1st Annual Homeschool Christmas Program

I remember as a (public schooled) kid...basically being forced to participate in the annual Christmas pageant. I can remember over the years dressing as a Sugar Cookie (complete with pink rosy cheeks...which I'm still not happy about), also the Captain of the Toy Soldiers and, in 4th Grade, even getting a chance to perform as the big man himself...Santa. Add to that the countless shepherds and "Heavenly Hosts" choir members from church plays...I always loved being a shepherd...it was basically the "We've-Got-Too-Many-Kids-In-Our-Sunday-School-Class-So-We-Need-Fifteen-Of-Them-To-Be-Shepherds" corollary...which meant that you got to look cool in your shepherds get-up and carry a big stick...but you didn't actually have any lines....except maybe "Hark!" and then pretend to be scared when the angel shows up with his "good tidings of great joy".
Chrissy's Christmas pageant experience, as far as I know, starts and ends with her stunning performance as "The Monotone Angel" in a Christmas pageant around 4th or 5th grade...you'll have to ask her more about it for details.

Anyway...being a homeschooling family (granted, we are "homeschooling" a kindergartner and a Pre-K'er), it seemed only right to put on some sort of Christmas Program. So here we go:



Our Audience:

Our neighbor "Miss Nancy", our good friend Carol, and grandma 'n Pa. Now, by now, The Corbett's are reading this and saying "Hey, what gives??!!"...not to worry, you are in for an exclusive performance on Christmas eve :^)


Chrissy guiding the kids in their opening Scripture Recitation. "Hide The Word in their hearts..." know what I'm sayin'?


"Mary Had a Baby Boy" sung to the tune of "Mary Had a Little Lamb".


Next up was the homegrown puppet show of the book "Room For a Little One". The kids nailed this. My favorite set piece is the angels in the upper corners of the nativity...On the left is Ivy's...to the right is Gavin's....Hand outlines for wings....foot outlines for bodies. The "hay" ain't bed, either.


Little Drummer Boy (and Girl)


Presentation of Gifts...."Gifts" being a homemade Christmas ornament and a card (with nothing inside it).

And last, but not least....

Every Christian Homeschool Christmas Pageant needs a birthday cake for Jesus, right? I mean...Christ gets honored...we all get to eat cake....everybody wins, right?

The night wasn't without it's mishaps, highlighted by Ivy, in the middle of the performance, completely lifting up her dress over her head to announce that she "had an itch".

We didn't photograph that.

Thank you to my wonderful wife who invests so much of herself into our Children. it is a true blessing to be able to leave for work everyday knowing that the hearts and minds of my children are left to be moulded by the hands of my amazingly capable and talented wife...as she uses her gifts and listens to the leading of The Holy Spirit...what an amazing blessing.

At the end of the night...I took a stroll around the house. I love our home the most at Christmastime. here's a few shots that I grabbed:


Our nativity. Every year, I get Chrissy a new piece...although we may have to curb that tradition as we are running out of space on our server.


From the dining room, towards our tree...with Christmas Card wall in the foreground.


From right in front of our Christmas tree...through the dining room, and into the sun room....with the fireplace in the background We love strings of lights...we keep them up year-round...as well as tea-lights. I've always been big on "mood lighting"....so wonderful...so relaxing....

"The blessing of The Lord, it maketh rich, and he add no sorrow with it" - Proverbs 10:22

He certainly ain't talking about legal tender.

Amen.

Homegrown for the Holidays Pt. 1

O.k. so, before I get to my main point, let me quickly mention this....The Leo Family Coat Drive....with Gavin in "Kindergarten", thus officially labeling us a "Homeschooling" family...we thought that an annual holiday service project would be right for our family. We decided to hold a Coat Drive...which basically amounted to us sticking fliers in our neighbor's mailboxes asking for them to donate used coats that we would, in turn, donate, to those in need in our area. Well...last Saturday, we went around and collected the coats...then Chrissy and the kids spent the last couple days using this outreach as a teaching tool.....ethics, Bible, math, graphing....Go HomeSchool!!

Graphing the number and type of coat we received.


Our Big Score!! We're starting our own movement...it's called OccupyYellowCoat. So far we have to people onboard but willing to recruit more :^). It was a nice experience for the kids...We are going to try to do some sort of service project every holiday season.

Now...on to the meat of this post.

Christmas....such a wonderful time for many...such a stressful time for many more. Our family has definitely had our fair share of both. In years past, we have definitely over-spent on presents for our kids....just heaping junk on top of junk that ends up being meaningless. A few years ago...Chrissy and I came to a decision...
Let's slow it down....let's buy just a few things for the kids, and let's commit to making one thing for each of them ourselves. Past home-made gifts have included painting/cooking aprons, musical instruments, a toy wooden musket. This year, our home-made toy wasn't a "from scratch" product as much as it was a refurbished piece that my folks had grabbed from a yard sale:

An old-school puppet theatre.

My mom and dad had found this thing at a yard sale a few years ago for like 5 bucks. It's definitely home-made. And whoever fabricated this thing spent some time on it. It's very well made, with lots of little structural considerations that tell me that whoever designed/built this thing knew what they were doing and decided to take some extra steps to make it right. Notched shelving, rounded corners, proper bracing....this thing was built to last.
When we got it...our kids were much too young to be able to fully enjoy it so we stashed it in the back of our garage and kept it out of sight. Gavin and Ivy are getting older and play so well together...it just seemed right that this was the year to put some work into this thing and bring it back to life....here's where I am so far:
Before:


After: cleaned, sanded, primed, and ready for new paint:



Not quite sure what kind of paint job I'm going to put on this thing....perhaps some country-cool scene a la Lancaster County, PA with rolling hills and farmland...or perhaps some sort of sun/moon day/night mural...I'll have to wait until inspiration strikes. Chrissy plans to sew up some new curtains based on whatever theme I end up going with...I guess I'd better lock it down soon and get painting....

More to come.

Mom's Day, CHAP, Stickers, and Swans

A quick prologue:
This Easter....worst ever. We headed to Jersey with the best of intentions..to enjoy a nice Easter with family. What we ended up with was a lingering, nasty intestinal virus that took it's time infecting all of us, landing Gavin in the hospital, and quarantining all of us at Chrissy's moms house while everyone else was at her sisters for Easter lunch. We had to hole up in Jersey for 5 extra days until folks were healthy enough to travel. After that whole debacle, Mother's Day smacked me RIGHT in the face by arriving early...I was totally blindsided a few days before...anyway..we ended up having a real nice day. It was great having everyone healthy again. Here's a few pics:


We decided that since the kids didn't get to celebrate Easter on account of being sick...that we'd combo it up and have a Mother's Day/Easter Extravaganza...complete with Easter church outfits and the "Gross Chocolate Broken Face Bunny". The story of how that chocolate bunny came to our house....that's a blog of it's own....maybe someday.


The family unit out in the backyard.


Ivy Frances....less than impressed.

A week later it was back out on the road for the CHAP homeschool convention in Central PA. CHAP stands for "Christian Homeschool Association of Pennsylvania"...and YES...I know that we don't live in Pennsylvania....but we went anyway. It was a great weekend of education and encouragement. We met up with Chrissy's twin sisters family out there....quick side note:

Chrissy is a twin. Her twins name is Susan. Susan married my best friend from Jersey, Dave. They live in South Jersey and have 2 boys about our kids ages. It's usually fun times when we all get together. Back to the story...

We all stayed together in 2 rooms at a nice little hotel with an even nicer indoor heated pool. The coolest part was that our 2 rooms were adjoining which meant that we could lay the kids down for bed all in 1 room and hang out in the other...the rub was....to make the adjoining rooms happen, we had to get 1 handicapped accessible room...which we didn't mind at all. Let me tell you...as far as our combined 4 kids were concerned...the second coolest thing about staying in the hotel (the pool comes in first on the coolness scale) was:


The Super Rad Monkey Bar Handicap Shower Stall!!!
This photo was taken about 3 minutes after checking into the hotel. Good times.

The convention was about 370 miles from home. Chrissy did a great job in putting activities together for the kids while we ate up miles on the highway .....BUT....sooner or later...you just want to be out of the car and done driving, you know? The kids did great...but we all started to get a little bit crazy towards the very end of our trip home. I'll title this one: Gavin+Stickers+Mile 364=


Yep...and in case you're wondering...that's a little froggy potty staring back at you from the back seat, there. Gavin will attest to the fact that stickers are much more fun putting ON legs than they are peeling them off.

That about does it for the moment. I think I'm all caught up. I did spot this little duo out back after dinner tonight:

Bunny up front....Swan out back. Nice.

Lastly....somehow, while we were gone, Southern New England turned into Seattle. If anyone knows where they stashed the sun, please let me know.

Be Good.

Levels of "Doneness"

As a husband, father, homeowner, homeschooler, gardener, homesteader, DIY'er, I can tell you (as if you don't already know), there's many levels of "Doneness". By that I mean the myriad of projects that crop up around the home...there's "Done" as in "this project is completely Done with-a-capital-"D" and I won't have to touch it ever again, or...at least until it needs repair again"...and then there's "done" (note the lowercase "d")..also called "done enough"...as in...there's still some stuff that needs to get wrapped up with this project, but it's taken twice as much time and has cost twice as much money as I thought and even though there's some loose ends to tie up, I'm happy enough to call this project "done" and focus on some other stuff for now...I'll get back to wrapping this up soon enough"...If you fall into 2 or more categories that I mentioned in my first sentence then....you know exactly what I'm talking about.
I'm gonna call our home schooling classroom (or "schoolroom" as my wife is training me to call it :^) as "done" with a lowercase "d". There's still some minor loose ends to tie up, but we're at a place where we are moving furniture and resources in. Please allow me, for my own pleasure, to offer a photographic "before and after":

Before:


During:


After:


Before:


During:


After:


Some additional "After" shots:




I've reread through several of my past blogs and I've noticed a trend...right about the last paragraph or so I usually start it off with a sentence like "I'm so blessed that..." and today would be no exception:
I'm so blessed that The Lord has given us the vision and conviction to take the education and training of our children away from the secular public and put it back in our own hands. I'm grateful that He's awakened us and shown Chrissy and I the Biblical Models for parents being the chief educators of their children. I'm blessed to have the financial resources and frugal nature to be able to afford to have my wife at home with our children. I'm blessed to have a father who has the knowledge and willingness to work so hard to help me put this Schoolroom together for my children, and a mother who supports him (and us) so beautifully. I guess....if I can get cheesy or fundamental enough...that I'm just blessed to have children to train up.

Here's to the next generation.

Schoolin'

Gavin started pre-school this week. Well...sort of.

Back when Gavin turned 3, Chrissy started him on some pre-school level learning activities. Letters, patterning, sorting, bible lessons, fine motor skills stuff, etc. etc. She took the summer off, for the most part, and has now resumed her learning sessions with him. We thought it was wise to get Gavin used to a bit more structured morning and also the feel and flow of a full school year.

Our homeschooling room is coming along nicely downstairs. My dad is a wonderful and super skilled guy who is retired and is able to spend a few days a week working to re-finish our future homeschooling area. Walls are up, wiring is run, lights are in, laundry room is built...we're getting there. It shouldn't be too long, now.
In the meantime, we set Gavin up part of his room classroom style. We were blessed with a little school desk and chair that I refinished. Chrissy picked up a wall calendar and other posters. He was SO excited when mama and I showed it to him.

We did him up right. On his first day of school, He had his back-pack with a special snack in it, and his new pencil box full of supplies. Chrissy even put his name on his desk. He's such a great little guy. It's so fun to do special things like this for him.


I'm so thankful for my life. I love watching the lengths my amazing wife goes to make things special and engaging for my children. I'm so blessed to walk life's path along side such a talented and virtuous woman. I'm excited to contribute more to my children's education. To teach Gavin math and hands-on skills by building projects together in the workshop and tackling fix-it jobs around the house. He's such a help already, and has such an interest in tools, building, and learning new things.

I'm thankful that the education of my children is something that draws my family closer together, unlike so many family's out there for whom it becomes an act of separation.

Chrissy snapped a few pics of Gavin's "First Day":


SO psyched for school!


Class Picture Day!


The "Classroom"


Learning the letter "J" and spelling using milk-cap letters


MMMmmmm..... jellybeans


Ivy coming by to check his work

Homeschool Classroom and Turtle Races

While i'm still in full on "New Blog Frequent Poster" mode, I thought i'd try to upload a few pics. We'll start with what will become our new homeschool classroom/studio and co-op meeting area:


This area is in the basement of our house. Chrissy and I used to live down here when we first moved back to MA in 2001. We gutted it out over the winter.

We'll revamp the laundry facilities and add a big double basin sink

My plan is to turn this under the stairs area into a cool little "Reading Nook"

we've been blessed in that we've acquired TONS of teaching resources over the years. here it is sitting in totes waiting to be pulled out and set up in the classroom. Chrissy can't wait to get her hands back on this stuff.

All gutted, cleaned up, and ready to be refinished. Hoping to have our first activities starting down here in the fall.

And now, for no good reason....Turtle Drag Races!!!