We've been listening to Dragonrider by Cornelia Funke this week on CD, and we've been having such fun! I have to admit that I feel a bit guilty because I'm not reading it--this is the first time we've listened to a book and it seems like a guilty pleasure. The narrator is wonderful, which makes all the difference in the world. I've tried to listen to some books on tape before whose narrators were terrible and it really turned me off.

We started listening in the car during our longer trips, but last week I brought it inside. We listened while playing with play-do and legos; then, on one of the beautiful days, I put it on the outside speakers and we listened while soaking in the sunshine on the upper deck. We're now on about day 4 or 5 of rain, so yesterday I had to run to the library to get some more books for my own sanity!

We're currently in the middle of listening to The Hobbit , which we had read about half of last year. Emily's been wishing that Jackson had made a movie of The Hobbit as well, so we put on The Fellowship of the Ring to watch the prelude where Bilbo finds the ring and to see the dwarf lords. We've had some incredible conversations about director's choices, narration, filming, camera angles, musical scores, etc. What fun!

We got our Christmas tree this weekend, which is always such fun. I love having a live tree in the house; it just smells so wonderful. The kids were psyched because the folks selling the trees were giving out mini candycanes, and Jim and I were just glad to get a tree after unsuccessfully going two other places first. We came home and put on some carols, set out some h'ors doevres and trimmed the tree. Jim held the kids up, so they could each have a turn topping the tree with our angel, but it was too high for Sam and Julia, so Emily got to do the topping this year.