So what else is going on?

The weekly wrap up posts are great if you're into homeschooling, but there are other things going on in our life.

My beloved printer, who has seen me through 3 homestudies and years of homeschooling has died.

I may or may not have whistled Taps as it was carried away by pallbearers.  

I've commandeered Paul's printer, but it's just not the same.

The kids decorated for Christmas.

Mostly themselves, lol, but also a couple of trees.  

Trees?  Plural?  Yes.  

Years ago, when times were lean, we were gifted a small tree by friends.

That tree is currently our Around The World tree in the school room.

When we moved into our old house, we discovered two trees up in the attic.  

One of those is in the great room.

And when our dear friends moved away, they left us their BIG tree, which is in our front room. 

Annaliese is excited about getting her own apartment after graduation, so I'm thinking on of our middle trees will go with her. 

Paul deserves major props for this.

He was sick, but I still dragged him our to notarize an important piece of adoption paperwork.

That's love.

Speaking of adoption, I was doing some Christmas shopping, and I splurged and bought myself an ornament.  I didn't have to do a Christmas staring at Hannah's picture, since we saw her face in January and got her in November.  

I also got us signed up to receive donations at http://adopttogether.org/grtlyblesd/

Anything given through that link is tax-deductible.

And all is quiet on the Safe Families front.  

Hannah and Sparkle had matching shirts that said "I love Sparkle."

I had Hannah wear hers the other day for the first time since Sparkle and Fluffy left, and it made me miss them.  Those first few days after they leave, when their clothes still pop up in the laundry are bittersweet.  

I got another phone call this week from Sassy Girl's school.

We've received truancy notices in the mail for both her and Mr Jingle Pants.

Breaks my heart that they're still not in school.

Speaking of school, last night was Josiah's choir concert.

He looked awesome, but was not in a picture mood.

While they were dressed up for the performance, I took a picture.

These outfits have been in the family for a LONG time!

I lost most of our family pictures in a computer crash, but I was able to find a couple "ghost of Christmas past" shots to illustrate how long I've been forcing encouraging the children to wear these.

That's Josiah and Samuel.  They're now 15 and 14.

And this little fluffster in an egg nog stupor is Eli.

Who is 11 now.

Where does the time go?

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