Goodbye 2017!

We had a lovely Christmas, filled with joy, peace and abundance. Anne thought the tree with all of the gifts was embarrassing because we had so much for just six people plus a few extra gifts for visitors throughout the week. I am glad that she feels grateful and knows that the main focus of Christmas isn't receiving tons of gifts. I did point out to her that much of the gifts were simple things such as soaps, candles and clothes to enjoy throughout the year.

We spent the day having two lovely meals, playing board games, and with Dean building his gift (a new wardrobe from Ikea) in under three hours almost completely by himself! I am so pleased that he was able to do such an important life skill so easily. Christmas Day was wrapped up with the new season Christmas special of Call the Midwife. Anne and I couldn't be happier. We love that show so much!

The rest of the week had tons of free time for all -- it was spent reading, dreaming, playing lots of board games, and staying in pajamas most, if not all, of the day. Our favorite new games are Cashflow for Kids and Asheville-oply.

I was amazed this week how much "school" happened without direction. Anne decided what she was going to do for her solo in the Junior Company Showcase in March. She plans to dance to a poem with no music. This involved planning, research, listening to tons of poems and then starting the choreography for the piece. There were also many math games played this week and also Dean's building project. Dean spent hours writing a new guitar piece and recording it. It was a great week! I am trying to decide if we are starting back to school half-time, full-time or not at all next week. I still feel like I need a break and the kids are doing okay with so much free time. I read three books this week and would like to get some projects done in the house next week. I think we will most likely start back to school with two or three subjects a day that I will write down in the lesson plan books, but not count as full school days. I just need a few more days off.

We are having a small party on Monday with a few friends. We plan on having a baked potato bar for dinner and a few board games. It should be fun. I plan to get us socializing with a larger variety of people in the new year. Anne's dance is so demanding of her/our time, and she hasn't found a very good friend base at our main studio. The girls just aren't interested in having her as a friend outside of the studio. I think they are just too busy and don't have the time or interest to have friends outside of school. Also, Dean has made some new friends this year, and we would like to get to know their families better. Hopefully, it will go well. I will post about how we pulled it off next week.

Blessings, Dawn