Winter Break Day 3 - English Literature & Health

Wednesday was an easy day.  Wednesday morning Cadence had an orthodontist appointment so we took all the kids & while she got her braces taken care of, we talked to the kids about oral hygiene & the importance behind it.  Easy peasy.

After the appointment we headed to the library for story time.  The girls were all too old, so they sat in the back of the room & read their new books while the boys enjoyed the story time.  After story time we let each of the kids pick a few books to check out & let them read them for a bit in the library.

Then we went home & spent the afternoon reading.

It was actually a really nice & peacful day.

Once Trek got home, we took the girls out to pick out their new bikes.  They both got bikes for their birthday from us, but we hadn't actually gone to pick them out yet.  

Cadence chose a really cool black & pink mountain bike.

And Lo picked out a beautiful purple cruiser like mine.

Hooray for family bike rides now that they finally have bikes that fit them.

Winter Break Day 2 - Drama/Theater & Culinary Arts

Day 2 of Winter Break we learned a little about Drama & Theater & the Culinary Arts.

I popped some popcorn & watched "Remember The Titans" with the kids.  They had never seen it before & it's one of my favorites.  I love it because it actually teaches a little bit of history too.  My older girls cried several times during the movie which I loved because it showed that they understood what was happening.  Such a good movie.

Later that afternoon we went to the kitchen & baked.  My kids love to cook & bake.  Lorien baked these beautiful pink heart cupcakes.

And Cadence decided to go crazy & make some fancy cheesecake with homemade lemon curd & it was DELICIOUS.

It was a much less busy day than the first, but it was a really nice relaxing day with the kids.  We had a lot of fun.

Winter Break Day 1 - Economics/Financial Management & Art

So for Winter Break my kids get 5 days off of school plus the two weekends tacked on each end.  All of my kids' friends were headed out on vacation so I decided to do a theme week for my kids to keep us busy & not being bored at home all day. 

The theme we came up with was 

SCHOOL

which sounds SO boring, but we made it fun.

On Monday we decided to do Economics/Financial Management & Art.

For Economics & Financial Management I had the kids take care of the groceries for the week.  We planned out a healthy meal plan for breakfast, lunch, & dinner for the entire week, made a list, & then went shopping.  I taught the kids how to pick out produce & how to do price comparisons.  They pushed the cart, selected all the food, & helped load everything up at the register.  Once we got home, they put away all the groceries & felt accomplished.

For Art we had a lot more fun.

First we went down to this adorable store called Cranberry Mercantile in Sunnyvale & used their paint studio to paint a "You Are Special" plate.  I wrote the words across the top, & each kid had the chance to paint something on the plate.  Once it's fired in the kiln, we will use this plate for Birthday breakfasts/dinners, special concert days, Mother's Day & Father's Day, etc.  And I love that they all had a hand in creating it.

After painting & lunch, we pick up Trek from work & went to the Cantor Art Museum at Stanford.  It's a free art museum & it was amazing.

They have an amazing Rodin sculpture exhibit both inside & outside the museum.  Rodin's Thinker is there & I think the kids liked that one the most.

"Fire Power!"

Even though it was pouring rain outside, I went out to see Rodin's Gates of Hell from Dante's Inferno.  It was beautiful in it's own creepy way.

For 2 hours we just explored all the galleries.  

They had a beautiful Rembrandt wing of the museum where they had several of his pen sketches.

Lorien was excited when we found some Picasso paintings.

They had a small Andy Warhol exhibit as well.

And an Egyptian wing which I loved.

It was a really great museum.  It was only 15 minutes from our house, free, & the kids had a great time.  What a great start to Winter Break.