Ober Gatlinburg

The day after Christmas, Steven and Lydia wanted to go up to Ober Gatlinburg and go ice skating. Samuel had never been, but he was so excited about it. He actually did really well for his first time.

The only picture of all three of us on the ice

Gramps and Grandma didn't want to skate so they were the official photographers. I'm not sure what they were doing in this picture though...

After skating we decided to go on the Alpine Slide. We took the chairlift up and then Samuel rode down with me. I knew he would love it and I was right. He laughed the whole way down and kept saying "Faster Mommy!" He wanted to do it again, but we had to leave to go to dinner. We'll have to go back another day since he had so much fun.

Samuel on one of the sleds that we rode down. He figured out quickly that pushing the lever forward makes you go faster. He leaned on it the whole way down!

Christmas Day

On Christmas Day, we got up and let Samuel open his gifts. He was so excited to have more gift! Here he is grinning about his new Kung Fu Panda movie.

Checking out his new Star Wars figures

Opening his Darth Vader costume...

Mommy, what is it?

Excited about his new dinosuar - he named him Reggie

Modeling his Darth Vader costume...

...welcome to the Dark Side

Checking out the goodies in his stocking

Since it was Christmas day and nothing was open, we decided to take Grandma, Gramps, Uncle Steven, and Aunt Lydia to Cades Cove. It was 70 degrees outside and we had a lot of fun. Samuel peeking through the fence.

Samuel and I with the mountains in the background

Uncle Steven and Aunt Lydia

Gramps and Grandma

Samuel running down the path

Grandma, Samuel, and Gramps

These were just some of the deer we saw that day. There were several of them throughout the park.

Christmas with the Family

Grandma, Gramps, Uncle Steven, Aunt Lydia, Aunt Jennifer, Noah, Jack, and Aunt Louise all came to us for Christmas. We celebrated a couple of days early because Jen had to get back for work. Here's Samuel getting ready to help hand out gifts.

Excited about his new puzzle from Uncle Steven and Aunt Lydia...

...and the new Luke Skywalker doll they got him.

Samuel and Jack playing with their new toys

Wearing his pirate costume from Grandma and showing off his Star Wars legos (the only gift he asked for this year)

Daddy and Samuel

The adults eating dinner - me, Grandma, Gramps, Aunt Louise, Aunt Jennifer, Aunt Lydia, Uncle Steven

The kids table

Little Hands Toward Heaven - Unit 8

This unit was on the Exodus. We did a rhyme called Let My People Go. We also worked on learning the letter G. We started out the unit by reading the story of Passover and how the Israelites marked their doors with blood so the angel would passover them and not kill their first-born son.

The next day, we read about how the Pharoah was sorry he didn't listen to God because his son died and so he told Moses that they could go. We also made a letter G out of cotton balls. Of course, this was one of Samuel's favorite activities because he got to use glue!

The next day we read about the Israelites leaving Egypt and how God lead them with a cloud during the day and a pillar of fire at night. We worked on our Number Eight page for our number book. Samuel glued pictures of different kinds of jewelry on the page to represent the things the Israelites were given as they left Egypt.

Samuel also did his Letter G worksheet. He did a great job finding the Letter G's on the page in the different sentences.

The third day we read about God parting the Red Sea so the Israelites could walk across on dry land, and how the Pharoah's army drowned when they tried to follow them. We did an art activity where we put strips of tape down the center of the paper and Samuel painted to whole page to look like the sea. Then, when he was done we pulled up the strips of tape to show the path where the Israelites walked. Samuel thought that was pretty neat.

On the last day, we read about how God provided for the Israelites by giving them manna and quail to eat, and water from a rock to drink. Samuel laid down on the floor and pretended to sleep. When he woke up, there was manna scattered all over the ground. He did a great job picking up the manna. I directed him to pick up different numbers of pieces to put in the basket and he did a good job counting them out. He loved this activity and we did it over and over again.

We are now officially on Christmas break until after the first of the year. We have loved Little Hands so far and can't wait to pick it back up in January. We will have 25 units left and the plan is to do about 3 days of school a week and finish up just before Christmas in 2009.