i'm so relieved to finally have a few days of simple quiet. it's been a busy busy holiday season for us this year. if i thought our thanksgiving weekend was wild, i was sadly mistaken. it was the solstice/christmas/new year that was wild!! we started out with our homeschooling group making christmas crafts and hanging out talking and laughing and eventually heading to austin's house afterwards where i made 2 big pots of vegetable stew and got to hang with alice, rachel, and jake awhile. on the 20th, after samuel spent the afternoon at the comic shop drawing and meeting other local artists again, we drove down to columbia for a wonderful weekend spent at ben and kelly lovejoy's place for a house concert with danny schmidt and carrie elkin. their music is amazing and soul-satisfying...the stories they weave are rich with intensity and life. and their voices, well you'll just have to go listen. the kids had a great time with their friends and i had a chance to get to know my fellow unschooling moms a little better...and of course learned so much from them. like that going swimming in a freezing pool is really okay, really, it is OKAY!! thanks for the perspective kelli!! there was not a lot of sleeping that went on. too much excitement for that. i think silas was up for almost 36 hours or more straight (mostly playing "halo" i think) before he just crashed! we were supposed to go to the zoo for christmas lights sunday night but the kids were so tired they did not want to go anymore and so we went for ice cream instead on probably one of the coldest nights ever. you've never seen such a fun and full marble slab with all of us unschoolers in there making merriment. oh and i almost forget to mention the sasuke costume that kelly gave to silas...he was sooo excited about it that he even wore it to austin's christmas eve party thinking we were going to a halloween party, he was getting in the car when he suddenly realized it wasn't halloween but decided to wear it anyway. thanks kelly, he just loves it!!!
we spent christmas eve and christmas day with friends (oh you know who you are!) and then headed to my parents' house for christmas supper and presents. my family pooled together to get us a group gift this year...the wii. the kids had known about it already because we had been planning it ourselves until my mom and sisters decided they wanted to get it for us instead. so they've been busy with the wii ever since christmas so there hasn't been much tv watching going on. they really like making miis. especially of famous people and political figures. they've made miis of the clintons, micheal jackson and some others i can't even remember right now. they are hilarious. i find myself wondering about this avatar making thing. it's always fun to find a site that you can make one on, meez, gaia, yahoo...what is it about making a cartoon of yourself that is so fun?? i also wonder if someone else might be able to make a better one of you than you can. i'm going to test the idea today. i think maybe we'll make miis of each other and see if they look more like us than the ones we made of ourselves. if you are not confused yet, you are probably more awake than i am right now and not listening to oldies love songs, typing, and uploading pix to slide.com for your blog. oh yeah, my little sister has started giving out lottery tickets each year on christmas and this was the first year anyone got anything...samuel won $27 and sadie won $2!! samuel ordered art supplies! i think sadie still has her money in her purse...for a rainy day i'm sure. i also have to mention here that austin got lots of really cool and colorful plastic dishes for his party...just like kelly lovejoy, because she is so very cool!! i took pictures of them to show her so that is why you will see images of dishes that make absolutely no sense...ha!!
anyway...moving right along...we spent a really nice afternoon last sunday with the gavins who took us out to the movies as a christmas gift. we saw YES MAN. it was hilarious!! can you say "unschooling"...yep, it reminded me of my own journey towards YES and away from NO!! karina and i both agreed that it was one to add to the library.
then there were new year's celebrations and birthdays at the allen's and the gavin's houses (happy bday taylor and trevor...woo hoo...and i forgot to mention that we celebrated rachel's birthday on christmas eve too...see i told you we were busy). and going ice skating and to the speedway in lights (thank you to deanna for our free ticket) on new year's day and freezing our asses off! and suddenly i am too tired to recount all the FUN that was had this last week (yep, there was some snark in that comment), and i don't think i even have any pictures of any of it...i seem to have stopped taking them sometime just after christmas...oh well, enjoy the 3 million pictures that i do have (there are a lot so i set it to go fast, if you want to see a picture real well just run your mouse pointer thingy over the slideshow and it will stop):
and as i was finishing this up, i noticed that the rain had stopped, the sun had come out and was shining in the window. i opened up all the blinds and it is bright and warm inside. i think there is a book calling my name...Share
Our other concern besides weather was parking, but our neighbor was nice enough to let us park around his house and in his driveway. Still there were cars all over. There was lots of running in the yard and climbing the tree. Pizza, and snacks and cheesecakes. 
And presents. And conversation. That was the best. It was a lot of fun and exhausting in a good sort of way. 
Several husbands joined us. Which was nice as we so rarely let them out. Scotty was so sweet and played a lot with little boo bear so that his mommy could relax and eat and talk. We love him for that!! 
So we had 3 extra kids for the night. Sierra, Iris, and Nesta. The girls ended up staying up ALL NIGHT LONG. OMG!!! 
Then they crashed at some time around 9 am I think. The boys had gone up to see what they were doing and found them sleeping. 
They had watched the sun come up and played outside way before anyone else was up. I’m sure that was just about the best experience Sadie has ever had with friends. Very independent and exciting. And tiring. It was her first all-nighter. And she loved it.
