Return to the Museum

So Madison had a scavenger hunt this morning, on one of the simplest and most fun ideas so far.  She had this simple rhyme to launch her off on a expedition throughout the house, finding ten candy canes in different places, like hanging on a tree, on a doorknob, in a houseplant, in a stocking, or on the straw goat.  By the way, the goat has not burned yet - we check on that daily.

Today was pajama day and hat day for Madison at school.  And it was a party day of sorts - the kids got to watch "The Polar Express" for the squillionth time, and had lots of candy canes to take home.  Something else to take home:  lots of kids were out sick today.  Hopefully Madison won't bear the brunt of that, but she's already sniffling, we note.  We'll be watching that closely, of course.

Tonight we went to see a movie when Daddy got home - we went back to the museum:

We got the big tub of popcorn and sat in the back as always, and enjoyed the flick.  Madison liked it - she likes Octavius' and Jedediah's characters.  You can see them above, perched in Attila the Hun's hat.  Or, okay, maybe you can't.

The movie was okay, certainly the least favorite of the three.  It had it's moments, but the last half hour was such a somber affair, certainly we consider Robin Williams.  He was Mr. December for a while there, always the lead in some imaginative flick that came out before Christmas.  This is the last one with him in it, and that was somewhat sad to see.  But on a whole, this was quite a step down from the other two movies, which we enjoyed a lot.  It was good to see the characters together one last time, but Mommy and Daddy agree that we wish it had a bit more of the spark the first two had.

Again, Madison enjoyed it.  And she enjoyed doing a tiny bit of shopping with us afterwards - we were out to get some supplies for KidPak.  Tomorrow is a big day with a volunteer appreciation party, one with a Christmas theme.  Lots to prepare there.  Again, it'll be Monday before we really slow down.  REALLY looking forward to that!

Tonight, we read a few more books - a Madeline Christmas, and one Christmas story with Paddington Bear.  Daddy's been averaging about three Christmas books per night, short picture books really.  Madison and Daddy enjoy reading these together on the couch before bedtime.  She's sniffling a lot, and starting to run a bit of a fever already though.  We'll keep tabs on that tomorrow - she might be staying home...