We took the kids and a friend to Downtown San Jose's Christmas in the park. They got to ice skate and walk around to see all the Christmas displays. We also happened upon a large brass band playing Christmas music outside. Downtown was nice and lots of things to see. We even got to sit with Santa!

Dont Blink or you'll miss the world's fastest ice skater

Best Holiday Movies

This is pretty much what were doing today ....and everyday for the past week. Its been real rainy and dreary and so close to Christmas we kinda just hang out watching Christmas shows. Hannah is all of a sudden into preschool computer games. We got JumpStart preschool and a Dora game for her. Its real simple stuff like just color recognition and putting pieces of things together. But she feels like a big girl. Haley is doing math copywork- gotta memorize those addition facts !

My favorite christmas movie is Jim Carrey's The Grinch I must have put it on a hundred times. We also really like those Rudolph movies on TBS. I should get them all on DVD they're classics !

Haley's been taking painting lessons from a real artist. Ever since we had our field trip to the Merced Museum of Art she has been taking lessons from one of the featured artists there "Bambi". She's learning how to do real watercolor paintings on canvas. Theres technique involved in the whole sketching and painting process and Haley loves it. I feel so fortunate to be taking lessons this artist.

Getting started with French

This week we started learning French. I ordered this "French For Kids" DVD online to get us started, I figured we needed to actually hear and see correct pronunciation first and foremost. Its a good beginning video but kind of hard to hear. I also purchased a few french books and downloaded some French nursery songs from iTunes. I plan to use Homeschoolestore.com to download French copywork books, so we have writing practice as well. I know there are CD Rom programs like Rosetta Stone and the british Muzzy series but they are quite expensive. I know we probably wont become fluent anytime soon but at least I am introducing a foreign language.

Last weekend we went to the Hilmar Cheese factory here in central California. It was mostly a gift shop/deli/coffee shop on the first floor and the second floor had window views of the inner factory as well as educational things about cheese. There was a giant fake cow to demonstrate the milking process and a mini replica of the dairy behind the factory. We got to see the factory workers making cheese and test out the famous "squeaky" cheese. Another good field trip I'd say!

Thanksgiving Break

The kids Thanksgiving break was really good (I least I thought those) I always tell them how lucky they are to have parents who primary goal in life is to make sure their happy and having fun. They'd never dream of complaining right? Im not in the business of spoiling them at all- there definitely not just throwing stuff in the basket at the toy store or anything but I just want to make sure they get to try things. Sooo that being said the kids went roller skating and bowling for the first time. They loooooved skating. Haley rolled around the ring effortlessly (and so did Dad). She even tried roller blades. Bowling was hilarious, Haley took a running start for each throw of the bowling ball and Hannah did the old throw the bowl from between her legs.

The rest of the week was spent playing at parks and jumping in leave piles. Grandma even let the help cook. Aww the joys of childhood.