Library Day
No story time again this week, but we did go to another movie showing! This one was much more manageable: Charlie Brown's Christmas. It's only 30 minutes, and since we own it, they've seen it multiple times already. They love it, though, so they we were pretty excited about seeing it on the big screen. Oh, and the fact that the librarian gave them each their own bag of popcorn with some M&Ms tossed in was also popular.

We were travelling at the end of the week though, so we didn't check out a pile of books this time. Instead they picked out just one from the bin of paperbacks that aren't in the library system (they're actually there so the toddler's can look at books without parents having to worry about the kids tearing them up). They picked out The Donkey Prince, one of Grimm's fairy tales, beautifully illustrated. It's been interesting reading because it's the second time recently that the girls have run across a storyline in which the main character is rejected by society for being different (Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer being the first). This is completely puzzling to them. Why being different would be a bad thing simply doesn't work out in their minds, and I love that. Although I kind of hate that they have to be introduced to the concept through stories that are supposed to be teaching acceptance.

More Cookies!
We made gingerbread cookies this week to take with us on our Christmas travels. Monkey and Bug are experts now with cutting and decorating (I do the scooping and rolling out at this point). They were a little more intentional with the decorating this time, and they are definitely devoloping their own styles: for example, Monkey created a one-eyed pirate gingerbread man (then gleefully made him one-armed as well after he baked), while Zoe carefully placed a single "pearl" on each arm of a snowflake.

Reading/Writing
Reading lessons continue, if sporadically at this season, but the girls are doing well and still enjoy the mix of methods (out of the book, on the white board, or with juice can lids). The newest addition to their learning literacy: emails to Daddy! They knew I wrote to him everyday, but they only recently realized that they could do that too. At this point, they think up what they want to say and ask me how to spell each word, which they hunt-and-peck to type on the computer. In addition to the joy of communicating with Daddy while he's gone (they were SO excited when they each got an email back!), they've also learned about punctuation (I'm sticking to just periods and question marks right now). I haven't started pointing out rules of capitalization yet, but Monkey noticed that the names needed to be capitalized and I showed her how to do that. I am so looking forward to using writing as a means to teach grammar and spelling!

Mother's Helper
Can I just take a moment to say how much I dearly love our current church! When I broke the news to my Sunday school class about Daddy's sudden departure, I got not only an immediate outpouring of sympathy and prayers, but a retired military doc verified that I had his phone and told me not to hesitate to call (he makes house calls for milspouses!) and another couple said their kids were out of school for the holidays already and would I like to borrow their 12-year-old daughter one morning to watch with the girls so I could get Christmas/travel preparations done? Yes, please!

So, Miss C came over Thursday morning, and the girls had a blast. They told me beforehand that they were going to be shy for a little while (perfectly acceptable response to meeting someone new), but it took them all of 5 minutes to decide she was awesome and to dismiss me to my work. Miss C is one smart girl--she arrived bearing fairy coloring sheets and a new set of markers. I also overhead them building elaborate castles out of blocks and reading books. The girls were even willing to give her goodbye hugs! (Meanwhile, I had a highly productive morning and actually got to relax a bit in the evening instead of packing and cleaning like crazy.)

"Over the river and through the woods . . . "
The girls were amazing travellers on Friday. We had no meltdowns, no fighting, and only made two stops in a six hour drive to Nana and Papa Bear's house! They watched some DVDs (part of Tarzan, part of a Muppet Christmas Carol, and all of Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer), they played games on their iPods (and even shared with Goose!), they colored mini activities books I bought for the trip, we talked about the geography we were passing through (through great big cities, over several lakes, up and down a couple of mountains, and past waterfalls and cliffs dripping with icicles--Bug has decided she wants to take up rock climbing when she's big enough). We also listened to CDs of international Christmas carols and a kid's CD featuring the music of New Orleans. A day in the car is never a wasted time!

Bye Daddy
As Bug so poignantly put it, we had to "say a very sad goodbye to Daddy" this past weekend. Monkey and Bug are old enough (and have gone through this enough) to realize what's going on and  process it all a little better this time around. They were sad before he left, but they responded by getting in extra wrestling time and giving him good long hugs at the airport--even Goose gave him a long hug without hesitation (she's hit that stage where she often refuses hugs, especially goodbye ones, so that's a big deal). When we got home, I overheard the girls explaining to their buddies (stuffed animals) about Daddy being gone and Bug put on a Daddy shirt to help her feel better. Daddy keeps coming up in conversation, especially at moments that they wish he was around for: making and eating Christmas cookies, going to see a living nativity, etc. This time though, instead of having "I miss Daddy" meltdowns about it, they tell me I need to make sure to write him a message about it--a much more cheerful way of missing him.

Before he left, we talked about how Daddy would be missing Christmas this year, and I suggested that we buy and fill a mini stocking for him to take with him. It made me happy when the first thing they thought of that he would need to celebrate Christmas was a nativity set (small enough to pack and not breakable, they said. We found an ornament at the Christian bookstore that fit the bill). We also filled it with the requisite chocolate Santas and candy canes.

Christmas Movies & Music
Part of our Advent celebrations that I don't think I've mentioned yet is that we've watched Christmas movies every morning instead of their usual shows during our morning milk and snuggle time (and yes, Mommy has caved and frequently let them watch more than the usual 30 minutes because I love Christmas movies). Their absolute favorite: The Nutcracker, not a kiddie cartoon version but a full length ballet version designed by Maurice Sendak, full of color and drama. We also went to library and checked out a storybook version and a DVD of a televised version from the 60s. They found the 60s version a disappointment since it skipped some of their favorite parts: the moment when Clara rescues the Nutcracker by whacking the Mouse King with her shoe and the part with the Chinese dancers from the Land of Sweets. The Sendak version also had particular attraction for them because one of Drosselmeier's gifts is a toy castle full of miniature dancing automatons (thank you, Hugo Cabret, for inspiring that particular obssession!). We now own a wooden nutcracker, and the girls often request the Nutcracker music, so they dance and pretend to Clara and Drosselmeier.

We also went to the library for a showing of Polar Express. It's the first time the girls have gone to see a movie somewhere, and much as they loved it, it'll be awhile before we go to a real movie theater since I spent the entire hour and a half answering questions. They were also big fans of the hot chocolate and cookies that the librarians provided.

Of course, our house has been full of Christmas music, not just the Nutcracker Suite, but a pretty eclectic collection of other Christmas music. One of Monkey's favorite things lately has been rocking the air drums along with A Twisted Christmas. One of my favorite Christmas music memories from this year though was watching all three girls dance up and down the grocery store aisles singing "Jingle Bells" at the top of their lungs. Monkey and Bug even had real jingle bells strung on their clogs.  

Christmas Cookies!
We baked lots of cookies this year! We made enough rolled out sugar cookies, peppermint snowballs, and M&M cookie bars this week to pass out plates to about a half dozen neighbors plus a big plate for the librarians and, of course, lots of leftovers for us! The girls helped me measure and mix. Monkey and Bug even cracked eggs and manned the handheld mixer on their own (with close supervision, of course). They all pitched in to cut out and decorate the sugar cookies. Those activities actually held their attention longer than I expected because we decorated them with sprinkles before cooking them (I didn't have to deal with icing, and they could switch back and forth between activities). Obviously, beaters and bowls were licked and cookies sampled for quality control purposes. The girls had a great time walking around to pass out cookies and were even brave enough to say Merry Christmas and pass out the plates themselves.

COOKIES!!!

Monkey and Bug hard at work smashing candy canes.

Library Day
No storytime again this week, but we had a great time reading lots of stories. This week we came home with these books:
Let's Say Hi to Friends who Fly!
The Duckling Gets a Cookie
Mother's Day Mice
Mary Veronica's Egg
The Nutcracker
The Night Tree
Babar's ABC

Living Nativity
While running errands one day this week, we spotted a church near us advertising a living nativity. It also happened to be next to a pretty elaborate Christmas lights display. We decided--ok, Bug decided and informed me that we should come back when it was dark. We had a great time. The girls watched the living nativity and listened to the church choir sing carols for a long time while enjoying complimentary hot cocoa and Christmas cookies.

Seeing the living nativity inspired this scene of "Joseph," "Mary," and "Baby Jesus."

Lessons
Confession: with all the Advent festivities, we haven't been doing reading lessons as consistently this week. We worked in a few, and the girls did a great job. Monkey even read a few words all by herself! They've also gotten more adept at memorizing books and then "reading" them to Goose, which she loves.

We haven't done anything resembling formal math lessons in a while, but all the baking involved lots of counting and measuring, and Goose still loves counting anything or nothing. At some point in the car this week Bug even spontaneously counted all the way to 50! She only needed prompting after 19, 29, etc. I think that's a record.

Favorite Conversation of the Week:
Bug: "[Monkey] called me funky! What's 'funky' mean?"
Me: "Um . . . I guess it means you're a little weird."
Bug (racing back to the playroom): "I'm not funky! I'm a LOT weird!"

[Faithful readers, please note: this post covers only through this past Friday. It's just late being posted.]

Happy Advent! 
Our family got to light the first Advent candle at church! Well, we left Goose in the nursery, but the big girls were with Daddy and I (toddler + flames + microphone + large crowd = almost guaranteed disaster). Monkey and Bug did beautifully. I was very proud of them for not freaking out despite being in front of a couple hundred people. It helped that we did a lot of talking about what was going to happen, and we put up all our Christmas decorations, including our own advent wreath the day before.

We also started our advent study, which the girls love. It has a really brief devotion, a prayer, a Bible, and a short activity for each day. The first activity was making a paper chain to count down the days until Christmas, and the girls have been really good about taking turns pulling apart the links and counting how many are left. Now that we've done a week of them the girls have even enjoyed pulling out the book and looking back at the days we've done.

The entourage was very excited about all the Christmas decorations! With a few delicate exceptions, Monkey and Bug put all the ornaments up on our Chrismon tree. This meant of course that the tree was only decorated for the first 3 feet, but the next day they noticed the uneven decorating and pulled up a few stools and rearranged until they were satisfied with the distribution of ornaments. They also helped me find spots for all the nativity scenes (Daddy and I collect them, so the living room currently has 15 made in various sizes, styles, and materials. There are no doubts about the reason for the season in this house!).

Speaking of Christmas decorations, remember the cardboard and fabric "tree" from last week? Well, Daddy and I talked about eventually getting a second "real" tree for the girls to decorate with their handmade ornaments. It turns out "eventually" is this year. We ran out of room on the fabric tree in no time, so Daddy went out and bought the girls an inexpensive tree and a string of colored lights. They were thrilled to decorate yet another tree!

Nana!
Nana arrived on Monday for a coincidentally well-timed visit. (It turns out Daddy departs for another "big trip" this coming weekend, so she got to see him before he leaves, and Daddy and I got a date night that involved Christmas shopping for the entourage.) The girls were very excited about this visit; they've been telling me for weeks that it had been a long time since they'd seen their Nana and Papa Bear! (Papa Bear couldn't come, but he was missed.) The highlight of this visit was going to see Christmas lights--not the ones on random houses, but a 100 acre farm near us that puts up displays made of more than 5 million Christmas lights. They charge admission to take a hayride tour through a life-size nativity scene, scenes of classic fairy tales, moments in history, and Christmassy things like Santa's Workshop made out of lights. The farm also had a Santa's playhouse themed playground that they got to run around on. Their favorite part though--getting to walk into Cinderella's castle made entirely from lights:

RIP Oswald
The morning Nana left, we went upstairs to get dressed and feed Oswald and discovered the poor fish belly up in his bowl. Monkey and Bug were really upset. We've encountered dead frogs and birds, and Nana's dog died a while back, but this is the first time something/one they really cared about died. Planning his "funeral" definitely helped. They picked out tissue paper to wrap him in and chose the spot to bury him (somewhere the sun reaches). They even pulled out trowels to help dig a little grave beside the house and found a good flat stone for a grave marker. Bug commented that she thought he would like it when it rained because then he'd have water underground. Goose had been raptly watching all this, and once we patted down the dirt and placed the stone on top, she cheerfully announced, "All gone Oswald!" That pulled grins out of her big sisters. Monkey and Bug wanted to "sit with Oswald" for a little while when we were done, so Goose and I went around the corner to give them a moment.

Goose is 2! (almost)
Daddy's going to miss some major events while on his big trip, and we realized the one thing we could easily celebrate early was Goose's birthday. Since she's still oblivious and it's right before Christmas we were just doing a family birthday celebration anyway. We made her a chocolate cake, and she got to open presents. Like her big sisters she freaked out a little about the sing Happy Birthday and blow out candles part, but she loves her new toys! (Sadly, I wasn't with it enough to remember to take photos.)

Reading
The girls continue to do very well with their reading lessons. Bug got to read several complete sentences this week (in addition to all the usual tasks) and added the sound "th." This is a very difficult sound for her to make (it comes out as an "f" when she talks), so being able to read it with correct pronunciation was a huge triumph. Monkey also added a new sound this week, "d," and she's requested a combination of white board and juice lid activities for her lessons (keeping up the variety is going to be key in this kid's education!). Monkey and Bug even requested that I make a set of juice lid letters for Goose, since she keeps requesting her own reading lessons.

Bug has also started writing much more recently. She occasionally pulls out paper and practices all the letters she can think of at the moment, or she ask me how to spell things (mostly family members names). It's interesting: she can write letters that I've never actually showed her how to. I don't know how her technique is, but her finished product is definitely improving!


Quotes

• Bug [munching on apple peelings]: "We're your vacuum cleaners because we clean up the mess you make in the kitchen. You have some cute vacuum cleaners!"
• Monkey has been experimenting with interjections lately. Among her favorites: "Oh jets!" and "Blasted rats!"
• Benefits of not talking down to your preschoolers: Having your almost 2-year-old ask, "My beverage?" about a questionable sippy cup or having one of your 4-year-olds say, "Well, acquire some!" after you inform her that we do not own any markers.

The closest we'll get to a full family Christmas photo this year.
Aren't we a cute bunch?

Goose Counts!
I've done very little to attempt to formally teach Goose to count. In fact, I'd only worked on the concept of 1, 2, 3. Then sometime in the car this week, Goose suddenly started counting and got up to 9! (Well, she skipped 6, but that was her only mistake!) It turns out Monkey and Bug had decided to take on that responsibility themselves and by the end of the week Goose was counting up to eleven (over and over and over). If they keep this up, I may never have to sit down and actually teach Goose anything! (They've also been trying to teach her read but more on that below!)

Reading
I decided we needed something to add a little more variety to reading lessons (sometimes we do them straight from the book, sometimes I write them out on their white boards). This week I took a bunch of the frozen juice lids I've been hoarding and made them each a set of letters they've done in their lessons and a set of word endings (at, am, eat, etc.) to share. This turned out to be a great idea. Not only have they enjoyed doing their regular lessons by moving these around, but they have loved making "silly words"--stringing together letters and syllables and getting me to help them sound it out. They've also started using the lids to attempt to teach Goose how to read. They use the lids like flashcards and hold one up and get her to repeat the letter sound. She loves it!

I also realized this week that some of their dragging through lessons is probably boredom with the repetitive sections rather than actual struggles with the concepts--particularly for Bug. A couple of times this week Bug asked to skip the "practice sounding out" section (which she deemed silly and boring almost from day 1) and go straight to reading a list of half a dozen words and a sentence all by herself. She zipped through it like a pro! Until this week I'd been making her plod through all the sections with me, but since she so obviously grasps the concept of sounding out, it looks like I can give her a pass on those. Monkey isn't reading words by herself yet, but she's really improved on the rhyming games, so she's getting closer. One of these days she'll probably pull a typical move and just take off without warning like she's been doing it forever!

Bug has been looking at the word books again lately. Of course, when the girls were toddlers they loved them for vocabulary building purposes, but now she looks at them to see how the words for different things are spelled. I haven't bothered testing her, but I imagine she's learning a number of sight words that way.

Preparations for Advent!

The anticipation is building, and the girls have been counting down the days until Advent when we get to put up all the decorations and start our Advent study. Of course, the rest of the world doesn't wait for Advent, so the entourage has already been coming home with fun handmade ornaments. Our big tree is a Chrismon tree instead of a typical Christmas tree, so we had to find a different home for those cute decorations. This year I had the girls come with me to the fabric store and pick out fabric that looked like a tree. We brought it home, wrapped it around a big cardboard triangle, and I added loops of ribbon to hang things from. The girls love having their own "pretend tree" upstairs.

We started our Christmas shopping this week. The girls helped me find gifts for my family's gift exchange, and they are very excited about the stocking stuffers they picked out. (So no, the entourage doesn't believe in Santa Claus, but they are really stoked about being sneaky like St. Nicholas was and putting secret presents in the stockings when nobody's looking--my family's tradition.)

This week the girls and I also went shopping for Christmas dresses! This was the first year that I didn't even attempt to coordinate dresses, and I'm so glad I didn't have my heart set on matching little girls. Monkey and Bug's dresses actually clash, but each girl got a dress that made her eyes light up--even better! Before we set out I told the girls the dresses had to cost less than a certain amount and be machine washable. Bug spotted her dream dress almost as soon as we walked into the first store: red velvet with white faux fur edging. A quick glance at the price tag revealed that a life lesson would have to be learned very quickly. Bug took the news far more gracefully than I expected, and I told her that we'd be visiting several more stores that might have the same dress for the right price. We talked about the dress and about what she really liked about it. She told me after an unsuccessful next stop that while she really liked that dress, she "might have to get a different one and just deal with it." This mom's prayers were answered when the last store on my list had the right dress for the right price! Finding Monkey's dress wasn't nearly as heartwrenching. After perusing the first store's offerings, Monkey decided she wanted one with roses like several of the dresses there, but she wasn't really excited about any of those particular ones. The next stop however had the dress: a pink tiered, sleeveless number sprinkled with sequins and featuring three roses at its empire waistline. I assumed I would be picking Goose's dress since she was just running around the racks seemingly without paying much attention to the dresses. Suddenly, I hear her yell "Mine!" and look up to see her clutching a sparkly silver dress with big black polka dots. Everyone came home very happy, and since our family's been asked to light the first Advent candle at church this coming Sunday, the entourage has a special occasion to pull out those dresses. (Pictures will hopefully be coming in my next week's post.)

Library Day
The storytime "Christmas" theme this week was "Naughty or Nice," but I'm pretty sure all the books she read were about naughty kids--redeemed at the end and always loved by their mommies, of course. For this week's craft they made Christmas tree ornaments from triangles of patterned cardstock and popsicle sticks with sparkly pom poms at the top for stars. The girls loved this craft and happily made one for home and one for the library's tree. We came home with these books:
There's a Bird on Your Head!
Is Your Buffalo Ready for Kindergarten
Dora Goes to School (Monkey and Bug have lately been very curious about school and very relieved that they don't have to go.)
The Christmas Bird
When Africa Was Home
Dogs
Farms (The previous two are Eyewitness books that Goose picked out, full of lots of great photographs. The girls have been particularly interested in Farm, which is mostly about the history of farming from Stone Age humans poking in the dirt with a stick and catching wild sheep to modern farmers with full-size tractors and milking machines.)
Aircraft (their "what do you want to learn about?" book. Monkey's favorites: the flying boat and the stealth fighter jet. We've also been making lots of paper airplanes this week and revisiting the subject of aerodynamics.)

A Sample of Questions I've Been Asked This Week:
How do spiders build their webs?
Why do bugs die?
How do space ships get to space?
How do submarines move?
How do clouds stay up there?
How big is God? And what does He look like?
What's a spirit? (When I attempted to answer this one and confessed I didn't really understand it either, the girls were quiet for a minute, then Bug offered, "Maybe we'll understand it when we get to heaven.")
How does God get us to heaven?
Will we be able to walk there?
Jesus is God, right?
Can God do everything people can't do?
Do animals worship God, too?

We bought a new winter hat for Goose this week (her pick). Just too cute not to share!

Library Day
We skipped storytime at the library this week in favor of having our own time with fewer kids running around  (well, really Mommy wanted to clean on Wednesday before family arrived, so we went on Tuesday). We had a lovely time sitting in the beanbag chairs reading with just the entourage, and spent lots of time looking for books. Our "what do you want learn about this week?" was a little more involved than usual. Monkey wanted a book about ice cream. The kids section didn't have any, so she helped me track down the Dewey decimal number in the adult section. However, the one recipe book we found didn't meet her criteria (no pictures). Bug also had a little trouble with her topic of choice; we couldn't find a book specifically about Christmas trees, but from the holiday section she found a great book that talks about Christmas traditions from around the world. Goose also decided that we absolutely had to bring home The Dangerous Book for Girls. I don't know where she found it, but she spent most of our library visit clutching that massive book to her chest (I suspect it had to do with the sparkly cover). The girls are a bit too young for the book yet, so they didn't spend much time with it, but we did determine that's it's a book we'll need to buy someday, so we can keep it.
We came home with these books this week:
The First Thanksgiving
The Invisible Mistake Case
Christopher Counting
Jack in a Box
We're Going on a Bear Hunt
The Alphabet Tree
Arthur's Teacher Moves In
The Best Picnic Ever
The Dangerous Book for Girls
Christmas around the World

Visitors!
It was a visitor filled week for the entourage! Last weekend Aunt A and her boyfriend, Mr. M, came to visit, and the girls had a great time with these grown ups who had nothing better to do than read books, build with blocks, help with puzzles, etc. Aunt A and Mr. M had to leave Sunday, but Aunt A was back on Tuesday to be here when Mommy's family gathered at our house for Thanksgiving. Grandma, Granddad, and Uncle N arrived Wednesday night, so the entourage had even more playmates to choose from! I think some of the highlights were wrestling with Granddad and sitting on the couch with Grandma to read from her anthology of 20th century classic kid's stories.

Happy Thanksgiving!
The girls have been preparing for Thanksgiving by checking out books from the library about the first Thanksgiving, talking about what it means to be thankful, and what we were thankful for. The girls don't have a great understanding of time in terms of how long ago the first Thanksgiving happened, but they were very excited about hosting our own feast! They all helped with the baking on Wednesday (lots of measuring and dumping, counting scoops, and smelling spices), although we sent them to the park with Granddad and Uncle N while we were cooking Thursday morning. As expected, plenty of delicious food was consumed; though I think the cranberry ice was probably their favorite.

Thanksgiving with Mommy's family involves a traditional after-the-feast walk in the woods. This year we delayed the walk until Friday morning and went to a local nature park with a stroller friendly trail. At some point though we left the stroller behind in order to explore a narrower trail; we admired some huge leaves, talked about how leaves decompose and turn into dirt, and finally laid eyes on the creek the park is named for. Goose did a particularly impressive job walking the whole way while holding Aunt A's or Grandma's hand.

A Hop, Skip, and Jump
The entourage has been actively working on some gross motor skills lately. Monkey and Bug are learning how to skip. After a brief demonstration Monkey took off with aplomb, but it's a little more challenging for Bug. She decided that she needed to get steadier on hopping on one foot first, so she's been practicing that. Goose has been doing a lot of hopping herself (with two feet at this point), and practicing jumping off of things (like Daddy's back when he's lying on the floor). Monkey and Bug have also been trying to teach Goose how to climb in and out of her crib (she hasn't succeeded yet, but I'm expecting that to happen any day now).

Advent Comes Early
I've always been firm about the household Christmas season beginning with the first Sunday in Advent: we break out the Christmas music after church and put all the decorations up in one afternoon. This year, however, I broke down and decided it was worth it to pull out a few things early, so the entourage has a better understanding of what Christmas really is. We can't go anywhere without seeing signs of commercial Christmas with its focus on Santa, presents, and desserts. Santa seemed particularly confusing, and Bug wanted reassurances that he was "just in stories, right?" We also marveled that the couple of Christmas books they found at the library last week completely failed to mention Jesus (who has a party and forgets about the birthday boy, right?!) So this week we dug into our storage boxes and pulled out our Christmas books (a handful of nativity books and a St. Nicholas storybook), a Veggie Tales nativity set, and our iTunes Christmas library. We also visited the local Christian bookstore to purchase a kid's Advent study that we're all very excited about. The holiday season is a little more balanced now.

Project
Inspired by all the Christmas preparations, Bug decided she wanted to do a Christmas project and flipped through our craft books until she found the inspiration for these wreaths.

Playground
It's been awhile since the entourage got to play at our favorite playground, so one morning this week we got out the door early enough to fit in some playground time after running a few errands.

Hooray for fall leaves!
(They've been disappointed that our little maple sapling didn't produce enough leaves to play in,
so they were thrilled with all the leaves falling at the park!)

Haircut!
Goose finally had enough hair to warrant a first haircut! Sadly, I failed to take any photos of the actual event, but she was a very brave girl! She was obviously nervous about it, but she didn't actually cry until they broke out the hair dryer.

Reading
Reading lessons continue, but it was definitely a week of "slow and steady wins the race"! Monkey is slowly improving her sounding out and rhyming skills, and I let her add a new sound before the curriculum introduced it. Bug added two new sounds this week (d, i) and is sounding out three and four letter words all by herself. She's even dealing with the concept of silent letters (the English language is so confusing!). Both girls had some tough lessons to get through this week, so we reviewed a couple several times before moving on. Bug has also been actively memorizing more picture books and reading them to her sisters after bedtime.

Games
Monkey and Bug watched me assembling a deck of Magic cards and suddenly remembered that they hadn't played in a while, which means of course that this week involved a lot of Magic games. Bug even developed a more sophisticated strategy. She realized that it's really fun to have a long line of winning cards and that she can increase her odds of having that if she plays her highest card, so every round now involves Bug eyeballing her hand and picking out the biggest one, then adding up the numbers and comparing it to the cards Monkey and I have thrown down. Monkey, like me, doesn't care much about whether or not she's winning or losing. We have fun admiring the artwork on the cards and talking about what all the creatures are supposed to be. Both girls are improving their math skills, of course. There are even some low number cards that they've realized they don't even need counters to add up.

We also played several rounds of a Peter Rabbit board game. At the moment we play this by taking turns rolling the dice and seeing who can get to the bunny supper at the end first (math skills: recognizing numbers, counting, one-to-one ratio). Important lessons in playing by the rules and good sportsmanship were also learned. Just a note: anyone who's argued against an original sin nature has obviously never witnessed a preschooler who's just grasped the concept of winning attempt to cheat at a simple board game!

While those are the only two games we've really played this week, all three girls pulled out lots of others to play with: building and making patterns with UnoStacko blocks, sorting and mimicking the motions on a set of Eric Carle animal cards, fishing with a magnetic pole and fish, identifying the objects on Memory game cards, and lining up and identifying the letters on Scrabble tiles. So much fun!

Germs
All three girls got nasty colds this week, and poor Monkey even spiked a fever for 24 hours. The health and science lessons learned here were, of course, all about germs, how they spread, what we can do to keep that from happening, and what we can do to help our bodies get better and keep from getting sick in the first place. As a result we missed several of our usual activities (library storytime, church night supper, the homeschool playgroup, and a visit to the Y).  For some of those days, the girls only had colds, but declared that they just weren't up for playing with friends. They definitely validated the declaration by spending a large part of the time lounging around the living room, listening to lullaby music, and looking at books. We also watched some extra TV: at Monkey's request we saw the VeggieTales The Pirates Who Don't Do Anything and more 1940s episodes of Superman (also a particular favorite of Goose).

Monkey was feeling yucky, but Bug and Goose asked me to pull out the camera, so they could "cheese"!

Daddy Date All Day!
The entourage got to spend almost all day with Daddy on Saturday (Mommy took a day of personal retreat to hike at a local state park--absolutely lovely). Daddy and the entourage headed to a nearby larger city to shop for cleats for Daddy for ultimate frisbee, eat lunch at a restaurant (a big deal in this household), and run around a children's garden. The entourage loved the children's garden! Although Daddy admitted it will probably be prettier if we go back in the spring.

Election Day
The entourage came with me to vote, and I prepped them ahead of time, so I didn't have to try answering all the questions while actually voting. I explained that all the grown ups get to cast a vote to say who they think should be the next leader of America, the person who gets to make the rules. Among the litany of questions:

• Why am I voting for that one? (Because I think he'll make better decisions--I chose not to get into partisan politics.)
• Will the one who doesn't win be sad? (Probably)
• What will he do instead of being President? (I don't know--probably make speeches and write books.)
• Will we get to see them [the candidates]? (No, but we looked at photos later.)
• So, who won? (This immediately after I cast my vote. I explained that everybody has to vote first.)
• Will we go somewhere later to find out who won? (No, we'll just look it up online. This was met with disappointment. Bug thought there should be a party.)

When we got home they were still trying to sort out how this whole voting thing worked, so I held a mock election: An Animaniac figure and a fairy doll campaigned for leader of the playroom. We used pennies to vote with, and the fairy won by a landslide.

Projects
This is the project the entourage did with our homeschool group this week. Miss J brought her girl's favorite current favorite book, It Looked Like Spilt Milk, to share, and conveniently it just happened to be one that we checked out of the library the day before! The entourage was excited about a book they were familiar with and they loved making their own fun shaped clouds out of cotton balls.

Top to bottom: Goose, Bug, and Monkey

The entourage also chose to pull out our own craft supplies this week, and I love seeing their artistic skills develop! They went for multi-media pieces this week, using crayons, dot paints, and tempera paints.

Bug was the most prolific artistic today with one experimental abstract piece (using a paint brush to make prints), a field of many colored flowers, and a school bus full of people.

Goose created the painting on the left (with remarkably little paint on herself!).
Monkey made the other two experimenting with prints and layering colors.

On Beyond "Why?"
Life with the entourage has involved answering a plethora of questions from the moment they could utter the word why. Now that Monkey and Bug are older though, they ask more in-depth questions, and they stick with a particular curiosity for longer than a single question. These are the random things that sparked their interest this week:

Sumo Wrestling
At some point this week, Bug pulled out my set of wooden sumo wrestlers to play with (a leftover from a childhood partially spent in Japan). She was intrigued by the idea that there were real ones, so Monkey, Bug and I spent about 20 minutes watching YouTube videos of sumo wrestling matches and training stables. Monkey was mesmerized. Talking points during the viewing included: rules of the sport, the special clothes (or lack of them) required for this and other sports, the purpose of referees, the significance of trophies and traditions, and the importance of training and perseverance in sports and other endeavors.


Surgery
Out of the blue, Bug started asking questions about surgery and anesthesia (deep thoughts from the carseat). I answered what I could while driving, but during our lessons time at home I finally had the chance to satisfy her curiosity. We found a great site with a virtual tour of the surgery suite at a children's hospital, so the girls got to see everything from the waiting room to the recovery room with cartoon staff people explaining what would happen at each stage. They seemed particularly concerned about the patient being put back together, but I was able to allay their fears by showing off my own surgery scar. Who knew having two c-sections would be so educationally helpful? (Note to Granddad: If you're up for a show-and-tell session, your grandkids would love to see some real surgeon's tools!)

Track Races
The entourage organized races around our downstairs one evening this week, and Daddy picked up on the fact that they were saying "March! Set! Go!" at the beginning of each race and declaring that they were each the winner at the end. His attempt to set them straight on proper terminology and logistics led to watching clips of women's track races from this summer's Olympics, explaining things like starting blocks and starting guns, relay races verses regular sprints, etc. They also discussed good sportsmanship and perseverance after watching one runner trip and stop running.


Reading
I had a breakthrough idea this week, and reading lessons got much easier! Monkey was still interested in learning to read, but completely failing to be engaged by the actual lessons. So, I made a simple change: instead of us sitting and staring at rather crowded black-and-white pages, I started writing out the relevant parts of the text on her white board in the marker color of her choice. You would think I'd flipped a switch in her head! She loves it and is progressing much faster now. While Bug had never been put off by the original format, she decided the new one looked like more fun, so we've been doing her lessons on her white board too. Bug is now back up to the lesson in which we decided to go back to the beginning, and she conquered it without a hitch! She has even sounded out words entirely by herself without my promptings about what sounds come first, second, and third.

Monkey also decided to jump in on the sight reading part of reading lessons. We added the word and to their reading vocabulary this week. In addition to finding the words in picture books as I read them, I had them pick out a couple of pages from a chapter book, I made copies for each them, and had them circle the words they knew and tell me what they were as they found them.

Library Day
The storytime theme this week was colors with some fun books about mixing them. Sadly, the craft was unrelated. Starting this week, the kids will be making ornaments to put on the children's section Christmas tree. This week's ornament only involved gluing two paper circles together with a loop of paper between them at the top, so a ribbon could be strung through to hang it on the tree. It didn't really involve any creativity on the kids' part, so the entourage lost interest pretty quickly. They were supposed to make two (one for the library and one for home), but they were only willing to make one, and I ended up slapping three more together to leave for the library. Oh well, we did come home with a stack of great books:
Milo the Really Big Bunny
Thanksgiving
Time to Sleep, Sheep the Sheep
Snowed in with Grandma Silk
It Looked Like Spilt Milk
Peek! A Thai Hide and Seek
How an Egg Grows into a Chicken
The Human Body (the previous two were our "what do you want to learn about?" books)

Halloween
So on the afternoon of Halloween, the entourage settled on their costumes: Monkey was a firefighter wearing a princess dress, Goose was a purple butterfly fairy, and Bug was The Greatest One (an everyday dress and tights plus a police vest, superhero cape, and fairy wings). They were very excited and pretty darn cute! Of course, when it came to the actual trick-or-treating, it took them three houses before they would say "Trick or treat" instead of glaring at our neighbors over their thumbs. Once they got the hang of it though they were golden, and they had a lot of fun joining their friend LA in finding all the houses on our street with lights on.

Reading
Reading lessons continue, and even Goose joined in for a lesson or two this week! She thinks pointing to letters and repeating their sounds is a great game, but of course she doesn't actually remember them 30 seconds later. Bug has displayed an interest in learning to sight read, so I've added learning Fry's 1000 words to her reading plan. We have the first ten words on flash cards and she knows two of them now (the and of; she's very proud of this, and wrote her name on the back of the cards so everyone would know that she learned them). She's been asking me to point to words as I read them (much to Monkey's displeasure), and if I'm reading without pointing she'll occasionally ask "Where does it say . . . ?" She got a huge kick out of helping me read several books this week by reading her sight words and sounding out the words I find that she's covered all the sounds for in her phonics-based lessons. Monkey digests her reading lessons in much smaller bites, and she'd rather know an entire book than have me point out specific words on a page. Almost every day, she and Goose snuggle up on the couch under a reading light with a stack of books that she has memorized or almost memorized, so she can "read" to Goose, who loves it. Monkey has also started pulling out their favorite counting book and is attempting to teach Goose her numbers (she's almost mastered 1-3).

Music
Monkey and Bug have recently been requesting to listen to "bad guy/good guy music." They're talking about our iTunes library of instrumental music that's a combination of classical pieces and movie soundtracks. They take their cues from the music to guide their pretend play (when the bad guys are coming, when the good guys are winning, etc.).

The girls have done a lot of dancing this week too, though sadly, I failed to ever catch them on camera. Goose even requests that I turn music on and will call out dance steps for her big sisters: "Turn 'round. Turn 'round. Bounce! Bounce! Bounce!" It's funny though, some of the moms in our neighborhood have been taking their two year olds to dance classes, which at least one of them confessed was just chaos set to music. Maybe it makes a difference having more than one kid, but I just can't see taking two year olds to dance class. They can get the same benefits (gross motor play, rhythm practice, and appreciation for different styles of music) just by turning on a Pandora station and having some fun. And it's free! And besides, you don't need to teach a two year old to dance. Any healthy toddler knows how to (as Bug recently put it) "shake that business!"

Library Day

In a nod to Halloween, the theme this week was pumpkins, and we came home with some cute suncatchers to add to the fall leaves the girls made at home last year. Goose lost interest pretty quickly (the contact paper kept sticking to her fingers), but Monkey and Bug did a great job (the fall leaves are completely covered only because we did them in multiple sessions). We came home with these books:
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!
You Can't Take a Balloon into the Metropolitan Museum
Mice (Our "what do you want to learn about?" book)
Night Rabbits
Airshow
Spider Storch's Carpool Catastophe
Teasing
Ten Rosey Roses

This is what story time looks like for the entourage: Monkey and Bug in  rapt thumb-sucking mode and me responding to Goose's questions and comments (apparently one of the librarians had a camera last week)

Intrepid Explorers
This week Bug pointed out that it had been awhile since we'd gone for a walk in our neighborhood to gather things for our Collection (a bin full of things from outside that sits on the shelf next to our big magnifying glass and handheld microscope). So, Monkey and Bug each grabbed a bucket, and I took my camera (for things too big to bring home) and Goose, and we set off for adventures. First we searched for all the red maple trees on our street (based on leaf shape and color; they picked this activity because the one in our yard is turning). At the back of the next cul de sac, however, we decided to leave the sidewalk and head into the woods. In addition to a dismaying amount of trash, which the entourage insisted we collect to throw away properly because "God doesn't like trash in His world" (score 1 for learning stewardship at an early age!), we discovered a pond and a large meadow on the other side of a bunch of "spiny trees" (thorn bushes). The girls were really excited about the meadow: "We made it into the sunshine!" They immediately proclaimed themselves Heidi and Peter and went frolicking about with their imaginary herd of goats. Science, theology, literature . . . I love a good walk!

Nature Park
We started off the week with a trip to a nature park about 20 minutes away and had a fantastic time. It has a relatively short loop trail, so it works beautifully for an outing with the entourage. We brought our  nature journal with us, of course, along with several field guides at Bug's suggestion. We took lots of pictures of things to put in our journal and stopped at a gazebo to make rubbings of leaves we collected along the trail. We stopped at the pond, and the girls asked about a drain-looking thing out in the middle. They speculated that it might be for sucking up the water, but then they worried about the fish and we decided to track down a worker to answer their questions. We found one who was very excited to answer the questions of a preschooler (Bug was brave enough to ask him herself!). It turned out their original theory was right! When the water reaches a certain level, it goes down the drain and gets carried to the wetlands a couple dozen yards away. He assured the girls that the fish would be fine. In our attempt to find a knowledgeable worker, we stumbled into the interpretive center, and the entourage spent quite a while poring over pinned bugs and taxidermied local wildlife. Fascinating.

They had a great time trying to balance on the cypress knees.

Everybody loves a taxidermied beast!

Lessons
Reading lessons continue daily! We went back to lesson 1, and I sit with each girl separately. This has worked out well since they're definitely absorbing all this at different speeds. Whoever isn't actively participating usually sits nearby and colors or looks at books. I figure it can't hurt for them to hear it an extra time anyway. This week I also started keeping an eye out for words in regular books that I know they could sound out, and I walk them through it. By the end of this week they read 4 pages in a Bob Book! (tiny paperback readers that follow the same letter order/phonics concepts that our curriculum does) I think this has provided the breakthrough in helping them understand that reading means sounding out, not just memorizing.

Also as part of our lessons time this week we made a number line and an alphabet line. We used bulletin board borders, and I wrote with a Sharpie while they looked over my shoulder and told me what came next. Our number line goes up to 20, and they almost know it (the upper teens are still iffy). Our alphabet line includes uppercase and lowercase letters, and its creation involved lots of renditions of the ABC song as they tried to remember what letter came next.

We've been rereading The Wizard of Oz during our lessons time as well at their request. I think they realized that it's easier to get through chapter books without Goose around, and this book is definitely their favorite so far!

Library Day
The girls loved the craft at storytime this week. The theme was bears, and they made bear paper bag puppets. Watching their coloring styles was pretty fascinating. Goose colored a few faint random scribbles before going roaring around the room with it. Bug picked out two colors (one as an overall color and the other for accents like eyebrows and nose), and methodically filled in the spaces. Monkey picked up one crayon after another, putting down layers of color within the prominent facial features. She commented when she was done that she like how the colors looked all mixed up together.

Left to right: Monkey, Goose, and Bug

We came home with lots of books this week:
Turk and Runt
Hey, Mama Goose
Four Scary Stories (a Tomie dePaola book about imps and goblins being scared of kids)
Pigs Make Me Sneeze!
A Kiss for Little Bear
Best Buds
I Spy Super Challenger! (This is a game book, not a storybook, and the girls have had a great time challenging each other to find items in the pictures.)
Klondike Gold
Jellyfish
Farm Animals (The previous two were our "What do you want to learn about?" books.)

Costumes
The girls have been loving the new additions to the dress up box! Almost everyday they come up with an idea for what they want to be for Halloween, so I'm curious to see what they actually end up wearing. Monkey pretty consistently goes for some version of Captain Hook (what is it with this girl's fixation on the bad guys!?). Bug marched into the living room one afternoon and informed me that she was The Greatest One. I had to agree with her: she had on a queen's crown, a police vest, fairy wings, and a superhero cape (she may also have been wielding a light saber). Goose will wear anything she can actually put on herself, which usually involves her purple sparkly fedora and a variety of shiny necklaces and bracelets.

Projects
We pulled out the paints this week, and the girls are getting far more intentional with their creations. Well, Goose still scribbles obviously, but she's getting a better part of the paint on the paper now. Monkey painted a robot with a bird overhead, a dinosaur on each side, and snake curled up at the bottom. Bug used a dot paint marker to create two neat lines, then turned them into flowers using a crayon.

Left to right: Monkey, Goose, and Bug

Pet Store Field Trip
We joined our homeschool group for a field trip to the pet store this week. One of the workers led us around the store  and took a number of animals out of their cages for the kids to look at and touch while she talked about them: a couple of turtles, a variety of lizards, a ball python, a guinea pig, and several ferrets (who actually got to run around a bit with the kids). The girls had fun but they never did get brave enough to actually touch anything (Of course, I think Bug was more put off by the fact that she'd have to use hand sanitizer afterward than the animals themselves.) Perhaps the cutest moment was Goose putting a finger to lips and whispering to the big kids to "Shshsh! Quiet!" when the worker brought the reptiles out.

Meet Oswald
The entourage has a new pet! A photographer friend of ours rescued a number of goldfish who were being used as centerpieces for a wedding she photographed, and she convinced me to let the girls have one. Bug suggested the name Oswald, and Monkey thought it was a brilliant choice (Goose just calls him "go-fish"). They asked if they could keep him in their room (on the dresser, so Goose and our cat couldn't reach him). I agreed, and they've so far been very faithful to feed him and keep an eye on his water quality.

Watches
Monkey has been fascinated by knowing what time it for a while, and Bug has been asking for a watch for ages. At first, I told them they could have watches when they learned how to tell time, but then a homeschool book I was reading (Joyful Homeschooling by Mary Hood--love it!) suggested buying the kid a watch and frequently asking them what time it was as a way to teach them how to tell time. That made sense to me, so this week I let them pick out watches (it had to have all 12 numbers on it, so that limited their options). Of course, now that they own them they haven't actually worn them much, but at least now they're available when they decide they're into it again.

Pumpkin
It seems to be a tradition now: The entourage has no interest in carving a face on our pumpkin. They'd rather eat it! This year Bug requested that we make pumpkin soup. Of course, the girls favorite part was the initial cutting up of the pumpkin. Monkey and I were quite cheerfully up to our elbows in pumpkin guts, and Goose helped us pick out the seeds to give to Bug who carefully rinsed them off and placed them on a paper towels to dry before we roasted them. Yum! That crunchy treat served as a good appetizer while we (ok, mostly me) did the rest of the work: cutting, peeling, boiling, pureeing, draining, and finally adding the additional ingredients for a really tasty soup! We had fun with the process and loved the result, but I've declared this a once a year project--any further pots of pumpkin soup will be made with the canned stuff!

Lessons
Lessons continue, but Monkey and Bug's enthusiasm in the moment is pretty hit or miss. They are, however, consistently excited about the fact that they're learning to read when we're not actually doing a lesson, so I'm going to persevere until it clicks. This week we ran into a hurdle in getting them to sound out words by themselves instead of following my lead, so we'll be going back to some earlier lessons to strengthen their confidence in their sounding out skills.

At one point this week Bug got several pages ahead of Monkey (I think the gap will be closing soon). I was worried about how we'd handle their being in different places, but having separate lessons actually turned out to be a good thing. Getting them through the tasks individually made me realize that the curriculum was set up to support Bug's love language (words of encouragement), but not Monkey's (physical touch). Fortunately, that was a problem easily fixed by pulling Monkey into my lap for her lesson and giving out high fives, fist bumps, and hugs for tasks well done. (To anyone not familiar with the concept of love languages I highly recommend any of Gary Chapman's books. They've made a huge, positive difference in our family and marriage.)

Zoo Day!
Our homeschool playgroup got cancelled this week, so the girls and I decided to spend a day at the zoo--always a popular event! It was a lovely, cool weekday morning, so the zoo was practically empty and the animals were far more active than we've seen them, which was fun. The big cats in particular were fun since we got to see more than just a patch of fur through the bushes. We also ended up talking alot about what or how different animals eat (did you know flamingos eat with their heads upside down?) and talked about omnivores, carnivores, and vegetarians. The big excitement, though, was that we decided to ride the carousel this time. So many smiles and giggles!

Monkey sitting on some  penguin "eggs" to keep them warm

Library Day
Storytime had a numbers focus this week, and the craft was making numbers flashcards (notecards with a numeral printed on it and instructions to place the correct number of stickers on each card). The entourage was more interested in the stickers themselves than the counting, and they all lost interest before they got to 10). The entourage ended up picking out all the books this week, and we came home with these:
Merry Christmas, Maisy!
STUFF!
Barkely
Leaving Vietnam
Visual Guide to the 500 Most Popular Freshwater Aquarium Fish (They wanted to learn about goldfish this week--for obvious reasons--and this was the only one I could find)
Once upon a Bedtime Story (a treasury we kept from last week since there were so many stories we didn't get to yet. So far, "Stone Soup" is their favorite)

Deep Thoughts
Car rides seem to be give the girls time to think deep thoughts and ask big questions, so we have a lot of really good discussions between point A and point B. This week we talked about:

• What does God do?
• We say God made everything, but what about cars or buildings?
• Why did the soldiers hurt Jesus? 
• What did Jesus say before he died?
• Why is the Bible important?

Of course, not all discussions are so profound. For example, this week's rides also included a giggle-filled "argument" over which backseat occupant passed gas. Some of my favorite lines: Goose - "I not fart. I [Goose]!" Bug - "I didn't fart! My buns were laughing!" So, I guess we know who the culprit was!

Fancy Party
This week Daddy and I attended a military ball, which the girls got to come to (child care was provided on-site). The entourage loved watching us get dressed up, getting to go in a really fancy hotel, and being allowed to stay up late. Even when we left at 2230 they were wide-eyed as we passed through the crowd of fancy uniforms and evening gowns. And, of course, Mommy and Daddy thoroughly enjoyed an evening among grown ups!

Lessons
We made some changes to the daily routine this week when two unrelated issues were resolved. First, Monkey and Bug rarely sleep at naptime anymore and instead that time had become a near daily battle over being quiet and staying in one place. Second, Monkey and Bug's self-declared goal of learning to read when they were 4 had come to a standstill. Daddy and I discussed both of these things and possible solutions, but they both came to a head with a serious disussion between Monkey, Bug, and I following our pre-naptime storytime.

Goose was down for her nap, and Monkey and Bug insisted they were not tired at all. I was sympathetic and explained the need for at least a quiet time (Mommy's an introvert, just like them; we need time alone, so we won't be grumpy. We spend enough time together that they understand this concept.) We came to a compromise: Since they are 4 now and don't need as much sleep, they can do a shorter quiet time, not in a bed, but they have to actually be alone for a solid 30 minutes.

Since they were paying attention and taking it all very seriously, I decided to segue to the next issue: "Speaking of being 4 years old, remember, how you told me when you were 4 you wanted to learn how to read?" Eyes brightened. I apologized for not reminding them about doing reading lessons more often and suggested that maybe if we decided on a special time everyday just for lessons we would remember to do them. They agreed that this sounded like a good idea, and we talked about how they learn things all the time just by playing but some things are easier to learn if you have a grown up who already knows how to help you. I asked them when they thought would be a good time. A moment of silence. Then Monkey suggested it needed to be a time without Goose (she's too little for lessons and she interrupts a lot). I agreed. Another moment of deep thought. "Naptime!" So, for the past several days, when the timer for quiet time goes off, we gather in the study for a brief reading lesson (we do about half of a lesson per day) and a math "lesson" (I gathered our mathy games upstairs, and giving the girls the choice of which to do first gives them more ownership of the time).

So far, so good! We've yet to add an additional letter sound, but they're reviewing the ones they know (m, s, a, r, t, e), working on the reading skills needed to sound out words, and practicing writing letters. For math we're working numbers 1-20 (counting objects and recognizing numerals), very simple addition with counters, and skills like sorting and patterns.

Costumes
I'm not a huge fan of Halloween, but we decided to take advantage of the plethora of costumes available now to add to our dress up box. Rather than buy full-body character costumes, we headed to Jo Ann's with $30 to spend on generic bits and pieces. We came home with costume starters for a pirate, fairies, a police officer, princesses/queens, a firefighter, and superheroes (or whoever else decides to wear a cape). And, of course, the girls were in on the important skills of budgeting and bargain shopping.

a "queen rescuer," a baby fairy, and a firefighter

Showing off their new capes
(adult large t-shirts minus the front and the sleeves)

Goodbye, Friends
On Monday we had Miss K and her boys, N and G, over for one last playdate. The kids had a fantastic time as usual. This time they played with Playmobil people and blocks, then went outside to climb on the dome and cover it and the fence with chalk drawings. Miss K and I enjoyed our last in-person chat, and we explained to the kids about them moving away on Friday. Goose was oblivious, and Monkey and Bug seemed to handle it well. Bug even exclaimed that they were moving to a new house just like we're going to move to a new house someday, and we talked about how the kids can still write letters to each other (with help until they all get a handle on this reading and writing thing). On Friday though we realized that Monkey wasn't handling saying goodbye as well as we thought, when she had a total meltdown after I explained why we couldn't invite N over to play that day. We had a long tearful conversation about it, and she seemed to find a little closure when we drove by their house later that day at her request to see if the moving truck was still there or if anyone new had moved in.

Down on the Farm
Our homeschool group did a day at the farm this week (a local dairy farm goes all out for fall with a corn maze, hay rides, etc. and they had a half price day for homeschoolers). We didn't end up staying with our group (we're one of the few families with only preschoolers), but we had a great time! Monkey and Bug did a great job leading us through the short version of the corn maze and loved being able to see corn really growing on the stalks. Next we checked out the animals: calves, piglets, a heifer, goats, ponies (they got to pet all the previous animals) chicks, chickens, rabbits, and turkeys. We got to see a milking machine, which I explained, but we missed the actual demonstration. We took a hayride ("The farmer's tractor is MUCH bigger than Papa Bear's!"), played on wooden playground structures (a boat, castle, and tractor) and a massive bouncy pillow (this thing was probably twice the width of our house!), and explored a pumpkin patch (noting all the different sizes as well as the different colors of ripe versus not yet ripe). Each of the girls also got to bring home a mini pumpkin, one of which is already covered in sparkly stickers!

Library Day . . . with a Fire Truck!
This week was fire safety day at the library. After the librarian read a book about a fire station, two real firefighters came to talk to the kids about things like not playing with matches, paying attention to smoke alarms, and how to stop, drop and roll. They also put on their full gear to show us how they would look if they arrived at a house to put out a fire and gave us a tour of their fire truck. When we went back inside, the librian had fire safety coloring books for us a take home. We also came home with these books:
Don't Let the Pigeon Stay up Late
Bearsie Bear and the Surprise Sleepover Party
The Three Pigs (The girls are now familiar enough with the traditional tales to get a real kick out of this alternate tale in which the wolf accidently blows the pigs out of their own story and into others)
Spiders (our "what do you want to learn about?" book)
Once Upon a Bedtime Story
I Want Your Moo


Life Skills
For Goose lately, just about every task we have to accomplish is met with "My do it!" or "Self! Self!" She's gotten quite good at climbing up and down her changing table (from which she can reach the light switch), and she's working on climbing into her crib (she's yet to climb out fortunately). She also now quite consistently tells me when she's pooped ("Poop! Gross! New biper [sic]!"), and she likes to sit on the potty, though she's yet to actually go there. (Now I just need to brace myself and do the whole potty training thing.) She's also decided that I am no longer capable of picking out her clothes.

Monkey and Bug have been working on their independence as well. This week they successfully poured their own juice and cereal, and Bug spread jelly on crackers by herself. Bug has also been spreading her wings to do things like return an item across the produce section at the grocery store by herself and return to our seats at church from the bathroom where I'm still helping her sisters.

Monkey and Bug were also more actively helpful at the grocery store week. I printed up an illustrated list of the produce we needed, so they could find the items, have me teach them how to pick good ones, and then cross things off.

Library Day
We were back at storytime this week. The girls were excited to see their friend H (she lives across the street but her attendance at storytime is a new thing), and I was excited to meet another military wife with her 3 kids under the age of 4 in tow. While this week's librarian-led time was a little too participatory for the entourage (they want her to just read good books, not try to get them to sing and dance), they loved the craft: decorating construction paper shapes with foamy shape stickers. This week we came home with:
Little Bear's Friend
Green Eggs and Ham
Sheep Out to Eat
Fancy Nancy and the Mermaid Ballet
I Like Dogs (this week's "What do you want to learn about?" book)

Rocks
We acquired another math toy this week. We've been looking for some form of small counters for the girls to use and settled on smooth aquarium gravel. While we haven't formally used them for counters in any games, they've been very popular. Monkey and Bug like to count and sort them (by color or size, discarding the ones they deem too tiny to be counters), and Goose loves having some dumped into a pan for a sensory activity followed by the fine motor practice of placing them one by one back in the container. Monkey and Bug have also taken advantage of the fact that Goose thinks it's fun to go diving under the table for any rocks that get dropped.

Pet Store
Of course, acquiring aquarium gravel meant a trip to the pet store--always an exciting errand! The highlight this time was the reptile section which contained several varieties of dragons among the creepy crawlies. A trio of very friendly water dragons was particularly fun: they were extremely curious about us and followed us from one end of their tank to the other.

Necklaces
Now that Goose is old enough to understand being gentle I've started wearing necklaces again. Monkey and Bug have been particularly fascinated by this new trend. They always want to see what pendant I have on, and I quickly realized that all the necklaces I wear have significance beyond their aesthetic value (the fairy stone I bought on a middle school field trip, the descending dove from a mission trip to Mexico, the coral heart from Daddy and my honeymoon, the mother's necklace Daddy bought when Monkey and Bug were born, etc.). The girls love hearing the stories and remembering what the pendants stand for when they see me wearing them. Of course, they've also requested "real necklaces" of their own to wear. Fortunately, I have an abundance of chains and a couple of small cross pendants I was willing to pass down. We talked (at a preschool level) about what the crosses mean as well as what a responsibility it is to own "real" jewelry. They have their own jewelry box on their dresser now, and Zoe wears her cross almost every day.

Projects
Of course, pulling out the crayons and coloring sheets is a near daily occurrence, but this week I also taught them how to weave using construction paper. Monkey picked it up very quickly and cheerfully self-corrected when she missed a strand. Bug faced some initial frustration in acquiring a new skill, but was encouraged/challenged by (?) Monkey's success and returned to try again and complete her project. We decided to turn them into wind socks, which they embellished with shiny stickers and hung from the art string in their room.

Look! A Box! Let's Get in It!