I Can't Believe it's Friday Quick Takes!

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I can't believe it's Friday and not Saturday!  I guess I'm pretty prepared for Christmas (because I decided to bag the whole idea of trying to educate my children on Monday and Tuesday!), so I've been off by a day or two all week.

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The boys need haircuts for Christmas, so I'm giving Katie tonsorial lessons.  The boys are definitely not thrilled with that.  And one of them is not especially thrilled with the tablespoonful of coconut oil that I massaged in to get rid of dandruff!  So, he looks all gelled up for a couple of hours; it will be worth it once we comb out all the crud.  And for all you slack-jawed, grossed out readers out there----it really does work, and keeps it at bay for months!

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Presents are mostly wrapped since I started wrapping last weekend (or was it the one before?) and have been wrapping as they come in the house.  The first weekend, I took an idea I saw on Pinterest and whipped up some fabric bags for ease of wrapping and reusability.  I just used all the Christmas-y fabric I had in my stash and tied the bags shut with ribbons.  I've been thinking about how much more I would enjoy present opening if we were not surrounded by noisy, crinkly, paper trash.  I'll have to get some Christmas remnants to make some more bags for next year.

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I think I've been to Costco too many times.  That place is C.R.A.Z.Y at Christmas!  Yesterday, I had to get my turkey there because Trader Joe's doesn't sell turkeys at Christmas, only Thanksgiving.  Did you know that???  I had to go again today to pick up some photographs and traffic was ridiculous.  But I guess that goes without saying.  Anywhere there is shopping to be had is going to be a place with bad traffic!

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I think I have the cleanest Christmas tree skirt in town.  Gus has decided that the Christmas tree is the tree to use when he has to go!  I think I've washed the skirt 5 or 6 times.  I wanted to put the presents under the tree thinking that he might think twice about going under there since it's so crowded.  But the kids discouraged me.  They're probably right:  he would either pee on the gifts or eat them.

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We're psyched for some holiday-themed trivia tonight at Starbucks.  It'll be fun with Katie and Brendan along, though Pete has better things to do.  The younger kids get a special treat at Subway since their team won the kid's trivia last week.  We're kind of geeky here anyway, but it's fun to just hang out with the kids and our friends having coffee and testing our knowledge.

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Speaking of geeky....have you heard of Khan Academy?  It's been around for a few years, and I've used it a little when older kids have had difficult math or science questions, but I recently saw a TED talk with the founder, and he was explaining how they've got new people on board and many more subjects.  There's even a flow chart that keeps track of your progress and recommends which videos or exercises to do next!  Tom is spending his entire Christmas break studying on Khan Academy and becoming "proficient" in quite a few categories!!

I think anyone with a computer and internet can get an excellent high school education just by using Khan Academy.  They're even working  on getting all the problems from Singapore math online.  They're not quite up to 4th grade, where we are, but I'm hoping!  There are lots of other lessons I can have Meg work on to improve her skills while we wait.  

I told you we're geeky here---playing on Khan Academy over Christmas break and thinking about what we're doing for school in two weeks!  

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Counting down to Christmas!  We're so excited to celebrate the birth of our Savior!