The Good And The Random

 Most ski days are wonderful. Sometimes there are meltdowns. Some days are just hard no matter where you are.

 These little buddies have so much fun together. New Fish only goes to half day kindergarten so she has been able to spend some extra time with Nixie lately. There is nothing better than playing in the snow.

 Red Fish has decided to learn to play the violin. She is taking lessons from my mom. She will be a third generation violinist.

 Pearler beads are all the rage at our house right now.

 A little visit with Lovely L and company. New Fish was in her element reading to her little buddies and entertaining them. She loves little kids!

 Blue Fish loves to listen to Red Fish practice. It doesn't matter if it is squeaky violin or the piano he sits right next to her and listens the whole time.

 Little bit of an update to our front room.

Every single day I find this kid tucked away some place reading. She is a book worm through and through.

Book Worms & Piano Recitals

 These two crack me up. They came home from school talking about a big animal test at school and spent the afternoon reading every animal book they could get their hands on to study.

 Red Fish had a Christmas piano recital.

The Everyday

Swinging in the back yard.

 Water balloon fights

This kid and her costumes. She is a party a minute, our tiny event coordinator.

Like Mother Like Daughter

She is never without a book.

Sweet Sisters

It was suspiciously quiet upstairs so I went to investigate.  I found them tucked into Red Fish's bed, reading to each other.  These two were definitely meant to be sisters.  They are generally so sweet and good to each other.  They have a special bond and they love each other so much.  I love watching them be sisters.

Marbling With Milk

Stringing beads for Valentines themed jewelry while Daddy reads Harry Potter them.

The girls have been busy reading and creating lately. Two Fish has been reading Harry Potter to them (they are on book 3) and I've been reading a bunch of different books to them. Winter is starting to give us all a little bit of cabin fever and everytime we have friends over they all go crazy because they are so tired of being inside under close supervision without enough room to move their bodies. Thank heavens for their gymnastics class where they can get a little bit of their energy out.  They are so desperate for room to move that every time the sun peaks out they dash outside to run and ride bikes.  Inside they are bouncing off the furniture with cartwheels and handstands and the usual antics.

 We tried marbling with milk for the first time. I've seen a bunch of different ways of doing this but we just went with what we had on hand.  The girls filled baking sheets with milk and then used eye droppers to put liquid watercolors in the trays.  Then they added hand soap to the tray and put a watercolor paper in to soak.  The effect was pretty cool.  After the papers dried they cut them into heart shapes to make more Valentines.  Hopefully our papers don't stink later.

The tray with the watercolors suspended in milk and soap

One of their papers after it had been dipped in the tray.

Blowing Glass

 The girls and I have been reading See How It's Made a little bit at a time. We plan to try out several of the things we have read about so far like making ice cream.  I have an ice cream maker that I've never even opened. We read today about blowing glass and then the girls watched a few youtube videos and we looked at some of my blown glass things.  New Fish kept insisting that we needed to try blowing glass and I kept telling her that we didn't have the skills or the supplies to try blowing glass.  She told me: "All we need is some sort of goo and poles to blow on.  All of the sudden I remembered that we had exactly that.  Over a year or so ago my Dad bought the girls "Magic Plastic" balloon supplies from Hammond toystore.  We tried them a couple of times but made a big mess and the girls were too young to do it.  We broke them out again today and had so much fun "blowing glass."  They could add their own colors and blow out the balloons.  Thanks to my Dad for making me a hero mommy today.

The Good Parts

 I recently read "Olive Kitteridge"  by Elizabeth Storout and then also saw the play "Other Desert Cities" with my husband.  Neither the book or the play were my favorite but I have thought about them quite a bit.  Both deal with a lot of the family dysfunction, mental illness and the general difficulties of life.  They both made me sad because they seem to miss all of the really happy parts of being a parent or being part of a family.  I agree that everyone is dealing with a lot of really difficult things that tend to hide behind the surface.  Everyone is fighting a hard battle and most of the time the people around them have no idea what happens inside a person's life.  The part that was left out of this book and this play is a look at all of the tiny moments that just make life wonderful.  The extra minutes in the morning that one of my girls come in to cuddle before we have to get ready for the day.  Teaching my kids something new or seeing them understand something for the first time.  The peaceful evenings or the laughter filled dinners that occur every once in awhile and you connect with your family in what seems like a perfect few hours.  The way it feels to see your child do something truly kind. These missed all of the invisible strings and intense bonds of love that connect a family.  It didn't show any of the people who reach out a hand to help when you need it most.  There are so many things that make life wonderful and I have so much to be grateful for.  I'm hoping that recognizing the great things about life and the important parts of relationships will make sure they wouldn't be written as a tiny part of my own story.

Books We Have Been Reading

We have been reading a lot lately.  Here are a few of the books we have enjoyed and a few that we didn't like-

The Hundred Dresses by Eleanor Estes is a  I liked this book and it really made my children think about the things they say to other people.  It was an emotional read for my girls and I had to stop several times to help them talk through Maddie's guilt and talk about why the kids were mean to Wanda in the first place.  It is a fairly quick read and the girls liked the illustrations.  Three stars.

 The Family Under The Bridge by Natalie Savage Carlson was depressing.  It kind of bummed my kids out a little.  It's good for them to realize how blessed they are to have a home to live in but they are probably still a bit young for this story.  It was recommended by the Sonlight kindergarten program and I can't say I am too impressed with their selections this year, which is unfortunate as I really liked their preschool list. Three stars.

I also read the whole Giver Series by Lois Lowery.  It was much more disturbing to read as an adult.  I definitely did not understand all of the symbolism and diseased culture when I read the first two years ago.  I kind of wish Lowery had skipped the last/4th book (The Son) as it was completely superfluous in my opinion.   I still don't understand why the evil had to be conquered again after The Messenger.  Three stars for the first three books and two stars for The Son.

 This was my first time reading any of the Little House On The Prairy Books but Two Fish grew up listening to them as a child.  My mother in law gave us the first two stories.  The chapters are a little bit long for young kids so we had to do only half a chapter some nights but my girls really got into the story.  They liked the idea of living in the middle of the big woods and like hearing about horse carts and old time farm practices.  We will definitely be reading the rest of the series a little bit at a time.  I can only handle reading one book from a series at a time to my kids.  I can't read a whole series at once.  Maybe that will change when we start moving a little quicker on books. Four Stars.

 My mother in law bought Mary Engebreit's Fairy Tales for New Fish for Christmas and it has become her constant companion.  New Fish is obsessed with princesses and this book is much more fun to read to her than those darn Disney princess books.  It has very bright, fun illustrations and the stories are retold in a really child friendly way.  It is New Fish's favorite book and she just refers to it as "the princess book."  She can tell all of the "real" fairy tale stories by heart now. Five Stars.

I also recently read The Snow Child by Eowen Ivey.  I liked the Russian fairytale aspect of this story as I am a huge fan of all fairy tales. It was haunting and sad. Three Stars.

 James Herriot's Treasury For Children was a fun book to read to the girls.  Red Fish especially loves books about animals and New Fish liked the pictures.  They are sweet little animal adventures told from the perspective of a country vet. Three Stars.

I also re-read Les Miserables- sigh- and it's so lovely.  Unfortunately I missed the book club where we discussed it because it is definitely one of my favorite books.  I've loved Les Miserables everything since I was a little kid and used to watch the animated movie.  (On a side note- Les Miserables as an animated movie is sort of a disturbing idea.  I need to find a copy someplace and re-watch it to investigate how much of the story is in it.  Animated prostitutes?) Five Stars.

I sobbed through the last few chapters of Charlotte's Web by E.B. White.  I think it might be my favorite chapter book I have read with my kids.  It's beautiful.  The story is well crafted and I love the language.  The moral is uplifting and the friendship between wilbur the pig and Charlotte the spider is touching.  My kids both loved it.

The Complete Adventures of Curious George is now Red Fish's very favorite book.  I didn't realize that the copy I bought her for Christmas came with the entire works on two CDs.  She has listened to them over and over.  She falls asleep holding it at night.  George is a topic of dinner conversation on a regular basis. Five stars.

The Princess Academy by Shannon Hale was another book club read.  I enjoy juvenille literature every once in while but I think I read too much of it in March.  The story was fine.  It was definitely different than I expected just from the title and review.  Three Stars.



Mrs. Piggle Wiggle (my childhood favorite) is up next on the docket.  I'm excited.

K is for King and Q is for Queen

New Fish's Princess and the Pea

 Today in preschool we talked about the letters K and Q.  We made them into royalty.  We looked at some pictures of kings and queens around the world and talked a little bit about what they do in real life.  The kids were not impressed as the reality did not match up with their own ideas about royalty.  New Fish didn't think most of the pictures were fancy enough. Our main theme was fairytales, which was perfect for New Fish right now.  She is fairytale obsessed.  She has a book that my Mother in law gave her that she pours over multiple times a day.  We read fairytales together on a almost daily basis and I think the girls know many of them by heart. 

This morning, we started with The Princess And The Pea.   The kids illustrated the story by using fabric scraps as the mattresses and drawing a sleeping princess on top. 

Red Fish's Princess and the Pea

 The favorite story of the day was The Three Little Pigs. We acted it out and then made a little collage of the three houses out of yarn, popsicle sticks and cardstock "bricks."  We also built castles out of blocks and did some singing and spent time playing in the sensory bin.  Not a ton of pictures this week.

Red Fish's Three Little Pigs

New Fish's Three Little Pigs

Books & The Things My Kids Say

 I haven't been blogging about all of the books I read anymore because I've run out of time and energy most days.  I thought I would do one big post with some of the highlights and lowlights of what I've read over the past few months either by myself or with my kids.  The girls are getting very into chapter books now.  It is fun to hear what they get out of these books.  We are currently reading The Little House In The Big Woods.  It has been all about slaughtering animals and getting ready for winter so far and has sparked some seriously funny conversations.  Red Fish was shocked to learn that the bacon we ate for breakfast had come from a pig and said: "Are you kidding me?  You are telling me we ate a PIG for breakfast?"  Later she asked me if people eat dogs and I told her they do in some countries and she suggested we order one from Asia and see how it tastes.  The kid will eat anything.  No thanks.

We recently read My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett and Red Fish LOVED it.  We read it in one weekend and I'm pretty sure it is her favorite book we have read.  She loved Wild Island and all of the adventures in the story.  Red Fish has decided that next year she is going to ask Santa for baby dragon because even though he failed to secure her a "real unicorn" this year, "Surely he can bring a baby dragon."  This also lead Red Fish to ask me if she was EVER going to get a unicorn.  I reminded her that Santa said unicorns have to stay in their magical environment or they die.  She replied: "Sometimes when a unicorn gets old, just before it dies, it has always dreamed of living with a redhead."  Hysterical I don't know where she comes up with these things. 

I read Making A Good Brain Great by Daniel G. Amen MD a few months ago and it was fascinating.  It would be a dreadfully boring book if it was written by just about anyone else.  It is interestingly written. It has a lot of great information and ideas. I loved the information about how music affects your brain.  The section on supplements has caused me to make a serious change in lifestyle that I am currently testing.  I really enjoyed reading it and plan to try and implement many of the ideas into my life.

I read The Apple And The Arrow by Mary and Conrad Buff with my kids because it was part of the Sonlight curriculum for kindergarteners.  It was a total flop.  They hated it and it wasn't age appropriate. 

The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morten was something I read for book club. 
The mystery was captivating. I enjoyed the organization of the book and reading from the different viewpoints. I thought the love story was extraneous (as I usually do) and amoral but it didn't detract too much from the main story line.  I liked the idea of a mystery spanning three generations and the stories melded together nicely for the most part.  I absolutely hated the view on adoption.  It almost made me stop reading the book in the beginning.  It was extremely negative and ridiculous.  Otherwise, it is an easy light read.

Heaven is Here by Stephanie Nielson was exactly what I thought it would be.  It was a fast, easy read, sad and uplifting at the same time.  I have read some of Stephanie's blog so I knew what to expect and had heard much of the story ahead of time.  It is a nice story of one mother's journey to reclaim her life and her children.  I appreciated that it felt very genuine and honest.  

 To Kill A Mocking Bird by Harper Lee was absolutely incredible. My brother gave it to me for my birthday because I've always meant to get around to reading it. There are not words for how much I loved it.  I can't believe I had never read it before and really had no idea what it was about.   I absolutely adored this book in every way. The characters are so sharply drawn and the story completely absorbed me. This will absolutely go on my shelf of favorites. 
 
I read The Boxcar Children to my kids recently.  It was a quick read and they enjoyed it.  It brought back great memories of reading the series as a child.  I'm sure we will read more of the books over the next few years.   

Half Broke Horses by Jeanette Walls was great.  It filled in some lingering questions I had about her other memoir, The Glass Castle.  I loved Lily Casey's character and reading about ranch life.  Walls has an amazing ability to capture her character's voice.  This story made me want to rope steers, homestead, drive airplanes and become braver in general.  Loved it.

I am Half Sick of Shadows by ALan Bradley was a complete let down.  I love Flavia but the murder mystery in this book was boring and not as well thought out as the others. I liked the plot to trap Father Christmas and I did enjoy the showdown scene. I hope that Alan Bradley kind rediscover his writing mojo in future books.

The D'Artangnan Romances or Ten Years Later- I've been reading all of the Three Musketeers series by Alexandre Dumas but I will be taking a lengthy break after reading the 4th in the series.  It was all court intrigue instead of action and I would recommend skipping over it.  It is way to lengthy and boring to bother with. 

I read Charlie And The Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl with the girls.  It is a fun story but they didn't get into the story as much as I thought they would.  They seem to prefer animal adventures to anything else.

She Got Up Off The Couch by Haven Kimmel  is laugh out loud funny but not quite as humorous as A Girl Named Zippy. I appreciated the evolution of her mother and her mother's quest to better herself and change her life. The story is very real, honest and fun to read. It shows some of the dysfunction and trouble in Kimmel's family as she begins to mature and recognize the underlying family problems. Kimmel also writes about her generally good life and happy outlook no matter what forces seem to conspire against her. I love that she portrays her parents as generally loveable people and forces for good in her life despite their obvious flaws. It is definitely a reminder to look at the good side of life and learn to laugh at yourself.

I read A Discovery Of Witches by Deborah Harkness for book club in October.  I hate romance books, I'm not into vampires and some of the scenes were downright gross. The heroine is insipid and I couldn't her increasing need to be pathetically dependent and stupid. I do enjoy reading books that other people love and it is the main attraction of my book club other than the social aspect. It definitely drags me outside of what I would normally read.

The Nutcracker by E.T.A Hoffmann was a fun holiday read.  Red Fish and I read it together throughout December.  The illustrations are fantastic and the story is completely captivating.  Maurice Sendak's illustrations are fabulous and it was so fun to share with my little girl.
  
So these are a sampling of what I have been reading.  I can't think of a complete list right now but I should at least make an effort to keep track of what I have been reading with my kids!