Thanksgiving Thief

We literally got this book the day after we ordered it.  Daddy wasn't expecting it so soon, but that turned out to be a blessing because we finished the previous Nancy Drew book yesterday.  This mystery seems to be a little bit simpler, and Nancy is certainly younger.  The book starts out by telling us she's eight.  But it was a Thanksgiving theme, and apparently there's another one called "Turkey Trouble" out there as well.  So we're reading this one, starting tonight, and going on for a few days with it, because it's a pretty short looking book, comparatively speaking.  Maybe we'll find "Turkey Trouble" by that point and have that ready to read as well.  Can you believe Thanksgiving is just a week away?

Tonight we had piano, which Madison said went well.  She thinks she's doing pretty good in that class.  Speaking of "class," tomorrow is the big portrait for the entire fifth grade.  We'll get a copy of that one (we've placed the order), but that is being taken by a professional photographer.

Today at school, Madison had music class.  She's enjoying that, and of course she's getting a double helping of music class with her piano classes each Tuesday.

Elsewhere in school, the kids are learning about the stock market.  We found a TOP SECRET note on the kitchen table today, one we might not have been supposed to be reading.  It told us of various stocks to purchase or sell, and the prices for each.  Also a note was attached not to show a certain boy classmate.  Insider trading indeed!

Meanwhile, Daddy has started writing for the Christmas production in our main campus.  That'll probably get posted here as it happens, but the clock is ticking and we finally got our direction today as to what we're doing.  We've been sort of lost in the weeds about the general direction of this one.  We had a title and a bunch of seemingly unrelated songs that are being performed by various entities within the church.  The challenge was tying it all together, and somehow conveying this overall theme of a Christmas in color.  Hopefully the end result will work out to everyone's satisfaction.  It seems like we're adding our usual humor to this particular section.  Again, I'll probably post some script stuff here soon enough, just to keep track of it.

Tonight we got home and watched the Kung Fu Panda Christmas special, which we all really like a lot.  It has to do with family, and has a great message to it.  Even more, of course, it takes place in China, where there are apparently a lot of talking animals.  Tonight, we told Madison she was actually in the orphanage there that was run by a bunch of rabbits.

She didn't buy it.  But we did enjoy the Christmas special.  And the popcorn too.

After bedtime for Madison, Mommy and Daddy previewed a movie, "Journey to the Christmas Star."

It actually wasn't that bad!  This was a Norwegian movie, one Daddy spotted a year ago.  Madison should like it when we show it to her.  It's fun seeing international movies, although this one was dubbed over so you didn't have to read any subtitles.  It'd be more interesting to hear the original language, of course.  But the dubbed version will be easy for Madison to understand.  It's a short movie, but she should enjoy it.  We certainly did.