Not all of our recent fun has been Christmas has related!

Family Marksmanship
I mentioned in the previous post that Daddy and Papa Bear went hunting the first morning of our visit. Daddy actually shot two deer within 20 minutes of arriving at the deer stand! (We have a lot of venison in our future! Yum.) The girls were pretty excited about his success and wanted to go see. They helped a little with the gutting process, but they probably would have been even more interested if it hadn't been so cold outside.

Little Cap couldn't quite
stomach the action. She
bundled up in one of Papa
Bear's coats and kept
her distance.

Later that afternoon, we got out the girls' BB guns and targets. Bug, Daddy, and I were the only ones interested, but Bug proved to be a really good shot!

Art Museum
One morning the girls and I headed to the local art museum to see some of the exhibits we missed on our last visit. The temporary exhibit turned out to be the work of a French glass maker who produced during the early 1900s. He created some impressively beautiful jewelry and other more practical objects--perfume bottles, cigar boxes, dinner and glassware, etc. Part of the exhibit was also a "please touch" section about the glass making process.

We spent the rest of our time in the ancient art exhibits--mostly in the South America room and the Egyptian room. They have mummies! The girls were fascinated by a video about the mummification process and then getting to examine the sarcophagi and other tomb treasures themselves.

Zoo Day

Happy train riders! (Bug brought a camera and got some really
good animal shots this visit.)

We found a perfect day to visit the local zoo! The zoo was practically empty, and in this nice cool weather (sunny and 60 degrees) all the animals were active! We decided to ride the train first, and Lion was thrilled to spot the peacock along the track (her goal for the day had been to find him--mission accomplished). We also discovered it was story time day at the zoo. We went to listen to an animal tale and got to pet a tenrec. When we left story time, we could actually hear the lion roaring! We've never even seen him awake before! He was hanging out in a perfect viewing location, and the rest of the Africa exhibit animals were out and busy too--giraffes, zebras, meerkats, etc. We even spotted the rock hyrax for the first time.

Bug took this picture of the zookeeper holding the tenrec--
basically, a hedgehog from Madagascar. So cute!

Here's a video of the lion roaring. (I haven't had much luck
posting videos lately, so I hope it works!)

They kept busy with A Christmas Carol themed coloring
sheets while I read aloud.

Happy Advent!

I've always wanted the season of Advent to be Christ-centered, simple, and joyful. Last year Epiphany arrived and I felt like we'd flown through the busyness of the month without having time to breath and enjoy the peace of the season. This year I wanted to find the time. To begin, I cancelled our regular lessons for the Advent and Christmas season. This decision was met with much rejoicing!

The girls made a gingerbread village! (We found a cheap
kit that entertained the girls for 2 hours with adorable results.)

Confession: I still counted most of December as half days, because there are so many educational opportunities to be found in our Christmassy activities. We still gathered in the living room after breakfast for an Advent version of our family lessons. For our Bible study we did Christmas ADVENTures in Prophecy (a quick little daily study that looks at Old Testament prophecies and where they are fulfilled in the Gospels). This was followed by singing a Christmas carol together (one out of the hymnbook, not "Frosty the Snowman"). We wrapped up this time by reading from one of my literature selections for the month: A Christmas Carol, "The Gift of the Magi," and The Nutcracker (by Maurice Sendak). For our lunchtime entertainment, we traded out our math and science videos for Christmas classics, which led to a fair amount of literary comparison activities since among our videos we watched the Muppets' Christmas Carol, the Pacific Northwest Ballet Company's Nutcracker, and Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer (I happened across the original 1939 book at the library, which we read first). Our after-lunch read-aloud time was also filled with Christmas books, both our own and selections from the library.

"It sounds like Santa's workshop in here!"
(crushing candy canes for peppermint bark)

Even outside of those "lessons," we found plenty of teachable moments within our errands and activities: Shopping for Christmas dresses meant finding appropriate and flattering attire that was within our budget and machine washable. Shopping for Christmas presents meant thinking about what others would enjoy, staying within a budget, and handling the actual transaction with the store clerk. Some of the gift giving also involved some practical handcrafting and art skills. Then, of course, there's the math, science, and practical life skills involved in baking. Not to mention all the great life skills they practiced while helping me clean the house and prepare for hosting Christmas!

That sums up the daily basics. Now for the highlights!

We spent the first weekend in Advent at Nana and Papa Bear's house. Saturday morning, Nana, the girls and I headed to the local Christmas festival featuring Christmas craft stations for kids, a holiday market, food trucks, live music, and folks in costume with a Whoville theme (although Santa, Elsa, and Anna made an appearance too). Daddy and Papa Bear met up with us after lunch (they were hunting; more on that later) to peruse another holiday market and watch the local Christmas parade while munching on freshly made kettle corn. Yum!

Everybody's festive for the Christmas party!

The next morning we headed home to enjoy our own first Sunday in Advent tradition: cranking up the Christmas music and pulling out the decorations! The girls even completed their own tree--from assembly to lights to ornaments--with no adult assistance. It looks fantastic! They also helped decorate our Chrismon tree and distribute our 20 nativity scenes. It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We all attended Daddy's command Christmas party. Daddy and I had a great time hanging out with his coworkers and their wives, but the girls definitely thought last year's party was more fun. The  childcare worker's philosophy was not to decrease the chaos, just be the one in charge of it. It was apparently so overwhelmingly noisy that when I went to the restroom I found Monkey near tears. I gave her a long hug and a pep talk, while Bug ran interference and kept the childcare worker from interrupting. The girls survived, but I think it's the first time we've been told our girls were "mellow girls who really stuck together" in a tone of voice that clearly disapproved of those traits.

This year we also did what I hope becomes a new annual outing: One night after dinner we put a Christmas CD in car, drove around looking at local Christmas lights (there were some crazy impressive ones!), and ended up at Krispy Kreme for donuts hot off the rollers. Mmmm....

We couldn't attend the annual Christmas recital that Lion's piano teacher always organizes; however, another teacher had room for Lion in her recital, so Lion could still perform the pieces she'd been working so hard on. This year she played "Jolly of St. Nicholas" and "Angels We Have Heard on High." She played beautifully!

The girls participated in their first big production Christmas pageant! Monkey and Bug were narrators, and Lion was one of the innkeepers. They were adorable, and they even remembered all their lines. They all did a stellar job! To add to the excitement of the evening, both sets of grandparents got to come! We decided to take advantage of the opportunity to celebrate Lion's birthday a few days early and Potato's birthday a few days late. They both got to open their presents, and we all consumed chocolate cupcakes (for Lucy) and cranberry cake (for Potato).