Gym practice, a visit from a friend and more decorations for our Jesse Tree

Fridays is probably my most difficult day, not least of all because Jude's gym class happens smack bang in the middle of it at 12:45. I look forward to January when he moves up classes and I won't be needing to take him on a Friday anymore, it will make the day a lot more relaxed.
Ciara loves getting there, she spends most of the session running around with the other toddlers. The space to run looks exhilirating.
But today, no toddler friends were there and I had brought a big bag of library books. So after a run around, she sat down and looked through books for the next half an hour.
This is Jude practicing his Christmas display, he is so excited and really gets into it. He seems to be a bit of a performer as soon as a crowd is watching.
Jiving through his sequence, he loves the music too.
After gym class we had a visit from Niamh's best friend Simone. Simone has been nagging her mom for weeks to come and see the kittens, and she wasn't disappointed when she arrived - she fell in love with them instantly.
You can see Molly on the left is the more apprehensive of the two with new situations, but Tessa is such a sweet, relaxed and genteel little kitty

Our reading and decoration for the Jesse Tree today:

The Promise

It has been so enriching to see how Christ is in every story of the Old Testament in such a wonderful way, and talking about it every day has really made us so much more aware of it. We often just read the Old Testament stories without pointing out to the children how Christ is in the story, so it has been a wonderful blessing.

Genesis 15:5-6
Then He brought him outside and said, “Look now toward heaven, and count the stars if you are able to number them.” And He said to him, “So shall your descendants be.”
⁶ And he believed in the LORD, and He accounted it to him for righteousness.

Hebrews 11:8, 12
By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place
which he was to receive as an inheritance; and he went out, not
knowing where he was to go.
Therefore from one man, and him as good as dead, were born
descendants as many as the stars of heaven and as the
innumerable grains of sand by the seashore.

Simone joined in with the craft - making star shaped biscuit decorations.
Put into the oven for 5 minutes.
Then a hard boiled sweet is placed in the middle, and back into the oven for another 5 mins.
The finished decorations.

The sweet in the middle melts and fills the hole with a lovely colour.

Jude doing a wax resist of the story, we really loved this craft as I can't say that we have ever done it before. The idea is that you draw the picture in wax crayon first, and then paint over with watered down watercolours. The wax resists the paint and is thus highlighted in the finished painting. They drew the stars and Abraham out of crayon and then painted the skies with watercolour. The finished effect looks great.

Eden's.
Jude's - and very pleased that he has learnt how to make stars.
Niamh's.