Guard dog

Widget must have heard something outside.  When he went to investigate, he discovered this snowman hanging.  I am pretty sure he thought it was out to get us.

Merry Christmas to Me

So, not the best way to spend the week of Christmas.  Sigh.  My car would not start.  

Had to get someone out yesterday to tow it.  Turns out the starter went out.  

That was kind of the cheapest, best case scenario.  Should be able to pick it up

Friday or Saturday.  Not the way I wanted to spend money right now, 

but so grateful that we can get it fixed.  Eric was very fascinated with the whole process.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

For the past three years, we have spent Christmas at Petit Jean.  We adored our

time there, but it appears that season has passed for now.  

It was fun to hang our stockings at home this year.  

Walk through Bethlehem

We have always thoroughly enjoyed the drive thru nativity in Searcy.  We were delighted to go with a group to a walk through tour of Bethlehem today.  They had dozens of market stalls set up.  Here are a few of our favorites:

At this one, you had to sign the census.  They talked about the 

census a lot and about paying taxes.  

We watched this woman make a clay pot on a pottery wheel

that she worked with her feet.  It was very cool.  

Eric getting stamped to show he had paid his taxes.  

There was a games booth set up.  He, of course, loved that one.  

Playing tic tac toe with a girl from our group.  

Petting a live dove.  

At the end, they acted out the nativity. 

When we talked to the innkeeper, he expressed concern over how full

he was.  He said he had to turn away a woman the night before that was expecting.  

He was also concerned about his animals, as he was so busy he couldn't go to feed them.  

After he watched the scene, Eric went back to tell the innkeeper that his donkey, Ebenezer, was fine.  He also gave him a report on baby Jesus.  The innkeeper gave Eric a shekel for his help.  

Here's a video of one of the games they had in the game tent.  

Christmas Parade

We had a great time at the parade Saturday night.  It was fun to do something so simple as a family.

                                                                       

Of course we were a little early, so what did kiddo want to do?

Read a book.  That boy takes a book with us everywhere we go.

He is getting a little too big for my heart here.  

I much prefer this picture.  He doesn't look nearly as big standing next

to his Daddy.  

The parade was really long and had lots of fun floats.  So glad we went!

Book club

Let me start by saying I love Pinterest.  And I loathe Pinterest.  It has made my life infinitely more difficult and infinitely more fun at the same time.  We had our first book club monthly meeting with a homeschool group yesterday.  I wasn't sure what type of moms these were.  Are they organic, grow your own everything, grind your own flour and make all natural homemade treats?  Or are they run to the store and get a package of cookies?  I decided to spend a few hours making a yummy, sweet, Christmasy chex mix.  (I made about 4 times that many hats.  I just put some on top of the huge bowl, and put the rest in a bag to replenish as they were eaten.)

So cute!  And so yummy!  But so much work!  I learned that they are the latter group.  I was the only one that had made anything.  Everything else was store bought.  Big relief for next time.

The book club was very fun!  The theme was bedtime story, and the kids wore pajamas.  Eric shared his favorite book right now - Mystery of the Missing Map.  There were 12-14 families there, and it was held at a bounce house.  The kids jumped for an hour, then they ate and broke into appropriate age groups for discussion for an hour.  Then they bounced again for another hour.  The younger groups didn't last the full hour, but Eric's group went the whole time.  E had a blast!  He saw another boy there about his age, went right up and made friends.

I didn't take many pictures.  But here is one of the room once the children were divided.  Before they began their group discussions, the leader went over Plot and led the children in discussion of some basic plots in stories.  She was very impressed with how confident Eric is.  She couldn't believe that he was not afraid to speak up and share his book.

Our elf

Jiggy came back this year.  We started the elf on the shelf last year and LOVED it!  So, of course he had to return on Dec 1.  Here are some of his antics so far this month.

Thanksgiving

Our first Thanksgiving in Atlanta was fun.  We had a great day!  We went to the Georgia Aquarium that morning.  Robert has never gone, and it is one of our favorite places to go, so he wanted to check it out.  They were very crowded, so we only stayed a couple of hours.  But, we had lots of fun while we were there.  Still love the dolphin show, and they have added several new tricks.  I think I could watch that every day and still look at it with wide eyes and a big grin on my face.

When we were walking by this glass bubble to look at the tank, an employee came up and told Eric to climb into it.  He then told him to take a couple of steps back.  It made it look like Eric was standing in the tank.  

I made the full dinner for us - turkey, dressing, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, green bean bundles, broccoli salad, giblet gravy, rolls, pumpkin pie, and oreo balls.  Robert invited a friend from work to join us.  He declined at first, which we later learned is because he had never been to a Thanksgiving dinner.  He is from Hong Kong, and all of his family is still there.  He agreed to join us, and we had a wonderful time.  He googled before he came to find out what to bring to a Thanksgiving dinner.  We had told him not to bring anything, but he wanted to show up with something.  According to google, these are the items he should bring:

2 bottles of wine

a fruit basket

a pecan pie

We were all so full from dinner that neither pie got touched (although several oreo balls were consumed).  The guys all bowled on Wii while I cleaned up.  Then we visited for a while.  

Eric had spent the week coming up with some Thanksgiving games to play.  After our guest left, we played them as a family.  The first game was a series of multiple choice questions about Thanksgiving/pilgrims.  We had to buzz in using the alarm sounds on our phones.  We won't say who won that one (I don't want to rub it in).  Then there was a game with mixed up spelling of Thanksgiving words.  Again, I won't say who won, but one of us totally and completely crushed the other at that one (It would be rude for me to keep rubbing it in).  And the third game was a game of headbands with Thanksgiving/pilgrim themed words.  That was our favorite and very fun. 

The same winner squeaked out a win in that game too. 

The day was great.  Love making memories with this crew!

Atlanta Zoo

The Atlanta Zoo has a very neat program with the libraries here. There is a DVD that is produced by the zoo and floats around the library system. If you are fortunate enough to get your hands on it, then when you return it, you can get a free family pass to the zoo. Well guess who got her hands on it. :) A pass for the three of us would cost $41, so we were tickled to get to go for free. Unfortunately, you only have seven days to use the pass, so we had to go on November 1, a freezing Saturday. FREEZING! They warned us before going in that a lot of the animals would not be on exhibit due to the cold. Nice thing was, there was no one there. We had the place almost completely to ourselves. This Palawan Peacock Pheasant must have been lonely. The other birds in his habitat were huddled up in corners. He was so excited to run back and forth with Eric.

This little Joey had jumped into his mother's pouch and wouldn't come out.  Just too cold!

Eric and I had each just finished reading a great book called The One and Only Ivan.  It is based on a gorilla that used to be at the Atlanta Zoo.  None of the gorillas were out that day, but we enjoyed seeing their habitat nonetheless.  

Geocaching

We love to geocache!  We started on Christmas Eve last year.  As of today, our family has found 105 caches.  Georgia has a really neat state park geocaching program.  You get stamps at different parks.  Once you get a certain amount, you can get a geocoin.  They have three geocoins you can earn.  Today we headed to Fort Yargo State Park and joined another homeschool family that we had never met before.  We found 3 caches in the park, including our first state park cache.  The park was beautiful! 

The coolest thing we saw at the park was a Fort that was originally built in 1793.  It was built by the state of Georgia as protection for the settlers against the Native Americans.  This fort was one of 4 built across the state.  This building would hold 30-50 people when they were under attack.  

First museum day

Whew!  Been rather busy here, but thought I should post a blog or two.  We went to our first homeschool museum day on August 11.  The Atlanta Historical Museum had a free day for homeschoolers.  There were over 1200 in attendance that day!  Wow!  Gonna have to get used to serious volume around here. 

 

Eric loved checking out the Swan house.  It was a large, beautiful home with amazing gardens.  The children "swam" in these fountains.  How cool would that be! 

 

 

 

We ate lunch at the Swan Coach House restaurant.  It was the fanciest restaurant Eric has ever been to.  We were a tad underdressed. 

 

 

Here is my chicken salad with frozen fruit.  I had a couple of bites of the salad before I snapped a picture. 

 

 

In the museum there was a large display from the 1996 Olympics.  Here is an amazing gymnast. 

 



 

 

Eric's attempt.  It didn't go so well.  But I love that he is up for anything. 

 

 

 

 

I am sure we will have many more adventures here in Atlanta.  

Dedication

Eric has always enjoyed helping his coaches. For the past few years, we have gone early and helped Ms. Jeanne and Coach Keith put in the final lane rope. This particular rope needs someone to be in the water to put it in. Ms. Jeanne retired and was no longer going to be there to help put the lane lines in. Eric and I committed to go every morning 35 minutes before practice and help Coach Keith put them in.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When he was finished, he would have breakfast and read a book.  Breakfast was usually cottage cheese and pistachios or a granola bar.  

 

 

 

 

 

Not one time all summer did he complain about putting them in.  He loved doing this job.  He was tired in the mornings, but he still wanted to help.  We did not miss a single morning all summer.  One morning he wasn't going to swim, but we still showed up to do the lane ropes first.  Love his dedication!

Bibles for Ukraine

Today a representative from EEM came to receive the money that the children had raised for Bibles to go to the Ukraine. They raised $576, which buys 115 Bibles. Eric was given the honor of presenting the check. Then they gathered together to pray for the children who would receive the Bibles. So precious!

Thanks to help from his Nana and Poppy, Eric was able to raise enough money for 21 Bibles himself.

Welcome back!

Well, it has been two years since I posted on here. I am not a big fan of posting a ton of stuff on Facebook, so I thought I would start my blog back up. I want you all to be able to keep up with Eric.

This super swimmer had an awesome meet yesterday! He scored 17 points for the team!!! He took time off of three strokes, got three first place finishes, and one second place. So proud of him! He has had an excellent year. What a great final meet as a Sherwood Shark! Now on to the Meet of Champs next week.