Spelling Difficulties

You know we've lived in the "north" too long when Katy, today as she worked on her spelling words for school, tried to sound out the word "ice" with a "u" instead of an "i". :) (Think, if I can attempt to phonetically spell it, "uh-ice", but blend it into one syllable...maybe more like "oice"?...)

Grocery Store Tour

Our local grocery store hosts free tours, so our playgroup took a second tour this week (the first tour being 2 years ago). It is a great tour! They led the kids through the store, beginning with the security office (full of video screens to watch people on every aisle!!), to the floral department, to produce, to deli, to seafood, to meats, to the stock room with its box crusher and trash compressor, to the really big freezer and refrigerator (brrrr!!), to the dairy and bakery and then to ring up "purchases" they had selected from each department. We discussed the food pyramid and which foods were in which groups during our tour. They gave us samples along the way and goodie bags and balloons afterwards! Here are some pictures from our visit.

Several of the "babies" (who are actually mostly 1 year old now!!) hang out together beforehand.

Marshall and Lily visit together while the big kids look at the security monitors.


Liam wasn't thrilled about being in the stroller while the girls got to walk.


Sorry it's sideways, but here's Sam (our next 1 year old!!) and Mabel waiting patiently.

Katy and Darsie touch the lobster! Last time, Darsie touched it (at 2 1/2, maybe?) and Katy held back with a look of horror etched on her face. She said it made all the difference to realize what those rubber bands were for this time! :)

Katy rings up some bread while Susie makes sure she does it properly.

Liam's favorite part was the balloon. He was happy the whole rest of the day because of that orange balloon!

Just Like the Pilgrims

The girls have definitely been listening while we talked about the pilgrims and Thanksgiving all month because, yesterday after a yummy church pot-luck dinner (Thanksgiving leftovers!), Darsie commented, "Mommy, we are just like the pilgrims because we had three days of Thanksgiving!" And we did, really! We had Thanksgiving on Thursday with friends, then Friday we ate our turkey with our friend Anna, then yesterday with the whole church. A pretty good way to celebrate, I think!