McDuff Saves the Day, by Rosemary Wells

If you are familiar with children's literature, you know you'll never go wrong with Rosemary Wells.  Even Nickelodeon has figured that out with it's popular Max and Ruby series.  Our family feels the same way.  One of our family favorites is the McDuff series by Rosemary Wells.  I was reminded just how wonderful the series is today, as I put my 3 year old down for her nap.  The story she chose to have me read was McDuff Saves the Day.  If you have a dog around you are sure to recognize your furry friend in the antics of McDuff.  Well's storylines feature McDuff's personality and quirks and will grab the heart of any dog-lover!   These books are a must have for your personal library!

P.S.  I am still looking for any great book suggestions for my Valentine's! 

Looking for Good Books

We started a new Valentine's day tradition last year.  One of the things I really love is books, so I told my kids that each year they could pick a book for Valentines day.  Last year Valentine's was a Saturday and it happened to be the day my husband was moving his office so he had to work.  I took the kids and let them pick their book at Barnes and Noble and then we bought ice cream cones at Ben and Jerry's.  Since Valentine's Day is on a Sunday this year, I decided that I need to get some really cool books for them.  I am looking for any great suggestions you may have.  I have a 7 year old boy who loves football, Harry Potter, and The Boxcar Children books.  I also have two daughters, a 3 year old and a 7 month old.  Share any and all favorites!  By the way, don't you love this darling vintage Valentine?  It's a public domain image from this site.

The Mitten, by Jan Brett

First of all, as you can tell, my New Year's resolution to try and post reading activities I was doing with my kids every day was way overly optimistic.  I am sincerely trying to concentrate on doing more learning activities each day, but not all of them are fabulous and "post-worthy" and let's be honest, they are not happening as often as I would like, but I figure some improvement is better than nothing.  This last week Paige and I had a really great time reading the mitten and doing a great activity that was as simple as can be because the author/illustrator did all the work.  The Mitten, by Jan Brett is a great book.  I happen to own the board book version, which I think may be abridged, but either copy is great.  Paige and I read it fairly frequently, but this week I was reminded by this post, that Jan Brett has a great website with all kinds of cool projects you can print.  This is the one that we picked.  We cut out two mittens and stapled all around them so that it would hold the animals, then we printed out the animals and Paige colored them.  I cut them out and she was able to put them in the mitten, just like in the story.  Paige loved it and carried the mitten around for several days and told everyone about it.  It took me until today for her to forget about it enough that I could finally throw it away.  I know from teaching that authors and illustrators and even publishers do all kinds of free stuff like Jan Brett's website to promote their books, I don't know why I don't think of it more often and take advantage of it! 

Looking for a great Regency Romance?

I just finished reading The Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer.  It was such a fun book.  If you are looking for a good clean romance, this is for you.  My cousin recommended it on GoodReads so I picked it up.  It was the perfect light read.  I love to read and my biggest pet peeve is getting part way through a really good book and realizing it is full of trash.  It probably won't win any awards for the most ingenious novel.  I have read several of Georgette Heyer's books, and they are a bit of Jane Austen knock-offs, but I am totally okay with that.  In fact I fully embrace Jane Austen knock-offs.  My only irritation is with the authors who claim to be writing Jane Austen style books and completely run in a different direction.  I can't remember the book I started that was suppossed to be something to do with Pride and Prejudice and the author completely ruined the story.  None of the characters keep the type of values that Jane Austen promoted, it just made me crazy!  I finally gave up.  Anyway, The Grand Sophy was great!  By the way, I am always looking for great new books to read.  I love http://www.goodreads.com/ because I am constantly able to see what other people are reading and it gives me ideas of what to read next.  If you haven't joined, do it!  Then add me as your friend!

Baptism Towel

My nephew got baptized today.  It was a wonderful baptism and we are all so proud of him.  I found directions for making this towel here, and I knew I had to make one for him.  It was such a simple project, plus it was quick!  The most time consuming part is cutting out the letters, but even that only takes a few minutes.

My Many Colored Days, by Dr. Seuss

Paige just started a new little dance class that is absolutely wonderful!  They have been using this book and colored scarves as part of their classes the last few weeks.  The book is called My Many Colored Days.  It is written by Dr. Seuss, but he did not illustrate it.  I loved to use it when I was teaching for teaching art and it is great to use for creative writing.  It talks about how you feel like different colors on different days.  In Paige's dance class they use colored scarves to dance the different feelings.  Since I have the book, we decided to adapt it to use at home.  Last night we had a great time reading the book and each time I would say a different color, she would run around with a different colored scarf.  Reading this book also provides the perfect opportunity to talk with your kids about feelings.  I started asking Paige what color her day was and my older son even joined in and told us what color his day was.  We didn't do this last night, but this activity could be extended to making your own book.  Have your child draw pictures for different colored days.  You could get out paints and paint each different colored day or make collages in different colors from pictures cut out from magazines. 

Scrapbooking

http://www.beckyhiggins.com/blog/

I have always loved scrapbooking, but once I started having kids, time just got away from me.  I love taking pictures and have a ton, but rarely find time to do anything with them.  I bought this kit with my birthday money back in November and I got it recently and started using it with the new year.  It is set up so you can use it in lots of ways, but I am using it the way Becky Higgins suggests and trying to take a picture a day.  I am thrilled with it!  I have been trying to print off pictures every week or so and then I can just sit down for an hour and do all the little journaling cards for that week.  I am absolutely loving it!  I spent some time on it last night and I am feeling so good that I am keeping much more of a journal of my family's life and it is so manageable.  I hope she keeps making these kits for each year, because I will keep buying them!  It is an amazing system!