Thankful

Our church has a "bread ceremony" every November where everyone brings bread that they either make or buy that has some sort of personal meaning to them.  One of the ladies at our church grew up in Brazil, so she brings a type of "cheesy bread" (can't remember the name!), another lady brought cinnamon raisin bread this year because it reminds her of her mother, and every week, I bake bread for our kids to use for their sack lunch sandwiches, so I just make a half-loaf of that and take it.

The people who brought bread then bring their loaves up to the front at the beginning of the service and tell about their significance and leave them in the front, then some people up front cut up all the bread while the minister is talking, and then everyone in the congregation files up to the front and takes a piece of bread and gets a cup of juice.  Sort of like communion, but since it's a Unitarian Church, they don't call it that.

Anyway, this year, they also wanted a child from the congregation to stand up front and say what he/she is thankful for.  They originally asked Fellan if he would do it, but he didn't want to. Marxo, however, enthusiastically volunteered to take his place and started rattling off a list of things she was thankful for.

She wrote them down on a piece of paper and then memorized it  (but took the paper up with her, just in case).

Marxo's "Thankful" speech

It says: "I'm thankful for my mom and dad because they give me food and a home.  I'm thankful for my brother because if I didn't have him I'd have no one to play with.  I'm thankful that we pay taxes so that me and my brother can go to school."

The original version of this said that she was thankful that we had money to pay for school, but we had to explain to her that everyone who owns property pays taxes and that's what pays for school.  I love that she just incorporated that right into it and didn't try to find something else to change it to.  Proud of my little socialist. ;)

Chick Flick(s)

This past weekend, the boys had a Cub Scout campout, so us girls were left to our own devices for Saturday.

I talked Marxo into going shopping with me because we needed to get some Christmas shopping done for my family.  (Every year we trade off which family we spend Thanksgiving and Christmas with - this year, it's Thanksgiving with my family and Christmas with the husband's family.  And, as long as we're up in Nebraska for Thanksgiving with my family, we also celebrate Christmas while we're there.  Which means we have to have our Christmas shopping done before Thanksgiving for my side of the family.)

Anyway, we headed off to Walmart to get some shopping done and afterwards, we swung by IKEA to get a late lunch.  I actually left from IKEA with only one purchase for less than $4. I was impressed with myself.

By the time we got home, it was getting towards late afternoon and Marxo wanted to use the computer to look up some information on a school project she's doing for dance class.  She's supposed to answer a bunch of questions about Gene Kelly.  We (or at least I) had a lot of fun looking up videos of Gene Kelly dancing. That guy was good!

Then it was time to figure out what to do for supper (turned out that some leftovers needed to be eaten) and then start our evening of movie watching!  I figured now would be as good a time as any to introduce the concept of the "chick flick" to her.  I wanted to watch Steel Magnolias, but figured that would be too sad for her.  Then I was torn between a couple of different movies, Sleepless in Seattle and the original Footloose.  We finally settled on watching both of them.

We popped some popcorn, and ate some candy (that we had gotten earlier in the day at Walmart), and popped some more popcorn and had a great time watching the movies.  And then we ate some more candy.  :)

Marxo thought Sleepless in Seattle was just "OK" and I have to say that I agree with her on that.  But she really liked Footloose.  I had a hard time watching a young Kevin Bacon taking out his frustration by dancing his way through a warehouse.  It seemed a little melodramatic to me, but I guess as a teenager in 1984 when it came out, that must have been really cool because I remember everybody loved the movie back then.  (while watching it, however, I realized that I had never actually seen the movie!)

It was a fun evening, though, and most of all, I enjoyed just hanging out with my little girl. My mom will be sure to tell me that "before long, she'll be off to college!" And more and more, I realize how true that is.