Happy New Year!

It has been an uneventful week here.  We've done school, but not with a great deal of enthusiasm.  That is as much my fault as the kids', probably more, because I want a holiday.  But we are not as far along with things as I'd like, and the weather isn't nice enough to do much outside anyway, we took a four day weekend for Christmas and otherwise have continued as usual.

The weather has been cold, but aside from a dusting one night this week, we haven't had more snow.  Mr. Snowman is showing his age, and the children haven't been helping matters...

Here Travis is trying to get his nose to stick.  His carrot disappeared (I assume some happy squirrel enjoyed it), and his hat kept blowing off so the kids replaced it with a Hermione wig, which makes Mr. Snowman look rather more like Cousin It.

Here they are cooperating nicely, in order to use a heavy stick as a battering ram. 

I haven't made New Year's resolutions in years, but this year I read an article in the WSJ which, though it offered little hope regarding the keeping of resolutions, did say that one was more likely to succeed in making changes if a formal resolution was made.  So I made some for me, and Travis, Katie, and Ed each came up with a couple for themselves.  I've posted them on the fridge so that we can be reminded of our failures every time we open the refrigerator door.

Yesterday was the five year anniversary of this blog!  Looking at the old pictures, it is hard for me to believe how quickly time has passed.  My babies hardly qualify as babies anymore!

As I said, we didn't get everything done this week.  Not in Latin, science, history, or grammar.  Some, certainly, but not as much as I'd hoped.  Math is still taking too long, and we are slow getting started.  Bringing enthusiasm and efficiency back into our lessons is my top resolution, and the only one I am really determined about!  (Is it an oxymoron to have resolutions that one is not resolved about?)  A few of the fun books we read this week were these...

The children are very indignant about the fate of poor Joan, and outraged at the behaviour of the men of the Church, who should have known better.  Every once in a while they give me cause to hope!

I had on my list to read The Black Arrow, The Trumpeter of Krakow, and Men of Iron with this week's work (perhaps spreading it over two weeks -- even at my craziest I can see that that is a lot of reading aloud, added to the other read-alouds!), but I have given up the idea.  This is only Week 9 out of 36, and even though I had planned to take more than one year for it, we need to pick up the pace just a bit!