Thursday Miscellany

* I am on vacation! In order for me to be on vacation, I have to be away from my house. Even with being on break at home, I still work all the time, whether it's doing lesson plans, AHG plans, organizing, cleaning, cooking, etc. But I'm actually away from home in luxury accommodations with the most gracious hosts, and I am forced to take naps, eat amazing food, and read books. All day.

* I've also been catching up on all the blog posts in my Google reader today. Henry Cate at Why Homeschool announced that the Carnival of Homeschooling will celebrate its 5-year anniversary with this next edition. Do you have something you've been wanting to share with other homeschoolers? I'm always amazed at the abundance of great posts out there with very few readers. Participating in a carnival is a great way to get more readers—and share your insights.
I am working on two articles, one for Simple Homeschool and one for The Homeschool Classroom, but with all this extra time, I hope to get a post up for the Carnival of Homeschooling, too.

* We are celebrating my brother-in-law's 50th birthday this evening, and they (my in-laws, husband, and daughter) are all busy preparing tonight's outrageous feast, which will feature prime rib, crab-stuffed twice-baked potatoes, bacon-wrapped green beans, and chocolate oatmeal cake. They totally don't need my help. I just like to sit here, blogging and reading blogs, and watch them from my spot overlooking the golf course and the hot tub, which I see in this evening's future. Every few minutes, my husband comes over and kisses me on the forehead.

* I feel tremendously blessed and well rested. My heart goes out to Edie at Life in Grace, whose life has changed forever when her house burned to the ground last week. Her blog is one I read faithfully and never delete when I'm behind on my reading. Here is what she says: "My heart is full and grateful. I am overwhelmingly sad and yet unable to stop rejoicing. My mother is amazing. My husband is my rock. My children are so incredibly brave. I am blessed beyond measure. It’s as if our friends and family have become the hands and feet of Christ, bringing love and help and healing." Read her story at the link above, and you will be blessed by this woman.

* Hope you're enjoying some peace and quiet at the end of 2010.

Snow in the Mountains

We've lived in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains for 10 years, and this is the first time I've ever gone into the park after a big snow. The roads had been closed for the past few days, but we decided yesterday to chance it and see if we could get anywhere. We wanted to see Cades Cove in the snow and figured this would be a very un-touristy time to go.

We were excited to see that Laurel Creek Road, which heads up to Cades Cove, was open. The drive along the Little River was breathtaking.



We were wrong about the tourists, though. Traffic was fairly heavy and going very slowly, which was smart. The road were terrible and we were surprised it was even open. Eventually we decided to turn around because there appeared to be an accident ahead of us. We slid off the road enough during our U-turn that we had to get pushed out. Fortunately, there are always plenty of nice guys in pick-up trucks ready to help people out of ditches.

We came down the road s-l-o-w-l-y and passed another accident on the way. The park rangers had closed the Laurel Fork road by this time. We decided just to hike along the river for a bit. Duncan desperately wanted to walk out on the ice, and Laurel kept wishing for ice skates.







We took a short hike on the Chestnut Top Trail right across from the Wye. The trail was pretty slick on the way down, but it sure was beautiful.



The whole afternoon was absolutely gorgeous. Sometimes I still can't believe we live in this beautiful place! We're expecting temperatures back in the 50s and 60s by this weekend, so I'm glad we ventured out before the snow melts.

"He will make me as surefooted as a deer and bring me safely over the mountains."
~Habakkuk 3:19

Linked to Five Minutes for Mom, Parenting By Dummies, and Outdoor Wednesday

Skating on the Frozen Pond

Untitled from stephen cummins on Vimeo.

My fourth brother—the one who is just two years older than I am—went to the wrong airport and thus missed coming to see us for Christmas. He felt very silly, so he made us this video of him and his wife skating. I love this video so much. It brings back for me so many of the things I miss about living in upstate New York and growing up with orchards: skating on a frozen pond, cross country skiing, and an orchard in the winter's sunset.

Someday, someday we're going to make it to New York for Christmas. Someday.

Merry Christmas!

At Ten

This is my Christmas baby. He'll be 10 in just a few days, on Christmas day. This is what people generally say about him: he is always smiling. As his mother, of course, I know that's not exactly true. But he really is an unusually sweet, kind, and happy person. He's also full of mischief. Mischief wrapped in kindness and sheer joy, all tied up with dimples and a big smile. He's exactly like his father.

Duncan turning 10 made me nostalgic about my older two. I had to hunt down photos of them on their 10th birthdays.

Here's my beautiful girl at 10 and now at 13…


And our firstborn at 10 and at 17…


Yes, it's astonishing how much they grow in just a few short years. They always told us that, didn't they? All those older women who'd stop us in the store and say, "Oh, they grow so fast! Enjoy them while you can!" And we'd inwardly roll our eyes because we were already tired of diapers and potty chairs and washing little hands.

Yes. They grow fast, and yet it all takes a very, very long time. And: you can still enjoy them at 10 and 13 and 17. I promise.

Linked to Parenting by Dummies, 5 Minutes for Mom, and Wordless Wednesday

Tuesday Miscellany

* Today started with me really wanting to whine on Facebook: "Having to set the alarm clock to wake up during Christmas week is pure evil!" Or something like that. But I realized quickly how ridiculously blessed I am that I rarely have to wake up by an alarm. Most mornings, I have the luxury of staying in bed as long as I wish. I hardly ever manage to sleep past 7:30 a.m., but still, I could if I wanted to.

* I read three complete People magazines while I waited for my daughter at the orthodontist's office today. I am totally up to date with every single thing that is happening in Hollywood.

* Do you think celebrities are actual people? I mean, do you ever think it's weird that we go about our normal lives, cleaning the toilet and paying the electric bill, and all of these celebrities make their living off of entertaining us? Isn't that just weird?

* I love getting Christmas cards. We have been getting several each day, including one today from my only aunt, who lives in Friday Harbor, Washington. She is an artist, and the card is of her painting "Snow Falling on Firs." The text inside the card was written by her husband, whom I have never met but who I know I would like very much. He has a poet's heart. Here's what the writes in first part of their Christmas card: "It is time again for the wild swans to come honking down from their summer homes in the far north to settle in for the winter on our ponds and lakes on San Juan Island. This is red sweater and hearty soup time, Christmas in Friday Harbor." Red sweater and hearty soup time. Yes.

* Christmas was the same for so long here in SmallWorld, and this year I am feeling some of those traditions losing their allure a bit. It's the kids aging, I suppose, as well as my parents aging. I can't get terribly enthused about baking Christmas cookies, and yet I miss being enthused about baking Christmas cookies. Although the house is nicely decorated and festive, I haven't made anything crafty. We are behind on our countdown stockings, and no one seems to be terribly traumatized.

* I have a lot of shopping yet to do.

* I began this post hours ago, when my two oldest were out Christmas shopping and Duncan was playing the Wii. The house was quiet and peaceful. Since then, I've burned 24 cupcakes, ironed a bunch of shirts, cooked dinner, chatted on the phone, hurt for my son, ironed more clothes, cleaned up the dinner dishes, done two loads of laundry, put yesterday's laundry away, and wrapped some presents. At last, I return to the post.

* And then posting was interrupted again so we could catch up on our Christmas countdown stockings. (See picture here.) I love the verse I got to read tonight: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid." I needed that.

Weekly Wrap-Up

Aaah. Christmas break is here at last. I think that for perhaps the first time in 11 years of homeschooling, we actually maintained focus during the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Usually we just kind of drop everything and make cookies and crafts.

We finished The Voyage of the Dawn Treader just in time for the movie release. Have you seen the movie yet? My kids enjoyed it very much, even though we just finished the book and they were very in tune with the differences between book and movie. Randy and I were trying not to twitch and bang our heads against the wall. Here's the thing: we are madly in love with the Chronicles of Narnia and have been all our lives. Deviations from the book, which include outrageous additions and deletions, are unacceptable. The end. (Although, I will say that I continue to think that the actors portraying Lucy and Edmund and in this one, Eustace, are well chosen.)

Besides all our regular stuff, we spent last week reading Christmas stories. We read The Best Christmas Pageant Ever and then several short stories in an anthology that I have. (Here's a post I have about Favorite Christmas Books in case you didn't see it.) It's been a couple of years since we read The Gift of the Magi, so we read that one again. I found a movie version of it on Netflix instant streaming that I highly recommend. The language is verbatim with just a couple of additions. If you have Netflix, this is the one with Rosemary Deleonardis and David A. Silverstein. It gets terrible ratings, but I think the reviewers all seem to criticize the language. Perhaps they don't realize that these are O Henry's exact words. I guess I didn't really care about the acting. After watching the total destruction of The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, I suppose I was just happy to have an accurate version of a story! Anyway, it's only about 20 minutes long, so it's perfect for after reading the story (linked above).

Our oldest arrived home from college on Monday afternoon—he left right after his last final. It's so awesome to have him home for a few weeks! He got his grades on Friday, and I'm happy to report that his cumulative GPA thus far is a 3.7! That includes his 14 hours from dual enrollment at the local community college during his last two years of high school as well as his first semester (16 hours) at Belmont University. I'm very proud of him, especially since he is only 17 years old. He has a fantastic work ethic. He's always realized that school is his work at this point in his life, and he has fully devoted himself to studying. I am happy that he loves learning so much. He does actually want to get a job next semester. We didn't want him to get one first semester just to make sure he wasn't overloaded, but he says he misses working (plus his spending money has run out!) and is sure he'll have no problem balancing work and school.

I am so happy for these next two weeks of vacation! We do have all kinds of parties, commitments and appointments for the next three days, but Thursday and Friday look blissfully empty. So far, anyway…

Linked up at the Weekly Wrap-Up on Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

Snow Day

We don't get much snow ever, so even a little is exciting. The high reached about 20 degrees that day, and my kids don't even own winter boots or anything resembling snow pants. We couldn't even find a hat for Duncan. When we got home, I saw that Duncan had holes in his socks. Really big holes. Ill-prepared parent that I am, you'd never know I grew up in snow country, would you?

Linked up on Parenting By Dummies, Outdoor Wednesday, and Five Minutes for Mom

Favorite Christmas Books

One of my favorite parts of the season is opening the box of Christmas books and putting them on the book rack right by the Christmas tree. They are, truly, old friends. For me, the mark of a good Christmas book is that it makes me cry.

We have a good number of children’s books for Christmas, and I try to add a new book each year. We have some of the popular ones like The Polar Express and some silly but sentimental ones like Mercer Mayer’s Merry Christmas, Mom and Dad, starring Little Critter. I love to hear my Dad read Twas the Night Before Christmas every Christmas Eve. Some of the books we give the obligatory seasonal read and then put back on the rack.

But I have my favorites. These are the books that, without fail, make me cry at some point. My voice catches, a child’s head pops up and looks at me and says, “Mama! Are you crying again?” I can’t help it. … {Want to see some of my favorites? Head on over to The Homeschool Classroom for the rest of this article!}

Christmas in SmallWorld

If you were to pull in my driveway, you'd see early American tacky. The outside Christmas lights are crooked and/or partially burned out, mounds of leaves are sticking up through the shallow snow, and I'm pretty sure I saw a smashed pumpkin by the pear tree. But we're warm and cozy inside, surrounded by our favorite old Christmas things and some new ones, too.

This was a flash of brilliance for us this year. This frame usually has seasonal photographs in it, but my daughter and I realized that the favorite Christmas cards we had saved from last year looked perfect in the frame.

Our countdown-to-Christmas stockings/mittens. Each one has a Bible verse and candy in it, and we open one each night beginning December 1st. We started doing this several years ago, and back then I bought the stockings at Walgreens for 25 cents each. This year I've seen bloggers make these out of burlap or other material, which is very cute, but buying them sure was simple!



We made the ragamuffin garland and the Noel hanging last year. You can find the directions at Life in Grace.


We love our collection of Christmas books. We really need to box some of them up—like the Sandra Boynton Bob book—but somehow I just can't part with any of them. They are part of our Christmas family.

I love our Dickens Village, too. This is the first Christmas decoration we put up each year, and the houses and people are all old friends to the kids. We have just enough of a village to cover the top of our piano.


Mr. and Mrs. Clause, the choir boys , and the books behind them are all part of my childhood. Mr. and Mrs. Clause are actually hard-boiled egg holders. The choir boys I always imagined were my four older brothers. The Christmas Carols songbook is one that my mother and I played and sang out of all throughout my childhood. I need to go play some carols as soon as I finish this post.

I love having some of my own childhood decorations in our home. My parents don't get out their big box of tree decorations anymore, and one of these years I'm going to find that big box and be reunited with all my childhood tree decorations.

But for these years, I'm enjoying reminiscing with our own family ornaments, many of them sweetly homemade, like these three snowflakes above with my own treasures inside them.


We are looking forward to the arrival of our oldest sometime this afternoon. His last final is today, and then he'll drive the three hours home from college and our house will truly be full.

That's just a brief tour of some of my favorites in our house. Want to share your Christmas favorites and take a peek into other homes? Both Kelly's Korner and The Nester have a bazillion links to look at!