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!