Week 1 complete!

Can you believe that today completes the first week of the year?!  It feels like just yesterday we were celebrating Christmas.  Of course, we did just take down the tree and decorations today.  The living room feels so spacious without the tree.  We haven't had the furniture in this configuration with the construction completed and no tree yet, so it's strange to have it gone.  At the moment a stack of bins is in the tree's place until the temperature gets a level which carrying them out and unlocking the shed won't require thawing out afterwards.  Even the fireplace seems barren without the garland, stockings, and nativity.  But it's very nice to feel the extra space and I will no longer have to worry about James knocking over the tree riding his tricycle or Carolyn doing a cartwheel into the tree.

School was canceled today due to the cold.  This is just crazy to me, I think we might have had 1 snow day in all my elementary/high school days combined.  We'll be home again tomorrow as well.  I anticipated having tomorrow off, so we spent the morning at the library and picked up craft sticks at Joann's this morning.  Tomorrow morning we'll work on Carolyn's log cabin and James' farm as we complete their KWL sheets.  They are enjoying learning about a topic chosen themselves and getting to make a project from it.

At the library I realized why Carolyn will always be ahead of grade level in math.  Her brain works like mine and she wants to know things.  The library has various puzzles set out to complete, mostly for toddlers.  She sat down in front of a 6 piece police car puzzle just before we left and took 3 pieces out, then declared it was half a car.  I asked her why she thought that.  This led to a 5-10 minute discussion of fractions, wherein she moved puzzle pieces around and thought about how 2 pieces in is 2/6 or 1/3, 3 pieces in is 1/2 and 4 pieces in is 4/6 or 2/3.  She did the division of 6/2 easily, really without realizing that is somewhat of an advanced concept.  This may not be a normal discussion for a parent to have with a child, but she craves these sorts of interactions and initiates them herself.  She would be an ideal candidate for unschooling.  The pile of books we brought home from the library is awesome - she wants to know about pioneers, presidents, and some random archduke because she was interested in the name.  Then she chose a pile of chapter books and picture books.  During quiet time today she read 2 of the chapter books and a few others throughout other parts of the day.  I'm looking forward to working with her tomorrow.

I have made 2 more new recipes this week.  Monday was our typical standby of homemade pizza which we've enjoyed as leftovers for lunch the last 2 days.  Tuesday we tried lemon chicken which does not seem to be a family favorite.  James stated it was too sour and didn't eat much.  So it likely won't be repeated for some time.  Today I made beef and pumpkin stew which was really good, but Jon did not appreciate the pumpkin taste.  I thought it was great, so I might try to tweak this by swapping the pumpkin with something else.  I'm not typically a fan of stews, but this kind of hit the spot.  Tomorrow we're doing an old favorite sweet potato hash.  My body seems to definitely by adjusting to no sugar.  I find that I have more energy and am sleeping a bit better.  I can't wait to see this weekend if it's also leading to some weight loss.  The pile of cookies on the counter does keep calling my name, but at this point I seem to be able to avoid them.  This weekend I think it's all going to be thrown out since it's old anyway.  Great to be getting good food in and starting to feel better!