Baby browsing for a book

Princess' scripture bag

I made a little Book of Mormon bag carrier for Princess out of some old receiving blankets using these instructions. She was thrilled because she sees her brothers carry scriptures to church and usually wants to carry her own as well. This makes it easier for her and it's so cute! She brings it out every night when we read scriptures and is very protective of her book.

I told Trainboy I'd make one for him too, but he didn't like any of the fabrics I had on hand. We still haven't made it to the fabric store to find an acceptable "boy" fabric for him.

Dinoguy has a scripture bag and his large scripture set from his eighth birthday. But since bringing scriptures is very emphasized in primary now, Trainboy also tries to take scriptures each week - and we have enough extras that he has some he considers his until he gets his own official set at eight.

Library books

They are taking over my bookshelves.

See - it was a display bookshelf, with room for large books at the bottom and a few library books on the second bottom shelf. But now the books have filled that shelf and started taking over the next shelf up too.

Not that I'm complaining. If they are on the bookshelf, it's because I put them there. My kids are always reading and enjoying books (and leaving them all over the house). I love library elf because it keeps us from forgetting to renew or return books (as long as we can find them). Which is the point of the libary bookshelf. If all the library books make it back to the bookshelf each night, they don't get lost. Of course there is always the one they take to bed with them to read and it has to be searched for under the bed sometimes. Or the stack they take in the car to read on errands or trips. Have to keep track of those too. But we come out usually with no fines at all.

And yes, Munchkin can access them all. She loves to "read" and be read to. And she frequently empties the shelf. But I only pick them up in the evening right before bedtime unless they are being stepped on or mistreated.

We are the family at the library every week, returning tons of books and then checking out tons of books. There is a 100 item limit per card. Luckily we have 4 cards. Not that I think we've ever had more than 120 total. But with all the homeschooling resources I check out and all the books each person checks out for personal reading as well, it adds up.

Anyway, we love the library. :)

A tale of two books

About 10 days ago, I was struck down with another bout of the flu. My throat had hurt a bit that morning, but by dinner time, I was slightly delirious, having a hard time staying upright and hurt all over. Fixitman came home from Scouts reporting similar symptoms.

The next morning when I attempted to get up, the room spun. I lay back down and made peace with having a "sick" day and picked up the book I'd been slowly reading. Pilgrim's Inn by Elizabeth Goudge. Dinoguy happily brought me some toast and water when asked and he & Trainboy spent the day watching movies (they were not sick). Fixitman lay on the couch with the boys and I kept Munchkin with me, for napping & nursing.

The next day I was able to stumble around the house some, but was still quite ill. I'd finished Pilgrim's Inn, so I started on another book I'd been given to read, The Choice by Nicholas Sparks.

Perhaps if I had not read The Choice right after reading Pilgrim's Inn, my reaction would not have been so intense. But then, I am a person of strong opinions (according to my dear sister), so maybe not. But the contrast between them was strong.

Both are love stories. One is uplifting, inspiring and discussed selfless giving and making loving choices for the better of others. The other is crass, sensual, glories in selfishness and being unable to control ones' impulses - really about lust, not love.

It was the stark contrast between them that brought to mind counsel to search out the best books. Even in books read primarily for entertainment. There are so many good books out there, and I usually am surrounded by excellent reading choices. I really think we learn and absorb information from all things, even those things we choose for entertainment. If our chosen entertainment is degrading, it will drag us down. In contrast, if our chosen entertainment is uplifting, it will inspire us to be better people.

I feel I physically experienced this in strong contrasts while being sick and reading these books. When I was reading Pilgrim's Inn, I was in an happy peaceful state of mind, and felt inspired to be better in my daily life. When it was over, I was so happy for all the characters who had worked out their problems in noble and inspiring ways and had the ultra happy ending. I felt inspired.

In contrast, while reading The Choice, I was upset and irritated by the poor choices made by the characters and felt irritable as I thought about the negative fall out their choices would have on others that was glazed over and ignored in the book. My overall feeling during reading the book was irritation and depression. I was left with an empty pit in my stomach when the book was over and had to talk to someone about how awful I felt. For a bit, I was unable to do anything but stew about the annoying things the characters had done and how better choices could have been made in their situations.

In summary, if you haven't read the Choice, don't bother. If you have already and liked it and can't believe I hated it so, well don't take my recommendations on literature, we obviously have different taste! If you would like a lovely old fashioned story with real characters who are strongly developed and would like to be inspired by your book, check out Pilgrim's Inn. I think you'll really enjoy it.

Reading

Trainboy knows his letters well, and is starting to remember some short words when he sees them. Overall he still focuses on the pictures when he is reading or being read to. He does ask what things say, so he has word awareness. I didn't catch a photo of him listening to his train book on CD but this is a bit later - when he was reading the body books. He is so intent!

Dinoguy can read pretty well now. He loves his Dinosaur book on CD from his Grandparents. I thought this was such a cute moment, I grabbed the camera while he was unaware. His confidence level with reading has increased in the past few months and he'll read in front of me. It has come naturally from wanting to be independent at video and computer games as well as being able to read books to himself. We haven't done any specific reading practice. Just read a lot of books. As far as learning to read books, the best for us has been the Berenstain bears. The boys love the stories, they are cute and catchy and use great repetition. "Big bear, small bear" is genius in my humble opinion.

I keep a box of books in the car between their car seats for them to read while we're driving. Recently I heard Trainboy trying to remember the words that went with the pictures to "Big Bear Small Bear" and then I heard Dinoguy say "Here let me read it to you". What a moment! I was grinning big in the front seat.

Last Child in the Woods

I finally finished the book. It is filled with interesting things, but was not an easy read for me. I think that part of that is the writing reminds me of a newspaper column, only it is way too long. The author, Richard Louv, was a columnist for 23 years.

The book is written mostly in a sappy remember the good old days style. It intersperses personal stories with statistics and research reports, swaying between being almost a scholarly book and a cute collection of personal experiences urging you to join the movement. Personal experiences have their place and are interesting to read. But they do not necessarily work logically as a way to build cases. So there are many flaws to the book. But it is an interesting read.

The author's world view seems to come from that of a middle to upper income father of schooled children and he writes mainly to other parents in a similar situation. As an unschooler, much of the experiences he writes about do not apply to me or my family since we have already left that system and already strongly believe in children having free time to explore their world.

The concept of the natural frontiers as they have progressed thru America's history were fascinating to me. The idea of opening and building the fourth frontier was a lovely story, though I don't see it as realistic. It simply doesn't account for those of varying income levels and lifestyles.

The first frontier was the actual frontier our pioneer ancestors went out and tamed. Think of mountain men, explorers like Lewis & Clark, and Davy Crockett. It was theorized to have closed in America in 1890 by Frederick Jackson Turner, with the first census where there wasn't a continuous line of frontier on the map of the USA. The second frontier was the "Disney" view of the first frontier, think the Davy Crockett movie. with family farms being something almost everyone had a connection to - either from living on one or having a relative on one. This frontier ended in 1990, with the fact that the farm survey was now irrevelent in the US Census now that less than 1.9% of households were on farms - down from 40% in 1900. The third frontier is where we now live today.

Louv characterizes the third frontier by five trends. The severing of the public and private mind from the origins of our food, the disappearing line between machines, humans and other animals, our relationship with animals becoming increasingly only intellectual, the invasion of cities by wild animals, and the rise of a new kind of suburbia. I think this book is worth reading just to read about this thesis on the third frontier. Another large part of this third frontier is the criminalization of natural play. Where tree house building is illegal and exploring nature is to be done only with our eyes, not with our hands.

At the end of the book, Louv comes back and presents his idea for the establishment of the fourth frontier where we live in small green village suburbs. Where kids can freely explore nature and interact with it. He uses a story as the framework and draws the ideas from things that are actually happening in America. Green neighborhoods are being built or tried out.

The middle of the book is a muddy meandering walk through interesting ideas such as how nature might be the cure to ADHD, depression, obesity and our national spirituality. They all tie into the main thesis of the frontier, but we get lost easily from that. He talks about the legal threats that scare us all from allowing kids to climb trees or play together. The lack of natural history and interaction with nature in the schools is discussed and then places where camp and nature reform are creeping into life are heralded. Europe is greener than the USA in terms of green spaces within the cities and this is explored. There are so many good ideas in the middle, but how it ties into the whole book is hard to remember at times. The exposure to new ideas and things people are doing to involve children more in nature is certainly worthwhile.

For me, I giggle when he discusses the uselessness of the pervasive standardized tests that are taking over and controlling what is taught in the schools and then turns around and uses statistics like those culled from tests to describe what they ought to be doing. We certainly live in a society that does not understand and as a result, revers statistics. I said earlier how his use of personal experiences and stories can take away from the scholarly evidence in the book - there is a place for personal experiences in scholarly research, it is all in how you use it and approach it. Heartstring pulling isn't quite what you want.

Behind the index of the book in my edition is a field guide to the book with one hundred ideas of how to get involved, get back to nature and change our community for the better. This resource list makes the book valuable as well.

So I recommend you read the book. Or browse it at least, perhaps treating the sections as essays. Free play, and interaction with nature is a good thing. Forcing it on kids is not. How much time are you spending outside?

Rainy day two

It started raining the evening of day one, kind of explaining the freaky calm ocean. But it didn't stop, it rained all day the next day. So we had an indoors kind of day.



I settled down with a good book on the screen porch and enjoyed myself. The view was fantastic, the sounds of the storm beautiful...the temperature perfect...I love screen porches.)

The boys played bunches of board games with their aunts and uncles, did puzzle work, etc. and we ate lots of yummy food and then that afternoon headed out to go bowling and stop by on my Grandma.

We had a lot of fun bowling, they had one of the ball slides for little people to use that the boys liked as well as bumpers that we all benefited from. There was some irony in that the rain had let up shortly after we arrived. (It was still cool out and not swimming weather though.)

Then we went to visit my Grandma and show off how much the boys had grown since last year. It was a quick visit and I didn't snap any pictures because I'm lazy. But Fixitman apparently did of the kids and I found a few on my sister's memory card from the dock.

Fixitman cooked up the meat for delicious tacos/burritos that night and we had a fun time playing games, reading books, watching the olympics and all that some more.

In Defense of Food

Michael Pollan's new book came out. Did you notice? Or are you not big into food books? It may not be as awesome as his previous book, but it has many interesting and important points to make. Here are my top 3 for now:

1. Most of the stuff at the grocery store is not food. It is food-like stuff. It has very little relation to any of the stuff that grows in a garden or on a farm. Can you see the berries in a nutrition bar? Really? Look at the ingredients. Are there any real berries even in them? Do you know what most of the listed ingredients are? Where the come from?

2. Most of us have no idea when we are full or hungry. We pay attention to external cues to determine how much to eat and when. And we're eating all the time now, which is how the food industry is making more money off of us, since the average number of calories we each eat has increased by 600 in the past 40-50 years.

3. The health of the soil affects the health of the produce. The health of the cow affects how healthy a steak is for you. If you are just buying conventional produce and mass market meat, you aren't getting very much nutrition for your $$'s. Did you know there have been oranges tested that had NO vitamin C in them? Liebig's PDK hypothesis about fertilizer and plants is FALSE. Plain and simple. More over, cow's are ruminants. That means they are made to eat grass. Not grain. When they are grain finished on feedlots, they are also pumped full of hormones and drugs to keep them from getting sick. Do you really think that stuff isn't in the meat that comes from them?

While I had a harder time reading this book and didn't find it as well done as The Omnivore's Dilemma, it is a great read still. I am inspired to be more diligent in going to the farmer's market, to the pick your own farms, to buying everything meat from pastured sources.

We joined an organic food co-op and after our first week, I love it. I hope that continues!

Other great food book to read: Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver.

Interesting link on What the World Eats. Full of pictures that you'll find fascinating!

Eating breakfast & Learning to read

What do you eat for breakfast most of the time? Cereal? Breakfast is a great meal, it's interesting to me to see family preferences at breakfast. Fixitman loves sugary cereal by the mixing bowl. He'll eat an entire box in one sitting. Trainboy enjoys cereal and milk as well. Dinoguy only likes cereal as a snack, right out of the box. I stopped eating cereal a while ago. I'm lactose intolerant to some degree, so I don't use milk, and orange juice on cereal only works with some kinds. I stopped drinking soy milk because large quantities of soy are now bad for you. And I read about cereal being bad for you in Nourishing Traditions. So we started eating porridge, the longer cooked version of oatmeal. It's good. Dinoguy loves his "oatmeal" for breakfast with fresh fruit or jam mixed in it, Fixitman & I enjoy it a lot with apple butter mixed in, but Trainboy only eats it sometimes. He prefers cold cereal! Fascinating stuff to me. See my porridge post on my food blog if you want the recipe...

But I digress. The point of this post is remembering breakfast as I kid for me. We mostly had cereal, (I wasn't intolerant of milk at the time), and usually healthier varieties. But I loved to read the cereal box each morning, absorbing all the words on it. It was as important to me as reading the comics each morning.

Dinoguy is learning to read. It's a fascinating process to me, though not at all like I remember my journey. I remember deciding to learn to read and memorizing books to tell my mom I could read. She knew I was memorizing and said it didn't count, but somewhere along the way, I went from just knowing what words were on the page to being able to recognize them and read them. Reminds me of that email forward where all the words are mixed up except the first and last letters of each word, but you can still read it.

Yeah phonics help, but when you know how to read, you don't sound out words. You just know them and read them. Dinoguy recognizes and knows a lot of words, though I'm not sure even he realizes this. He's learning them from the TV, the computer games & the board games we play. From the signs he sees off the road when we are driving around. He's become aware of words and the information contained in them.

He asks me what things say on signs and repeats it to himself and then starts saying it when he sees the same sign again (or asks me again if he doesn't remember). In the car we play the "how do you spell" game. He asks me how to spell words and repeats it to himself. Sometimes they are words he already knows I think and sometimes they are new words. Trainboy likes this game too. A variation of the game is he tells me some letters and asks me what it spells.

One evening we had a disagreement about how to spell the word "dough". He asked, I spelled it, and he told me I was wrong and said it had a "w" in it, asking me to listen to the sound. I tried to explain that -ough is a special sounding part of some words, but he was firm that I was wrong. I let it go. It was a fun moment. :)

He won't perform and read on command. He's overwhelmed by unfamiliar words in books, and tells me he can't read them. As a result, I stopped asking him to read things, but allow him to do it when he wants.

He migrates towards shows about reading like Word World and Super Why?. After we've read a book a few times, he starts reading it to himself, but he's becoming much more accurate and looks at the words some, not just the pictures. At the library, he picks out the graphic novel type books, a la Captain Underpants, which we have some of thanks to gifts I gave his dad when Dinoguy was a baby.

I studied mathematical learning in college, and know all the little parts of numerical literacy he's developing. But the reading literacy is fascinating to watch him develop, since I don't have any checklists in my head and just get to enjoy watching his journey.

Raising our Children, Raising Ourselves

Ever feel like a kid still? I know I do. I'd say that's a good thing most of the time. How to become a better parent though? That is a question I think most of us think about a lot.

I am doing a book club with some of my unschooling friends here in TX now and our first book is Raising our Children, Raising Ourselves by Naomi Aldort. We met last night for a night of discussing the first half of the book and having fun. It was a relaxing, good time. And I highly recommend the book.

A few months ago I blogged about Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. I reported that we had stopped punishments, time outs, threats, counting down, reward systems, etc. And though we slip occasionally, these things are still gone. I'd say its permanent. We are a happier family without them, and our kids are better most of the time. We're certainly not perfect, but life is more peaceful, happier, etc.

So why more parenting books? Well, there are still those moments where I just don't know WHAT to do and I'm losing my patience and control. I don't like falling back on techniques that I know are harmful to my kids. But when you don't have any other tools available, it happens. So we're trying to learn new tools. This book really helps there.

The #1 thing you can do? Bite your tongue and give yourself a minute. Think about what you are about to say. Will it be helpful? Will it accomplish what you want it to? Would you say that to an adult? Etc. She compares it to automatic programs in our brain that start up in situations. She says they aren't necessarily authentically us, but the results of previous experiences. We can hold our tongue, watch the movie in our head and then let it be and turn our attention to our child. Really listen to them and validate what they are feeling. Then empower them to allow them to solve the problem themselves. It is a peaceful approach that involves letting children experience their emotions, and handle them on their own. It really does work too. I doubt I explain it all that well, but I'm still reading and re-reading the book and trying to change.

We need to make peace with the things that were less than perfect in our own childhoods or other relationship experiences. This allows us to not pass on coercive or controlling habits to our own child but learn to love them unconditionally. We can meet their needs, and recognize that their behavior may be the only way that they know to express their needs, and that it can be cured in working with a child instead of doing things to them. In this way, I see this book complementing Alfie Kohn's ideas too.

Anyway, I wanted to share with y'all. What a book. Buy it. It is worth it a million times over.

Typing

Which John Holt book is it where he talks about letting kids play with a typewriter and observing their stages of learning? Is it How Children Learn?

L loves to type up lists and tell me about them. I open up a blank word document and he types for pages and pages. Currently he is just randomly pushing buttons on the computer, but he did pick out the letters to his name once.

This is kind of a follow up to the post a few months ago about writing lists for moving. He loves to make lists. I guess I make alot of lists, and recipes involve lists, but after he types, he tells me all about what is on his list. It looks like a bunch of letters pushed randomly and repetitively, but to him it is a list about what to take to Africa for a hunting trip, or what to take with you when you move, or what we need to do to clean the kitchen, etc. It's fun to let him type up his lists.

Book Signing

This photo is of Stephenie Meyer, talking to the person in line before me as she was signing books.

I have recently become a fan of the Twilight series by Stephenie Meyer. They are fun books, and I have really enjoyed them. While I was visiting my folks, Mrs. Meyer happened to be in their town for a book signing promoting the release of the 3rd book. I decided to go to it, having never been to a book signing before.

It was different from what I expected. There was a Q&A session, which I didn't know about, and so I hadn't thought of any questions. Then for the signing, it was quite literally, have your book ready, she will put in her signature and your name in one book and then you are done. There were maybe 300 people there, so the need to get people thru the line quickly is understandable to some degree, but it wasn't anything like what I thought. I had thought of phrases to have her sign, I had thought of talking to her about my opinion of the latest book, but those weren't what happened. It was still a neat thing to do I think.

Unconditional Parenting in Practice

I really loved the book. I loved all the research included. I enjoy Alfie Kohn's writing style. So I decided to start changing my parenting style.

I'm still dealing with stopping myself from making threats, giving time outs, and withholding love. I'm still dealing with knowing how to say no at the store to my kids requests, but do it respectfully and with a good reason, and when is it okay to say no, versus saying yes on the little things?

I'm still dealing with a son who thrives on praise because that's what he's dealt with for almost 5 years, so how do I help him understand how proud I am of him all of the time without constantly telling him how I approve like I am used to doing?

On the positive side of the coin, I have found more patience and understanding in really listening to my boys needs and in giving hugs immediately and holding them as long as they want to. I see that my son likes the explanations of why something isn't okay and that he wants to immediately try again at stuff to do it right, instead of taking a time out. I am enjoying time with my kids more - which is so good, because having kids should be enjoyable.

Two anecdotes:

I was at Home Depot for the 37th time this week and trying to find the right kind of mulch. L was pushing a cart all around when he ran into someone. I saw it happen, I saw him immediately veer off and start pushing the cart again without any acknowledgement of what had happened. I called him to come talk to me, using my best calm and polite voice. The woman looked at me and said "He ran me over!" in an indignant voice. (She was still standing, so this was a bit of an overstatement.) I said "I understand." and calmly turned my attention to L. I asked him what had happened and how he felt and how he thought the lady felt. The thing that surprised me is he said he felt angry because he had not turned the cart right and had hit her. Suddenly, I saw the whole situation in a different light. He had been practicing his cart driving skills and had an accident. He was upset and wanted to practice more. I asked him how he would feel if he got hit by the cart and he didn't really know or want to think about it, I'm not sure. I explained that the lady probably felt sad and had been hurt and maybe it would be nice to say sorry. (She had already walked off in a huff, apparently because I hadn't barked out a command for him to apologize.) He said he didn't want to, and since I was ready to leave, I said, okay, let's go. That's a big deal to me, as I normally would have forced him to apologize immediately, but I decided to try the whole "work with" your child thing in the situation. :) We started to leave and he said he'd changed his mind and wanted to apologize. We had to walk around a bit to find her and he was acting shy, so I said he wanted to say something and he mumbled out "Sorry." and she said "Thank you." and turned and went about her business. L asked to try again at driving the shopping cart so I let him get another one and watched as he carefully manuevered it thru several aisles, before asking him if we could go. We left, both in a good mood and calm, L talking about his good driving skills.

Allowing myself to not care what the lady thought immediately and tending to my childs' needs was a good step for me. The whole situation could have played out so differently!

Another anecdote is when I took the kids to lunch at Potbelly's one day and the each immediately ran and got a bottled drink. Normally, I would have immediately vetoed those, but I decided that if I wanted one, I would get it, so the same respect should go to them - if they wanted it, they should have it. L further tested me, by asking for chips and then ice cream as well. I got them all of it that time, as I kept telling myself we were out to lunch for a nice relaxing time, and it was a nice treat. What it really made me think about was the article in Live Free Learn Free called "Starbucks Worthy" in a different way. When I had first read that article, I thought I was good about treating my kids well at restaurants. At Potbelly's I realized that wasn't really so. It made me realize that eating out was going to be more expensive - a great deterrent to eating out too much, but also interesting to think about going to the fast food restaurants because, I know that the kids meals are all they usually want there. Downside: I don't like any of the food at all. BK has the veggie burger that is okay - but at Wendy's it's a baked potato and salad. So again - another reason not to eat out much.

A possibly related part of this is now L asks for food at pretty much every store that has any type of restaurant, Target included, even if we just ate before coming to the store. I remind him of this and he proclaims "But I'm still hungry!" I still think of this as him testing his new limits - though it's hard to say. I can't just stop taking my kids with me to the store, so I have to figure something out about it. I guess it is something I really need to think about, but I'd love to know what others do. The little things don't bug me, but when I've just fed them breakfast or lunch and they want another meal at the store, it does frustrate me. I remember being a kid. I remember just wanting to try stuff at the store because it was new and different. Perhaps that's all he wants and I should plan a trip to do that - but then on the flip side - whenever we go to the farmer's market - L & H both remember the ice cream booth we went to the first time and run immediately there and ask for ice cream. Can I not go to the farmer's market with them without buying ice cream now?

Pondering Parenting

While reading other blogs, I stumbled across a book recommendation called Unconditional Parenting by Alfie Kohn. I have read and enjoyed some of his work previously, and the premise sounded interesting so I went and checked it out from my local library.

It has been fascinating. Things I have never pondered or realized could be an issue. I am enjoying it so much. It is really changing my lens thru which I view things.

I trust you

L has recently been saying this to me a lot. "I trust you, mom." It started on the long road trip out here when we were taking turns choosing songs to listen to. "I trust you, mom." Okay. Now it is when I ask him to do something or offer him some choices. Today at the library, he wanted to play the computer, but needed a library card to do so. So we got in line to get him his first official Library card. "I love you mom, I trust you mom, you're the best mom in the whole world." A bit embarrassing since he said it rather loudly, and yet really awesome and nice to hear and a bit out of left field for me right now. What does he mean? What does trust mean to him? Am I even worthy of that trust? I am not the perfect parent!

The library card was cool. He signed his own name and was so excited for about 30 seconds, until he got to play computer. Then he was intensely focused on that. A fun milestone, I think - one of those cool rites of passage.

Well our new home is nice. There is a lot more yard and walk for playing, and more room in the house too. The kitchen is wonderful and the master bath is quite large. We are still very much not moved in yet, so many errands! Monday was truck unloading day, Tuesday was buy appliances day, Wednesday was loading the truck of stuff to go to storage of my SIL's that got left, Today was getting the bunkbeds for the boys, and furniture from storage day. Tomorrow DH gets to go to the DMV and I'll try to make the house look more like a home. We did get a great deal on the fridge off of Craigslist, which was neat. We bought the Washer/Dryer at Home Depot though with rebates/discounts/etc. Went with the LG Tromm with rear controls. It is more than a traditional, but we weren't wanting used on Washer/Dryer because it is harder to find them in good condition and non abused and then there is the cash flow issue too.

The finished bunkbeds:


The trip out here went well. We stayed in Moab the first night at a hotel with a water slide - that was pretty neat. Though it turned out to be the only night we used the pool, since we didn't get to Amarillo until midnight the next night and the pool at the Holiday Inn here in Dallas was crowded or we were too tired. I will be reviewing the hotels on Trip Advisor, it is a great resource for hotels, check it out. We did go to Four Corners though! They now charge to go see it, which is crazy, but smart for the Navajo's. So here are our $3 per person admission to take pictures:




My favorite photo from the car ride:

Packing Packing

With less than 3 weeks until our move, I am a bit stressed/impatient to get everything ready. So we have been focused on packing for the past two days. This means the boys have watched a lot of movies. It also means I am tired of packing right now but have gotten my dear husband into a packing groove and he is not ready to stop!

I have gotten my new copy of Live Free Learn Free this week and have been enjoying the articles immensely.

I took a book quiz online that says I am "Anne of Green Gables". I quote: "Bright, chipper, vivid, but with the emotional fortitude of cottage cheese, you make quite an impression on everyone you meet. You're impulsive, rash, honest, and probably don't have a great relationship with your parents. People hurt your feelings constantly, but your brazen honestly doesn't exactly treat others with kid gloves. Ultimately, though, you win the hearts and minds of everyone that matters. You spell your name with an E and you want everyone to know about it."

Well, sounds good. The quiz is can be found at Book Quiz and is only 6 questions long. Pretty nifty.