Our Trip

We left Wednesday for Landenberg, PA. It is a 9 hour drive from here if you drive straight through. We did it in about 10/10.5 both ways. The kids did great. We picked up some new movies from the library on Wednesday and had things to do in the car. Plus, they slept. We left at 6 a.m. on Sunday so they slept a lot on the ride back.

We had Thanksgiving at my sister's - Landenberg is south west of Philadelphia. My parents came too so we had 10 of us. The kids loved getting together and playing.

On Friday we went to Philadelphia. We went on a DUK ride, through the streets and then on the Delaware river. Then, we went to the National Constitution Center. D and K spent the time together learning about the Constitution. She took the oath of office, etc. She loved it. We only spent 2 hours there. I wish we would have had more time. Of course I had the 2 3 year olds so maybe we didn't need more time.

On Saturday my sister's 8 month old daughter was baptized. My brother in law's family arrived for the event. It was fun to see everyone and we had a nice dinner. Here's a picture of K with her new cousin.


It was great getting out there and visiting family but we didn't have much of a break here at home. We got back last night and now starts the December whirlwind. I'd like more time to just relax, just the four of us.

Holiday cards

Today we worked on our holiday cards. They arrived while we were gone. Here's the picture we picked. It's not as good as some from the previous years.


K writes the address on certain envelopes and adds notes and pictures to some of the cards. It really helps for me to give her some penciled lines to keep her writing confined to the envelope area and not too big. She also sticks on the return stickers and the stamps. This is my working on her printing and writing. She LOVES pen pals and writing letters. We have so many now but not many people write back as frequently as she writes so she starts to get down about it. D has even told me to just fake a return letter but I can't do that. My sister (who has a 3 year old daughter) does a good job of sending things even if they aren't written by my neice. Otherwise we have enough "pen pals" that we should get enough mail.

The Parade

Saturday was the parade in our town. The town has an annual Christmas festival with a parade. This year K's French class had a float and she road in the float. I walked alongside and handed out candy/pencils/flyers.

Here's a picture of her in the float


It was fun. More work for me getting the float ready on Friday. But I met some of the Moms from her class. A couple of the kids have been taking French for years and they take another class on Saturdays for 2 hours.

We had a party on Saturday for the game. Good thing Ohio State won. The party went well, better than I expected. We had 9 kids and that can be overwhelming, especially when the parents are busy watching TV but they were great. K and C loved it.

Questions

Today at dinner (D was at choir practice), K started talking loud about silly things. What if there were no animals and no trees and no people. I said like when there were dinosaurs and she said No. There are no dinosaurs and no North America. And she's giggling and having fun. And, no water and no sun. And she kind of stops the silliness. Then it would be very dark all the time and there would be nothing. And then she says maybe God would be there. How old is God? 15? 4? but who made God? Was God there when it was dark? How did God get there?

I'm thinking of how to answer this and wishing D was home to handle this one. But then when I start with how old do you think God is? she starts giggling again and kind of moves on to other things. During this time C is being loud and silly too so it was easy to jump back into that.

This reminds me that on Sunday after church we stopped at the grocery and I ran in. While I was gone C told D that "maybe when you are at work, Mommy can explain to me who God is".

Why do I get all the God questions?

books/music/schedule

K is reading Samantha's Surprise now. It's an American Girl Doll Book. She's also reading 2 books on Picasso. She has been doing portraits lately and I thought they were looking like a Picasso. She loves reading about him. She made a book with a portrait of a lot of her family, us, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc.. They are both reading
Tripper's Travels: An International Scrapbook
and they LOVE it. D reads them one country a night and they talk about the country, practice talking in the language, etc.. Even C loves it. This was just a grab at the library so it's a nice surprise.

They have been listening to Laurie Berkner a lot and a CD from K's religion class. It's a Childrens' Choir CD and K really loves it. They may start a childrens' choir at the music store near us and I'd love for her to try it. C loves Irish music. I got a CD at the library b/c I enjoy it and he loves it. K, not so much.

Math

We've been really working on math lately. Both at school and at home. I'm going to buy some math books for K for Christmas and I'm probably spending too much time trying to decide which ones to buy. I had her do a placement test for Singapore Math books yesterday. I had her do it on the computer and I kept hurrying her. She would write the question and practice writing her numbers rather than write the answer and move on. One whole section she messed up b/c I kept telling her to stop playing around and do the problem. It was taking so long we were running into her ballet class. Since she has learned Math in the Montessori setting, she hasn't really seen a lot of math worksheets or word problems etc. So, she made mistakes on things she knew b/c she didn't understand how they were being asked. I'm going to buy a couple workbooks and see how it goes.

Can't seem to write

I can't seem to write in here. It's been a rough couple weeks and I'm not ready to write about it yet. We did fix C's room, we had to use a primer on the areas with permanent marker and then we painted his room blue. It's OK, I don't love it yet. We'll see, I need to hang things, buy curtains, etc.

We've not been practicing piano and K seems to have lost some interest in it. I don't want to make her practice right now because we are just trying it out. We seem to be so busy that we don't have time for piano right now.

Last night was the second meeting of book club. K read Brave Emily. She did most of the reading herself, except for the letters that were written in cursive. I have not taught her to write in cursive yet. She reread it many times so she could get all the meanings. We made a time line from about 1850-2006 with birth dates and major events so she could better understand time. Of course Brave Emily is during World War II so we had lots of discussions on war. The other day I told her someone had died and she asked "did he die or did someone make him dead?" I guess that's one way of saying murder. K is so sensitive that I'm worried about talking about evil things too much. She has nightmares. Anyway, she loves book club. It's still a little advanced for her. The game was unscrambling about 15 words and then using the numbered letters to write out the answer. We haven't done too much unscrambling but these were bigger words for her; victory, courage, etc. First one done got a prize. An older girl was helping her. Next month is movie night and a book club meeting. They are reading Samantha's Surprise and watching Samantha's Holiday movie. Of course they moved movie night to Friday the 8th which is the same night as K's cousin's 6th bday party. This is one cousin where she would definitely love to go to his bday party b/c he's her age. What to do?