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| Rowan playing indoor soccer |
We took the kids to see A Christmas Carol at Theatre Calgary this year. Rowan went last year with Rand but this was the first year we all went as a family. We were a bit worried about Poppy as we thought it might be a bit too scary for her but she was on the edge of her seat! She was just thrilled with the performance and kept whispering, "Is this real?" She was just mesmerized. It was so much fun to watch her see it for the first time. Rowan loved it again as well. It is such a wonderful holiday tradition.
There were also some days this winter where the Science Centre was so quiet that the kids has centres to themselves as well as instructors. Rowan was building an enormous structure with the 1:1 help of one of the staff and was so pleased.
The kids helped a lot with baking this year at Christmas time.
Rowan also spontaneously came up with a list of rules. Most of them apply to Poppy and were born out of his frustration with her. One of the downsides to being home schooled is you are with your siblings a great deal of the time. A lot of the time this helps for building stronger sibling relationships, however I noticed this winter that there was a new stage of bickering and bugging that we haven't experienced before.
More animation fun at the Science Centre.
Poppy's ORFF music class put on a lovely little show for Christmas for the families. I love the way the class celebrates holidays. It is very simple, with a short performance and a small party at the end where people bring simple snacks to share. There is nothing over the top about it, no gifts or focus on material things.
Winter Solstice is always celebrated in a special way at our home and I love this photo. We went to a friend's farm and spent the evening with 4 other families. It was a pot luck event and we went or a walk in the dark under the stars. For Solstice we don't turn on any lights and use as little electricity as possible. Here we played board games and had tasty holiday snacks by the fire place in the dark with only candles and the tree lit. It looks so magical!
We didn't do very much skating this year with having the two little ones in foster care - much of our winter was just too cold. However, Rand did manage to get them out to our local rink a few times. Rowan also took a skating home school class.
We were able to attend two Christmas parties this year. One was with my Mom's employer, always a very posh affair at the Palliser Hotel. The other was with the agency we are foster parents with. It was a lovely sit down turkey dinner with games and activities for the kids.
Rowan enjoyed having one of his best buddies over to play Settlers of Catan over the holidays. Another hard part of our year was the number of good friends who are now in school part time or full time and who we don't see as often.
Rowan is working on his Jump Math book while Poppy works on any workbook she can find beside him!
