Mamma & Chester Raccoon

In Maddie's class, they read "The Kissing Hand" about a mother and baby raccoon. The class has stuffed animal versions of Mamma and Chester Raccoon, which, over the course of the year, go to each child's home for a week-long visit. The chosen child takes Mamma and Chester on all the week's adventures, takes lots of pictures and prepares a scrapbook page, which she/he presents to the class at the end of the visit.

It's a very big deal to be chosen to host Mamma and Chester, and all the kids in Maddie's class look forward to their chance. On Friday, Maddie was chosen for the opportunity, so Mamma and Chester will be at our house during Thanksgiving week. Maddie, of course, is very excited.

On Friday night, the Larsen's hosted their annual "Pie Night". Mckay Larsen is in Maddie's class and was quite excited when Mamma and Chester came to his house with Maddie to eat pie. Maddie, Mckay, Chester and Mamma had a great time, as you can see from the pictures.

Grandma Cokie's Package

Maddie loves mail. If she's home when the mail arrives, she'll run to the front door (our mail is delivered through a mail slot in our front door), gather the mail into a neat pile and bring it to Ally. She always asks if anything's arrived for her.

This week, Grandma Cokie sent a package. A package is even better than mail because it won't fit through the mail slot and usually has to be collected from the porter.

Grandma Cokie's package included all sorts of great stuff, including most of the stuff you see in the attached picture, including the outfit.

Maddie wore the outfit to church this Sunday, which was the day of the Primary program. It was a great program. Maddie did a good job singing her songs and reciting her part - she told everyone why she loves Jesus, which made Ally cry.

High School Musical

The High School Musical hysteria has again hit London (High School Musical 2 didn't premier in the U.K. until a couple of months after it premiered in the States), and even the little girls get caught up in the madness.

All Maddie's friends at school (especially the one's with older sisters) love it as much as the big girls. As Maddie isn't someone who wants to miss out on the fun, she insisted we have a little party on premier night so that she could understand what all the fuss is about. Unfortunately, now she likes High School Musical almost as much as Cicely.

Attached is a picture of Maddie in her High School Musical pajamas, which we think are exclusively sold in the U.K.

Diwali

On Friday, 9 November 2007, Hindus and others across the globe celebrated Diwali. It is also known as the Festival of Light, where lights or lamps signify victory of good over the evil within every human being.

Maddie and her class at school learned all about Diwali. Here's a picture of her on the day she learned all about it.

Inaugural Posting

As we can't decide what to say in our first posting, we'll keep it succinct. We've created this blog because:

• we live far away, but we still want you to feel connected with us.
• attaching pictures to emails is really irritating.

We'll try to post at least weekly. We'll also try to make subsequent postings a lot more interesting.

The picture is of a recent trip to Bruges, Belgium. Ally doesn't like the picture because she looks so pregnant. Luke likes it quite a lot, even though he looks so fat, because:

- It's cute of Maddie.

- It's picturesque.

- Ally's cute when she's pregnant.

- It's a great memory.

Happy Halloween

Maddie had a wonderful Halloween. She had a party at school, where she got to wear her costume (Sleeping Beauty) and participate in a costume parade. Then, she spent the evening trick o' treating with friends, frosting sugar cookies and eating pizza with mom and dad.

She thought you might like to see some pictures, so we're attaching a couple.

Ally had a very interesting Halloween. It involved party cakes made to look like haunted houses, platters of food, lots of balloons, elaborately carved pumpkins, really big party bags and the realisation that face painters had not been hired. You can call or email her for more details.

Luke enjoyed the pizza on the evening of Halloween but missed out on everything else because he was working.