Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts

Thursday, August 28, 2014

What I'm Loving ... Right Now

I can't believe Summer is almost over! Around here from May-August it is a succession of birthdays for us. May for David, June for Sienna, July for Forest, August for Mama. And then, just like that it's September, our anniversary month (7 years, this year). This year our anniversary happens to fall on the day of our homeschool orientation and picnic. 

August has been filled with some short day trips with Nana, exploring new parks, home projects, harvesting so much goodness from our garden, making trades with a neighbor friend, mornings with my portrait artist, 1st grade homeschool planning and organizing, and impromptu estate sale shopping,   

Forest making his "I'm afraid" face for Sienna at Gere-a-deli in Anacortes.

 Nana at Gere-a-deli.

A photo of herself. 

Mama and Forest. 

Forest, Sienna & Bigfoot in an Anacortes alley. 

Portrait artist, Sienna with her colored pencils in her pocket. 

Drawing my portrait while I sit on the sofa.

 
My portrait. The colorful oval in the front is our braided rug and the smaller brown one is Sunshine's dog bed.

Tomatoes all lined up on our kitchen windowsill ... and there's still plenty more in our garden. 

David & Sienna made a trade with our neighbor friend, Steve. Some tomatoes and zucchini from our garden for some pears, flowers and knitting needles. 

Sienna's homeschool basket. I will talk more about homeschooling in some future posts. 

On our way to picnic and go to the park, we stopped at an estate sale on our old street. I filled a bag upstairs in the attic for $5.00. Some of the books smell a bit musty and/or moldy. They are in our garage. But these two turned out to be okay.  

I also chose 3 handmade shirts from the closet in the attic to put in my $5.00 bag. A sailor inspired one. 

A pretty embroidered one. 

And, a gingham farm mama shirt. I'm not sure if they will fit me or not. I'm waiting until I wash them to try them on. I think they are all from the 1970's. I also got some Pyrex mixing bowls for $10.00, which are in the dishwasher right now. I will share these soon!

Nana finished painting Forest's dresser. When we bought it, it was a lavender color and now it's a creamy white with new knobs. It looks amazing now!

 I'm doing a woodland/forest theme in his room.

David planted grass seeds in this part of our backyard, which is just dirt right now. This is to the right of our sliding glass door. 

This is right out the sliding glass door. Hopefully, we will have grass before it is just muddy out there. Sunshine likes digging holes in our yard, as you can see. But, she doesn't dig to get out. She just digs to find herself treasures!

So, those are the things that I am loving right now, in August. We have plans to make homemade granola later today when Forest takes his afternoon nap. Tomorrow, we will be making bread (and pizza dough, of course) for next week's lunches, as we begin our new homeschool rhythm. I will be back soon to share a little more about homeschool. I hope you are soaking in your last days of summer sunshine, too before the next season arrives.

Wednesday, June 25, 2014

A Date

Sienna and I had our own little date this morning. We went out to breakfast at Starbucks. (a vanilla steamer & blueberry scone for her and an americano for Mama) After breakfast, we headed over to the library and Sienna got a library card! She also started the summer reading program and checked out her first book by herself. We finished our date off with a trip to the park. It was our first time at this one and Sienna had fun trying out the new balancing steps and climbing wall.






It was a special day and we're looking forward to our next date together.

Sunday, December 15, 2013

And, Just Like That ...

... she is a reader! 


She's been reading the Frog and Toad series to me and she sounds out most every word on her own. We are so proud of our wee reader.

Friday, October 18, 2013

On Reading

Lately, I've been indulging myself with reading. It feels like such a luxury to me, because since Sienna stopped napping, it seems I've also stopped reading. (Except for my reading of The Hunger Games series while we were on our vacay to California. But, that was car reading while the little ones napped.)

So, what have I been reading? Since August, I've slowly been savoring Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: a Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver. (Gifted to me by my lovely sis-in-law, Jenn. Many thanks!) Only a few more chapters to go. 

I also like to read a few books at a time in different genres. The last few weeks, I've been reading a lot of books on natural living/homesteading/gardening. See the stack of books below! After all, I am a dreamer (if you haven't noticed) and I am dreaming up our plan for the future ... a mini farm/homestead. 
Along with this "homestead dream" of ours, we are also talking about building our own home. And, the talk is all about log cabins. We found this gem at Goodwill last weekend for $2.00. It contains lots of useful information on finding land and log cabin building. Of course, this "homestead dream" will take many years of planning, working, and saving. But, it is exciting to have a dream!     
Another book I picked up last weekend at Goodwill was this one. It was $0.79 and is on a lot of the Waldorf reading lists. I thought I would read it first and see if it would be a good one to read aloud to Sienna. I am currently reading aloud Little House in the Big Woods each night and Sienna loves it!  

I picked up this one at Goodwill for $2.00 to read after I finish my Barbara Kingsolver book. When I was in the teaching credential program, my literacy professor was reading our class excerpts from it and I've really wanted to read the whole book ever since then. Now, I will have my chance! 
Lastly, the fiction book I am reading is this one. I  picked it up at the thrift store awhile back. I am constantly on the look out for Practical Magic by Alice Hoffman when we go thrifting (since it is one of my all-time favorite movies) and I found this one instead. I am about half-way through it and I really like her style of writing. So, after I finish I will probably be on the look out for others by her.

Happy Reading!

Saturday, March 30, 2013

On This Eve of Easter

This morning we took Sienna to her very first Easter egg hunt with other children. She was a little nervous at first, but once she started running to look for eggs, she was off! After she found her 6 eggs, she turned with a look of worry, because there was so many other little ones around her and she had gone pretty far into the field. Luckily, I followed behind her at a close distance and she saw me right away. The eggs were, of course, filled with unpleasant candy, so we told her that she could leave the candy for the Easter Bunny tonight and she (yes, Sienna believes the Easter bunny must be a girl) may bring her some tastier candy. 

Before the Easter egg hunt began!

Sienna and her Daddy 

 Sienna turned around to see us!

Me, keeping a safe distance behind Sienna.

 Checking to see how many eggs she found!

While we were in town, we also visited the Flea Market Shop. Daddy found a Miles Davis CD for $3.00 (it's in the car) and some salmon lures for $1.50.

Mama found these three books. I thought the first two books would be a wonderful addition to our homeschool library when we study Pioneers. And, the last book, we are adding to our collection of cat themed books. They were a very good price and all hardback, too! There were also a few books on the Dust Bowl that I may go back for... 

$1.00 

$1.00 

$1.00

When we came home, Daddy went out to tend our garden pea patch. Me and the little ones stayed in and tended to the garden apartment to get it ready for the Easter Bunny's visit tonight.

 
Our Spring nature shelf.

And, inside the nature shelf... some of our recent finds on our nature walks. 

We set up the little table for the Easter Bunny, too! Sienna's basket is on the pink play silk and Forest's basket is on the blue play silk. Sienna chose the colors for the play silks, since she is sure Forest's favorite color will be blue.

We also set up this Easter playscape on our bookshelf. Sienna loves to play with all the bunnies. This Easter basket is for Mama and Daddy.

After we finished tidying up our nest, Daddy took Sienna over to the Pea Patch to see the work he did and to take a few photos.

 

Today, Daddy planted red onions, sweet onions, green kale, red romaine and green leaf lettuce. All of these plants were from the Skagit Valley Food Co-op.

Sienna on a balance beam next to our patch.

This year's pea patch. 

And, another view.

Here are some of the seeds that we are going to be planting very soon!

We also will be planting these seeds my Aunt Carol (Thank you!) sent to Sienna very soon, too.

We hope that you are having a happy day on this Easter Eve!

Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Simplifying: Books

One of the many things I've had on the "to-do" list in my mind was to simplify our children's book collection. Most of our books were acquired during my 7 years of teaching and many were not shall we say "quality" literature. At the time, I was trying to quickly purchase a classroom library since my classroom lacked one. 

So, now I am working on sorting and simplifying the books for our little ones. Really, there are so many books for children out there, I want to make sure my little ones are exposed to really great literature and/or illustrations.

In taking on this task, it has also come to my attention that we have multiple copies of many, many books. This has prompted me to start writing down in a book journal the titles of books we already own. That way, when I'm out and about or shopping online, I can quickly see what books we already have.
  
 Sorting books! 
We have another full bookshelf in the hallway and another tub full stored away.

A few favorites.

Forest is ready for Summer!

If you would like some of our books, let me know and I'll send them your way! We already have two full bags and more to go...