Chatter

• Isaac and Eva stayed with us from Thursday night until this afternoon while my parents were in Maine.  It is lonely here without them tonight- they are at such a fun age.  Old enough to take care of their basic needs, and young enough to still be innocent, imaginative and full of childish delight.

• We put up our Christmas tree on Friday night.  I am normally not advocate of putting decorations up early.  My family's tradition was to decorate the house the day after Thanksgiving, and I liked that.  I feel like Thanksgiving gets skipped, or at least the retail stores ignore it.  I was so annoyed last week when I went to Target for paper goods and could only find Christmas-themed things.  All the fall and Thanksgiving decor was long gone.  Anyway, we were running out of things to do with the little kids, and the house we are renting came with a 12-foot fake, I mean artificial, tree.  (Allow me a brief moment on my soap box: it's hardly Christmas without an afternoon at the tree farm and a tree that makes your whole house smell pine-ish for a few weeks.)  But, this tree was free, and it's 12 feet tall, and we don't have to water it, and we don't have to pick up pine needles... 
• I had a studio recital this afternoon with most of my students.  I was so proud of how well each one performed.  Here I am with the kids who played.  Some of those boys are about to pass me up in height!
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• Next Wednesday, I'm having a Thanksgiving party for Isaac, Eva, my nieces and nephews.  There's going to be 8 kids here under the age of 10 (and 6 of those are under the age of 6).  I'm trying to come up with fun crafts and activities to do that are, in order of importance: fun, age appropriate, and not super-duper messy.  So far, I've come up with a thankful tree, pilgrim hats and Indian headdresses, paper cup turkeys, and spoon pilgrims.  I think I'm going to set up the crafts in our basement where there is tile floor.  Then upstairs, I'm going to set the kitchen table in the Thanksgiving theme and have snacks.  I'm having surgery on my left wrist this Thursday, so I'm counting on a slow weekend to get all this ready.  
• I really need to work towards getting a new camera.  The one we have is a cheap Kodak point-and-shoot.  It works great for outdoor pictures but doesn't focus for anything inside.