Today

I spotted these pretty glitter heart earrings today and am thinking I will try to make some like them!
It snowed a few inches today.  It's cold and beautiful in this part of Ohio.  I went on a nice walk with Lusy the dog, she just loves the snow!

Olivia just finished reading Eleanor Estes's The Hundred Dresses.   It won a Newbery Honor in 1945 and has never been out of print since.  Wanda Petronski, a Polish girl in Connecticut is ridiculed by her classmates for wearing the same faded blue dress every day.  One of Olivia's final assignments was to write an imaginary letter that Maddie (one of the girls who wasn't very kind to her, but also felt sorry for her) could have written to Wanda.

Hannah had to write an essay comparing how Ebenezer Scrooge felt when meeting the 3 ghosts and how it changed his life, since she just finished reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.  A good wrap up to this week of homeschooling...and as it is the 12th day of Christmas for us Orthodox Christians who follow the old calendar!

Rob is at work right now.  He has a terrible cold.  Runny nose and cough.  Olivia has a bad cough, too...she was up many times last night.  I convinced her to take 10mL of elderberry syrup, along with some apple juice, because other wise it's too tart and sweet (very concentrated).  I hope everyone will be healthy soon.

I got a letter in the mail this week from Joscelyn and was just amazed at her lovely calligraphy.   I found my old box of nibs and got to work with various colours of ink...pretty soon Hannah and Olivia joined me and we sampled writing out words and alphabets in various different ways:

This weekend, we celebrate Christ's baptism!  Water will be 

blessed at church, and then sprinkled around our home.

When Thou was baptized in the Jordan, O Lord, the worship of the Trinity wast made manifest; for the voice of the Father bear witness to Thee, calling Thee His beloved Son. And the Spirit in the form of a dove confirmed the truth of His word. O Christ our God, Who hath appeared and enlightened the world, glory be to Thee.