Back to the Grind!!!

We took the entire month of December
off from school

and our normal routine

to enjoy the season of

Christmas,

but I was SO happy to get
"back to normal".

And to slow down -
yes that is relative,
this family doesn't know how to slow down.

But we didn't have time to slow down much,

for long...

basketball practices started the first week of the year.

Games started a few weeks later.

Boy Scouts started back up...

We were back to doing our schoolwork

yep,

back to the grind.

Here are a just a few pictures from
the first few weeks of
January 2014.

Jackson is doing well with his reading,
and he is great at reading to the littles!

All the kids enjoy making letters

with the new

Letter Construction Set

they got for Christmas.

(mercy, look at that hair!!!)

Lex and Tony also enjoy playing with the 

activities I purchased from 

Confessions of a Homeschooler

School in pajamas?

Yep,

that's one of the perks of homeschooling!

(especially when you are 3!)

Tony started dressing himself,

yes everything is backwards,

yes he has on shorts in January...

but he dressed himself.

That is success in my book!

I cracked my big crockpot and attempted to 

cook a meal in the "normal" sized one.

It is obviously not big enough 

for this family.

Alexis learned how to 

climb the cabinets.

Even though we have a whole 

cabinet full of cups for them to use!

Then Jackson hid from something while we were watching a 

scary movie!

I wish I could remember which movie it was

and 

who or what exactly he was hiding from.

(i think it was Medusa on Percy Jackson, actually)

Then basketball season started and
Alexis opted for playing basketball instead of cheering.

Rico and Jackson both played basketball.

Mr.T just hung out.

We tried talking Alexis into cheer,
but she really wanted to play basketball.

So during the first game,
daddy had to give her a pep talk
about how it was ok to take the ball from the other kids
and not to let other kids take it from her.
Her response:
"But I don't want to be mean daddy"

To which daddy replied,

"You can handle your THREE brothers,

you take things away from them,

you don't let them take your stuff..."

Then she started crying...
sigh...

This is how Tony spent 

about half of his time during games

and practices.

I brought other toys for him to play with,

however,

if he wasn't parked with this silly thing,

I was chasing and threatening him with corporal punishment

if he didn't stay off the basketball court!!

ARGH!

Final random picture:

I sent Ms. Priss up to take a nap one day

later went up to wake her up...

this is what I found.