The first week of Advent draws to a close with Ladybug having built bags 12 & 13 of Lego Rivendell. I’m having a hard time envisioning what this base is going to become, but she definitely started on something new!
She also added Gloin to our cast of characters:
Week two begins tomorrow!
Today was a rare single bag day for Lego Rivendell…Moose completed bag 11 and added a spire on top of the tower Ladybug started yesterday…it looks really cool!
Today Ladybug continued the build of Lego Rivendell with bags nine and ten:
Isn’t the tile pattern on the roof pretty? And she did such a nice job of keeping the squares perfectly aligned!
She also added some window details to Bilbo’s room, and a nice tower:
We’re already about a fifth of the way done with the set…Advent always moves quickly!
Today Bunny continued the upward build of Lego Rivendell with bags seven and eight:
And also added some cool details, including arches, green decorative elements by the painting Moose added yesterday, and a cozy nook with a desk with Bilbo’s book:
And also Bilbo himself!
We can’t believe how pretty the set already looks after only four days!
Today Moose built bags five and six of Lego Rivendell, and he already got started on the second floor!
There are some really great details in this section:
The walls are already going up at Rivendell, and Chickadee also got to add some cool plant elements from the two bags she built:
She also added another member of the Fellowship, faithful Sam:
It’s fun that you can already see a small part of the structure taking shape!
Happy Advent!
After taking a break from building a big Lego set during Advent last year to build a chess set, we’re back with a very special set (and what might honestly be our last really extravagant Advent project)…Lego Rivendell! Turkey took care of the first two bags today, beginning the base of the structure:
And Frodo and the ring, of course!
The Fab Five have really been into The Lord of the Rings during the second half of this year, trading the worn copies of the books we have and impatiently waiting for the volume they’re ready to read to be finished by whoever currently has it, and watching the movies on repeat. I’ve thought Rivendell is the most visually beautiful set Lego has ever made since it first came out, but the steep cost had prevented me from adding it to our extensive Lego collection. I finally figured out a way to make it work, and I’m really excited that the Fab Five get to build this set, because it’s one they have all had their eyes on, too. The bag numbering system works out almost perfectly…this year there are 25 days in Advent, and there are 49 bags in the set, which means that other than one day, they’ll build exactly two bags each day during the season. I’m really looking forward to seeing how it comes together (and trying to figure out where it’s going to go when it’s complete, because it’s a BIG set!).
Today we kicked off the 2025-26 school year, with Chickadee in the eighth grade!!
Every year before the first day, I get my American Girl dolls, who have pride of place on on a bookshelf in our schoolroom, dressed in their school outfits:
And organize the schoolroom as best as I can:
The first order of business was also my favorite back-to-school tradition…Schultüte. It was weird only making one this year!!!
We didn’t start every subject today, but we did accomplish some traditional schoolwork.
And of course Chickadee built a Lego set…she finished the Lego botanical four seasons collection we started on the last day of last school year with the Lucky Bamboo:
I made a special treat for dessert, too. Chickadee and I are having a little book club this year, and we’re reading through the Harry Potter series. She’s reading our original, American books, but I’m reading the British versions that I received as a gift years ago. Right off the bat, I noticed that they mentioned a dessert of “Knickerbocker Glory” in mine, but not in Chickadee’s, which only had mention of chocolate ice cream. So we looked it up, and discovered that the layered dish of vanilla ice cream, strawberry sauce and chopped strawberries, and whipped cream is easy to make, and we did!
This is going to be a very different school year for me, with only one student at home, but I’m looking forward to every new moment!
You’ve already seen Ladybug’s graduation photos, but I waited until today for the final wrap-up of the 2024-25 school year because I had one more very special outing planned for Ladybug:
The rest of the week was just finishing everything up…Ladybug was ecstatic to be done with Jane Eyre and her term paper, plus she finished American Nations and our mad dash through poetry. Chickadee also finished her final paper and history project, plus wrapped up pre-algebra, and now I never have to teach it again!
We also did a few of our favorite things one last time…took a really long walk, visited the library, and played tennis.
And our favorite last-day-of-school activity…building some new Lego sets! We went with a floral theme this time…they’ll make excellent decorations for our school room (or any other place in the house that needs a bit of brightening), and there’s a fourth piece in the set that Chickadee will build on the first day of her eighth grade year!
That’s a wrap on my 17th year of homeschooling…up next, my first year ever with only one student in my school!
It’s Graduation Day!
Ladybug has successfully completed high school…and the entirety of K-12 in my little homeschool!
We had a nice little celebration, including photos and “Pomp and Circumstance.”
For fun, we built our last-day-of-school Lego sets…three of the seasons available in the Botanical collection…they’re absolutely beautiful, and used interesting building techniques and pieces!
For her graduation dinner, Ladybug chose some of her favorite recipes from The Ultimate Final Fantasy XIV Online Cookbook…Stuffed Cabbage Rolls, Pixieberry Tea, and Princess Pudding:
Not that I really thought it would, but it doesn’t get easier to say goodbye to students from my classroom at home…I’m going to miss seeing Ladybug at her desk every morning!
