Pocket Wilderness

We intended to hike on Saturday, but ended up at Ponds & Plants instead. Since Sunday was beautiful, too, we headed out for a little hike after church and lunch. 

There were great icicles left over from the cold weather, but in the sun, it was warm and toasty. 

There was ice all along the edges of the creek as well.   The highlight for Eleonora was the two chickens wandering around the parking lot. 

The boys loved swinging on vines and climbing around in the woods on the side of the trail, which made our actual forward momentum quite slow. Nevertheless, a lovely time was had by all!

Ponds & Plants

Saturday was so beautiful after all the cold, grey weather last week. We decided to go visit Ponds & Plants.

The kids loved looking around the pet store - there was everything from fish and birds to snakes and monkeys. 

Outside, there were gardens and sculptures to walk through. 

There were beautiful peacocks wandering around, and gigantic koi swimming under a layer of ice.

 A wonderful time was had by all!

Snow Day

According to my calculations, it is the 16th of January, and the boys have only been to school 4 days this month. All these days off, and we have had a total of less than one inch of snow!  We have enjoyed each other’s company anyways. 

 We enjoyed watching this storm creep closer and closer on the radar. 

There wasn’t much accumulation, but there were beautiful individual flakes. 

We had to travel up to camp to see a little more snow. 

We enjoyed the bundling process. 

These boys were wild and crazy!  There were a lot of obstacles in their paths!

Their cheeks were nice and rosy when they came inside!  Their Grandma made hot cocoa for everyone. 

Then we played with an app that takes your picture and tells you what famous piece of art you match. This match was the funniest of the day!

A lovely time was had by all!

Christmas at the Winds

We celebrated Christmas at my parents house on the 23rd of December with the original 5, plus 7, as my sisters like to say. 

Can you tell my kids were excited to head up the night before to spend the night?

These sacks were filled with the presents the boys bought for everyone at the AWANA store. We opened them first thing Saturday morning.

This hand-painted duck is just one example of the treasures hidden in those sacks. 

The boys got great Lego sets. 

The little girls got Bitty Babies. I have the cutest video of Eleonora opening hers. She was so happy!

Chris managed to surprise everyone again with unexpected gifts for my sisters. 

A simply lovely time was had by all!

Chris’s Photography Skillz

Caleb building his U.S. Capitol Building on Christmas Day. 

Josiah enjoying his new Transformer. 

Eleonora and tree. 

Jessica in new sweater. 

Back to our sweet ballerina.  

Rebecca

So even though the boys were supposed to go back to school last Thursday, abnormally cold weather (for southeast Tennessee, anyways) and icy rain have won them three extra days off, and they haven’t been back yet!  Surely they’ll be back at school tomorrow, but I will say we have been having a fabulous time!  Our fun friend Rebecca came last Tuesday and stayed for a good long time. 

On Wednesday she and I went to Dollywood (she worked there this summer and has all sorts of perks), and it was soo cold!  All the outdoor roller coasters close down if it’s below 36 degrees, and they never opened that day!  Very different from our August visit!

The next day we and the kids headed up the mountain to hang out with my mom and to partake of her watercolor supplies. Pretty good, eh?  Haha.  We will have to try again sometime with daintier brushes. 

Rebecca also taught all the Craft Nighters a new version of Uno - the first one that I’ve ever actually enjoyed (Sorry, Uno Roboto!).

And maybe the best thing that we did was to watch Newsies. It’s on Netflix right now, and if you haven’t seen it yet, you definitely should.  I think Caleb is a fan at heart, but since his dad and brother call is ‘Snoozies’ he keeps that information to himself. As for Eleonora and myself, well, we are fansies. 

Happy January 8th to you and yours!

Hoffman Academy

Each of the boys finished a unit of piano lessons last month and we never got around to sharing until today. There are 183 lessons available on hoffmanacademy.com, and we are hoping to finish them all this year. The boys are both in the early 100s, so I think we can do it, unless we get stuck somewhere along the way!  After that, Caleb would like to try violin lessons, and hopefully Josiah will get to play in the school band - he’s thinking trumpet. Both boys were in the kids’ choir at church this fall, but I’m going to let them take a break this spring. Singing onstage doesn’t seem to be their forte, at least at this point in their lives, but I just love for them to get to be in the Christmas pageant each year. Eleonora has completed the first piano lesson with Mr. Hoffman, and is proud to be able to play ‘Hot Cross Buns.’  She also loves to sing songs all day long - sometimes from ‘Frozen’, sometimes from church, and sometimes things she makes up herself. That’s what’s happening on the musical front at our house these days!  

October-December Books & 2017 Resolutions

I don’t think I ever shared the books I read after September, so here I go!  ‘Boys’ was not my style, but I somehow had it as a free Kindle books, so I read it, but didn’t like it. 

‘Marco Polo’ was interesting, but I was really looking to read the original account (in English-ha).  I couldn’t find it, so I had to take Milton Rugoff’s word for it. 

First page-turner of the bunch!  Loved this. Highly recommend. 

Second page-turner. Also recommend, but a bit sad. 

Ugh. Depressing. Avoid. 

I read this for a Bible study I attended on Thursday mornings. 

First textbook I’ve ever read from cover to cover. I used this textbook for both of the ESL classes I took this fall. It was good, but I’ll only recommend this for those of you who are teaching English Language Learners. 

I read this to the boys. It took ages to finish. We enjoyed Heidi and Anne of Green Gables so much that I thought we could tackle another of my childhood favorites (and there it was, sitting on the shelf), but this book was not written with a 21st century little boy in mind, I’ll just say!

I believe that I set out to read 50 books in 2017, and I ended up finishing 75!  When I made my goal of reading a book a week (basically) I wasn’t really thinking about the chapter books I read to the boys, but they definitely helped me make it to 50 and beyond!

I had another goal this year, and that was to get rid of 1,000 things in our house. I take most of the things we are done with to the Give-Away tables at Moms4Moms during the school year, and the things that piled up during the summer months we sold at a Yard Sale. Are you ready for the grand total?  1,305!  (That I remembered to make tally marks for in my journal.). Where all these objects come from, I have no idea!  

So for 2018, I think I’ll stick with these two resolutions. 50 books and 1,000 items. Here we go!

Gibson Family Christmas & Fall Creek Falls

We celebrated Christmas with my mom's side of the family on the 28th.  We usually get together at Aunt Terry's house, but this year we got to host.  These cousins always have a great time together - and so do their parents!

On the 29th, we headed to Fall Creek Falls to stay in cabins on the lake and ring in the New Year!

It was below freezing most of the time we were there, so we spent the majority of our time snacking, visiting, puzzling, playing games, and visiting in front of the fire.

The boys each had a robot with hundreds of pieces to put together - so they were happily occupied for hours.

I finally ventured out for a walk across the old swinging bridge.

We also took the kids out to play on four different playgrounds over a couple of different days.

So cold!

My favorite part of those excursions were seeing all the deer.

I would be quite happy to never live north of Tennessee!

Happy 2018!