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!