I'm keeping it simple and making chili in a big pot or hamburgers and fries (both are winners with my kids which is a plus)!

Planning a little for Jan and beyond this week. I created folders at the beginning of the year for each month and I put all of my kids school work, drawings, projects, and anything else they do. Today, I noticed we didn't do as much in Dec as compared to other months but we had a couple of weeks of the flu and Christmas festivities took up time as well. I was pleasently surprised how much we had completed in Nov. As far as Jan. My kids decided to take this week off from schooling and start back up Monday instead I am going to focus on getting everything in order at least for the 4 main subjects Math, L.Arts, Science, History. I have Math pretty much planned out using Simply Charlotte Mason's business math series for Middle School for my older 2. It's easy and they have enjoyed setting up their businesses. My daughter has decided to open a pet shop and my son went with a book store. I got them huge calculators to do their inventory with and so far it's been a huge hit ( we did a little last week ). I highly recommend it. I am using it as a sortof bridge between elementary Math concepts and Pre-Algebra. I have also schuduled time to test their math skills using a placement test. I am debating doing LifePacs which we are currently using this year for Lang. Arts or doing Teaching Textbooks. LifePacs for Lang. Arts is rather simply, I aim for 45 mins a day 5 days a week, at the end of the week I look back and make sure we are avg. about 5 pages a day that allows us to finish up the books by April/May and start again in July/Aug as we school year around. I picked up the Hobbit and Vertias Press companion guide. I have looked through it and would like to add some cooking/to go along with it. Ideally before it comes out on DVD in the late Spring/Summer (hopefully)! I have to plan my son to start reading Hunger Games and do some sort of comparison with the movie (which he has already seen, I know backwards :p My daughter is finishing the book this week and really enjoyed it, even read it during her free-time I think she wants to do something cooking related with it and I hope to get her to at least discuss the differences from the book/movie, of course I have to read it which I am only on chapter 4 and will be the last person to read it in my clan. My daughter has asked to read Match which my husband and I enjoyed so I am thinking am still debating what sortof things I can have her do with it, she loves to design clothes so I was thinking of having her design the dresses or something with fashion. Not sure, something fun and engaging. Science and History are up in the air. The kids want to keep pluging along with a Mythology study. We started early Dec reading Norse Myths I think we may keep it up and then go on to Greek. For Science, I am debating what to do as we have done a lot int he last 6 months and my son needs to do more work in his LifePacs so I am probably going to have him do some nonfiction reading of interest in science and have him spend more time on his Lang. Arts to catch up. My daughter really wants to start on highschool but we've never been big on formal science so I am thinking of starting her on 7th grade which would give my son time to do extra work each day. Planning field trips is also on my list at least having a handy list of homeschool days and placing them on the calendar for the Jan-May if at all possible. For my little guy we are using Abeka Preschool, no pressure just fun, loves the coloring-type pages and simple crafts. He is about 1/2 through 1 book so I am going to the Live Meeting in our area at the end of the month. If you use Abeka and go to the meeting you can save $ depending on what you purchase/buy and you get free shipping no matter how much you spend or don't spend which I love.

We love their cereal w/almond milk. It's a great source of fiber for dh/me. I have tried the pasta sauce in the past and it's ok, sort of plain (more of a base) we always add more spices like garlic, sea salt, ect. The frozen pizza is ok, just plain. Haven't tried anything else...

I can relate. I use to have tons of guilty and pressure for Christmas but a few years ago a few things happened with extended family on my DH side (things got out of hand) and on my side there was always pressure, the constant asking to travel 1000+miles to see Grandparents, even though I was upfront due to running a small business that tends to be busy during the hoildays we are not coming up. I still get the pressure, letters, phone calls, emails, etc. It's not like they ask 1 time and accept my answer or even just leave it open that we are welcome to come up if we want to, it's a constant marketing and guilt-trip. I gave in many years allowing my mother and sometimes my sister who was in college at the time to visit but in the end all those visits only added more to the stress of the holidays. We do holidays for our kids, if it was just DH and me we've do very little besides putting up a small tree and riding around looking for lights enjoying starbucks. We tend to do give each other a few small things like under $20 each and if we do want something big we go get it ahead of time and buy it and use it and then remind our kids that is what we got for Christmas. We also allow our kids to pick their own "BIG" gift. Some family members think it's crazy but DH never wants our kids to wake up on Christmas and not get what that want. We have a $ limit it varies depending on the year but it tends to be around $100 sometimes over like for my daughter who got an AG girl this year we opted for the the acc. kit too. We have tub full of together gifts like games, books, and a few movies and a bag or so of individual things like a barbie dress for my daughter, a book my son really wants, etc. We try and make the 1 tub fit all the extra gifts and then each kid gets their BIG gift(s). This makes it fun and stress free and yet we don't get dragged into the crazyness. If we have to much we save it for their b-day or even give it on a rainyday for fun. We also have given for years to other extended family but haven't for the past 2 with over 30+ people to give to it's too much and it's difficult to keep up with everyone moving around for jobs/kids. We give to the Grandparents something meaningful and hopefully something handmade by the kids with a picture or 2. We have gone to small box (family gift) with a puzzle or game and a few snacks for my aunt and my sister who is getting married. We don't want to buy for each person anyone so the family gift is nice. I realized this year I ended up spending more then I wanted, but I do want to reduce that next year by shopping on the sales. We don't always get a gift back from some of the family members but I don't see a good way to not give and my aunt does say she enjoys the package we send each year and it's something they look forward too, so just knowing they are happy and we've made them have a good day is worth it. Other then that we try and give something to his brother/wife that has taken on the task of allowing DH mother to live in his basement full time and has for the past 5+years. They have no kids and alot of time get our kids lovely things so we like to give back to them. My DH other brother and sister we tend to not do anything with due to strained relations and weirdness with their kids/grandkids. If we are given something we do give something small back, it's just proper to me. DH realize that with limited family around the hoildays we could be setting ourselves up for it when our kids get older and have relationships/their own families so we have an on-going thing we do each year locally we go to a light drive/festival and get snacks and have said that is all we want when we are older, anytime after Thanksgiving - Christmas we want to keep up the family tradition (if at all possible) with our kids, any weekend they want. I don't want my kids to have the pressure like I grew up with and still get from time to time. I love the hoildays too but wish the people could just respect our choices and what the hoildays are too us.