Gingerbread House on the Rock

Ahhh, breathable air.  What a difference in the atmosphere today!  We could breathe, and that's kind of important.  The smoke from the forest fires seems to be blowing elsewhere for the time being, and that's okay with us.  Still though, there's no rain.  Day after day:  no rain.  The last real day of consistent state-wide rain was on October 7th, I think.  We did have a morning drizzle about a week ago, and everyone got excited… but it didn't amount to much at all.  We're desperate for rain here.

Today was "Fun Friday" for Madison, which basically means it is the last day before Thanksgiving Break.  She has all of next week off of school.  So today, there was a bit of a party, dancing, movies and more.  She had a great day.

Daddy was working towards a few big events, one of them being "KP Live," which is tomorrow night.  It's a big event for the families and kids together.  Part of that involved me and Madison decorating gingerbread houses for props tonight, which turned out rather well!

These were done rather hurriedly, but they came out nice and sweet.  One of them is the house that is built on the Rock.  The other one is the house built on the sand.  I'll let you guess what happens to that house…

We made these, and then sat down to watch "The Grinch."  The weather is supposed to turn cooler tomorrow, so maybe it'll start feeling more like winter again.  But in the meantime, we've got the Christmas trees lit up, and it's nice to still snuggle on the couch watching Christmas movies.

Speaking of which, Madison has been practicing her piano song lately.  She's getting better and better with "Silent Night."  It's not the easy arrangement you might suspect.  If you're a piano player, it might be.  But to me, it's hard to imagine playing.  Madison, however, is really good at it.  She's been practicing each day, as she will for the next few weeks.  The recital is in December, and hopefully she'll be all ready for that one.

We're still reading our Pilgrim story at night.  At this rate, we should finish the book right at or around Thanksgiving, which is perfect.  There are so many things we're learning together, about Somoset, about Francis Billington, or about that abusive sailor on the Mayflower, or the Speedwell, or the fact that they were supposed to be landing near the Hudson River.  There are so many details to this story that are amazing to relive in this book, and in the other one we've read before.  The Pilgrims went through so much just to be able to be free to worship the way they felt led.  We said our prayers tonight, our hearts filled with thanks for the freedoms we have.  It's that time of year again, time to give thanks.  This year, there's plenty to be thankful for!