summer book club, week 2

So here are the books we've been reading this week:

Thy Friend, Obadiah by Brinton Turkle
*Cute story about a seagull who follows a little boy, Obadiah, around. Nice pictures, made me hungry because the mom bakes muffins and homemade bread.

Snipp, Snapp, Snurr and the Magic Horse by Maj Lindman
*This story just weirded me out completely. Although these are recommended on K's book list, this one convinced me to not check any more out. Nothing sinister - it was just strange.

The Four Seasons of Brambly Hedge by Jill Barklem
These were originally published as 4 separate books, obviously following the seasons (Spring Story, Summer Story, etc...). Tells stories of a little community of mice, who wear clothes, and have great houses in trees and bushes and tree stumps. Great illustrations - my girls really love them because of the whole "animals wearing clothes" factor, but I think boys might like it because of the details of the factories & things like that.

Nursery Classics by Paul Galdone
Great collection of classic fairy tales/fables (Little Red Hen, Goldilocks & The Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs), with fantastic illustrations.

Summer Book Club

So it's summertime!! One of the ways we try to stay cool in our neck of the woods is with a weekly visit to the library. Miss K has a summer reading list we need to help her work through before school starts in the fall, and as the list is (in my opinion) a super-great resource for those of us parenting wee ones, I'm going to blog my way through the list....or at least attempt to! We'll make a visit to the library tomorrow to pick up our first 5 books from the list, but for now I'll share some selections we already have here at home, and thoughts as they pop to mind about some of my favorites:

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, Virginia Lee Burton
The Little House, Virginia Lee Burton
*I adore Burton's books. If you haven't read any of her books, by all means, do so today!!

Animals, Animals, Eric Carle (or any other Carle book)
*I could seriously decorate an entire room with nothing but Carle's illustrations. So gifted!

Prayer for a Child, Rachel Field

Corduroy, Don Freeman (or any other Freeman book)

The Market Square Dog, James Herriot (or any other children's books by Herriot)
*James Herriot is fabulous...the children's books are beautifully illustrated, kiddo-appropriate versions of the tales he writes of his days as a vet in the English countryside. He also has a series of books for adults that are so much fun to read.

The Story of Ferdinand, Munro Leaf

The Little Engine that Could, Watty Piper

The Tale of Tom Kitten, Beatrix Potter (or others in this series)

Another thing Miss K's school has the children work on is recitation, both scripture & poems. Her class recited Robert Louis Stevenson's The Swing for the end of the year party, and she regularly spouts it off when she's playing in the backyard. Encourage those little minds to memorize! You'll be amazed at how much they retain...

how He loves

I love seeing things that I've become used to through my children's eyes. I don't know that Easter is ever something that one should become "used to," but as the years have passed, it's become another holiday that marks how quickly the years are flying by, as in "Good night, is it Easter already?? Didn't this just happen??"

Anyway, Miss K drew this last night with her daddy. She wasn't prompted, she just drew it. She's got such a tender heart - it's really amazing to see the Holy Spirit working in her life, drawing her to Christ in such a sweet way. So hopefully this year I can really stop, and focus on the wonder of Christ, the wonder of His love for us all, His love for the Father, displayed in the cross. A song that keeps ringing in my mind is John Mark McMillan's "How He Loves" - if you haven't heard it yet, click here, find "How He Loves," and have a listen...

you are beautiful!!

Friday at MOPS, Dr. Deborah Newman, a Dallas counselor and pastor to women, came to talk to all of us mommies about body image issues with our preschoolers. The statistics she mentioned were shocking - so many of our littles think terrible things about their bodies - and I think they get most of it from listening to us. It makes me cringe to think of the number of times I've looked at my reflection in the mirror, in front of their impressionable little ears, and uttered "so fat..."

I'll be the first to admit that I don't look like I looked at 18, or 22, or even 26 for that matter...but WHO DOES after having kids, and the old metabolism slowdown that comes with being in your 30's, and WHY do I try to live up to an impossible standard? Why can't I just be content with who I am, with how God has made me?? I'm not saying that I need to just give up, and stop exercising, and eat junk all day...but I need to realize that God has made me to do way more than obsess about the way I look in a pair of jeans.

So on Friday, Dr Newman had us pair up, and say a statement about who we are, in light of being God's children, to each other. It made me cry...I just get so caught up in what the world would have me think of myself, that I can't even remember the truth about who I am to the One who created me. I'm not going to put it here, because I think that everything on her website is copyrighted, but I'd love to challenge you to visit her website here, and find "You are beautiful," about 4/5 of the way down the page, at the bottom of the section "What's a mom to do?" Find a trusted friend, a sister, someone you connect with, and say it to each other. You can certainly tell yourself this in a mirror...but it was so powerful to hear these words spoken over me by a trusted mentor and dear friend.

Again, here's Dr. Newman's website - I'd challenge any of you who might be inadvertently passing on lies about body image to visit. It's going to be a regular stop for me!

Laissez les bon temps roulez!

Happy Mardi Gras everyone!

Even though it's been (gasp!) 12 years since I've called Louisiana home, and 25 since my family lived just outside of New Orleans, there's still something special about Fat Tuesday to me. Like Kelley said on facebook, it's probably more because of the days we had off school than anything else, but I've got some fun Mardi Gras memories lurking around in my brain, and I'm glad to have them!

One of my favorite Mardi Gras memories, I think, is one of me & Jenny playing Mardi Gras parade on the swingset in our backyard in Kenner. The swingset was the float, and we'd take turns throwing beads and doubloons to one another....can't even imagine how much junk my poor dad must have mowed over, with junk getting thrown everywhere, but I'll always giggle when I think of us doing that.

Doing my best to pass on the fun to my kiddos. They already know what a king cake is, baby baked inside & all (yes, Susan, to me it's never going to be weird!), and after I told them the story of auntie & me playing Mardi Gras, K found a flyer from Party City advertising beads & doubloons, and wants some so she & MA can play Mardi Gras, too. Just might have to fulfill that wish today (sorry, honey - I'll do my best to pick up before you have to mow)!

thinking of pop

Haven't been writing much lately (obviously!). I've been attributing that to a case of mid-winter "mully-grubs" (yes, I still use that phrase Bro. Doyle!), and acclamation to the world of facebook (ha!). But as I've been thinking about it today, I think it's because I just really miss my pop. Some of you know he passed away a few months ago - what you might not know is the last time I was with him, I was a complete brat.

Pop, like lots of other 87 year-olds, didn't have the best hearing in the world. Some granddads might put it more delicately, but that old marine who'd raised 8 kids of his own had taken to commenting on my girlies' "screechy little voices" in the last few months he was with us. He never had anything ugly to say about my girls...he loved them - they always got big kisses and hugs from pop-pop whenever we went to see him. But he was tired of what their high-pitched little-girl voices did to his ears, to his head.

So the last time I saw him, I pitched a fit when he fussed about their "screechy little voices." And I didn't give him a chance to apologize when he tried to...and I didn't give my girls time to say goodbye to their pop-pop as I stormed out of his house.

The next time I saw him was on a table in the emergency room, tubes coming out of his mouth, still warm although he was gone. All I could do was kiss his head (his hair was always so soft), and whisper "I am so so sorry..."

And I will always regret that I never got the chance to make things right with pop this side of heaven. I will always, always regret that my girls didn't get to give pop their usual hugs and kisses before we left. I hate that.

I'm praying that I'll learn from this, that I'll be more careful with the precious time I'm given with those I love. But I know that I'm stubborn, that I tend to forget lessons all too quickly, and that sometimes the only way for me to really get something is when it really, really hurts. Think this one qualifies. Father, thank you for tender mercies that are new every morning...how thankful I am that you don't take off in a huff when I insult You, or Your Son with my words and actions. Please, please help me to learn a lesson here, to love well, and to forgive quickly. How desperately I want to grow up to be like Jesus...

can't handle the peer pressure!!!

Ha! So I've finally decided to cave to the phenomenon called facebook....let me know if you're already on, and I'll see if I can figure out how to make friends! ;o)

great expectations

I can't believe it's already January 6th...the holidays, so soon gone, are a frenzied blur in my mind. We had such high hopes - it was the first year we were able to spend the holidays with all of honey's siblings (and all of the grandkids) up in PA. So I braced myself for a road trip to remember, and the Monday before Christmas, off we went. Tuesday night we arrived, exhausted but happy, ready to celebrate. Everything seemed perfect - everyone was there, everyone was on their best behavior, and the kiddos were all so cute together! Then, in the wee small hours of Christmas morning, I heard the horrid sounds of my oldest child throwing up. MA soon followed, with honey not far behind. Turns out that one of the families there had just recovered from a stomach bug, and had passed it on, not only to our family, but to just about everyone. Of the 31 people there for Christmas, 27 had the stomach bug sometime during our time together. Turned out to be a 24 hour bug, but my sweet family was very weak for days following. Stomach bug was followed by an pretty bad asthama flare for MA, and colds for all four of us. I think I got to feeling better about the time we rolled back into the DFW area.

Needless to say, it was a Christmas to remember.

As we look at another year, and all the expectations that go with it, I hope I can remember some lessons I learned from the great Christmas adventure of 2008. Sometimes, things just don't go the way you hope they will. However, there are still blessings to be found even when your expectations are dashed - you just have to be willing to keep your eyes (and heart) open to see them. And now, O Lord, for what do I wait? My hope is in You. Psalm 139:7