.  After an hour of trying to tell yourself it's not that big of a deal, you will undo all of your husband's good work.  You will have a naked tree until Christmas Eve when, hopefully, your Amazon order of real white lights will arrive.

Earlier in December I actually toyed with the idea of decorating on Christmas Eve since I know some people do that.  So that's what we'll do this year by accident.  Who knows, maybe it will become a tradition.

I intended to have the girls do a page a day of this Christmas Alphabet I had printed out.  We did three pages.  Oh well.  It was a nice thought.  We'll try again next year.  I was working with Nora on making each element of her pictures look different.  Even just doing these few pages has seemed to help her.  I love seeing her hear a new idea - like "Hey, how 'bout you don't make the entire page purple.  How can you make Mary and Joseph and the donkey look different?" - and then work with that concept on her own.  Whenever I have seen her coloring on her own now she uses several different colors and stays within the lines of each page element much more. She never did that before.  I forget sometimes how she needs just a bit of instruction with concepts that I wouldn't necessarily think to teach.  And then she needs me to leave her alone to work on it. Claire did the one on the right entirely without help.  She has no problem seeing the different elements in the picture and decorating accordingly.  It's amazing how differently kids' minds work.

The girls have so enjoyed having a lot of time to play together and help me with Christmas preparations.  Since I've tried to keep things so low-key we have been home more than usual and we don't have a loaded schedule.  It is so so nice.  I think I'm going to try my hardest to keep it that way.  They learn so much just from being together and having the gift of time.

On Saturday we celebrated Christmas with my Dad's side of the family.  We had a wonderful time with everyone.  I love seeing how all of the cousins enjoy each other.  Here they are wearing the special shirts that Mimi made for them...

Here is a video of Lucy dancing to Sting.  I think Nora and Claire are pretending to be on a car ride in the corner there...

Here is a glimpse of the end of our Advent ritual.  They love to blow out the candles out on the wreath which, by the end of December, looks like a birthday cake.

The wait is almost over...

Second Week of Advent

This has been a wonderful week.

First of all, we had three snow days.  I love snow days. Whenever there is a serious snow, we abandon all to-do lists to do whatever comes to mind.  That usually means snuggling together with books and movies or playing outside -which usually doesn't last very long with my kids.  It takes 30 minutes to get out the door for a 20 minute snow romp.  It seems so illogical.  Why go to the trouble?  Hot chocolate.  It tastes so much better after you are a little bit frozen.

Can I eat this?

Mmmmmmm

Making snow angels for the first time

That is Mommy's pitiful attempt at a snowman

Our Tuesday snow day was made even better since our friend, Candace spent it with us.  She helped us make fantastic crayon art (which I can't show you yet since we will be giving them as gifts to people who may or may not read this blog). I made curried pumpkin soup for lunch and venison stew for dinner.  Mmmmmm.  Comfort food.  After the kids were in bed, we three adults learned a new game - Agricola.  It's like Settlers of Catan but more complex.  It only took us three hours (!) but I think we got the gist of it.

One of the best parts of the week is getting to go to yoga class every day!!!  Almost two years ago our church had an auction and I bought a gift certificate to the Prancing Peacock for a month of unlimited classes for $30.  I've been waiting and waiting to use it until I could get the most out of it.  Mark is off from school now so I have childcare covered and a car everyday.  It's the perfect time to do it.  It is really helping me to observe the Advent season more fully since I can take time in class to practice slowing down and meditating and all that I talked about doing in the last post. There is so much benefit in the practice.  I've been absolutely loving it. When I come home, I show the girls some of the poses we do in class....

Claire has the potential to be quite the little yogini.  Look at that down-dog!  I just want to note here that this is the day we ran out of oil and so had no heat in the house.  Mark, who is taking the picture, is wearing a hat.  I am wearing a huge sweater.  And Claire is mostly naked.  Totally unphased by the cold.  (Don't worry - we had our tank refilled that day and all is cozy again.)  And I have no idea what Lucy is doing there but it looks like she is missing a diaper.  hmmmm...

Mark jokes that I'm practically Hindu because of my build-in bindi.  : P 

The Advent calendar count-down is still going strong (though it really is hard to find time to get it in.) We had a couple play dates, a pre-Christmas visit from Uncle Kevin, and our Christmas concert at church.

It's  been a wonderful week.

The First Week of Advent

We are changing pace for the next few weeks as we turn our focus to the season of Advent and then Christmas.

This year we will start traditions to really observe the Advent season.  We will do our best to shut out the noise of pre-mature Christmas until we have prepared for it by waiting.   We will read the ancient texts and the words of the faithful though out history who remind those of us on this side of the cross what it means to feel absence and void and faith and deep desire - to hope in a redeemer not yet come. We will take time to quiet our minds and slow our schedules in what has previously been for us the busiest time of year.

After this practice of waiting and longing and then waiting some more, then finally, finally after knowing something of the weight of hope, we will begin our celebrations.

It's funny how our keeping of Christmas has evolved.  When Nora was a baby we did the whole Santa and reindeer thing mixed in with as much Jesus as would fit into the busy whirl.  Growing up I had never heard of Advent or the idea of celebrating Christmas over 12 days.  We had Christmas Eve services and cookies for Santa and bulging stockings and mountains of presents and a big family dinner. My childhood Christmases were magical.  When we first had kids I knew that I wanted to pass on some of those magical feelings I experienced - that je ne sais qua of Christmas that made everything so special.  What to keep, what to get rid of, what to add to....

Neither of us was opposed to Santa and I remember thinking it was sad when I heard of friends and family who just didn't "do Santa" at all.  But one year we were surprised in the days leading up to Christmas by how many people at our church kept asking Nora about Santa.  What was he bringing her, had she been a good girl for him, would he fulfill all of her two year old wishes?  (What kid needs a Savior when you have a Santa?!)  We were perplexed.  Surely church would be the place where Christmas was all about Jesus. Santa could then make his appearance at home, along with more of Jesus...

That got me to thinking that maybe the really absurd thing was that I was trying to hold onto something that was subtly robbing us of our joy. I had been chasing after a magical Christmas when what I was really longing for was the mystical - to be enveloped in that unfathomable mystery of God in the manger.

When one begins to truly experience the essence of The Light coming into the world, a greedy hunger takes over.  The magic of the North Pole, childhood nostalgia, mounds of gifts and food and anything else that isn't Him is unveiled as an empty filling.

But we all do it every year - completely fill up our schedules with family activities and delicious food preparations and gift exchanges.

Isn't this always the way of it?  How the good so quietly robs us of the best?

It is so easy to get so wrapped up with Christmas preparations that by December 25th,  there is nothing left in us which is prepared to adore Christ.   By then we are bone tired and adoration is hard work.

We've paid homage, certainly, in our special services and carols and readings of St. Luke's Nativity account at family gatherings.  Did we take time to adore?  When does that get penciled into the calendar? 

I needed to prepare myself better than I had in the past.

And so we began our journey to celebrate Christmas intentionally and differently.  I've been collecting ideas and traditions along the way.  This is what our first week of Advent looked like....

We are keeping a relaxed pace.

We decorated the house.  It feels strange to have such understated decorations up at such a time.  I like it.

This paper tree is made from pages of an old Bible to remind us of John 1:14

Advent Candles of Hope, Peace, Joy and Love

This clear plastic ornament holds our gifts to Jesus.  Whenever we do something out of love for another person, we write it down and put it in the ball.  We'll put this on our real tree when it arrives and open and read each one out loud on Christmas Day.

This year I made an Advent Calendar with readings from the Old and New Testaments, following the stories of the people who made up Jesus' lineage and the messages of the prophets who foretold his coming.
Each night we begin by lighting the wreath of candles.  Then I hide a bag with a paper ornament which corresponds to the night's reading.  The girls find it and we talk about the picture and what we are about to hear in the story.  Then Mark read those passages.  We sing a couple Advent hymns and say prayers and then close by putting the ornament on our "tree" and blowing out the candles.

 Ideally.

Mostly Lucy and Claire flop around on the floor, giggling intermittently while Mark tries to read.  And Nora plays with her buttons and has no idea what was just read.  There has been a fair amount of crying, yelling and even hitting when a disagreement arises over whose turn it is to blow out the candles or put the ornament on the tree.  And there is more crying as we have to explain for the 8th night in a row that, no, "The Wheels on the Bus" does not qualify as an Advent hymn.  So generally, it's not what you'll see on an episode of the Duggars, but I'm glad we're doing it each night.

As you can see in the background, part of our Advent decorations include our collection of singing Hallmark decorations because they entertain the kids for unbelievable amounts of time!

 Tonight our Lessons and Carols concert at church was postponed due to snow.  (It will be held on December 15th at 7pm at Hope Lutheran Church in Levittown if anyone wants to come by!)  I just love a good snowfall.  This was the first time the chickens experienced snow too.  They look quite cozy there with their little lighted cabin.

Uu Us

This week we focused on Uu Us with the words to remember: "God made us wonderful!"

We talked about the five senses.  We played games which focused on using each sense - for example: for the sense of seeing, I put several objects on the table.  They studied the objects and then closed their eyes while I took something away.  They had to figure out which object was missing.  Then for touch, we took the same objects and put them into a bag and they had to reach in and feel it.  They described whether it was rough, smooth, bumpy, hard, soft, cold, round, a triangle, etc.  Here they are playing the game by themselves...

We also talked about what life would be like to not have all your senses.  We read a great picture book about Helen Keller and watched the Miracle Worker. I also started reading a chapter book about Helen before nap times.  We got to a part about the manual alphabet and how Annie would shape the letters into Helen's hand so that she could feel them.  As I was reading I was thinking that the content was really going over their heads and maybe I should stop and explain it. Just then I looked up and saw Claire in her bed, making her sign language letters into her other palm! These girls amaze me.

Things like that remind me of Charlotte Mason's philosophy of education - that each child is a person, not a container into which to dump information.  She emphasized spreading a continual feast of ideas before the child so she can take what she needs.  The parent/teacher's role is to lead them to wonderful things to think about and give the child time to digest and work with the idea  Sometimes I have to fight the urge to force their learning into a sequence that makes sense to me.

John Holt (the "father" of unschooling) is another literary mentor of mine and has a philosophy I want to emulate.  His emphasizes understanding the innate capacities of all people, including children, to learn and discover.  Curriculum should always be secondary to the learner's interests, desires, motivation, and goals.  Learning is personal, and is driven by the inherent desire 'to know' within each person, his curiosity, his need to feel competent and whole, and his need to have fun.  Learning happens as one is actively engaged in one's own life.  Children can learn without being "taught", and in fact, unwanted teaching can actually interfere with a child's natural process.

"By nature people are learning animals. Birds fly; fish swim; humans think and learn. Therefore, we do not need to motivate children into learning by wheedling, bribing, or bullying. We do not need to keep picking away at their minds to make sure they are learning. What we need to do - and all we need to do - is to give children as much help and guidance as they need and ask for, listen respectfully when they feel like talking, and then get out of the way. We can trust them to do the rest."  - John Holt

I have loved this semester of home educating so far.  Kindergarten is a great environment for trial and error without pressure.  I am having fun exploring different topics with them.  It is obvious that they are learning and growing and I love who they are.

....................................................................................................  

One of Nora's therapists is also a yoga instructor and she incorporates a lot of stretching in their routine together.  It is so beneficial and I've been looking for ways to get us into a regular habit of yoga together.  This week I found a poem online and added some movements that we can all do in varying degrees.  We've started saying the poem along with each movement for a centering start to our school activities together.  I love the idea of praying with the body and I think this one is a keeper, especially since Nora can do everything with modifications on her knees.  Here's the poem:

"Fearfully and Wonderfully Made" by Linda Kruschke (based on Psalm 139)

(Begin in mountain pose and take a few breaths here before beginning.  

When you are ready, move into extended mountain pose  as you say the following:)

I will praise You, O Lord for I am fearfully and wonderfully made

(move to swan dive as you say:)

You are the creator of my soul, my mind, my talents and strengths

(plank as you say:)

You knew me before I was and had a plan for all my days.

(standing lunge on left as you say:)

Take my strengths, O Lord,and use them to your glory.

(downward facing dog as you say:)

You are the creator of all that I am.  Your ways are too wonderful for me to understand.

(standing lunge on right as you say:)

Take my weaknesses, O Lord, my God, and show your might and power to overcome.

(move into thunderbolt or hero pose and say:)

I am fearfully and wonderfully made.

(then to child's pose to finish:)

To You belongs all my praise.

Here is our week in pictures.....

Claire works on her ABCs with a floor puzzle.  She's becoming very good at puzzles.

Busy Box Work

pattern block puzzles

Matching nuts and bolts

Playdate at Bouncin' Off the Walls

Making foam Uu's

Happy Thanksgiving - We had a lovely time at my Mom and Doug's.  Alyssa and Chris, Nanny and Poppop Mike and Aunt Karen were there too.

Reading with Poppi

Thanksgiving Walk

It was about 25 degrees outside!!

A typical early morning at church before choir rehearsal - sleepy kids in pajamas wait for choir rehearsal to begin

Mark played a Chopin recital at a nursing home. (I just found this photo - taken last week)  Nora fits right in!

Aunt Karen, Uncle John and Daniel came to visit.  Claire really enjoyed Aunt Karen because she told her the story of "Prinderalla and the Cince" and sang the "Turkey Tango".

Nora and Benny illustrating their stories

Christmas tree decorating party at Nanny Henny's with all the Aunts and Uncles and Cousins