Leading up to December 25

On Tuesday morning, we read The Tempest for Kids by Lois Burdett in the "Shakespeare can be fun" series. We had picked it up years ago at the St Vital Centre Used Book Sale in Winnipeg. Burdett is (was) an elementary school teacher in Stratford, Ontario. She retells the story in rhyming couplets. The pages are filled with drawings and comments by her students. It is very cute. I'm on the look out for other Shakespeare plays by her. A fun addition to our Nesbitt retelling. She sat spellbound through the nearly 60 minutes it took me to read it to her.

We are almost finished reading Pinocchio. Two more chapters to go.  Fina is really enjoying it. So am I. (Terrible, that I had never read the original. Though we are Italian, and have heard many of these stories from my mom. We never read it. Though I feel like we did a watch a live-action movie in Italian. I'll have to ask my mom about it!)

We also read through a short book of poetry we had gotten from the library. The old standards are all in there.

Fina and dad are continuing to make their way through The Chronicles of Narnia again.

Fina finger-knitted herself a little snake, giving him sticker eyes. Very cute.

On Tuesday afternoon, we  had our outdoor playgroup. And, drum roll please, we FINALLY got into the forest. Fina was thrilled to the highest heights! (She had asked for "getting into the forest" as a Christmas gift. The creek was finally frozen. See my December 22 post!)

She is smiling so hard her face looks like it is going to explode!!!

A magical land indeed. Fina is the one on the left.

Another mom and I went down to see if the creek was frozen. When we had assessed that it was, we came back to the group (they were sledding on the hill) and I called to the kids that it was frozen. Fina and her gang just ran over and jumped down the bank of the creek and ran right into the forest all on their own, before any of us moms had a chance to gather our stuff and go in there. It was so nice to see and hear them from this side of the creek, running and laughing and throwing themselves into it.  What a moment of pure joy and bliss!  We will be heading there again today I'm sure.

After supper on Tuesday, Fina and I went for an hour jaunt through town. I have no pics to show, but there was this lovely, fluffy, giant-flakes type of snow. It wasn't windy, so the flakes were floating and swirling down gently. It was like being in a movie. Just lovely. We stopped by the town Nativity scene twice. Fina had to clear the snow from baby Jesus' face.

On Wednesday morning at 7:40, Fina is outside in the dark with a flashlight looking for my loaf pan that she had put out on Tuesday night for catching snow for tire sur la neige. She can't find it, it has been buried in the new snow!

(It is now Saturday morning, and we have yet to find that loaf pan. Oh my...)

Dad read the last two chapters of Pinocchio to Fina. I had to read them myself, as I had read the entire book with her. It was a great ending.

Thursday was Christmas eve. We had a busy day in the city. As you might recall, Fina was chosen to be the lion in the nativity scene at our church. We left before 9 for rehearsal at 10. Church was at 4. Fina was a great lion and the whole thing was excellent!

Here she is, hiding, waiting to be called out to the nativity scene (rehearsal - though she hid herself very well during the actual presentation!).  During the homily (when this living nativity scene took place) our pastor brought the lion out last and made the point that with Jesus, even the most ferocious animal will be tamed and the lion will be friends with the lamb.

These pics are all during the rehearsal. We will hopefully get some pics of the actual presentation. The archive ministry photographers / videographers were out in full force.

We went to Ikea in between rehearsal and Christmas eve mass for lunch. We also picked up a few gifts for ourselves there.  When we came home, Fina set up and decorated our tree and we opened our presents.

Yes, that is a very sparsely decorated tree. 

I suspect she will continue to add to it over the Christmas season!

Here are their IKEA clocks (so Fina can use it to tell time!) 

and the 4-in-1 wooden board game set we bought there for dad.

Friday was Christmas day. We read "The Christmas Kitten" in James Herriot's Treasury for Children. That chapter isn't scheduled in the AO list. Many people read it at Christmas. It was cute. We made pizzelle, coloured and regular.

I made ricotta pies, with the secret Greco recipe, and with my homemade ricotta.

And I finished up the manicotti (my mom's recipe) for our Christmas meal.  We had a surprise visit from our friends who took Fina to the park to play for a little while, which was great.

Fina also played the piano for a bit, asking dad to transcribe what she was playing. Which he diligently did (well, -ish. He transcribed something!) It was quite the thing. Here is a little video clip of it, to add to your festive cheer. The funniest thing is that after she would play her phrase, she would then hum it, in her Fina-fashion. Just hilarious! And this is the typical Fina "I love to look at myself in the reflection of our uber-shiny piano" look!

What do you think? Our little composer in the making!!!

We spent the rest of the day playing games, including Ludo and Checkers from dad's new 4-in-1 wooden game set. We also played Disney Monopoly. It was the best monopoly game Fina has accomplished.

A blessed Christmas season to you, my faithful blog readers!