Service Announcement - for the Homeschoolers out there

Hi Guys,

Just to let you homeschool people know that KWCHEA is coming up on April 2 - a fantastic homeschool conference in the Kitchener/Waterloo area. We have sent in our registration! Early Bird deadline is Feb. 25! Maybe I'll see some of you there!

Figuring Life Out - One Thousand Gifts

This short video comes from an author, Ann Voscamp, who is a lot like me (Canadian, homeschooling mom) but has an incredible gift with words! Her blog is at A Holy Experience, and I have been enjoying reading it for a while. The video isn't to do with being Canadian, or homeschooling, but it is a great challenge to live our lives fully, and I would encourage you to take the 4 minutes (and 20 seconds!) and have a look!

Happy New Year!

Our New Year's tradition is to gather with a group of friends at one of our friend's houses. They always host an all-night New Year's Eve house party. As more and more children join the group, the tone of the evening has changed. This year, we had a "Wii" room and a food room.


Just a few of the offerings in the dining room! There was a whole other table too!)



Some serious action was going on with the Wii.

This was the first year the children (as a group) stayed up to see the New Year in - we gathered around the TV and watched the New York Times Square famous ball drop. Our guys have heard about watching "the ball drop" and they were all very excited to be able to stay up and see it!


Just waiting for the count-down!

The children were packed off to bed shortly after - all on the floor of an upstairs bedroom.

We had some pretty sleepy children to greet the first morning of 2011!

Grandma's Nativities

Over Christmas, we visited Grandma and Grandpa. We really enjoyed looking at Grandma's collection of Nativity scenes. Some of them are hanging on the tree, like the Nativity in a walnut shell (above) from Germany, and some are in a special Christmas display in a cabinet.




Here's just a few of our favourites:


Tim is holding a scene carved into a pair of hands:

More favourites:

I had a peaceful time with the children, looking at Grandma's nativity sets, before we opened presents together. Well, a mostly peaceful time!