Little Ladies At Christmas Coffeetime

This morning Ainsley, Cousin M. and I had the joy of attending a Christmas coffeetime of a friend who decorates beautifully for the holidays! He has 16 themed Christmas trees as well as many other beautiful holiday decorations. It is quite something to see. Ainsley and Cousin M. were so excited to get to come with me this year...they even dressed their best for the occasion! Here are the two little ladies posed in front of a tree containing 1,000 glass bulbs! Beautiful tree and beautiful girls!

Cousin M's personal favorite was a teddy bear tree.

Ainsley's personal favorite was the penguin tree!

The girls enjoyed some fancy treats at coffeetime. They did a great job of eating and visiting...such respectful girls. What a blessing!

As we left the gathering, we stopped to tell the silky goats "Merry Christmas!" I heard the goat say, "But it's not even Thanksgiving yet....wait, who am I kidding...Christmas should last all year! Merry Christmas to you, too!" Thank you, Merle, for opening your home to us today!

Thrifty Christmas Gift Idea

Here is a little Christmas gift idea for those of you buying for kids! I know a store that sells these blank puzzles. They are CHEAP...the one Ainsley is holding was 59 cents. Your child can draw a picture on the puzzle, color it, break it apart and have their very own art in puzzle form. The pieces are sturdy too! Here is Ainsley's first puzzle. I drew the picture and she colored it.

Ainsley LOVES puzzles so this was a really fun activity for her.

Ainsley and Cousin M. work together to put M's puzzle together. If you want details as to where you can pick these up, let me know! They are also available in various sizes/number of pieces. Fun and cheap...it's what I'm all about!

Update On the Little House Cabin

The Little House cabin is coming right along! I would say it is about 85% finished. All we need is a curtain for our window and some type of cook stove. Grandma is helping with the curtain and Dad will eventually help with a stove. The cabin is definitely being played in already though! Laura is busy sweeping while Mary cares for Baby Carrie.
It is Christmas on the prairie. We just brought in our tree and Grandma helped us make some homemade pinecone decorations. Soon we will string popcorn and make a few more ornaments. It looks like there are already a couple of cloth-wrapped gifts under the tree!

Mary crushes some corn to make cornmeal for muffins.

Laura and Mary snuggled in their bed on Christmas Eve. Thanks to our friend Kathy, we have a really cool olden days candlestick lantern seen glowing here! Don't worry, it normally will have a battery operated candle in it for fire safety. But on this snowy Christmas Eve, we felt we needed the real deal! We are loving the Little House cabin!

Lunchtime Visitors

Everyone needs something to look forward to. Even little kids need something to look forward to. As a parent, I think one of my greatest joys in serving my girls is giving them things to look forward to, especially when they really need it. Going to school has always been hard for Bennett. She is a home body. She just wants to be at home all the time and being at school all day has held it's challenges. One way I've tried to brighten her school day has been with the Lunchtime Visitors. On days when she takes home lunch, I send a post it note with a greeting from a special visitor. Let me introduce a few to you! Say hello to Mr. Taylor Guitar.

Asian Hat Man is a little feisty.

Forgiving Ms. Nugget. Personally, I think she'd be relieved to have been spared!

And finally Sammy Saltine and his parting words. Bennett ate him a couple of days ago. This silly little gesture would not trip every kid's trigger, but it trips Bennett's. She has saved every Lunchtime Visitor I have ever drawn for her. Some have been glued into a scrapbook and some she keeps in the little pocket of her backpack. I am thankful for the opportunity to provide her with just a little something to look forward to!

Elvis the Pelvis, I Mean Poultry!

So, Bennett brings home a paper from school. It says we have a project to complete together and it must be returned by Friday, the 12th. The assignment: Disguise Tom the Turkey (template provided) so that the farmer won't recognize him. Save him from becoming Thanksgiving dinner! Thus, the brainstorming begins. I am like, "We could make him look like a pie baker or a bald eagle or something. A farmer wouldn't shoot a bald eagle." Bennett's response? "I want him to be Elvis." Okay then. Elvis it is! After literally hours of researching and crafting, I present to you Elvis! It was a fun project to work on with Bennett, and we enjoyed talking about "The King" as we worked. We talked about his crazy hair, his crazy clothes, his crazy nickname "Elvis the Pelvis" which I am still unsure if it was appropriate conversation to have with a little kid. It was brief and tame...no worries. Anyway, I am glad to have helped save this turkey's life!

Forward Progress

I did not realize how much work it would be to create a Little House cabin. I basically thought I would be moving things from cardboard boxes to Rubbermaid tubs and hauling it to the basement. I did not know it would end up requiring so much purging and reorganization of other closets. In the end it will all be good, but in the meantime our house is a disaster and the process is long. It is progress, none the less!The closet is half emptied, and during the closet clean out, I found several of my classroom things from my premom teaching days. It made me a teeny tiny twinge sad to not have these things hanging in my classroom somewhere, but only for a split second. I would not trade one minute of the past 8 years at home with my girls for any classroom. And I thought, "Why not put a little life back into these materials and make a little temporary classroom out of some of this stuff!?" Thus, we have the one room school house, soon to become Little House cabin! Ainsley has really been into playing "school" lately, so she is very happy.

Miss Ainsley reads a book to her student, Bennett a.k.a. Kirsten.

To add to the pioneer spirit, a friend told us about and area Frontier exhibit, and we decided to check it out! Here are the girls in a pioneer kitchen. It was fun to see the old furniture and utensils. It gave us some good ideas about things we can have in our own cabin, including a little Christmas tree strung with popcorn garland! Yippee!

The one-room school house was really fun as well! The simplicy of benches, chalkboard and little slate boards is refreshing when compared to the world of desks, Promethean boards and laptops. Ahhh, simpler times...we embrace you!

Slicky Boot Awareness Day 2010

The 6th-Annual Slicky Boot Awareness Day came and went over the weekend! Here is a picture of Grant and the girls celebrating God's faithfulness and provision a few years back. In those days we celebrated this homemade holiday as a little family. Over the past few years we've started including friends in the festivities. This year's party was great!

We had a brunch feast, a quiz, prizes, commemorative ornaments, and of course, a game of Floamball! I always wonder what the neighbors are thinking when we gather in the side yard for Floamball. Here you can see the blue Mercury and "Maple Tree Lounge" serving as the necessary Floamball obstacles. They make the game what it is.

A bunch of grown ups standing around, waiting to catch a ball made of Floam. What is up with that??!!

Even the children enjoy this game. We had a couple of excitable catchers!

Ah, and this would be my very favorite photo. While the adults enjoy a game of ball, the little tikes slave away, raking the yard. And all seems right in the world!

And here you have the adorable child laborers. Don't worry, they didn't work too hard!

We bid farewell to the reigning champion...

...and a new one was crowned. Here he is, Uncle B, receiving the coveted traveling trophy!

After the festivities ended Uncle B and Aunt J stuck a round for a bit. Uncle B gave Bennett a valuable lesson about savings bonds.

He also spoke in depth with Ainsley about the benefits of planning ahead for your retirement. As we celebrated God's provision on that fine day, it was good to wrap up with some lessons on being good wise stewards of our money.

Trick-Or-Treat!

We did some fun trick-or-treating with family last night! Enjoy some photos! I just love Bennett and Ainsley at this age. They are so pleasant, respectful and obedient, they are good buddies, and they smile for the camera!

Bennett chose to be Amelia Earhart this year...surprise, surprise! What a perfect costume for a girl who loves history and adventure!

Ainsley chose to be a ballroom dancer...surprise, surprise! What a perfect costume for our little romantic princess girl!

We just love seeing cousins dressed up at Halloween! Baby S. was a darling little robot! He really likes his costume but I don't know if he really likes the invasion of his personal space that comes with Bennett and Ainsley.

Cousin M. was a hippity hoppity little bunny! The girls enjoyed trick-or-treating with her at a couple of the family stops. Thanks to all of our wonderful family for your love and kindness to the girls! You always make them feel special and trick-or-treating is so much fun for them because of you!

Pumpkin Party!

We did some family pumpkin carving recently. The girls look forward to this every year, and Dad is a master carver! He is also a master comedian, which we love! Here he is, puking up some pumpkin seeds for the photographer. You can always count on a dad to bring a little grossness into any activity.

The girls really enjoyed playing with the slimy seeds. We roasted them, too!

Bennett and Ainsley painted small pumpkins to pass the time while Dad was carving. He is looking so serious in this photo. That must be because pumpkin carving IS serious business!

The girls decided to go with an owl jack-o-lantern this year. Dad was a little disappointed in how it turned out, but I personally think he did a wonderful job. It's a little bit cute and a little bit spooky...kind of like Ainsley's expression in the photo!

The Right Book At the Right Time

As a former Title I Reading teacher, I am a bit of a book freak. Books are incredibly valuable for all people, but they are especially valuable for young minds. That is why we have approximately 1,000 children's books. Yikes and yeah at the same time! Well, I am one to buy most of my books at yard sales and Goodwill, and I often buy a book thinking, "Maybe we won't use this one right now, but some day it will be a treasure." A perfect example of this occurred this morning... ...when I saw that Bennett has pulled out "A Little House Christmas!" Oh my! I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to sit with the girls and read this in our very own Little House cabin/closet. This is going to be such a fun Christmas read! I am just a teeny weeny bit excited, as I bought this book a couple of years ago and it has been dormant on the shelves. I'm actually glad for that because now it has become the perfect book at the perfect time and it will be so much more memorable than if we would have read it earlier. Yay for good books and the memories they can make!