Our Week in which we Decorate the Tree

This was the week we set the tree up and decorated it.  Daddy even made cookies while we were rediscovering favorite ornaments.

There's just something special about the sound of Christmas music and the glow of the lights.

Hannah and Katie each get a special ornament every year.  It either relates to adoption or to China somehow.  The one Katie's holding says "I heart both countries," with American and Chinese flags.  This year's ornaments for them were purchased during my adventures on the Great Wall.

It's a little sad, of course, to come across ornaments belonging to Zach or Annaliese, since they're not here to decorate with us, but Zach sent me a picture of their family's Christmas tree, which was sweet.

Josiah put up the star.  We decided that next year we should try to remember to put that on BEFORE the rest of the ornaments.

Miss Hannah made the ladybug pillow craft from the kit we were sent by 4Knowledge-4Fun.  It's adorable, and it lives on her bed now.  Ladybugs are a symbol of hope in Chinese adoption circles, so this has extra meaning for me.

Miss Katie has been playing with the Fundanoodle magnets!  She's doing a great job learning to write her letters, so this letter building activity is great reinforcement for that.

Also, these magnets are strong!  I'm always surprised at how much effort it takes to remove them when I'm playing with her.  This is a great way to strengthen those fine motor muscles!  In addition to building letters, she likes to make roads with them.

The dinosaurs continue to be a favorite around here.

Our art project this week (from this art DVD) was 3 dimensional.

First, Jack & Hannah made clay animals with separate feet, poking holes in all the pieces.  Then we baked them.  The cat looks Siamese.  I kinda burnt them a little.  Oops.

Then they painted them.

Hannah's is a bear.

The finished cat.  Designed to sit on a shelf.

And the finished bear.  Kind of an interesting project.

In our other art program, the kids were supposed to do quick sketches of an animal.  The cat obligingly lounged for us so we could draw him.

Sam had to construct a bridge from toothpicks, and graciously allowed me to take a picture before taking it to school.

Luke has been knocking ornaments off the tree, so Paul put him on his lap.  Where he started messing with the laptop, of course.

I mentioned last week that we had a Native American "box" for this week.  We read about Pontiac, and did a couple of crafts from the box.  Jack did the drum.

And Hannah did the dream catcher.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  Hannah asked for help, and I ended up doing most of the dream catcher, suppressing the urge to swear at the tiny amounts of string I was expected to tie.  We skipped the last 2 dangley feather doohickies.  I hope the rest of the box goes better than the dream catcher.

Fortunately the Pontiac page in our Great Native Americans coloring book was an easier task.

On the days where Katie finishes math, spelling, and handwriting, she inevitably asks for either her letter book or her scissor book.

Katie enjoyed getting to play with the nativity puzzle!  I have a thing for nativities; we have several.  This particular one was an Etsy purchase a few years back.  Another favorite is the Chinese Nativity Set in the collage at the beginning of this post.

It was a good week.  Next week, the big kids have minimum days W-F, so that will change things up a bit.

This post may be linked up at these linky parties.

Thanks for clicking for us!