Brrrrrrrr!! Talk about cold! Tonight was the local Christmas parade. Every town around us has a parade on a different day/evening and tonight was Columbia's turn. The parade started at 7pm. We headed up there at 6:30pm to find a place to park before the road was closed. It was 27 degrees at that time. We were all layered and bundled but man 'o man it was still so cold. The theme was "Santas, Santas everywhere" and so there were Santas everywhere....every float, walking around, etc. It was cute. Morgan's dance classes were cancelled for today because all the teachers & older girls were to be in the parade. We saw them dance by & yelled hi to all the ones we knew. Morgan thought that was cool. By 7:30pm the kids had had enough of the cold and wanted to go. There was a little more to the parade but since we were there for them to have fun we left when they were ready. I think we all had a numb nose & toes. Thank goodness for a warm van. LOL! On the way home it was 25 degrees, with the windchill in the teens! We got home and made some yummy hot cocoa. :-) They are now watching Rudolph and the Island of Misfit Toys on ABC Family.

Earlier today we made a batch of fudge and some homemade turkey soup from Thanksgiving leftovers (we froze the turkey leftovers just for this). It came out great and was perfect for pre-parade dinner. While we were working on everything Morgan started asking about spelling. She's been into it since seeing Bee Season and Akeelah and the Bee. Corey tells her that if she is interested we could start giving her words to learn or see about a spelling curriculum for her. I said that I remembered spelling tests in 3rd grade and that squirrel was one of the words. She said "ACK! I can't spell squirrel" LOL! Then, she asked if we could give her a spelling test. So I asked her to spell the following words (trying to come up with some while working on the turkey soup & baking rolls): apple, thought, banana, academy, penguin, squirrel, freezing, blanket, telephone, and hungry. She spelled all of them correctly except penguin & squirrel. She had "peinguin" and "squerell" so not far off. So I think we have a new interest for her.

We put some lights outside today...some net lights over the bushes in front of the porch and our little train. I can't wait to get more up! Our fiber optic penguin doesn't look so lonely out there now.