Proper Order Restored...

I didn't mention this the other day, but we recently bought ourselves some fun gifts for the van. One is a dual screen DVD player for our van. No more borrowing from my great friend Jenn- finally! We also purchased a new car stereo that will let us plug our mp3 players into it without using that lame transmitter. It sounds great!

E9 has been enjoying his Sansa player since his birthday. I got one about a year earlier that is very similar, but to my dismay has half the memory of his player. He has really enjoyed this fact a lot. Too much.

So, when we installed the radio and planned on listening to tunes, E9 said this to us at dinner. "Mommy when we drive in the van and listen to a player, we should use mine because it holds more songs." Ouch! Dan started laughing and I said, "Did you hear that? How much longer can I handle this abuse??" I let him know it would not be much longer.

I had told him he could get me a new player as long as we could afford one that had more going for it than more memory. You know... a better interface with our music service would be good and maybe a better display PLUS more memory. So, with yesterday being Christmas guess what I got to open??

I'm the proud owner of a Sansa Sandisk e250. It has 2GB of memory and the capability of expanding to twice that. Woohoo! Now who's got more memory?? It's still a flash player, but wow it's a lot heavier than my old one.

And my old player? Well, I'm planning on using it for audio downloads and when R7 gets the itch for her own, it may turn out to be hers.

Happy Anniversary to Us!!

Today makes TWELVE years for us! We were married on December 23, 1995. It was an evening wedding just before Christmas and the church was all decked out in Christmas greens.

Like the tshirts? Mine says, "i love my husband." Coincidentally, Dan's says, "i love my wife." This was my anniversary present to Dan today and his card asked him to be a good sport and wear them to church this morning. We both teach Sunday school so we thought it would be a fun conversation piece. I promised him he wouldn't ever have to wear it the same time as me again! Now anyone who knows how many times he had to wear the red shirt with the rest of us this summer knows this is a shaky promise, but I'll try! He assures me he'll wear it other times.

He gave me two boxes of movie candy and the DVD version of the movie, The Princess Bride. So, my gift is dinner and a movie. He's making dinner and we'll watch the movie tonight after the kids are in bed.

Gingerbread Fun!

J2 had a fabulous time decorating and eating! He didn't want to stop.

I-5 made his an alien.

E9 made a Santa gingerbread man. He sure did like squeezing icing out the bag!

R7 made a gingerbread girl and decorated her all red. She particularly liked the gumdrops!

We started this last weekend when we rolled out all that cookie dough and made cut out and these large gingerbread people. Dan is a gingerbread artisan and hasn't done much with the kids yet. Sometime I need to post the gingerbread church with the sleigh and reindeer out front ready to take the bride and groom away.

Last night we let the kids decorate the large cookies and they had a lot of fun. One of J2's favorite books of the season has been Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett.

The Year of the Doll House

I'll be joining blogging friends Lynn and Alana for The Year of the Doll House. You can read about how the original idea began here at Lynn's blog. When I read about what Alana was going to do and then read Lynn's idea, I knew this was something we HAD to do at my house.

R7 is the only girl among three brothers and she is our second born. Mostly easy going, she is a lovely little girl. She loves playing with her brothers, but of course does what they do most of the time. She loves to build with Legos and play pretend Star Wars or whatever other spy things are going on at the time. There's nothing wrong with that! There was a time though when she would play doll house everyday. She still plays dolls fairly often, but her doll house is just not used much anymore. I thought sure that once she got too old for her Fisher Price dolls that Barbie would most definitely move in. The house was made big enough for the big girl dolls. However, they just haven't found the accommodations to their liking.

I've often thought that it would be nice to have R7's girl pals over to play more, but that is easier thought about than done. So, I've continued to think I should sit down with her and play more girl themed things. Plus, the doll house just can't sit vacant any longer!

Our Year of the Doll House is still coming together in my head. I envision that we will set aside time each day to play at the doll house. We'll redo some areas of the house and put together new furniture for say the Polly Pockets. She loves those and they will sit at tiny furniture. I know we'll need a backing to the house which I'm going to put Dan on over our Christmas break. I'm thinking we can add partitions as well to make various rooms around the house. I'm really in business if I find that we did not give away the Fisher Price furniture...it might be around here somewhere. I really want that bathroom furniture back above all else!! Good news!! I kept the box!! Yay! Something I didn't give away...yes!!! The Year of the Doll House was meant to be!

Each night I will leave something new for her at the house and she'll know to check there in the morning to see what our play will be for the day. Will we make a fireplace (one of the first on my agenda!) or put up curtains? Maybe it will be a note about an idea for the day. I will commit to finding something to work on each day and we'll play too. We can decorate for holidays- the first of which will be winter. The dolls simply must have snowmen about the house!

What a genuine way of spending time with R7 and getting that doll house back in commission! Along the way, we'll be able to craft together, build together, decorate together, and create together. Plus, I'll get to enjoy talking to her about how a house is built and what's important there. On Christmas morning, she'll open an invitation to The Year of the Doll House.

So, from a picture I took this summer when the doll house was moved back to her room, here is the before picture of our grand house. Along the way I will post new pictures during our Year of the Doll House.

Did it ! What do you Think??

Ms. Historical Figure has taken a vacation while I seek to get permission for to her join me in my blogging journey. I will let you know what happens! For now I'll keep the color scheme in hopes that the curator of the museum will allow me to use the picture. Many thanks again to Alana for checking on her origin and creating yet another temporary banner. And yes...the font checks out.

Well ultimately, it came down to colors to match that cool lady up there. And the widgets were messing with me- taking away color choices! Ahh! So, now I can add snatching and using html color codes to my list of ever growing blogging skills. Thanks again Alana! Honestly, how can it get better than the original MSW font?!

Leave a comment...how's my new look?

Please excuse the growing pains...

My pal Alana is helping me make the cool new header above! I mean really...how awesome is that??

I'm trying to make it just right. I was going to have it all worked out before going live with it, but well I just plunged right in.

So, please excuse my blog's appearance while I learn yet another new skill and change things up a bit.

Cricket in Times Square

Last week E9 started The Cricket in Times Square for his next Beyond FIAR book. So far we have read chapter 1 and done some research on mice and rodents. The setting of the story is New York City and NY State in general so I plan to cover anything left in the area of NY State history.

E9 put together the notebook for this unit study including the front cover. He's just about finished his first spiral notebook so I am trying out the pronged folder again this time around. I will be sure to update as we go. He's still working on his book so progress may be slow initially.

Buttons! Buttons! Everywhere!

Is it any wonder why I have clutter? Who else would let a 2yo loose with a box of buttons?? He LOVES buttons! I like them better than rice or sand in the house. He pours and pounds and dumps and once in a while he throws. He's got measuring cups in there and though I try to encourage him to dump and pour in a dish pan, he doesn't go for it. Apparently, that is too restraining!

This started out as a snowman craft...that quickly turned to button pour and dump time. That's ok...I know the other kids are working on snowmen and wondering who is going to clean up the button mess.

My only regret? I forgot to order my pound of buttons with my paints. Bummer! If you have any stray buttons...you can send them my way and Grandma...if you are stuck on what else to get J2...well a giant bag of buttons will make him squeal!!

I Crack Myself Up!

It was time to head to the hairdresser's today to get these four shaggy kids a nice haircut. Love hair cut day!

I was going to try and shovel the walk so the kids wouldn't have to slog through 6 inches or more of snow that had fallen over night, but I couldn't find the shovel.

I had visions of the shovel having been knocked over and the wind drifting tons of snow over top, so I aimed to call Dan and ask him where he had put the shovel down. I wanted to save time.

So, I grabbed my cell phone and hit send to search for the last time I called him. Up until today (or at least recently), my phone had only been programmed with Dan's cell phone number not our home number (this is important eventually). So, I called Dan and our land line rang. I ran up the stairs and decided to hang up on Dan and answer the land line. Only a dial tone. How rude I thought. I dialed again. Again, my land line rings and I hang up on Dan and pick it up only to get a dial tone.

I repeated this four times before realizing that there was a house icon next to the number for Dan that I was dialing. Who put that there?

Summary: I dialed my home phone and hung up on myself four times before I figured out what was going on.

That gave Dan his laugh for the day and the shovel? That was on the back porch where the kids were trying to remove two feet of snow yesterday afternoon. Duh.

More Snow!

This weekend we had the third storm in as many weeks and we are all enjoying the snow! I negotiated with my neighbor across the street so we could have the snow wall early for sledding. Our front yard is a sharp, little hill and Dan makes a sled run diagonally across it. However, there has to be a significant snow bank at the bottom so this kids can't go in the road and to cover the ditch which is still running with water after some mixed precip last week.

All the kids loved it and we have new sleds to enjoy the run. Dan ran and jumped on our old sled and cracked it last year! When we bought the sleds on Thursday the kids kept asking, "Is Daddy going to break this sled?" HA! I think we got some looks on that one.

We'll continue to have snow showers on and off this week. I'm sure it won't amount to much other than a few more inches on top of what we already have, but it sure beats the cold, dull gray that can happen this time of year if the snow isn't falling!

J2 had a blast yesterday and was out for a few hours along with everyone else. He took one ride down the hill and decided it wasn't for him. The neighbors came out and they were sliding and snowball fighting with us. The worst snowball fight ever because of the powdery snow. It was like sloowww motion fighting with everyone taking forever to make any kind of lame snowball to throw.

Sure does entrench the Christmas Spirit to have so much snow!

Thanks Coach Beamer!

E9 is such an over-the-top college football fan and of course an avid Hokies fan, that I encouraged him to write a letter to Coach Beamer and the Virginia Tech Football team. In it, I explained, he could congratulate them on a fantastic, hard-working season and tell them how he looks forward to seeing them in the Orange Bowl. It was the perfect opportunity to teach friendly letter form and to coach E9 on how to be an encourager while leaving out all the things he thought they could do better! You know try to get him to empathize on which sounds more encouraging, "You did great, but...." or , "You did great!"

The letter above is a second copy of the one he sent. We were so anxious to get it in the mail that we forgot to make a a copy. He did use the full friendly letter form, but of course our personal information was taken out there. He also signed in cursive and titled himself their most devoted 9 year old fan.

Below is the letter he received today in the mail. I had been praying that he would receive an answer back from them. We sent it on December 4th and the response arrived today- December 14th! We did try to prepare him that he may not hear back because the team is busy preparing for their bowl game, etc.

It's exciting that he received a personal letter back with an actual ball point signature from Frank Beamer himself!

So, thanks Coach Beamer for taking the time to respond to a most devoted fan. The letter has made it to the scrapbook already. What an exciting moment when I held the letter up and E9 read the return address!

We'll see you at the Orange Bowl in January!

GO HOKIES!!!!

Right on Time!

Thanks FedEx guy...they arrived just in time- though I wasn't impressed with the manner in which they were left (next to the door lying on its side- as in the biggest, widest side up toward the sky catching lots of new snow. There was a plastic bag but it wasn't on the package just sort of next to it). Thankfully the contents of the box wasn't offended by such an environment. I thought sure we had the right sized boot for E9 this season, but our excursion to get the Christmas tree proved otherwise. On the way there, E9 reported from the back that he couldn't feel his toes. What?! There must be some mistake. You were just that size last time...clearly we never ordered up last year so this year he was really pressing the limits! Behavior like this explains why the size 13 boots are not in the collection. These slick snow boots are an LLBean special and provide ultimate warmth and most importantly they keep little kid feet dry. Everybody knows the key to lasting outside a long time is warm or at least dry feet, covered wrists and probably a warm head! We have a whole collection of these LLBean beauties...mostly in black with gray, black with navy blue, black with light blue...and now this dazzling red. Sorry the only girl can't wear pink boots, it would buck the system. She can pull off red and navy though. That's just the way the world is I guess. I do make an exception for outerwear. She is all decked out in purple and pinks from head to toe.

And since we may get at least another foot- if not two more feet of snow this weekend, the boots really did get here just in time! Other items arriving in time are two new sleds built for speed and a set of new snow tires for the van. Nothing like buying two brand new sets of tires in as many months! Just in case you didn't realize...tires/wheels are WAY bigger up in person inside your house than they appear on your vehicle. What an illusion that is!

Anyway...welcome winter! Bring it on!!

It's Snowing Today!

The forecast is for 7 to 10 inches of heavy snow today! I was out to help with the shoveling, but at over an inch an hour it is a little bit useless. It sure is pretty though.

And as we speak brand new snow tires are being put on the van. So, I'll be able to keep my outing tomorrow...whatever that is. I just know we want to go out!

We are reading The Long Winter in earnest now and I'm starting to feel a little like Laura with the whirling, swirling snow. We are missing the howl for now thank goodness!

David Goes to Mars

This is the title for I-5's book. He just couldn't wait to dictate his story to me and I'll share the introductory paragraph with you now.

David was an astronaut. He wanted to go into space, but he didn't have a rocket. However, David was an engineer. In fact, he was an aerospace engineer. An aerospace engineer knows how to build a rocket.

It took him two sessions to dictate the whole story to me. We have made the mock up book and we're working on where the page breaks will be. After that I-5 will use his skills as an illustrator to make wonderful drawings about this trip to Mars. We have not discussed medium yet, but if given a choice I'd say he will either paint or use oil pastels. Who can resist oil pastels? Stay tuned for the finished product.

Writing Books with Children: An Update

For the past week we've been exploring types of stories and preparing the kids to write one of their own. We began last week by listing out the types of stories we could think of. This is the list the kids came up with (Ok so it's been some time since we changed the date on the chalkboard...I'm sure it has nothing to do with why my K-er keeps asking what day it is...) and it looked pretty good. Can you tell I took the picture after the tree was up?

This week we've spent some time reading aloud a few story genres. Our current read aloud happens to be autobiographical fiction (The Long Winter) and we read a Greek myth about Hercules. We reviewed Pumpkin Runner and why that is considered a tall tale. We talked about Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan and folklore. We read a fairytale and a Christmas story that is a legend. E9 reads fantasy all the time with is Redwall series.

The older kids spent time with dictation passages experiencing in detail some different choices authors can make. One passage was a paragraph that described a character in the book. One included dialogue so we could review how to use the punctuation. One was a paragraph that gave a very clear visual and takes you right there with the words. Hopefully we'll see some of these strategies come up in their own stories.

I've also spent time with the kids developing and editing their own stories. I-5 is working on an incredible story about a man who visits Mars after building a rocket and a rover. R7 is writing more poetry and has decided on a collection of her poems as her book. We'll be talking about how she'll arrange her poems within the book and editing some errors. She learned about acrostic poems today and wrote one from Christmas. Dan helped compose a poem from her first name this evening...so cute. E9 is working on an autobiography of sorts describing out day to get the Christmas tree. His composition is quite good. I can't wait to share some excerpts in an update. He has definitely taken us right there with his words. I'm anxious to hear how this story ends.

Next week we'll be working on layout and text design. Then we'll move on to illustrations and page arrangements. We will be making a hardbound cover for each one so once I have those directions squared away, I'll be sure to post pictures or easier directions.

Stay tuned as we continue to author wonderful children's books.

Did Someone Say Snow??

The snow began Sunday and didn't stop really until Wed. night... it just kept on coming down. This was taken on Tuesday and it's all still here. With temps in the teens all week, it's not going anywhere. I hope this foreshadows a winter filled with snow!!This is the back porch with about a foot of snow. Those recycling bins are going to be really heavy next week. Look at the lonely uncovered grill over there. Don't worry the top is just about completely disconnected from the frame. I wish I had pictures of Dan holding the front of the grill down with the long fork while he grilled that last steak...the trick will be finding a modest one to take its place.

Unfortunately, this means no sending him into the snow to grill up a little something this winter!

He's at It Again!

The 5 just quit. Done. Finished. I had given up. Resigned myself to the fact that I was getting a new phone for Christmas. Until Dan came along this evening...this time when he couldn't make a phone call, he got his trusty screwdriver and took the phone all apart. "Gel", he said. "There's a gel in there that is either in the way or not in the right place."

He cleaned all the parts with alcohol. He rinsed that scary, rubbery looking thing with soap and water to remove the gel and as I was loading up this picture, he came downstairs in triumphant glory, verbally sharing the number he was dialing- which of course had a 5 in it.

Engineers are special people. If there's a problem, it MUST be solved. If you don't know one, I can tell you they are good people to get to know because a good engineer WILL solve the problem!

2007 FIAR Ornaments

For the second year in a row, we participated in the Five in a Row Christmas ornament exchange. We are assigned to a list by the ever-generous-with -her-time organizer and we make roughly 9 to 12 ornaments to share. This year we have received about 7 or 8 ornaments all related to FIAR titles so far which is SO cool!

Last year we had a mix of story titles and winter/Christmas fun. The kids really enjoyed visiting the mailbox for the last few weeks and they love seeing them on the tree.

We keep our large tree in the playroom because it's the biggest room in the house. We put a smaller, fake tree upstairs in the living room so it can be festive up there too.
In the past, we've put our "First Christmas Together" ornaments on that tree. Oh yes, we have a whole tree full. That's what happens when you get married December 23rd. Everyone is clever with the first Christmas Together idea! Anyway, some of those ornaments are pretty fragile so we have opted to put them high on the big tree for a while.

So, our Charlie Brown tree from our condo days sits upstairs full of homeschool-y non-breakable ornaments. And THAT is fun!

Our ornament is missing from the stash above. I put our extras somewhere and can't find them. These are super creative and fun to talk about.

Below is a shot of our tree with both sets of ornaments on it. Enjoy!

Advent Activities

This season we began Advent with a family celebration to kick it off yesterday which, of course, included our annual tree cutting. We decorated the tree and sang carols and started to reveal our Advent calendar pockets. Our calendar was painstakingly and lovingly made by my mother-in-law and is a treasured favorite for our children. This year they've been doing the math, right down to labeled diagrams, of who will reveal what on which day. It is a fun calendar that packs a lot of meaning since as you draw closer to Christmas, you build more and more into the story of Jesus' birth.

Each day we'll read some Christmas themed books and we'll try to do several activities per week depending on our schedule. We are actually heading into this season fairly low key and it doesn't show signs of changing a whole lot. I have some crafty lessons planned which I'm sure will be fun for all.

This is a list of the books that are in our home library. We've been collecting them over the years. I added several to the library this year to make this collection.

If you Take a Mouse to the Movies by Laura Numeroff
The Night before Christmas by Clement C. Moore, Illustrated by Bruce Whatley
The Usborne Christmas Story Jigsaw Book by Brian Voakes
Clifford's Glow in the Dark Christmas by Scholastic
Henry and Mudge in the Sparkle Days by Cynthia Rylant
Arthur's Perfect Christmas by Marc Brown
Bear Stays Up by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman
The Stable Where Jesus Was Born by Rhona Gowler Greene
Come and See by Monica Mayper
The Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg
This is the Star by Joyce Dunbar
A Blue's Clues Holiday by Angela Santomero
Little Porcupine's Christmas by Joseph Slate
It's Present Day by Alice Wilder
Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado
The Baby Jesus- board book
The First Christmas- board book
The Legend of the Candy Cane
The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson (added this year)
The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey by Susan Wojciechowski (added this year)

Christmas Craft and Activity Books:

Angelina Ballerina's Christmas Crafts
Usborne's You and Your Child Christmas
Things to Make and Do for Christmas from Usborne
Family Countdown to Christmas by Debbie Trafton O'Neal
Family Fun Homemade Holidays edited by Deanna Cook
Family Fun Crafts edited by Deanna Cook
Family Fun Boredom Busters edited by Deanna Cook
The Toddler's Busy Book
The Preschooler's Busy Book
The Children's Busy Book - all Busy books by Trish Kuffner
Easy to Make Bible Story Puppets by Valerie Bendt

Library Books we have on hand for read alouds or silent reading:

Silent Night: The Song and its Story by Margaret Hodges
Terrier in the Tinsel by Ben M. Baglio (a chapter book series Animal Ark)
A Charlie Brown Christmas by Charles Schultz
The Baker's Dozen A Saint Nicholas Tale retold by Aaron Shepard
Amish Christmas by Richard Ammon
Gus and Grandpa and the Christmas Cookies by Claudia Mills
Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters by Patricia and Frederick McKissack
A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (as retold in a graphic form by Marcia Williams

A note about What God Wants for Christmas...

At the MOPS convention in September Family Life left with the field leaders a free Ultimate Christmas Party tin. I plan to use it with our children and perhaps a few of the neighbor's kids- if I'm feeling brave (and if I'm not I bet Dan will!). The kit comes with nativity cookie cutters and allows kids to make the characters of the nativity and a cracker/pretzel stable.

They have a corresponding interactive nativity set that allows you to open gifts over many days revealing that what God wants for Christmas is YOU!

It's Tree Time!

Tradition says two things about our Christmas tree cutting. First, there must be snow on the ground for a truly wonderful experience. Second, there is always a good game of hide and seek among the trees once the tree has been cut.

Today was mostly perfect. Aside from the blowing winds making the wind chill about 10 degrees, there was plenty of snow and mostly still falling and we had the second part of the day free to get the job done.

The finished results are not in just yet... there was trouble with the lights. Love that series wiring, now just how long will it take to find the bad bulb or maybe it's the fuse. Whichever, Dan had to walk away for a while! When the tree is fully decorated I will be sure to post the result.

Stay tuned for that and a glimpse of our FIAR tree!