Elephants and Kangaroos

Well, Natalie has pink eye so we weren't able to go to Potomac Crescent Waldorf School after all (actually, I am not allowed to take the children out of the state so we wouldn't have been able to go anyway) -- and so no wreath for our front door! We have a lot of Christmas decorating yet to do. Today we made our first batch of cookies. I had to take Natalie to the grocery store/pharmacy to get her pink eye medicine and so while we were waiting for the store to fill the prescription we walked around and I loaded up the cart with Christmas baking necessities. Our first choice was Cornmeal-Cherry Cookies, to use up some of the corn Natalie has been grinding so cheerfully. Those are cooling now.

At the beginning of the week, the children were using my foam pool noodles from FunFit to play kangaroo (we read a cute folktale called "How the Kangaroo Got Its Tail" from a bedtime storybook Sonlight sent us). Then they moved on to playing birdies on a nest, using huge sheets of butcher block paper to form a large "nest" and setting their wooden play kitchen eggs down in it. Horton Hatches the Egg came into play there too. :-) After reading Nell's Elf with Fran, the children moved on to coloring elves in their new art center that I set up downstairs. It has been a week full of doctor visits, errands, and appointments but we've still managed to stick some fun in there. :-) Tomorrow evening they head over to their dad's for his weekend time but I hope to make some more cookies with them before they go.

Today we also hung up a weather stick that Natalie brought home from school. It's out on our deck now, carefully pointing up to the sky to herald clear weather. Supposedly it takes a few days to get used to its new home but I think it has settled in quite nicely as part of the family. :-)

This weekend I will be plugging away wrapping gifts -- won't we all... Happy Holidays!