It's been a relaxing week at our house....we have needed the chance to not worry about anything! We've continued with math and reading as usual. The kids have enjoyed reading different versions of The Nutcracker, and our favorite music this week is "Sleigh Ride" by Leroy Anderson. We have been learning about the instrumentation and talking about how instruments can evoke certain feelings and moods in a piece of music.

Thursday we headed to Atlanta to ride The Pink Pig at Macy's. It's been a tradition here since the 1950s. We had a wonderful time! We went with some good friends of ours.... Miss B didn't want to have her picture taken with Priscilla the Pig!

Here are my two sweet children getting ready to ride the pig.... even though it was a cold, rainy day we had a great time!

And of course we headed into the mall afterwards and enjoyed some California Pizza Kitchen. What a special treat!

Today we have a friend staying with us... he is a good buddy of GMan's, so we wanted to do a fun activity with him. We read about the history of gingerbread, colored our own Gingerbread Glyphs (check out the link for great Gingerbread Math activities!), then decorated Gingerbread men with icing, chocolate chips, and candies.

The sun is out and I can hear the basketballs bouncing outside - the boys are getting some energy out and having lots of fun! Later we have a couple of homemade goodies to deliver and then I think I have to face the inevitable -- cleaning bathrooms! Well, the WHOLE day can't be perfect now, can it?

I'm looking forward to Miss B's piano recital tomorrow afternoon - I'll be sure to post some video when it's over.