From a distance

My senior year I had the privilege of going to New York twice in three months. Once with my uncle as a graduation gift and another on my senior class trip. This gorgeous cathedral caught my eye both times. Here is the beautiful structure from a distance.   Oh how I wish I could go back to NYC soon! Newsies, one of my favorite movies, is going on Broadway and I would love to see it!

~Rachel

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

After Thanksgiving break my class came back already ready for Christmas. On Monday they were talking about their elves on the shelves and I told them that we couldn't talk about Christmas until December 1st! Please don't think I was squelching their dreams I just needed to make sure that we stayed on task until Dibels testing was over. Dibels came and went, and on Thursday like promised Christmas came to our classroom! We played Christmas music during work time and I displayed all of my Christmas books and even previewed a few. I impressed my little ones with my memorization of Twas the Night Before Christmas. (Thanks 10th grade English)

We created cute reindeer this week and were able to give each little reindeer a shiny, glittery red nose. It is amazing how fascinated kids are with glitter. I think they could have watched me pour glitter on those noses for hours! 

The month of December we are taking a break from SF and so I was able to allow my top groups to read Amelia Bedila. It was quite funny to see how they comprehended the book and hysterical to watch them bend over laughing at her literal interpretation of things. Their favorite was when she "dressed the turkey!" 

I rearranged my room on Friday and meant to take pictures but forgot, so come back early next week to see the changes. I didn't want a desk anymore so I am going to use my small group table as my 'desk.' I pushed the clunky desk across the room and turned it around. I brought out the magnet word strips and I am going to use it as a sentence making station! 

I was able to talk about the Lord with my kids which excited me. I was telling them that I understood why we celebrated Thanksgiving because of the Pilgrims and Native Americans, but why did we celebrate Christmas. I was blessed to have some hands pop up. One little boy said that it was because it was Jesus' birthday. So I dug a little deeper and asked "Who is Jesus?" Another little boy told us that he was the Son of God. I told them how proud I was that they knew and we moved on to review long a. I love seeing what they know and getting to share some encouraging words with some of my friends that are just now learning about our Savior. 

A funny story happened last week. The word pray came up when we were learning about how ay also makes the long a sound. So I asked what is prayer. A little girl told us it is where you talk to God. Then the little boy who told us why we celebrate Christmas raised his hand. TM said "Guess what? I go to Sunday School and I even know who the first person was!" Me: "Really" TM: "Yea, Adam, well and then Eve, but he was first!" 

~Miss Anderson 

A Childhood Memory

So I was thinking... how happy Christmas makes me! It brings some of the greatest things together: the celebration of Christ's birth and the reminder of what He did for us, the joy of giving to others, and being surrounded by all my family.  When spurred by the topic of "Childhood Memory" from my sister's photography challenge I immediately thought of the angel that we put on our Christmas tree every year. This was a huge tradition for us. When we were little every year LB, Z and myself would all beg to be the one that would get to put the angel on top of the tree. It was fantastic getting to climb on top of our dad's shoulders and complete our lovely tree with the angel on top. We shared this responsibility, having to take turns, so my chance came around every three years. To this day I still get excited when topping off the tree with the same angel we have used for the past 27 years. I was excited when I went home for Thanksgiving because this was my chance to capture this great childhood memory. However, our tree did go up, but our lights have yet to adorn the tree and so the angel and ornaments were still boxed up when I left to return to my AU home. Realizing this fact mid-drive home I started to think what else was a great memory.

We all know how much Santa loves cookies and our crew should be credited for some of the lb's that Santa puts on on that all night flight. When we were little we would 'decorate' these cookies: well pour as many sprinkles on as we could before they were taken away from us. As we got older we started to be more meticulous in our decorating sessions. For the past 8 or so years when cookie decorating time commences LB and I pull out the rolling pin and our tweezers. (Yes I said tweezers, and yes I promised that they are clean!) We very carefully decorate our cookies to make them as real-life as possible. Here are a few pics from two years ago at our decorating session.

 Our cousin B, came up to join. I mentioned that we spend lots of family time, but 

did I mention it is because they live two houses down?

 Taking a try at Good St. Nick.

The sis, trying out icing instead of sprinkles, a new addition to our decorating session. 

Hope you are getting excited about celebrating the reason for the season with your family and childhood memories.
~Rachel