Christmas Fun!

 We're still having a lot of Christmas fun!  Saturday I took Alice to do some shopping for Jack and we made a stop at CherryBerry.

 Tuesday we went to paint tiles.  The kids both made handprint Christmas trees that I think are going to look really cute!

 Yes, sometimes she does mirror writing.

 Last night we also went to see the Christmas lights at Rhema!

 Tonight we worked on gingerbread houses.

Tomorrow is our last day for classes.  Alice has her present for her speech teacher ready and wanted to write "Merry Christmas Teacher" on the card--followed by her mirror signature, of course.

I'm hoping to get our shopping wrapped up in the next couple of days so we can enjoy some peace and quiet!

Festival of Trees 2013

 Today we went to the Festival of Trees at Philbrook.  The kids love to do this every year and I was afraid we had waited too long, but thankfully it doesn't end until this weekend!  Really, I think we all like the gingerbread houses more than the trees.  The kids always pose with their favorites.

 This was my favorite this year--a replica of Philbrook!

 The kids next to their favorite trees.

 And in other exciting museum news, Alice is finally old enough to get her own MyMuseum box!

 Our next stop was Utica Square to see the scenes from The Nutcracker.  The first scene is by Starbucks.  I'm including that bit of information because we forget every.single.year.

 A real working phone booth!  I told the kids we'd try to remember to bring some quarters next time!

 Our last stop of the day was the Discovery Lab.

 In the Make Shop the theme this month is Painting with Light.  I'll try to remember to post more about this later because it was really cool, but the short of it is that Jack got to do some fun experiments with light and time lapse photography.

Alice liked the light boxes!

After so many days at home with the snow and then long days out yesterday and today I am ready to be a homebody again!

Mom and Son Night

 Our local Chili's had a Mom and Son Night tonight, so my favorite boy and I went out to eat.  They had free superhero stuff and the kids got a free picture to bring home, too.

 Also, you got a free dessert, so this happened.  I'm going to need to spend some extra time with Leslie now.

After dinner we had to go to the store and Jack got to play a few machines in the arcade.  It was a pretty great evening!

Snow Days

 We've been holed up at home the last few days because of the cold and ice and snow.  We made one last trip into town Thursday morning before the ice started so we could pick up a couple of things at the library and get peppermint shakes at Sonic.

 Thursday we mostly had ice but the kids found they could use their sleds pretty well on the patio.

 By the time we got up Friday there was quite a bit of snow.  Alice tried wearing goggles to keep it out of her eyes.

 For our treat during our artist study in the afternoon we had snow ice cream with chocolate cake!

 The kids went out to play a while longer in the afternoon, but I just watched from inside.  It was way too cold!

 Alice woke up sick in the night Friday so she spent a lot of Saturday like this--not during the OU game, though.  No one could sleep through that!

 Jack and I watched the movie of The Great Brain, the series we're currently reading.

 Jay has been going to work each day, but today was the first day the kids and I have been out since Thursday.  We went to my mom and dad's for lunch and had a giant Po' Boy with the bread they brought back from New Orleans.

 We also tried some Alligator Jerky!

 This afternoon we watched Tangled--yes, those are school closings scrolling across the bottom of the screen.  The main streets are pretty clear but the neighborhoods are still messy.

For dinner we had a snowman breakfast!

I don't mind staying home, but I am ready for the cold to end!  Hopefully in the next couple of days we will make it into the 40s!

Christmas Kickoff

 We actually started decorating for Christmas a little early this year.  Between the cold snap and the fact that we'd already had our family dinner, we were all feeling festive.

 Thanksgiving morning Alice helped me make a cake.  Then I didn't take any more pictures while we were out!  We went to my grandma's for a bit and then over to Jay's sister's house.

 I did take this one of the kids after we got home!

 Today we all went to see Frozen together!

We've also been working on our ornaments for the yearly ornament exchange.  Jack's ornaments are from Roxaboxen and Alice's are from Katy No-Pocket.

We're supposed to get some winter weather this week so I'm planning to stay home and enjoy it as much as possible!

Prickly Pairs

 When Jack was little he went to zoo classes all the time, but since we moved it's never worked out for Alice to go.  Today was her very first class!

 They learned about all kinds of prickly animals and even got to feel a porcupine's quills.

 They also got to feel a puffer fish.

 Best of all, they got to touch a real hedgehog!

 Snack time

 Painting quills on a porcupine...

 ...and then they got to see the real thing!

 When her class was over we took a quick spin on the carousel.

 Then we met up with the boys (a big thanks to Christie for watching Jack while Alice and I were in class!) and saw some more animals.

The weather warmed up a bit and we spent a long time at the playground before a late lunch at the Hideaway.  It was a great day!

Squirrels

 Alice recently finished up a unit on squirrels.  Some of the books we used:

Miss Suzy

Nuts to You!

Squirrel Nutkin

The Tale of Timmy Tiptoes

Scaredy Squirrel

Earl the Squirrel

The Squirrels' Thanksgiving

We also enjoy The Sneaky, Snacky Squirrel Game!

 We used some of the printables from Homeschool Share's squirrel lapbook.

 Another graph!

 I pulled out our Draw Write Now books and Alice loved them!

 This is the squirrel she drew!

 A few days later she brought me this picture of a squirrel with a Thanksgiving turkey.

 Of course we hunted for acorns, and we still had the same red scarf Jack used!

 We also read about some other types of squirrels in our Fun With Nature Take Along Guide.

 Just about the time we were starting the unit, we got Kate DiCamillo's latest book, so we even had a squirrel in our read aloud!

 I haven't read Gooseberry Park with Alice yet, but it's a great chapter book with a squirrel as one of the main characters.

We also ended up with a squirrel in one of the books we were reading for Oklahoma history!

We've moved on to some Thanksgiving learning and then it will be time for Christmas fun already!  Yikes!