puppy pals

Happy New Year! Our house has had a couple of new additions in December. Of the canine variety as you probably figured out from the title. We have been reading books on adopting a dog off and on for years, and found one on Petfinder that seemed like a nice fit for our family. His name is Sherlock and he is a rescue dog from Alabama. We e-mailed our application and shortly thereafter he was scheduled to be shipped up to New England. He is a pointer shepherd mix. Sherlock is 4 months old and is already a big boy at 32 lbs.

Sherlock on his new bed enjoying a rawhide "candy cane"

One of our friends posted on Facebook about a litter of puppies needing a home, sort of simultaneously as we were submitting our application for Sherlock. We thought about this over a weekend and decided that it sort of made sense to go for it and adopt the little beagle needing a home as if we did get two dogs they would grow up together. So Lucy the pocket beagle joined our little family and the boys adore her. Lucy is 8 lbs and will likely not get bigger than our cat. She is a cute little butterball.

the boys with Lucy

The dogs are quite a pair, we think Sherlock thinks he is a pocket beagle at the way they sometimes wrestle.. play.. fight? They both love going outside for walks. We have taken them in our yard/woods, and on the local rail trail which they had the best time on. We are crate training and Lucy has actually been doing really well, but Sherlock hates his crate so we are trying to make it more appealing.

Since getting the dogs it has been a big adjustment for our schedule, since homeschoolers in general get to sleep in a bit more if they so choose (we did), but it is probably a good thing.

Ludwig playing with a catnip fish from Santa

Oh, and the cat? He is doing surprisingly well with the pups. He has not really hissed, and he knows that he is the real Alpha (ha), his territory is still his, such as the basement and bedrooms. Ludwig has been losing some weight recently, before the dogs arrived, and this is his tenth year with us. We got him as a kitten the year we were married. We changed up his food in hopes he will gain some weight again and hope to have a few more years with our baby Boo, but we will of course monitor his progress and if he gets sick we will cross that bridge when we come to it.

'Tis the Season

the beach in Hingham

W playing tic tac toe 

We spent Thanksgiving visiting family. The boys enjoyed stopping at the beach on the way there to see the ocean and throw some stones and shells into the water. After the delicious turkey dinner we took a walk before dessert. The boys had fun making artwork with my cousin and playing with the 80's toys that belonged to her, it is always nostalgic to see them again. My sister was the only one that unfortunately had to work the following day, but I am glad she could be there for Thanksgiving too, it was really nice.

one of the majestic reindeer

Friday we took advantage of the long weekend and took an overnight trip up to the White Mountains. We enjoyed the snow and scenery. We visited Santa's Village & met with Santa, but we decided the park is more fun in the summertime. The reindeer are amazing creatures, that was my favorite part by far. The antlers lost their fuzz since the last time we saw them. C liked seeing them from a distance. We bought the book The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett. I will print out some reindeer themed activities for W to learn about them for a unit study.

having fun with pretend reindeer-- we have a similar summer picture minus the hats and slush! :)

it did look pretty magical as the lights went on

Most of the rides were still open, but I had hoped there might be some special and meaningful events happening given the season. C said his favorite part was the train ride. W liked the dizzying whirlwind sort of rides. There was a breathtaking sunset that evening. We couldn't capture it with photos.

On Saturday, we went to North Conway and visited the bustling little general stores, W's favorite store the rock shop, and walked around the snowy downtown. Then we headed south toward home and gradually saw the snow disappear along the roadside. Sunday afternoon was mild here and Jacob spent it raking the side yard. Today it was quite warm. It is funny thinking of how we visited the beach and snowy mountains in one week, and how different climates can be this time of year within New England. A couple hours in either direction makes a big difference!

Thanksgiving Week

We have been learning a lot about Thanksgiving leading up to the big turkey day. W watched the virtual field trip on the Plimoth Plantation web site, and we have been reading many books with a Thanksgiving theme. The boys made a couple of felt Pilgrim themed placemats with cute felt stickers we found at Michael's craft store. This Wednesday will be Pie Day and we will make pies to bring for Thanksgiving at my Aunt's house.

Last week at co-op the books covered tied in some of the books to a Thanksgiving/family reunion theme and W participated in a cranberry relay race with ladles and cornucopias. He had a fun time! The kids tried eating cranberries (raw) and most spit them out being too tart, but they liked the juice when a bit of natural sweetener was added.

Here are some of our favorite Thanksgiving/Pilgrim themed books we are reading this week:


One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims by B.G. Hennessey
Thanksgiving on Thursday (Magic Treehouse #27) by Mary Pope Osborne
The Story of the Pilgrims by Katherine Ross
Cranberry Thanksgiving by Harry Devlin
Samuel Eaton's Day: A Day in the Life of a Pilgrim Boy by Kate Waters

Trick or Treat

Despite our best efforts to suggest concept based costumes for W, he chose to portray Finn McMissile of Cars 2 for Halloween, and C was more than happy to be Lightning McQueen. Yesterday was the annual Downtown Trick or Treat event in MA that we've been attending since W was a baby. We enjoyed meeting up with friends beforehand at a local coffee shop. It was quite rainy but the event was rain or shine so we went anyway and the boys had fun. Luckily their costumes fit over winter coats! 


Earlier in the day we went to the Singalong at the library, and C had fun. They sing various songs including the Firetruck song, I'm a Little Teapot, ABC's, and the classic The Wheels on the Bus. It is more of a little kids event, so W chose to read books during part of it, but later joined in playing some of the instruments after the noisy parade. We checked some books out so we have plenty of reading material for a while. 

Last night also marked the first snow of the season. It is pretty unusual to see snow whilst still seeing the leaves in various colors on the trees.

Merry Christmas!

We are enjoying our first Christmas in our new home this year. The boys went sledding for the first time this season, only a couple inches but I guess it was enough for the sledding hill. They also had fun following a snow maze Jacob worked on. Jacob and I are recovering from mild colds, but otherwise all is well. I have been working on a December update in my head but that probably won't be until January to recap some of our FIAR adventures. Tonight is the Christmas pageant at church (W will participate dressed as an angel, he is quite excited.) Better get started making some cookies for Santa. :)



Merry Christmas to you and yours! Here are some Christmas stories we have been enjoying lately.


   

Thanksgiving Reading and Activities

I still have a couple of catching up posts to make, but I thought I'd share the Thanksgiving books we have been reading, and share some links that I have found useful. A fun sing-a-long book is One Little Two Little Three Little Pilgrims by B.G. Hennessy, which has cute and well researched illustrations by Lynne A. Cravath. For older children, Eating the Plates by Lucille Recht Penner is a great chapter book to learn more about what it was like to be a Pilgrim. W is enjoying it so far, I've been reading him a chapter or two at a time. Another book about giving thanks is Grateful: A Song of Giving Thanks by John Bucchino (The Julie Andrews Collection). I was happy to stumble upon this one at the library and it has a great message. The accompanying song sung by Art Garfunkel is available on iTunes.

Plimoth Plantation and Scholastic partnered to present a webcast which gives a brief introduction to what life was like for the Pilgrims and Wompanoag in Plymouth around the time of the first Thanksgiving. Click here to watch a reply of the webcast. Scholastic also offers a page of free Thanksgiving printable activities. If you live in New England, a field trip to Plimoth Plantation makes for a fun and educational experience no matter your age. My husband and I were actually married in the garden there so I can vouch that they are an excellent wedding spot as well. :)

Next Wednesday I will continue the long held tradition of Pie Day, and will enlist young W's help in making pies to bring for Thanksgiving at my Aunt & Uncle's house. We will be "rowing" Cranberry Thanksgiving next week, although with the holiday and Jacob's day off Friday we will be less focused on homeschool work those days, and may use the long weekend to start decorating for Christmas.

      

Halloween 2010 - Woody and Buzz

For those followers not on Facebook, here is a glimpse of our own personal Woody and Buzz. They are really hoping the big man in red will bring them Toy Story 3 this year for Christmas, and Buzz Lightyear (with wing span). ;)

sick boys (and mama too) :(

W has been sick with a fever since Tuesday. I am hoping he gets better today, we have been monitoring him and the doctor's office said if he develops any worse cough let them know, but so far so good. Overall it has gotten way worse at night, and besides being a bit grumpy he has been in good spirits and had lots of jello and popsicles. Sadly we will miss storytime this week and there are only one or two weeks left. C seems to have just a stuffy nose and sneezes, but at least no fever.

W has been wanting to watch Christmas movies since he has been stuck on the couch being sick, so already we have watched more than our share for November, but it is nice to get in the spirit of the season a bit early. We have also listened to holiday music on Pandora.com, which lets you choose artists you like and then plays similar music along with those artists. It is such a great idea to get a bit more variety.

edit: as thursday wore on C and I developed low grade/ mild fevers and coughs, blah :( Hoping we will be over this by next week.