the tale of despereaux (YEA! we finished it!)

the tale of despereaux is by far my favorite kid's book. i would get so excited when the time came to read it with the kids in my 5th grade classroom. i have missed that terribly the past 2 years! so it was a big treat when i got to share the book with ken and mck! yes, both girls sat and listened to the 250 page book in its entirety! well, it took us a couple of weeks, but we finished it yesterday! ken was a great listener through the whole book, asking lots of great questions. . . mck needed lots of reminders to move her hands off the pages so i could read the words, or that she needed to stop singing so we could all hear the story! :)

as a special treat (and because there's still a lot of teacher in me who insisted we finish the book THEN see the movie!) we took the kids to see the movie last night! it was super cute, but so different from the book! a lot of the magic in the book was missing - a fun story, but nothing beats a wonderful book! the kids were able to name off countless differences on the way home (and yes, the teacher in me loved that too!). can't wait to start sharing even more of my favorites with them as they get older! :)


as an added bonus to the whole despereaux experience we had our own little despereaux IN THE HOUSE (in the pantry in particular!) i saw something scurry across the floor at 4 in the morning and sent bailey to investigate. i don't think he believed me until we looked the next morning and found he had helped himself to marshmallows and muffin mix! :) the girls thought it was fun and cute UNTIL bailey started putting out traps! poor ken cried for at least an hour (okay, not cried, SOBBED!) and kept saying "maybe it's a rat and not a mouse"! poor thing. bailey got a kick out of it, i could sympathize with her. the girls checked the traps all day yesterday . . . i think a little happy that the mouse was smarter than their dad! :)