We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

 

It’s usually challenging for me to write a monthly Kids’ Picks post, mainly because I’m the main book picker here at the House of Hope.  Oh, my girls have plenty of opportunity to choose books for our read-alouds times or for their own perusal, but ultimately, I control what comes into the house.  I do let them pick a couple of books each time we go to the library, but I limit it to two or three each because if I didn’t, we’d end checking out the entire Arthur or Franklin collection.  😉  Please don’t revoke my Kids’ Picks button!  🙂

This month, though, I have a genuine Kids’ Pick, and one that reaches back a couple of years, at that.  Louise requested We’re Going on a Bear Hunt last week.  This is one of those books that my girls loved, loved, loved when they were younger.  However, as they’ve gotten older (after all, they’re very mature 5 and 4 year olds now! 😉 ), I regret to say that I’ve let quite a few of these classics fall by the wayside.  In fact, we have one whole long shelf of boardbooks that were once beloved favorites but that we never look at now.  We own We’re Going on a Bearhunt in paperback, and after Louise repeatedly requested that we read it, it took a little searching on our full-to-overflowing shelves, but we found it.  There are several lessons in this for me:

• Just because my children are capable of and willing to listen to long chapter books doesn’t mean we need to abandon picture books (even “babyish” ones). 
• Children love repetition and familiar stories, even after we are sick of them.
• I shouldn’t get so wrapped up in my latest library finds that I neglect my own home library.  I’m very guilty of this.
• Louise is my little songbird:  she is forever making up songs and rhymes.  I really need to indulge and encourage this, especially through the books we read. 

I actually can’t believe I haven’t included this particular story on my Best Picture Books list before now.  (I’ll attribute it to the fact that I really have neglected our home library.)  This is such a great toddler and preschool picture book–it’s very repetitive and just begs to be acted out.  It is my go-to rhyme when we keep the nursery at church and the natives begin to get restless.  Helen Oxenbury‘s illustrations are very expressive; my girls have always been concerned about the rather dejected-looking bear at the end of the story.  In short, this is one that’s too good to be missed.  You can visit the author’s website here.  I even found a video of him performing We’re Going on a Bearhunt.  Enjoy!

As if all of this is not enough, I have photographic evidence that this book is indeed a genuine Kids’ Pick here at the House of Hope.  The photographs here were snapped back about two years ago, and they are of Louise with her favorite book.  Seeing these pictures makes me almost teary-eyed, but it also gives me another reason to look forward to the new addition to our family who will be here faster than we can get ready for him!

For more Kids’ Picks, visit 5 Minutes for Books!

Advertisement

The Human Body Resources

Self-portraits, with body systems illustrated

 My girls and I embarked upon a study of the human body several weeks (months?) ago now, and it has by far been their favorite thing we’ve done this year.  I was feeling a little guilty about not having done a whole lot of science with them this year (and their daddy a science teacher, no less!  😉  ), so one day I did a little searching over at The Well Trained Mind forums, and I hit upon the idea of a human body study.  Some of these books were recommended there; others of them were serendipitous library finds.  In addition to using these general books, we also read nonfiction series titles from the different libraries in our area.  These, however, are definitely the winners.  

This Janice VanCleave book has sold me on her approach and her various series of books!  Janice VanCleave’s Play and Find Out about the Human Body:  Easy Experiments for Young Children has been my guidebook throughout this unit.  So far we have done several of the experiments contained in the book, and we’ve managed to have a fairly thorough discussion of skin, the heart, and the skeletal system.  The experiments require fairly basic equipment, and they’re not very complicated to put together.  After all, they are for preschoolers!  🙂  I purchased this one used through Amazon, so I’m not sure if it’s still in print.  If you ever see a copy, snatch it up!  I give it a Highly Recommended! (The pictures below are all of our experiments based on this book.  Steady Eddie even got in on the action!) 

 

 First Human Body Encyclopedia from the DK First Reference Series is our “spine”; that is, it is the book we use for all of our basic information.  To be honest, before I used this book with my girls, I never understood what was so great about the DK books.  The huge pictures and the blurbs of information always seemed so disjointed to me.  Now, though, I see the value of a book written in this format.  The little snippets of information and the large, excellent photographs (and some drawings) are perfect for young children.  I would not hesitate to purchase any of the DK First Reference titles, and I would consider any of them money well spent.  I can see my girls using this book for many years.  

 

Me and My Amazing Body by Joan Sweeney is another book that I consider indispensible as an introduction to the human body.  This nonfiction book is written more as a story, so it draws the little ones in very quickly.  It covers the major body systems, and while it provides very few details, it provides the information in a very preschooler-friendly way.  I am guessing that any of Joan Sweeney’s “Me” books would be a winner, and I’ll definitely be using them for our future studies! 

It's a chicken leg bone! 🙂

Inside Your Outside!:  All About the Human Body by Tish Rabe bears mentioning mainly because it’s written all in rhyme.  It’s from the Cat in the Hat’s Learning Library.  I find these books a little hard to follow (and so I assume that my children probably don’t comprehend them totally, either 😉 ), but the rhymes are fun and so are the illustrations.  It provides a good little educational diversion.  🙂
This last book is one I just spied on the shelf at the library.  It’s entitled Body:  An Interactive and Three-Dimensional Exploration, and that pretty much sums it up.  It’s really more of an upper-elementary or high school book, but I thought my girls would love the pop-ups it contains.  I was right!  These pop-ups are amazing–they’re all truly three-dimensional with moving parts and fold-outs, etc.  On the last page there’s a human body that opens up in layers.  Susan Ring is the author of Body, and Michele Graham did the amazing illustrations.  

Mainly what we’ve done with this unit is a whole lot of reading and looking and a little bit of playing.  I think this is just right for kindergarten.  

I do have to share one funny, though.   I had this exchange with Louise, who takes everything in just as intensely as Lulu: 

Louise:  Is Daddy taller than himself? 

Me:  No, he can’t be taller than himself.  He can be taller than someone else, but not himself. 

Louise:  What about when his root gets squished down? 

It finally dawned on me that she was talking about his spinal column (“root”) and how it compresses during the day.  One of the experiments we started but never finished due to the plague that hit our house was one in which I measured the girls first thing in the morning and then again that night.  Since the night-time measurement never happened, I simply explained to them that the discs between the vertebrae in our backs are compressed (“squished down”) as we stand and walk throughout the day, so we’re shorter at night than in the morning. 

We still have a couple more body systems to go, and I find that I enjoy it more if we take a little break with some FIAR titles, etc., between body systems.  However, the girls are quick to request the human body books and science experiments again, so I’m not off the hook for long.

ETA:  Oh, I forgot to mention one more thing we did during our (ongoing) human body study.  We’re always working on scripture memorization.  We primarily do this during our morning “couch time”.  For this particular study, we worked on memorizing Psalm 139: 13-18.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
       you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 

¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
       your works are wonderful,
       I know that full well.

 ¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
       when I was made in the secret place.
       When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,

 ¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.
       All the days ordained for me
       were written in your book
       before one of them came to be.

 ¹⁷ How precious to ^[b] me are your thoughts, O God!
       How vast is the sum of them!

 ¹⁸ Were I to count them,
       they would outnumber the grains of sand.
       When I awake,
       I am still with you.

The girls did very well with this, and it was particularly appropriate since I’m currently a living example of the “secret place” where babies grow and develop.  😉  We’ve memorized several longer passages of scripture, but my problem is systematically reviewing them.  I have had a pretty family Bible memory notebook in the works for months now, but I never make the time to finish it.  Does your family have a particular method for keeping memory passages fresh in your minds?

Friday Felicities

I didn’t get to share any Friday Felicities last week, so I’m thinking back over a couple of weeks to come up with my happies for this week. 

• Even though it’s still cold, some signs of spring are beginning to appear.  I particularly like the punch of red that greets me in the school room thanks to the sweet little pot of tulips my dear husband and precious children gave me for Valentine’s Day.  

• After celebrating the Chinese New Year last Monday, Steady Eddie reminded the girls that they could’ve told their grandmother and great grandmother “Happy New Year” when they saw them earlier in the afternoon.  Louise’s response?  “I did.  In French.  Very quietly.”  🙂  That girl.
• The church Bible quiz team which Steady Eddie and I coach together won in their division at last Saturday’s competition.  It was a long day (with a gaggle of rambunctious elementary-aged boys, including my nephews, as well as a few girls), but it was so worth it to know they’re hiding God’s Word in their hearts!
• Our school room in the afternoon is a bright and cheery place as the sunlight streams through the windows.  It’s so good to see the sun!
• It’s easier and easier to snap a “Caught Reading” picture these days!

• I won!

Thank you, Lord, for these blessings!

For more Friday Felicities, check out  Becky’s blog!

Read Aloud Thursday

 It has been a crazily busy week here at the House of Hope, with a couple of doctor appointments and a day trip for Steady Eddie and me on my birthday.  (Bless him, he worked hard to rearrange his schedule so he wouldn’t have to spend the night out of town on my big day.  It was still a work trip for him, but I got to putter around and spend an inordinate amount of time browsing in a huge bookstore, so it was a good day, at least for me.  What a guy!)  I said all that to say that although we have lots of books from the library, we’ve had a hard time getting to them this week.  I’m pulling a couple of books that we enjoyed several weeks ago, instead, and sharing them this week.  Hopefully next week I’ll have more current read-alouds to share!

Easy Work!  An Old Tale is an adaptation by Eric A. Kimmel of an American folktale, and my girls thought it was hilarious.  I’m not sure, but I think it might be because Mr. McTeague dons his wife’s dress, bonnet, and apron, as you can see here on the book’s cover.  Andrew Glass did a marvelous job of visually translating this very funny story.  The story, in a nutshell, is this:  Mr. McTeague thinks his wife, in all her housewifely duties, has it made.  She sees a golden opportunity (and he thinks he does), so they agree to trade jobs for a day.  Well, predictably, things don’t go very well for Mr. McTeague.  His homekeeping catastrophes are really funny, especially as he devises ways to make the work easier for himself.  In the end, though, he learns his lesson:  he’d rather leave the homekeeping to his wife and return to his work with the oxen in the woods.  I see from Eric A. Kimmel’s website that he is a very prolific writer, especially when it comes to folktales from around the world.  I’ll definitely keep him in mind as I plan for next year’s schooling!

The other book I’m sharing today is one that I’ve wanted to share for a long time, but I’ve been waiting for the time to give it its own post.  I’ve since decided that that’s probably never going to happen (and the library is finally going to just give me the book since I’ve had it out for so long 😉 ) and that I might as well just give it a spot on today’s Read Aloud Thursday.  The book? Harold’s ABC  by Crockett Johnson.  I’ve mentioned my love and appreciation for Harold and the Purple Crayon before , and it turns out that there’s a whole series of Harold books.  This one is obviously an ABC book; the story takes Harold through the alphabet from A to Z, with him drawing with his ever-present crayon all the way.  Harold’s ABC is every bit as clever as the first Harold book, and it even inspired me to encourage my girls in a little bit of bookmaking of their own.   I suggested to the girls that they use this book as a model; Harold’s illustrations are based on each letter of the alphabet (i.e. “C is for cake” and voila, the letter C is a layer cake with a triangular slice cut out).  I realize now that this might be too abstract a concept for a five year old and a four year old, but they had fun working on their little books.  We used the “Book on a Stick” concept for our creations.  Lulu’s book is entitled “Lulu’s World of Adventures with ABCs.”

This is her G page.  This is a gorilla, and if you look closely (and think backwards 😉 ), you’ll see that the gorilla’s claws (nails?  what do gorillas have?) are shaped like g‘s. 

One more:  this is her J page, and naturally, these are “jumping j‘s” on a trampoline. 

Of course, Louise was included in this activity, too.  I’ve already mentioned that she loves making books, but as it turns out, she prefers a more open-ended exercise.  Her first page is of a lovely green caterpillar. 🙂

Now we just need to go back and add the text to our books, and we’ll be done.  Oh, and I need to have a  manicure ASAP.  😉

Now it’s your turn!  What have you been reading with your family this week?  Leave a link below to your blog post in which you discuss your read aloud selections, or simply leave a comment.

Powered by MckLinky

Click here to enter your link and view the entire list of entered links…

Have a fantastic Read Aloud Thursday!

ETA:  I am linking up this Read Aloud Thursday post to a fun meme called stART over at A Mommy’s Adventures.  This meme is for posts which combine stories and art.  Check it out!

Friday Felicities

I started not to write a Friday Felicities post this week, but I missed it last week, and I really like to do these.  I think I’ll like to look back in the future and have a record of some of the good things that happened these dark, cold weeks of winter. 

So, onto the list:

• We had a great trip last weekend to Atlanta, on which we visited the Georgia Aquarium, IKEA, the Wren’s Nest (link to my post about our visit), the original Chic-Fil-A Dwarf House (and lots of other restaurants, of course), and more bathrooms than I care to count.
• It only took us one day, really, to recuperate from the trip.  Monday was a pretty hairy day for me, but by Tuesday I felt mostly back to normal.  🙂
• Monday’s surprise snowstorm made the day a little more tolerable–it was exciting for the girls to go outside and try to build a snowman.    They DID manage to make a couple of snowangels, and even though the snow barely covered the asphalt on the street, I think the girls were bundled up well enough to avoid getting any scrapes.  😉  Within a couple of hours, all the snow was gone, but it was pretty while it lasted.
• Lulu’s reading has really taken off this week.  She selected Madeline in London as her daily reading selection one day, and although we’re taking it slowly, I can see that she has a real interest in reading for herself now. 
• Louise has had a grand time playing on an empty box that once held an IKEA bookcase (unassembled).  It’s usually a boat, but sometimes it’s other things (a slide?  something else?  I lose track.). 
• Chic-Fil-A is once again including “Between the Lions” CDs as the prize in their kids’ meals.  (Looking at the website, I think this must be because they had leftovers or something.  I don’t think it’s the scheduled prize right now.)  Although they’re not different than the ones we got a couple of years ago, most of those have been worn out or lost.  I do have a couple of duplicates, though, so stay tuned–there might be a tiny little giveaway in the future.
• Have I ever mentioned how much we like Chic-Fil-A?  Maybe I should’ve just called this post “Chic-Fil-A Felicities.”  🙂

I just want to stop and thank God for all the good things in my life.  They’re really too numerous to count.

For more Friday Felicities, head over to Becky’s blog!

Reading Over My Shoulder: Education Is an Atmosphere

Lately there’s been a lot of that going on.  While I try to be attentive to my children at most meals, especially, I will confess to reading the local newspaper over breakfast.  However, I’m once again realizing that almost everything can (and likely will) become a “learning moment” (whether I want it to or not 😉 ).  I refer to Lulu as a blossoming reader, and while I’m sure there’s a more appropriate educational term, I like mine.  I see her mind opening up to the possibilities inherent in the ability to read.  While she sometimes balks at our short phonics lessons (‘though she does extremely well and even likes it when it’s said and done), she is forever going about the house reading whatever she sees–shampoo bottles, book titles, canned goods labels, newspaper headlines.  This brings us up to day, breakfast time.  I was eating my bagel and peanut butter and skimming an editorial when Lulu announced, “There’s an s and a z together in that word!”  The article entitled “Chavez’s socialist project hobbled” on the page next to the one I was reading had caught her eye, especially the strange-looking arrangement of letters.  This led to a quick little discussion of possession and the use of apostrophes. 

I think this is the part of homeschooling that I find most rewarding and most confounding.  It’s rewarding because I think this is where much of real learning takes place–in the incidentals, the times when there’s a need to know something, or simply an interest in knowing something.  Will my kindergartener remember everything I told her about possession?  No.  But will she at least be a little more familiar with it than she was before?  Yes. 

It’s confounding because my brief experience as a public school teacher makes me want (need?) to quantify our learning.  Should I make a note that we talked about this?  Can I somehow work this into our lesson plans for the day?  If you have that same voice in your head, you know what I’m talking about.  If you don’t, lucky you.  😉

I’ve been reading up on the Charlotte Mason method lately, especially by perusing Simply Charlotte Mason and slowly going through When Children Love to Learn: A Practical Application of Charlotte Mason’s Philosophy for Today.  Up until the past few weeks, I was fairly certain that I wanted to put into practice the methods of a classical (neoclassical?) education a la The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home .  I still love the idea, but I’m wondering if what I think of as a more gentle approach might be better for us in the beginning.  I’m still mulling it all over in my brain, trying to figure it out myself.  The reason I bring this up now is because I’ve been thinking about one of the pillars of a Charlotte Mason education:  learning is an atmosphere.  I understand that there’s probably a lot more to this little statement than meets the eye as far as an education method is concerned, but I think it must have something to do with the whole incidental learning situation.  I want to be free in my mind for this to be the way our days go.  I think in reality they already go pretty much this way, but in the back of my mind there’s always the little record keeper, checking things off her list. 

I’m still thinking.  I’ll keep you posted.

Friday Felicities

Some happies from this week:

• a real return to health for the whole family–thank you, Lord!
• a week of cooking which results in a fridge full of leftovers for the weekend:  abundance!
• milder temperatures which have made going outside fun, not painful
• an off day for Steady Eddie
• an afternoon at the park
• brownies to share at today’s homeschool group
• a half-price sale that begins today at my favorite library’s used bookstore
• a little girl who requested to ride her new Christmas bicycle around the block
• another little girl who wanted to walk so she could collect things (see picture below for an example of what she deems collection worthy!)
• Lulu’s reading success:  she began just this week keeping a log of the books she has read semi-independently
• Louise’s many and varied malapropisms and generally endearing mispronunciations.  Example:  she referred to an enema (don’t ask–you really don’t want to know) as an I-N-V.  Get it?  N-M-Uh.  🙂  {I can’t believe I just used that word on my blog.  It was just too cute not to document, though.  🙂 }

For more Friday Felicities, check out Becky’s blog.

Kids’ Picks–Audiobooks Galore!

It has been a long time since I’ve had enough foresight to participate in Kids’ Picks over at 5 Minutes for Books, but I’ve had this post percolating in my brain for a long time.  I’m glad to finally have the motivation to get it written and posted!

As I’ve said more times than I can count, audiobooks are a staple here at the House of Hope.  I honestly believe that Lulu, especially, would spend half of her day everyday listening to something (and it would be something related to Little House, usually).  I would estimate that the girls average 1 1/2 to 2 hours of listening time on most days:  one hour at rest time and the remainder at bedtime or other snatches of time during the day when they need occupying.  In fact, I hear Little Town on the Prairie even as I’m writing this. 

I often feel disconnected from what they’re listening to since I’m usually using that time to do other things, so I don’t always write about it here at Hope Is the Word.  However, there have been a few stories they’ve listened to over the past six months or so that I really want to record here, and due to various circumstances, I feel like I have at least a little bit to say about them, so here goes:
I’m not sure how I missed Eleanor Estes’ Newbery Medal-winning Ginger Pye as a child, but I’m really glad my girls have had the pleasure of enjoying this fun and suspenseful story (over and over and over again 😉 ).  They’ve listened to it enough times that I know the whole story, more or less, and I have been amused by the things they’ve picked up and used in their imaginative play as a result.  Louise, especially, has an affinity for names, and more than one of her imaginary playmates or dolls has been named Addie Eagan (spelling? Remember, when I haven’t read it, I’m not responsible  for spelling it correctly!).  Ginger Pye is a heartwarming dog story with some quirky characters, and it’s a mystery, to boot.  I think it would make a great choice for the Children’s Classics Mystery Challenge.  I think I might just read it aloud to my girls for the challenge!  (I really am always curious after I listen to some work to see just how all of those names, etc., are spelled.)  My girls like this one so much, they’ll be thrilled!

This next book is one I picked out for them at the library for purely sentimental reasons:  I loved it myself as a child.  Since my girls love pioneer stories, I figured they’d enjoy this one, too.   They listened to it several times, and we listened to part of the story on at least one short trip.  Carol Ryrie Brink’s Caddie Woodlawn is another Newbery Medal winner.  I’m sure that most people are familiar with the story, but I wanted to share it here because my girls did love it and I have my own particular memory of it:  I have never, ever forgotten the fact that one of the brothers (Warren, I think) messed up his recitation for school.  He was supposed to say, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”  Instead, he said, “If at first you don’t fricassee, fry, fry a hen.”  I’ll leave it to you, dear readers, to determine why this has remained lodged in my brain.  😉

The next couple of audiobooks are ones I’m not as familiar with, but they definitely qualify as kids’ picks.  I picked up a couple of the Mercy Watson stories simply on name recognition:  I’ve read enough of Kate DiCamillo to know that she’s good.  My girls found the endearing stories about this beloved pet pig to be laugh-out-loud funny, and I’ll admit that I did, too. We listened to a couple of the stories over and over again when we went on vacation last fall, and we all got in on the fun.  Since then, we’ve checked out another one of the collections (there are two stories per each collection, I believe), and it was met with just as much enthusiasm and laughter all around.  Since I’ve never seen an actual copy of one of these books, I can’t say for sure, but Ms. DiCamillo’s website has them categorized as “Early Chapter Books,” so I’m thinking these might be a good series to keep in mind for my blossoming reader.

Speaking of a blossoming reader (nice segway, huh?), I just have to share this last book, not just because it’s fun and my girls really liked it in audio, but also because I think it might mark a turning point in Lulu’s journey toward independent reading.  We ran errands on Saturday and went on a little roadtrip to a neighboring town for shopping, etc.–mainly just to get out of the house after a week of sickness and being mostly cooped up.  We usually do bring along a longer audiobook for any trip of an hour or more, but I failed to get one and put it in the van.  Louise had chosen How I Became a Pirate as her bring-along entertainment for the trip, and it just so happens that this particular book is one that came with a CD of the story.  Guess what we listened to five or six times before we even made it out of town?  You guessed it.  It is a fun story, and I think my girls were perplexed about the whole pirate thing (we haven’t read anything with pirates in it to my recollection up until now)–Green teeth?  “Aaargh?”  Sea chanteys?   “Shiver me timbers”?  I don’t think they looked at the pictures much in the van; they just enjoyed listening.  When we got home, Lulu brought me the book and proudly read to me from a page in the middle of the story.  Granted, she had listened to it multiple times that day, but she was obviously working hard to sound out the words.  Bingo!  While she is making great progress in her reading, she is a little bit reluctant to apply it outside of “school time.”  This has changed somewhat over the past few weeks, but I was thrilled when she voluntarily brought me this picture book and shared with me what she could do.  I definitely consider that a Kid’s Pick!

Reading aloud to my children is truly one of the highlights of my day, but I am so thankful to have access to so many great audiobooks to supplement what I do with them.  Right now for my girls a day without an audiobook is almost unthinkable.  While I suspect this will probably change as they both become independent readers, I’m glad that they have been able to meet so many wonderful characters through the stories they’ve heard in this way.

Would you like to see what others bloggers’ kids are picking these days?  Click over to Kids’ Picks at 5 Minutes for Books!

Friday Felicities

 
To be honest, I haven’t had the best week. Among other things, we are still combatting illness, and now I’m counted among the sick.  I’ll be glad when the winter coughs and sniffles are done! 

What better time, then, to focus on the positives?!?

• A return to our normal “load” of scheduled activities.  While this does make life more hectic, we all thrive on routine. 
• Lulu’s declaration that her favorite time of the day is school time.
• An apparent disappearance of morning sickness.  I’m always hesitant to declare anything (especially this!) completely finished, but I almost never feel sick anymore.  Praise the Lord!
• A return to lots of reading aloud
• Renewing my acquaintance with old friends
• A school room that is slowly being organized and  decluttered (and which I hope to share photos of soon!)
• Scrapbooking tonight with friends, if I’m up to it
• A wonderful husband who stayed home from work yesterday to play nursemaid/homeschool tutor/chauffer/chief cook and bottle washer during my time of feelin’ poorly
• A new electric pencil sharpener (or, as one of my girls has been wont to say, “pencinil sharpener”) for the schoolroom, thanks to my dear mother
• A little bit of artistic fun this week, mama included!

Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up. --Pablo Picasso

Friday Felicities

It has been a long while since I’ve participated in the Friday Felicities meme, and I thought this would be a good week to jump back in. 

Some happies from this week:

• A great start to our homeschooling week.  I was energetic and enthusiastic to get started again, which was a relief after slogging through homeschooling with morning sickness.
• The blessing of homeschooling realized when Lulu came down the a viral infection late Tuesday night.  We tabled our lessons for a couple of days, and the girls have enjoyed hours of audiobooks and some DVDs.  We worked when she felt like it and felt good about that.
• A funny from our brief reading lesson on Thursday:  I asked Lulu to use the word slung in a sentence after she read the word (we’re working on the ng digraph right now).  Her sentence:  “I slung the dead camel around my neck and took it to town to sell it.”  What?  🙂
• Exciting news on Tuesday at the obstetrician’s office:  we’re having a BOY!
• A return to scrapbooking for me.  It feels good to have almost completed a layout this week!
• A fresh haircut for me.  Just my normal ‘do (a slightly angled bob), but it feels nice and looks better. 
• Snow on Thursday, which permitted Steady Eddie to stay home with us, too.  Not much snow, but enough by Alabama standards to cancel school for a couple of days and wipe the grocery shelves clear of milk and bread.  😉 (Yet another blessing of homeschooling, especially with young children:  they don’t know it’s a snow day!)

 

See the blue stuff sticking out from under Louise's hat? That's a nightcap, confiscated for the dress up bin after Steady Eddie and I used it in a Sunday School skit. Louise wears it to bed sometimes, a la Laura Ingalls. She felt it a necessary addition to her winter weather wear. This girl really keeps life interesting.

 If you want to read more Friday Felicities, visit Becky’s blog!