Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!  Ben says he's thankful for pictures to color, our house, his clothes, music and the sun.  Mollie is thankful for her Daddy, Blankie, bananas, juice, and Hal.

Movie Night

Friday night is movie night.  We're working through all the animated Disney movies one Friday night at a time.  You can tell what we've watch each week by what they dress up as.  Last week we watched Beauty and the Beast.  Here we have Belle and Cogsworth (the clock).

Packing Party

This is National Collection Week for Operation Christmas Child shoeboxes.  We always love buying our gifts and packing our shoeboxes each year.  It was even more fun this year because we had a shoebox packing party at church tonight.  On Thursday morning, Ben labored over a letter to put in his box.  He wrote, "The Lord is good.  He watches over you."  (I had to help him with the spelling.)  That came from two verses he's memorized in Sunday School this fall.  Nahum 1:7 – “The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble.  He cares for those who trust in Him.”  Psalm 121:5a – “The Lord watches over you.”  Mollie colored a picture of the nativity scene to put in her box.

 All the kids (that come on Sunday nights) watching a video about Operation Christmas Child.

 On Monday we shopped for gifts to put in our boxes.  We always get carried away so we shared some of the things we brought with friends.

 Packing their shoeboxes.  Ben's was not packed with the precision that I usually do it, but he had a lot more fun.

 Getting some help from our good friend Emma.

The whole group gathered around our shoeboxes.

Election

I wanted Ben to have some understanding of the presidential election so over the past couple of weeks we've read books about George Washington and Washington, D.C., watched some videos about the White House on the internet, etc.  On Tuesday, Ben and Mollie went with me to vote, of course, and I let Ben make the selections (with my guidance) on the touch screen voting machine.

 On Tuesday night Ben decided to hold his own presidential election.  Red Monkey and Brownie were running for president.  He filled these two containers with ballots. 

Red Monkey won and now lives in Monkey A B (the monkey version of Washington D.C.).  Notice how he's sitting in his office beside his bowlful of winning ballots.  Brownie, now vice president, has the job of guard.  Brownie has a couple of pieces of paper taped to him because he's still wearing his Super Dog costume from Halloween.

Zoo Trip

 Last Saturday Ben, Mollie, and I went on the annual nursery zoo trip with our church to Audubon Zoo in New Orleans.

 Trying to get them to pose for a picture in front of the elephant fountain.  Ben was very interested in the map.  He marked off each place as we visited it.

 He also took lots of pictures including this up close look at a baby alligator that we got to pet.

Mollie, of course, needed to take pictures too.  This is what most of hers look like.

 They always love brushing the goats and sheep.  Notice that the goat they are brushing is sound asleep.

 Mollie wanted her picture taken sitting on this rock.

 Climbing up the roots of big tree with friends.

 After lunch Mollie was getting fussy needing a nap.  I bought them both strawberry snowballs and suddenly they were happy again.

 Riding the Endangered Species Carousel.