The past few months have been busy for the Sinsley gang with school related activities. To name a few:

Barb is back teaching Kindergarten. She has a full house with 24 kids in the morning and 23 in the afternoon.  The morning class has 16 boys and 8 girls. The afternoon class has 3 special needs kids so Barb is kept very busy. She is also taking two classes. She is a member of a team that is training for a new special ed program the school is implementing and taking an advanced web class to improve her skills as the school's web master.  She has a group of young web masters this year that are helping too. She continues to love her job, but will plan to retire in two years.

Jim is volunteering two days a week at Barb's school. He is a reading mentor for two 3rd grade students in the morning and helps in Barb's class in the afternoon. 

Sheyenne started kindergarten this year and loves school. In the city where they live they have a kinder center and all the kindergarten students are housed in one school. After the first of the year Devon will be helping in her classroom on his day off.

The Black kids are busy too!  Maddie is in Drama and loves it. Sara made the cheerleading team. However, right after making the team, she broke her foot in PE playing basketball and therefore is not able to cheer except from the sidelines. James is doing so well with his Reading,he no longer needs extra resource help. 

Ariel is home schooling Micah. He misses his friends but seems to like being home and working at his own pace. He will begin a new unit about Idaho history and the family hopes to plan a summer vacation following the Oregon Trail as a follow up to his studies.

Prairie Dog 4-H Club

The Prairie Dogs have been busy with monthly meetings and planning ahead for summer projects. No new animals or babies at this time but they did add three new families. The little group as grown from two to ten families in just one year. 

Decorating Again!

Barb has Jim working again! They are finally getting around to decorating the bathrooms and bedrooms. They started on the guest bath and finished it just in time for a Christmas party. Nothing like having guests over to finish a project. It is very different and unique to say the least. (see pics). Next project is the guest bedroom. Of course Jim had to buy a new saw to do the work and Barb a new sewing machine.

Check out the pictures of Sheyenne's Dance recital. It was too cute for words!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving brought 22 people to the older Sinsleys house for dinner.  Jim and Barb moved the furniture out of the living room to make room for tables. All the kids were home and some brought guests. One of our guests was a Japanese friend of Cory's and it was his first Thanksgiving in America. I'm not sure how he felt after spending a day with our noisy mob. Barb cooked a 23 pound turkey and we ate the entire thing. She had to cook a second one on Sunday so they could have leftovers for turkey sandwiches. After dinner we had a fun time looking at old family movies taken when the kids were little. The Grandkids enjoyed seeing their Moms and Dad when they were kids and Papa and Grandma when they were young and skinny. (see family pics)

Christmas

Christmas Eve was a repeat of Thanksgiving. All the gang came to the older Sinsley's for a buffet dinner and to open gifts. This time our guests were Dustin's girlfriend, a Chinese friend of Cory's and of course Glenda who is Curtiss' mom and more a regular member of the family than a guest. We played our usual stealing present game with the adults which is always fun. It is especially fun to watch Sharon as she hates for someone to steal her gift. (see family pics)

Christmas Day found each family at home or visiting other relatives.  Blacks and older Sinsleys had dinner at the Blacks home. Gardner cooked a turkey on his barbeque and was it ever good! Younger Sinsleys went to Darcy's parents for dinner and the Gimlins had close friends for dinner at their home. 

Even though we all were busy, we each in our own way, took time to reflect on the reason for the season, Christ's Birthday.

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Winter weather report:  No Snow for Christmas, but we finally got a few inches of very wet snow the weekend after Christmas. It has been great for our commuters but sad to see ugly gray sky and brown lawns.

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One kind word can warm three winter months.
~   Japanese proverb ~

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Original Country Clipart by Lisa