Christmas Poem

When the stockings were hung on our wall,

Santa Clause was calling to call,

"Merry Christmas to all!"

Then, a little mouse squeaked and swade threw our hall;

Then I tiptoed out of my bed to look for presents under our tree,

There I saw 10...no, 18...no, 20 presents just for me.

-Cayli and Kenna

Quilling

This past summer, I discovered quilling while meandering through Hobby Lobby looking for something new to do. I was in a creative fog and my normal crocheting/sewing/photography-self just wasn't excited by anything. Nothing at all. I needed a challenge.

Knowing nothing about quilling, I bought some strips of paper, found a toothpick to wrap paper around and within minutes I made this to thank a friend for her hospitality:

Now I'm hooked! The first ever quilled works came from England hundreds of years ago. Book binders would trim off some of the guilded paper and artisans would quill the scraps (by wrapping the paper around--you guessed it!--quills) to decorate the covers of the books.

I, however don't have fancy gold-edged paper, but I did quill hair barrettes for the girls' Christmas pageant attire from my overflowing stash of scrapbook papers:

The snowflake ornament nicely decorates the tree, too:

The best thing about this craft is that the girls quill alongside me. Every evening we twist and twirl paper into ornaments and snowflakes.

These are Kenna's creations:

The bad thing about this craft is that it isn't Micah-friendly (this was a Christmas tree):
So we usually wait until our resident tornado has gone to bed before we break out the quilling supplies. The girls and I enjoy gathering 'round the table, crafting and chatting. With no expectations, each piece is lovingly handmade and always perfect. It's Christmas memories in the making.

Christmas Pageant

The 22nd annual mammoth production of our church's Christmas pageant began last night. If you're local, we've got four more performances, so come see us!

Here the girls (and me, far right) are signing Bethlehem Morning as Dawn Smith Jordan sings. (Thanks, Ann, for the picture!)

Hope to see you there,

PS For locals, the entire production will be televised on WLTX-19 on Christmas Day at 12:30am (when I'm wrapping gifts! :D) and 9am (when my kids have long finished ripping the wrapping paper). Other times and stations for state-wide viewing are here.

Deaf Banquet

Every year our church hosts a banquet for the area's Deaf and hard of hearing people. This year my girls attended. (Thanks to Dan, The Snake Man for these pictures!)

They came because they were going to be signing with the Silent Sounds choir. Our choir has practiced I Want Your Presence for Christmas and the girls learned all the words to sign with us. Tomorrow Cayli will lead her 4 grade choir in signing a song during the worship service. Then all next week they'll sign Bethlehem Morning in our church's Christmas pageant.

I first started learning sign language in the second grade when my friend and I would pour over a signing manual on our bus ride home. I got serious about it about 7 years ago when a precious deaf lady befriended me. So really, all I have ever learned, I've learned from my friends who are deaf. With 4 kids I haven't had the opportunity to take ASL classes; just hanging out with my friends, like sweet Mollie (below), I've learned quite a bit.

Signing has blessed my family in so many ways. Not only can I worship and communicate with great friends, I also get to share these friends with my family.

Miracle Math

Math is anything but pleasant to my distractible darlings. They can easily compute, but the extra boring processes of writing and thinking when they would rather be outside playing is torture challenging to them and me.

Miraculously, I discovered math on a dry erase board. We sit together on the couch and finish our lessons in record time--as long as they can mark and erase themselves. So far that's working great--except when I gave them a test the other day, they acted like they had never seen a math worksheet. So today, they did their actual math lesson with their miracle markers.

Apparently to them, it's not really math if it's done with a dry erase marker (of their favorite color, of course).

I slipped their worksheet into a sheet protector, thus giving them a dry erase surface. They snuggled on the couch, happy to get their work done. Dry erase=no whine!

All the doodles disappear with a paper towel. Of course I don't have a record of what they have done, but that's okay because it's actually getting done. Besides, I'm only keeping tests as a sample of what they accomplished.
This sheet-protector/dry-erase-marker-system works entertains toddlers and preschoolers, too. When the girls were younger, I'd slide various coloring pages and tracing worksheets (you know letters, numbers, etc) into sheet protectors. Instead of giving them use of a permanent dry erase pen, I'd give them a washable crayon. Voila! Instant no-mess, reusable pages!

Happy learning, y'all!