I LOVE Christmas!

I was so excited for Christmas to come, and it didn't disappoint. I think I can quite honestly say that this was my favorite Christmas, probably since we have been married. I am not exactly why that is, other than the fact that I felt more joy and peace this Christmas season than I recall ever feeling. It didn't hurt that we were all healthy and that we had minimal traveling to do. The kids were thrilled by everything, even the pajamas that they kind of figured out they were going to get on Christmas Eve, and my wonderful husband surprised me with a couple of things. One thing (a new set of scripture, beautiful burgundy, with curly gold writing, and my married name embossed on them) I had suspicions about, but that didn't lessen my amazement or gratitude for such a wonderful and beautiful gift. Here are a few highlights of our holiday.

Our traditional Christmas Eve dinner. It is so fun to pull out the nice dishes and the kids loved having candles.

Reading the scripture story. Everyone helped and took part. I love seeing my kids growing up.

Opening the first gift is so fun, even if you kind of think you know what it is!

Thanks again for the help Mom, the kids LOVED their pj's and Megan looks like one of the big kids now.

Visiting with Santa and Mrs. Claus (aka grandpa and grandma Chantry!) And no one was scared. what fun!

I want to savor the fun we had this Christmas, though I am going to un-decorate and get the house back to normal. I do have a tiny figure of Mary, Joseph and Baby Jesus that I have decided to leave up year round so that all year we remember the joy and peace that comes through our Savior.

Tutoring

This fall has been a great time for tutoring. I love math, and I have had a great variety in the tutoring jobs that I have had this fall. Yes, I know I am crazy, but here are some of the highlights:

-Two column geometry proofs (those of you who read this will think I am nuts, but it is like putting a puzzle together and it so amazing to see how the pieces fit together. So much fun!)

-Arithmetic in different bases - I did some of this when I was young, but not enough to really learn and understand it. I really understand how it all works now and how it all ties into our common bse 10 system. I can even handle base 12 and hexadecimal. Subtracting, adding, multiplying, "carrying", "borrowing". I love it all!

-Factoring Trinomials- A couple of years ago I learned a very cool method that eliminated the guess and check system that I learned and used for factoring as a high school student. It always works! It has been fun to share that with others and to just enjoy a part of math that I have loved for many, many years.

I am grateful for the opportunity to help people with math and look forward to the fun that next semester will bring!

My kids LOVE this

Dinosaur train is a relatively new show on PBS kids and the kids love it. They particularly like this song. Yesterday this episode was on and they were disappointed that they had to miss the song to get ready for the bus. So I found it on YouTube and now I am the "best mom EVER!"



He is a link to some cool printable pages for the song too.
http://www.pbs.org/teachers/dinosaurtrain/lessonplans/dinosaurssatoz/