Our colds are lingering… It’s the added burden of allergies in combination, I know, but it doesn’t make us feel any better.
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving and want to thank you guys for coming over and bringing such delicious food and drinks. All the leftovers have been duly devoured and I’m glad we won’t have to eat turkey for Christmas!
We’ve been decorating. The tree is up and dressed, the tinsel festoons the windows and the lights glow in the night air. Ahhh Christmas! I love this wintry season. I had forgotten how many paper crafts we made last year. We pulled paper chains from the boxes of ornaments, little paper people holding hands, angels who’s wings touch and little paper Christmas trees. We’ve put large sparkly ornaments on the tree in the yard and full and fat tinsel on the arbor, too. We put two chocolate kisses in each drawer of the countdown calendar. Now it begins… every day, upon waking, Fish asks, “How many days until Christmas?” 
“I don’t know, ” I respond, “check the calendar.”
“Mom there are 23 days until Christmas.”
“Oh, only that many?”
“Yes, mom, only 23.”
“Did you give Keek her chocolate.”
“Not yet!!!” he yells as he runs out of the room to wake his sister. It’s amazing how pleasant my night owl is when she wakes to chocolate!
Keek has started to make collages. She loves to go through catalogs and magazines to make artwork. 
She made these two, day before yesterday, for the kitchen. They are titled, Cozy and Cooking, respectively.
Fish has decided he doesn’t want to read anymore. So we are on pause until further notice. In the place or daily reading he said he would study spelling words because, “Spelling is easier than reading, anyway.” These are his words for this week: cat, can, car, call, ball, he, she, bird and tree. His bonus word is; said. On Monday he started writing each word three times and he finished them up today. Then he spelled each word out loud. He does seem to be enjoying himself, too. I just don’t get it. I really despised spelling… well reading too, for that matter! Anyway, he’s happy and I’m happy!
We’ve continued with math, too. Keek is working on multiplication tables (to 12) and Fish is skipping through site subtraction. i.e. 25-5=20 33-2=31 Ho hum. I wish I knew how to make math less mundane. Both kids have been helping in the kitchen and cooking math is great. But even that gets old quick. They’ve been practicing with money, counting what they save and what they spend. They’ve recently become aware of the movie prices. Now they know the theatre only costs $1.50 a person so they are always volunteering to take us to the movies. They’ve learned that Wendy’s and McDonalds have Dollar menus and Taco Bell has food for even cheaper! So requests to go out to eat have doubled, “I’ll pay for my food with my own money!” they chorus! Dollar Tree is a favorite and every time we drive by they are eager to spend spend spend. Fish seems to have more money than Keek, day to day but I guess that’s becasue he just started spending. Keek’s noticed too and is eager to have more money than her brother. So a saving race has begun! We’ll see how long it lasts!
