Second Week of November

Here we are with another week of November gone.  It's time to really start panicking about Christmas, I guess.  This moving has set me back...

Last week in Picture Book Preschool we were learning about pets.  This week there were two books (Momo's Kitten and Let's Get Turtles) that we were not able to obtain from any of our regular sources.  So we substituted a couple of books we had on animals already checked out - Silly Suzy Goose and How Animals Care for their Babies (we had that from the curriculum a few weeks ago and hadn't returned it yet).  We had seen the movie for Millions of Cats a few times, and Frances wanted to go back to that book several times during the week.  It also has a really nice rhythm to it which makes it fun to read. 
This week we are reading books about Thanksgiving, and then we will try to do at least one "thankful" craft to help make the connection.  This is the first year that I think Frances can get the idea about being thankful, and we do have a lot to be thankful about!
We have friends who have little girls the same age as mine, and we try to get together about once a week to have playtime.  Last week we got together on Monday, and I had made Pumpkin Pie Play Dough for the girls to play with.  It smelled terrific, and luckily no one thought they should eat it!  All four girls played with it successfully and shared all the tools too.
Frances did have one day where she had some sort of stomach flu, but thankfully for me she bounded back quickly!  She just laid in bed in the "guessing room" (what she calls the guest room) for a morning, watching movies on our portable DVD player, reading books and coloring.  After her afternoon nap she was ready to go!
I decided now was the time to start potty training Gloria.  Gloria has a lot of experience watching everyone else go to the bathroom, and she talks about it all the time.  The girls and I are flying after Christmas to see my family, and I just thought it would be easier for her to be at least potty trained during the day hours.  So far, though, Gloria has her own ideas about this process.  She has gone on herself four times either right before or right after we were going to the bathroom (I set the timer for every 20 minutes).  We've run through plenty of pairs of underpants since Sunday.  Hopefully she will get the idea soon.
However, this process means that Gloria and I are spending at least 10 minutes together every half-hour, and Frances often joins us in the bathroom for some reading.  In the past two weeks, I unpacked all of our picture books, and they are enjoying looking at new books.  The biggest hit in the past couple of weeks is Maurice Sendak.  We have read In the Night Kitchen probably the most, but the Nutshell Kids books are a close second.  I grew up hearing Carole King sing those stories, and I can at least carry the tune.  But the other day we went on YouTube to see if we could find snippets from Really Rosie (the movie including those stories).  Now all of us sing the songs.  I think our two favorites - One Was Johnny and Chicken Soup with Rice are both good learning books too!
Well, that's it for this week.  Hope your week is equally great.  We are getting snow now, so I will post pictures next week.