Thanksgiving is over

Thanksgiving is over so it is time to start concentrating on Christmas.The internet is a wealth of information and ideas on every thing to do with Christmas so I thought I would just list some things that my family and I have found really great.

First and formost is the Reason for the Season which is the Birth of Jesus.   Here you will find a wonderful Advent Study that we have used in the past.  I think we will probably be using it this year also.  I like that fact that it is inductive and that you read the same scripture several times so that it is really in your head when you are finished.

This is a page that has a whole list of units and worksheets and clip art for you to use in your studies at this time of year.

Clement Moore wrote The Night before Christmas and you can learn about him and read the poem at this link.

Here you will find both lined and unlined Christmas writting paper.  These are more for younger children but older children can use them also for little notes etc.

At this link you can find out all about Christmas traditions around the world.

Here you can find lapbooks on symbols customs and other ideas.

This is a wondeful unit on the symbols of the season.  I think we have used at least part of this study every year for as long as I can remember.

Here is another unit which is more about the songs.

Easy Fun School has a long list of activities and units for Christmas.  There are some activities for A Christmas Carol which I already listed some links under the tag A Christmas Carol. A Blessed Christmas can be found here along with a unit on Christams Around the World, and a unit on Christmas songs. 

And lastly for today About.com has a countdown calendar with activities online , crafts and recipes.

Well that should keep you busy for awhile. 

 

My Eventful Thanksgiving

We had a fairly eventful Thanksgiving.  Dave was not able to make it to the family Thanksgiving with his family but the kids and I went.  The three kids went in Faith's car and I was in my car by myself.  This let me get to listen to my current audio book and gave the kids some bonding time.  We left a bit early and arrived at the restraunt about 45 minutes early.  I called my mother in law and she said for us to go on over to her house so my son joined me and the girls followed in Faith's Car.  My mother in law currently lives out in the country so we had to travel some country roads.  We were driving along when I happened to look in the rearview mirror just in time to see Faith's car spinning around into the ditch.  She had driven to close to the edge and her tire went over and she over compensated and lost control of her car.  I immediately turned around and went to see what happened.  They were okay just alittle shook up but her car was smashed up a bit.  Luckily it was able to be driven away.  We then had to deal with the insurance and police.  Our meal was quick and short.  Then we went to my Mother in Laws and did what we call Dirty Santa but this year didn't get  to bad.  The whole family gathered pictures together and and my brother in law put them on a digital picture fram for my mother in law as she is moving to a retirement community so this will probably be the last Thanksgiving that we get together.  She gave us a few things that she didn't need anymore and I packed upmy car and went home. The kids stayed a bit longer.  I picked up my hubby on my way home.  I had to go to work last night and I took my son home.  Just as I was leaving my house I was hit by a horse and buggy.  No damage to us or the car or the horse or buggy.  So that was our day, not really a day i would like to repeat. 

Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving

I will probably not be able to get on the computer tomorrow as we are going to celebrate with Dave's family so I just wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

We will be eating at a restraunt tomorrow as I think there over 20 of us.  This will probably be the last time we all get together as one as my mother in law is moving to a retirement community and will not have the room for all of us to get together afterwards.

Dave will not make it home in time to celebrate tomorrow so we will have another dinner on Sunday. 

Viruses

Not the biological kind but the computer kind.  We have been dealing with computer viruses for a couple of weeks now.  I would use one antivirus program and it would seem to work but then in a few days it was not cutting it so I used the one our internet comes with and it works a few days then nothing.  I just bought an anitvirus that my brothe recommended.  We will see how well that works.  This reminded me that we have to be careful in our thought lives too.  If we are not careful of what we look at or read or listen to things can make their way into our subconscience just like those pesky viruses made their way on my computer  and unlike a computer our brains are not easily erased.      

Thanksgiving is coming.  It will be here in 6 days.  There is a slight chance that my hubby may not be here because he may be in Florida or Texas but that is ok.  
I have been fighting a little stomach distress and have had a ehadache for three days now.  Not sure if it is stress or weather related, just wish it would go away. 

I made a dvd of my family over the last twenty five years.  I put music to it and everything.  It really was quite fun to do.  I am thinking of making another one for my parents (this one was made for my mother-in-law).  I have put the picture I used in a slide show on the side bar.

I have gotten lots of links in my e-mail for Thanksgiving so here goes.  Here is an entire study on Thanksgiving .  There are some pretty good links at this one.  

This has ideas to make a Thanksgiving lapbook.







  

Hannah's Assignment continued

Last week I gave Hannah the assignment of taking pictures of fall and I thought she did a great job.  She enjoyed it so much that she asked to take pictures around our neighborhood so here they are -

She is turning into quite the photo bug.

I have collected some more links that will help you enhance your holidays.

Crayola  has some things at this site for Thanksgiving.

Kraft  has some decorating ideas for Christmas.
Kraft will also donate 10 meals for every free e-card you send from this site.

Lesson Plans page has a lot of lesson plans for Thanksgiving.

About.com has 100 gift ideas at this site.

I confessed to be a Disney fan a few posts ago.  Here you print out some cute Disney decortions for your Thanksgiving Table.

And last but not least I get current events articles and questions from this site.  Hannah is really learning alot about a variety of things.  I don't use it everyday but it is a good start for current events.  And of course all of these are FREE sites.

Take One by Karen Kingsbury

See my review here

This and That

Today is a day of learning.  Not just for Hannah but for myself as well.  I have to take a test for work on passing medication.  Luckily it is open book.  Tonight is our last session on our Study of Esther.  I will miss getting together with other women and learning with and from them.

On this day Ellis Island stopped being the main way most immigrants came to America.  Here is an interactive study about Ellis Island.

How well do you know you Pilgrim and Colony history?  At this site you can find out if what you think is true or just a myth.

Last but not least  if you don't mind reading of of the computer Amazon is offering their Kindle Reader for free for the PC. The Link is here

Hannah's assignment

Hannah's Assignment yesterday was to take my camera and go outside and take pictures of Fall.
Here is what she came up with.

Maybe she should pursue Photography?

Veterans Day

Veterans Day is another holiday that has kind of gone by the way side except for the post office and banks.  There was a segment on the news this morning were a group of students at a local school that were making cards for people in the armed forces .  I thought that this was a good idea.  I subscribe to Taste of Home magazine and they have  a site here about people sending baked goods to deployed trooops.
Annie has a page on Veterans which has links to various branches of the military. (Annie has pages for alot of holiday's .  A good starting point for any kind of study).
The Thifty Diva blog has a link to a free download of military band music.  12 songs in all.  It does require that you download Amazons downloader but if they do what they did last year and offer a free song everyday in December it is so worth it.  The Thifty Diva blog is a great blog to follow as they have links all the time to various free or coupons things.   

Movies

This past weekend My husband , Myself and our two daughters went to see Disney's Christmas Carol.  It was very good and was very close to the original story by Dickens so if you were planning to do a study on the novella this holiday I highly recommend seeing the movie.  I do caution though it is scary in parts and young children may be frightened.  It definately was not given the usual Disney treatment.  Here is a review by Focus on the Family's Plugged In.  I receive this newsletter everyweek in my e-mail and find it very helpful.

Disney also released their movie Up on Dvd this week.  We really enjoyed this movie and have added it to our collection.  It is a pixar film so the animation is great. (I forgot to mention that the animation in Christmas Carol was very realistic.  My Husband even commented that at times it was hard to tell that it was animation).  Here is the review from Plugged In.  

The story of a Toilet

On Friday our oldest daughter dropped the top of the toilet tank on the toilet and broke it.

Luckily Dave was able to come home this weekend and we spent the day Saturday working on the task of replacing the toilet.

First Dave had to remove the toilet.  Thanks to the internet and Home Depot website we had step by step instructions on how to accomplish this.

First the tank had to be removed.

next was the removal of the bowl.

plug the hole so those nasty sewer gases don't escape (some escaped anyway and the smell wasn't too pleasant.

 

Removal of the wax ring. 

Next was a trip to Home Depot but we stopped at Kentucky Fried Chicken for lunch.

While we were at Home Depot we decided since we already had the toilet out tha maybe we should do some much needed repairs on the floor.  So we picked out our toilet then picked out some sub flooring.

We then had the nice man at Home Depot help us put our wood in the trunk ( after it was cut so it would fit).

Measure a gazillion times

and cut once

now back to installing the toilet

time out for some fun.  popping bubble wrap.

check the handy dandy instructions we got from Home Depot website.

We got the toilet with everything included.

final touch

a job well down .  What was suppose to take about 3 hours for a novice took about 10 hours for us!!