Christmas With Our Extended Family. How Blessed We Are.

Mummy designated herself to set up a Christmas tree at a local Christmas Tree Festival, to represent the Boy's rugby club. Papa and all the kiddies helped and we came 3rd out of 65!

Monkey Girl represented the District as goalie for the cadets. She saved ALL the penalties in the semi final and they made it to the final. Good girl :) 

The girls represented their dance school in a tap dance performance.

And finally we got to chill.

Painting some furniture in preparation for Nanny's house move.

Cute Christmas Fayre craft!

The Boy won a coconut on the coconut shy. He ate half and hung half out for the birds.

Dark winter evenings are for running a pen shop.

Family movie night

Last match of the year

And The Boy won himself Player of the Week

Knocking down the barn for Nanny's extension

Star Wars! 

Mess Dinner

Christmas Assault Course

Look what arrived in the post for The Boy!

Table tennis fun

Almost Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve!

I love my children. Happy Christmas. x

Uncle A and Aunty L surprised us for Christmas - all the way from USA!

Ballet Girl realised she is the same height as Nanny and Aunty R!

Christmas dinner for 14 children...

...and 16 adults.

Mine!

Wishing all my blog readers a Happy and Blessed 2016. 

x

Panda Girl has a Birthday!

Panda Girl is a whole year older. She's so cute and sweet and smiley and kind and so bonkers about Pandas - and we love her :)

We went our for a Birthday slice of cake and Batman joined us.

And Panda Girl had a craft-ful Birthday Party with her friends.

They made ginger bread people

And Christmas cards

And Christingles

And baubles.

The Classical Revival in Art

In previous years we have used the beautiful season of Advent to finish the term with different Christmas themed units. Last year our unit was based on natural Christmas decorations and the previous year we looked at the symbols of Advent.

This year we studied nativity scenes in Renaissance Art. In my history degree I am quickly discovering that I have a love for art history, so sharing this enjoyment was the motivation behind the unit.

We started the whole project with the Advent Wreath.

The children designed their candles, representing hope, peace, love and joy.

Botticelli's halos. Botticelli's halo are particularly ornate and look like a fine wire mesh. We looked at some of his work and attempted to replicate his designs.

Raphael's cherubs in his painting, The Sistine Madonna, are now famous in their own right. The kiddies have spotted them all over the place (Christmas cards, magnets, mugs). We made some simple Christmas cherubs while we talked about his work.

Leonardo da Vinci's fingers. Leonardo da Vinci paints pointing fingers in lots of his paintings. We discovered that it is REALLY HARD to draw fingers!!

Michelangelo's faces. Michelangelo painted 300 faces in the Sistine Chapel and not one of them is the same. We marveled at this incredible feat and used a YouTube video to learn how to draw faces with the correct dimensions.

Titian and his tutor, Giovanni Bellini, worked together on some paintings. We discussed how, for art historians, it must be a hard task differentiating between two similar artists.

With this in mind the children designed some pictures on wooden blocks (Titian painted on wood), passed the block to a fellow sibling who added more designs, and then the third sibling had to decipher whose work was whose. 

As an apprentice in Bellini's workshop, Titian would have made his own paints. We spent two weeks dropping vinegar onto a copper penny which was also exposed to air, to make copper oxide. This was how Titian would have made blue. It worked a treat and was a cool experiment.

Christmas wreaths by Ballet Girl and Monkey Girl, courtesy of our lovely farmer friend, with whom they spent a happy afternoon.

Mince pies, Paul Hollywood style 

Christmas ready :)