Twas the Week Before Christmas…

I find myself not really wanting to post in my blog.  That makes me really sad since I have had this blog since 2008.  I blame Instagram.  It is easy and quick and there is immediate response from my followers.  Yes we have been busy but not THAT busy. 

Thanksgiving has come and gone.  Here is the family.  Our get togethers when I was younger was 70+ people.  Much smaller now….

2013 DEC5

Keilee’s play is over.  It was wonderful.  They sold out every performance!  They had a “Meet and Greet” at a local library the week before the show which was so fun.

2013 DEC1

She met several new people in this play.  She met 3 homeschooled girls that she didn’t know that she LOVED.  They seriously had a blast together.  They are all older than Kei but as she says, “They are homeschooled so they don’t act older”. 🙂  Plans have already been made to hang out with these new friends. 

Here are some pictures from the Show.  The first picture is of Kei and Emma Jo the little girl from “Aristocats”.  I wish I had videoed her.  She was saying to Keilee, “I wish you were my sister, I love you, you are my best friend” over and over.  It was the sweetest thing.

2013 DEC

Cousins and leaves….

2013 DEC2

Keilee had her biggest order to date on her Etsy shop; she had to make 9 Snowmen headbands.  She completed them and they have already been delivered.

2013 DEC4

1.  Working on her Smash Journal.
2.  This is a BOW HOLDER she made.  She used an old paint canvas, fabric and bows.  I love the way it turned out.
3.  A dog she rescued.
4.  Nomad hates Algebra too!
5.  Working on her Periodic Table.  She spent hours on this too.  She got the idea from Jess at Teachable Moments!

2013 DEC3

Keilee has been spending HUGE amounts of time on DIY.  This is an AWESOME website.  Please go check it out.  It is a community where you collect badges for all sorts of things; art, fashion, Minecraft, Science, History, drawing, and SO MUCH MORE!!  She has been chosen “Editor’s Choice several times and seriously has spent hours each day here.  She has met a LOT of homeschoolers too.

This project was to design clothes from “unusual materials”.  She used wrapping paper for the skirt and newspaper for the top.  I thought she rocked it. 

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Our church is doing a 30 day ‘movement’.  Here is what our preacher said in his blog:
It’s not too late to join our #Yes2Yes 30 day generosity challenge!!! Too many of us are programmed to say “No” when someone asks us for help. So for the next 30 days, challenge yourself to say No to No… Someone may ask you for $20 and you can only give $2, that’s okay!!!! The amount isn’t important but the heart of generosity is!!! Each time you say “Yes,” post, “I did it!! #Yes2Yes” on Facebook and/or Twitter. There’s no need to brag about the details of what you did, but we do want to know who’s stepping up to the challenge!! We’re creating a generosity movement that will serve as the CATALYST to the EPIC impact that we’re making in all of our communities!!!!

So if you want to join us in saying Yes2Yes please hashtag on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter:  “I did it!! #Yes2Yes”   Keilee and I have done it multiple times and it is so fun to actively seek opportunities to say YES!!

Keilee decorated our house last week.  She did 90% of it herself. 

2013 DEC6

Yesterday Abbie and Emma came over and they baked and baked and baked. There was also listening to Disney Pandora and Wicked.  They were singing at the top of their lungs.  When they were done we took the cookies and candy to the USA Nursing Home.  This is the place my Mom was before she died.  Several months of Keilee’s 2nd grade year was spent at this place.  She tries to do something every year.  The girls delivered the cookies and then sang Christmas songs for about 20 minutes.  No preparation went into the singing but it was beautiful.

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So that is a very quick update on our lives the last several weeks. Hope yours have all been awesome and you all have a blessed and wonderful Christmas.

Homeschool Rocks!
Karen

“Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won’t make it ‘white’.” — Bing Crosby

“Christmas is a time when you get homesick – even when you’re home.”  ~Carol Nelson

Linking with
Mary at Collage Friday
Sylvia at Friendship Friday

11 thoughts on “Twas the Week Before Christmas…”

  1. Thank you so much for the DIY link. My daughter loves it and has already earned 2 badges. She is 12 and has been so inspired by Keilee. She wrote to her on DIY and was tickled pink when Keilee wrote back – it really made her day. I so enjoy reading your blog.

  2. I’m glad to see you back. I love your posts filled with cheerfulness and creativity. I’ve noticed this year that several of my favourite bloggers have given up – I wonder if like you they prefer the immediacy of Instagram. I’m obviously a dinosaur. I’ve only just started blogging at a time when others are moving on to other platforms. I’m not on Instagram since I don’t take a lot of photos – for me worrying about taking a photo takes me away from the moment (probably because I’m a hopeless photographer) so by and large I opt to experience not record.

  3. I love how creative Kei is! Glad to see an update post! I know the instant gratification of social media – I struggle with that myself.

    Merry Christmas!

  4. If Blurb allowed Instagram (and comments) to be uploaded into a book I would think about abandoning the blog. There are times when I need to write, and I don’t know if Instagram would be the best platform for that either. So for now, I keep blogging and every year I print off a book of our 365 days and every so often I find Grace curled up on the couch with Jake in her lap reading our blog books. That is what motivates me to keep writing and blogging. It will be interesting to see how blogging evolves with these other social media platforms and if they develop a way to do both, blog and photograph, it could revolutionize the blogging world! Until this happens, please keep blogging…….yours is the blog I look forward to most. Let’s talk soon!

  5. I really hope you stick around blogdom. I really look forward to your posts. I will be looking more into the DIY site. That is just what I have been looking for.
    Blessings, Dawn

  6. I’ve missed reading about your weeks — but thank you for the long update, my friend… life looks wonderful, as usual! Have a blessed Christmas, Karen!

  7. Thank you for the DIY link! Wow! That would be right up my kids’ alley! And, science is the *blech* subject at our house. How cool to have them each pick one of the badges and work on it themselves for science!!! Yay!!!!!

    Merry Christmas!

  8. It wasn’t just you, Karen. Some how my linky disappeared! I went ahead and added this post to it for you. I hope that was okay. I hope you keep posting even though you’re going through a slump. It wouldn’t be the same without you. You and Keilee are such an inspiration to us! I love how busy and involved Keilee is in such a diversity of activities! Yes, Keilee does rock! At just about everything! Even that cute dress!

  9. I’m so glad you did post! For a long time, I lacked the motivation to write, and then I realized I was using all my good material as Facebook posts! I’ve really had to streamline my social media use 🙂

    I love all the pictures of Keilee with her castmates! I also really like the periodic table stuff. I was looking at Teachable Moments blog post on that the other day thinking about bribing Firecracker to do that, and then I decided to register him for a Minecraft Homeschool class on the periodic table, so I’m pretty sure I’m going to ask him to draw his own periodic table “in real life” sometime this spring.

    Merry Christmas!!

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