Decemeber

As to be expected, December was a full month. We kicked off the Christmas season by caroling at an assisted living center with one of the home school groups. The links to the videos are below and just as a warning, it is a bit lengthy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4w94tVEP6wo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwZUWyx2MQw

We also constructed our backyard firepit and began building the benches for seating. Here some pictures of Xander helping out his dad.

Another day we gathered our unneeded toys and clothes and took them to the child crisis center where the kids also did story time and sang songs with the nursery kids. For Christmas the kids went to the crisis center thrift shop and purchased gifts for one another.

We also built gingerbread houses as a family. Teah and Xander even cut out the pieces out of the gingerbread and did a wonderful job.

Xander made a snowman for his house out of marshmallows and chose not to "glue" it down, but rather use it as his gingerbread house "action figure". The snowman would move around the house, ride on the hovercraft Xander built for it, etc. However, the snowman's freedom did not last long because a day or two after we built the houses Marama ate it. It was a sad day in the Peeni house and also a lesson on what happens to anchored sweets in the presence of a toddler. The pictures were actually taken after the loss of the snowman, so Xanders house is the on the middle right, but alas there is no snowman on it.

Other activities that filled the month included taking food to and providing hygiene kit items for the migrant workers shelter.

We also did a Christmas around the world activity with some other homeschooling families where each family picked a different country and talked about various Christmas traditions in that country.

As part of the activity the kids made a Christmas card with a kiwi, an English Christmas cracker and Spanish pooping log. I think the pooping log was the highlight of the activity.

Teah also had her guitar recital. Teah's performance is in the middle of the clip. She is really enjoying her guitar class and loves her teacher, but is still not sure how she feels about performing :)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NpPTou7G_Ts#t=185