Happy New Year, 2012

The holiday crazies have now passed us.  While I love the holidays, even the crazies, I love the calm after the storm...and the re-energized activities that find their way into our lives again. 
We have spent the past couple of weeks doing a lot at home.  We took New Year's weekend and rearranged a lot of furniture and created more usable space.  It was a great way to start off the year. 
We swapped out old activities for new ones.  The boys were taking some nature classes.  They have ceased their desire to take those classes and opted for something more active - karate.  We'll be doing a lot of nature based activities in Cub Scouts, yes, you heard it right...Cub Scouts.  I've started our own homeschool Cub Scout pack.  This ought to be fun!
We finally found an economically right karate studio for the boys.  Incidentally, it has a homeschool class smack dab in the middle of the day - not at dinner time.  Their previous instructor was really calm and the class was subdued.  This new guy...holy cannoli...he's loud and forceful.  The boys love it. 

"Mom, I need my face painted like a ninja so at karate everyone will know i'm a ninja."

We've started swimming at the local center again.  Yesterday was our first invasion.  Between seven and eight homeschool families showed up for this family time swim.  I had to giggle a bit.  The lifeguard sure hadn't planned on a busy morning!  She had to call in another lifeguard and did this with a look of horror on her face.  I felt a little bad for the moms with their under-one-year-old babies, though.  They sure weren't expecting a bunch of older kids jumping into the pool! 
While I'm not enjoying the cold, I am enjoying the new opportunities that it brings every year!