Love, Maximo

(Love, Maximo in Japanese)

Maximo wanted to make his own additions to the Christmas tree - washcloths!

Today, we put Maximo in day care for a half a day. Just writing that makes me cringe, BUT... I was able to put together a gift bag for his senseis, we were able to do some things around the house, and he was able to play with his friends and keep his routine. He will not be going back until January 5th, so don't stone me!

We put together a goodie bag for his senseis, full of faux-gingerbread cookies (I forgot to add the ginger, but they turned out okay), Starbucks giftcards, chocolates and a letter from Max. It's hard to get his teachers gifts because:
1. I don't know all their names
2. There are about 5 (or 6?) regular teachers, but many we see on and off.

I wanted to write a little letter from Maximo and then decided to go all out and translate it and write the characters. I'm sure it reads all strange like:

Senseis Dearests,
Thanking you for my happy days and for me moving to Japan. Christmas Merry and New Year Happy!

Love, Maximo
(okay, that wasn't too bad, though I'm sure the iTranslator is a bit awkward).My first ever batch of (faux) gingerbread. It was pretty easy. I like recipes where I can do the messy part the day before and refrigerate! Yesterday, at IKEA, I bought an outdoor animal cookie cutter set - who doesn't need moose, porcupine, bear, squirrel and snail cookies?

And our budding genius reading his favorite book this week, Dinosaur Roar.

Transcript:
dinosaur roar, dinosaur squeak
dinosaur fierce, dinosaur meek
dinosaur fast, dinosaur s-l-o-w
dinosaur above, dinosaur below
dinosaur weak, dinosaur strong (with hand pumping fists)
dinosaur short(didn't come out right), or very, very long
dinosaur fat, dinosaur tiny
dinosaur clean, dinoaur (Ewww, bath) - should be slimy
dinosaur sweet, dinosaur grumpy
dinosaur spiky, dinosaur lumpy
all sorts of dinosaurs eating their lunch (all I can hear is lunch)
gobble, gobble, (nibble, nibble, munch, munch,) scrunch
(Then he points out the Mommy and Daddy dinosaurs
- everything has a Mommy and Daddy these days)