Freckles & A Girl of the Limberlost

I finished the book Freckles, by Gene Stratton-Porter, a little bit ago and I keep thinking about it. Not because it was a really deep book but just because I wonder why I hadn't heard of it or A girl of the Limberlost (or Laddie which I read a year or so ago). All these books are so good. They remind me of the Anne of Green Gables books for some reason. Maybe because I know I would have loved these books at about the same age as I read and reread the Anne of Green Gables books, about 10 or 12 yrs old.

Stratton-Porter wrote these great stories as a way to interest people in the natural world. She was a naturalist. I can see how much she loved the Limberlost and hated to see it destroyed. Her descriptions of the animals and insects shows that she really knew the area that she was describing and knew these creatures intimately. It made me look more closely at the area that I live in and to appreciate it more.

These are also very moral stories. The characters in these stories exhibit qualities that I would like to say I have and I would love to see in my own children. There is so much the characters overcome yet still keep their core values.

So I know I will be sharing these books with my children and discussing the values that the characters portray. Great reads! A little hard to find. Our library system only had one copy of each. They weren't in the children's section either. They are considered adult but they are a very quick and easy read.

It's Official - I am a Soccer Mom

Today was Ian's first day of Soccer. He had been talking about it all day and asking when it was time to go. He was a bit shy at first but quickly caught on and loved it. I was not prepared. This was my first soccer practice ever so I didn't know he needed long socks or a bottle of water. Luckily I do have a stash of water bottles in the car so I ran back and got one. I also didn't think 3 year olds needed cleats. Ian did get a new pair of tennis shoes. But now I know what I need for next time. I need my little fold up chair to sit in on the side lines and watch the kids run around, a water bottle to hydrate my little running boy, and a long leash to keep Henry from joining in.

We have been out of town

My lack of blogging is due to the fact that we have been out of town for a few days and not being at my own computer and on my normal schedule makes it hard to find the time to blog. This is what we have been doing for the last few days.
We have been spending a lot of time at Grandma and Grandpa's house up in the foothills of the Sierras. The kids have had a good time while out in the country.
We have been taking care of the cows, garden and fruit trees.
Sophie is getting used to wearing a swim cap. With the ear tubes she has to wear ear plugs when she swims and the doctor recommended that we have her wear a swim cap also to keep the plugs in. It didn't seem to bother her. She was still a little fish in the water and was jumping off the diving board just like normal.
Henry's birthday was celebrated with family. A bunch of cousins were on hand to enjoy some cake....
.... and help open the gifts.
We have made sure to take a few nature walks while at Grandmas. There is all sorts of fun things to see. The kids enjoyed our short walk down to the little swampy area in the pasture to collect some cat tails. We of course had to break them open and see the fuzz that explodes out of them.

We did bring some school work with us but that is another post.

Top Ten Tuesday - Henry

In honor of Henry turnning 2, I thought today's top ten would be devoted to him. Here are 10 cute pictures of his first 2 years.


Here is Henry as a newborn. He wasn't an easy baby. He liked to cry a lot and not sleep through the night. Good thing he was so cute!


Henry loves Grandpa. Either Grandpa is good. He lights up whenever he sees either one of them.


Henry wasn't a baby that liked to be fed. He wanted to do it himself. So every meal ended up with him looking about like this.


Henry loved going to the beach. He wasn't even walking here but he got himself around quite well.


Here is Henry enjoying his birthday cake 1 year ago.


We took the kids bowling and Henry loved watching the balls fly up through the shoot.


Henry loves this lamp post at Grandpa's house. He is always climbing on here day or night.


We spend a lot of time on the swings when we are at the park. Henry would sit there and let me push him the whole park trip if I let him.


Henry all dressed up for our Nativity reproduction. He was too big to be the baby. He loved laying the baby in the manger.


Here is Henry with Sophie and Ian. These three kids sure have a lot of fun together.

I hope this trip down memory lane was fun. It was for me! We are so happy to have Henry in our family. He makes life interesting, messy and fun!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEN!

Great Libray finds!

Yesterday was our library day and since we are starting Egypt next week I decided to look for some Egypt books. I didn't want just books about Egypt but some fiction, story books, as well the non-fiction. In the catalogue I found this book and it just happened to be there on the shelf so I took it home. We read through it yesterday afternoon and just loved it. This is a great book for Chapter 3 of the Story of the World where they talk about the first writing. They kids get to decipher some ancient writing. Just know that you are going to need a piece of paper and a pencil and you had better have some peanut butter and jelly handy for a snack afterward! My kids asked to read it again after we finished our sandwiches. This morning I found Sophie copying out the "Cuneiform". Very fun book!

This book was also a big hit with my kids this week. It is one recommended to go along with this week's Story of the World Lesson about the Earliest people. My kids love Tomie dePaola books so they were excited to read it. They loved it and were laughing and laughing. Without me telling her this went along with the history lesson, Sophie recognised that they were early people and that they lived in a cave. She said "Oh, look, they are Nomads". She loves that word!

Does anyone else know of any more good go-along books for Ancient History?

Everything becomes an Art Project

This week we have been studying the early humans, nomads. Sophie has really taken to this word and uses it a lot lately. Yesterday we listened to the chapter on Story of the world CD, we read/looked at a few other books about early people and what they did and how they lived. Sophie requests a project every day. We broke out the markers to make our own cave paintings. I cut up some large paper grocery bags and taped them up under the counter so it would feel more like a cave. We could have used paint but I felt safer with markers and since we don't use markers very often this was a special treat.

The kids had a great time tracing their hands and just coloring all over the paper. Henry particularly loved doing this project he did most of the drawing. He was working on this one for a long time.

Here is the finished project. Nothing like the ancient cave paintings we saw in the books but it was fun!

Today I thought I would try to do a Math project. We don't have a formal math program we just do little projects and everyday math kinds of things for now. I have a book called Teaching Math with favorite picture books and today I picked one of these projects to do. At the Library today I picked up Eric Carle's book Draw me a Star. While we read it, Sophie immediately noticed that it was a creation story. We had read the creation story this week as part of our study of the ancient times. The Math lesson was supposed to be on estimation but we never got to it instead we just practiced drawing stars. Sophie has always had trouble drawing stars and this book showed her how. She still isn't great at them. After we drew stars we discussed the artwork in the book and how Carle uses collage to make the illustrations. We broke out the construction paper, scissors, glue and crayons to create our own collages.
This was a big hit. Sophie and Ian loved each having their own bottle of glue and scissors. Sophie actually got the idea of making a picture out of the pieces of paper not just glueing them onto the paper.
These are a few of the colleges that Sophie and Ian did. Henry was asleep, thank goodness, for this project.

Back to School

This is the week that most public schools in our area start their school year. I drive by an elementary school (the one my kids would go to If they went to public school) three mornings a week as I go to the YMCA for my Water Aerobics class. I love this class! It really helps me clear my head and I just feel better after I have gone. I feel like I can face the day so much better after having this hour of exercise. Today I really needed this class. I think we all woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. Lots of grumpiness around here, me included!

Today while driving by the public school, the street was lined with cars. I was following a whole stream of cars as they stopped to drop off kids. I made the mistake and answered my cell phone when it rang. Evidently I was distracted enough to not fully stop at a stop sign and a cop just happened to be there to see it. So I got pulled over and the cop took 20 min. to fill out the ticket and tell me that school had started and that I need to drive more carefully. He also didn't like the fact that my husband and had neglected to change our address with the DMV when we moved earlier this year. oops!

So in the end. I didn't make it to my class. I am still grumpy, maybe even more so, and now I get to go to Traffic School (sometime within the next few months). Gotta love that! I guess it could have been worse.