Christmas tree oh Christmas tree

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!Thou tree most fair and lovely!Oh Christmas tree, O Christmas tree!Thou tree most fair and lovely!The sight of thee at Christmastide Spreads hope and gladness far and wideOh Christmas tree, O Christmas treeThou tree most fair and lovely!


I know this picture is blurry, but I enjoy the way the lights appear. It makes me think I am looking @ the Christmas tree in the background of something, or as a memory.

My husband picked the tree-it is about 3 feet shorter than I would have liked, but he gets an A for effort. The girls decided to stay with Brother Beal and Pam tonight so I put all the lights and other decor up and they can decorate the tree tomorrow when they return home. The boys seemed to be mesmerized by the entire episode, they wanted to eat the lights??!!!



This is Ezra one day this week playing with Niki's baby stroller, and a baby, she doesn't play with much any more. Later, I pulled out Mady's old stroller for Luke but he wasn't as interested as Ezra.

I decided to change our page a bit. I think if we want to have some friends from other countries we need to show them what we do around here in Texas. It will also be a great way to add in some history for the kids. The plan is to post more of the local things that we really take for granted but that people from other countries maybe interested to see. I know we are becoming a global village and cultures all over are mingling more, we still have our differences. Hopefully I will be able to highlight these interesting points.
As for unschooling, well I like to think it is going well. We really don't think much about school any more, we just live our lives. The kids are flowing right along. Mady and Niki have both asked for something more structured though. I have tons of book. I suppose I will try to make more efforts to ask them what they want to do instead of just letting them make their own daily course since that is what they say they want.
Niki is learning some guitar from Brother Beal and Mady is creating some beautiful art in her classes. She is shy about showing it to me so I haven't been able to post any of it yet.

So today since I only had half the usual number of children (!) I tried to list some of our Christmas traditions so we could make our paper chain and write our traditions on some of the rings. I was stunned to see just how many traditions we actually have. There are actually so many that we have one for every other day in December, but we usually do several over the weekend.

1) We spend one entire weekend (usually Thanksgiving wknd) decorating the house inside and out.
2) We make cookies and truffles for everyone. The truffles never look right but if you love chocolate then they are the best chocolatey Christmas treat ever.
3) We watch all the old Christmas cartoon specials: Rudolf the Red Noised Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman along with current cartoon favorites.
4) Volunteer
5) Make paper snowflakes!
6) Make homemade Christmas ornaments usually something with the pine cones we collected on one of our spring time trips to east Texas.
7) Listen to corny Christmas songs and sing along @ the tops of our lungs while we wrap presents.
8) Drive around the city looking @ Christmas lights.
9) Attend The Nutcracker
10) Attend the Annual Christmas on the Square here in our town.
11) Write clues for the scavenger hunt Christmas day. (We hide the one best present for everyone.)
12) Write to Santa
13) Make our paper count down to Christmas chain
14) This year we are attempting to add a Christmas movie marathon

So, there will be plenty to post about in December! I am felling more Christmas-ee by the minute.