40 books in 40 days

Today begins the Nativity fast for us...40 days from now is December 25th on the old calendar (which looks like January 7th on the new calendar, but it's still 2011 in our church calendar).

Every morning from now til then, we'll unwrap and read a book together. I added more books to our collection (thanks to our local library, we'll read those ones first). One of my favorites is Mortimer's Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson, illustrated by Jane Chapman. Have you read that one? It's about a little mouse who lives in a house and finds a nice bed (in the manger they have set up). Mortimer takes the baby out of the manger and sleeps there...when he hears the family reading the story of Jesus, how He didn't have a place to sleep, he decided it was better for the baby Jesus to sleep there and he would find another bed...and that's when he finds the gingerbread house!

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We had a wonderful Thanksgiving...started off the day by going to church to give thanks to God and spent the afternoon with our family, most of them live here in Ohio, my sister and her husband came from Canada and my aunt from Vermont, her son and a friend. Then, we had more guests (Anthony, Joanna and Ephraim) stay the night after they left...on the way home to New York, they'd spent Thanksgiving with their grandmother in Indiana.

Hannah got 2 ukulele lessons...one from my aunt and one from Anthony (both of them are awesome guitar players). She can play the chords for "How much is that doggie in the window?" "Somewhere over the rainbow" and "Down by the bay, where the watermelons grow." Olivia is also learning how to play, now. Here she is playing the C chord. So, now I'm looking for a good ukulele lesson book. Any suggestions?