January

 All three of my kids sitting at a table and coloring together... a first!

 We've been learning about outer space and the planets in science, so we took a little trip to the Air and Space Museum downtown.  Lucy is pointing to a picture of many different galaxies.

 This was Lucy's favorite part-- the planets in comparative size.  Amazing!  Charlie enjoyed seeing video footage of Mars canyons.  We also touched a lunar rock!

We had a carnival party at our house for our Friday Co-op group.  There was an extra Friday in January, and it's Carnival season all the way until Lent.  Costumes, games, decorating masks and dancing, it was a fun day.

Charlie loves music so much.  He just lights up whenever a group starts singing.  

Charlie loves music

 We played team charades.  I believe the girls are acting out "penguins."

 Can you hold a spoon with your mouth while a marshmallow balances on it?  They raced to the other side of the room.

 Best snack ever.  Donut holes, popcorn, cheese sticks, juice boxes.  Just for Carnival!

Three fancy girls.

December

We celebrated Lucy's feast day with delicious cinnamon rolls that she helped to make.

 Peter eats a whole apple every day.  If you open the pantry door, he will cry, "Ap-ee!  Ap-ee!"  until you comply.  Once I had the nerve to try to cut his apple up and he literally threw himself on the floor in tears as the knife cut the apple.  He likes his apples whole!

 He has two apples in these pictures because he has stolen Charlie's, which often happens.

 On Christmas Eve, we decorated the tree (a very toddler friendly tree this year), fried fish, and opened a few presents.  

Charlie and Peter open a train from Grandpa and Grandma

Charlie opens a marble maze from Grandma

Lucy opens the mosaics from Grandma

Peter plays Lucy's recorder

Charlie plays Lucy's recorder

Then we got ready for midnight mass.

 It's midnight and everyone is still smiling (almost!).

 Then I proceeded to lose both my camera and Charlie's shoes for a couple of days.

But, it was a very lovely Christmas.

 A while later it snowed for the first time this year.

the snow

the snow 2

Thanks for the boots, Grandma and Grandpa!  They came just in time :-)

 Lucy (second from the left) sledding with some friends on the hill next to our house.

The boys enjoyed the snow for about an hour.  They fell down repeatedly and cried to be picked up.  Lucy stay outside for several hours sledding and playing with friends.  We are so lucky to have so many kids in the neighborhood!

 Lucy's Christmas Star Over Bethlehem

 A few weeks later, we had our second annual Nativity Play with our Friday Co-op.  This year, Lucy had the honor of playing Mary, Charlie was a Wise Man, and Peter was part of the Wise Men's entourage.

 He wore this hat gleefully for about an hour during rehearsal, and kept it on for 2.5 seconds on the day of the play.  Oh well!

 Lucy was very excited to play Mary.

 A young girl named Mary from Nazareth was praying...

 when an angel named Gabriel appeared to her.

 Mary and Joseph make the long journey to Bethlehem.

 The shepherds come to adore.

 That's a real baby in there!  One of the moms had a baby on Christmas Eve, and even though we tried to talk her out of it, she volunteered little Beatrice for the role of baby Jesus.

I don't have any pictures of the boys as wise men unfortunately, because they ended up getting so unruly that James and I each had to pick one up and carry them onto the stage when it was their turn!

November

In November, we raked leaves.  A lot of leaves.  The good news is that my little helpers are actually starting to help sometimes!  

 At other times, they fought over the rakes and whined at me until I let them use mine!

 We also had a little Martinmas procession for the feast of St. Martin, who gave a poor man half of his cloak on a cold winter's night, only to find out in a dream later that the poor man was Jesus.  In many European countries, this is like a Halloween of sorts.  You go door to door carrying lanterns and singing songs, and people give out treats.  We just walked around outside with friends and then came back to our house for treats.

 There are many ways to make a lantern, but we decided to go all out and make paper mache lanterns!  It was very fun, though messy and a lot of work.  They certainly looked pretty at night though!

In November, we also learned a lot of Native Americans and Pilgrims.  We took a field trip to the National Museum of the American Indian, which has an awesome kid's area.

Here is Lucy practicing her basket weaving.

Charlie is trying to hear the bird calls.

A little bench that really captured Charlie's attention.

Buffalo skin!

Lucy just about lost her mind when she saw that they had an adobe house and a teepee.  She was very interested in all of the different houses when we read about them.

Trying to build an igloo

Here we are back at home learning about the Pilgrims.  After we learned a lot about the Mayflower, we built a little model.  

I took so many pictures because Lucy was just so tickled to death.  It's the little things!

Lucy wrote this very sweet note to her friend Zoe.  

Dear Zoe,

Will you come over to play someday?  Do you like to play house?  Well if you like to play house we can play house by putting my blanket over my desk and filling it with things like a book and a ball.  I hope you have a good fall.  Love, Lucy

Lucy's Thanksgiving Turkey 

(she says the dashes at the top are feathers flying around)

Another Thanksgiving Turkey

I hope all of your Thanksgiving turkeys were are big as houses :-)