Santa Claus: Fact or Fiction??

There's been an awful lot of talk around here this year from some of the older children in the house about the nature of Santa Claus. Is he real? Or is it the parents?

I was real glad to see this post from a blog called I.N.K. (Interesting Non-fiction for Kids) and I've headed over to the library website to put several books on hold (as if the 150 books we have checked out isn't enough!)

And I quote from the author of the blog post:

"And, I say to my kids, “If you see it in the nonfiction section, it’s so!”
Here’s the evidence I found at our local library:" (followed by a list of the non-fiction Santa Claus books--check them out!)

A Super Saturday--Bunches of Stuff

Lots of good things happening here today.

Last night, my super-hero husband made me my new laundry shelves. This will revolutionize laundry in our house:


So that we can reclaim this:


For it's true purpose!

I never, ever, ever thought this would happen to me, but I now have a library in my house! I've kind-of always mused about having a library and how nice it would be. When I was decluttering, I decided to pull all of the books out of the kids rooms so that I could see what books we had, which ones to get rid of and then reorganize them. They all ended up in the basement. As I rearranged the kiddos' rooms, I realized that they don't really have room for so many books in their rooms and we settled on letting them have book baskets in their rooms where they can keep the books that they check out from the local library and a small selection of our household books. That means that most of the books in the house are now in the basement and I spent a few hours organizing them tolerably onto the shelves (hated every minute of that!!). We are awaiting some bean bag type chairs so that we'll have comfy seating. I'm so happy about it!

The first peony of the season:


And some columbines:


There are either a lot of bugs in my house to support the spiders, or just a lot of emaciated spiders. I vacuumed up a whole lot of old, dust-filled spider webs today. Whenever I do that I live in mortal fear that the spiders will come and get me in my sleep!

And then there's this ant. I call this photo, "Ant's Last Drink" and I'm sure It'll make me famous some day! Ha!:



Either way, he was on his way out. He had almost reached the ant "hotel" filled with ant poison, when he drowned in a puddle. Did you know that my kitchen counter ALWAYS has puddles on it!!?

I still have one more room in which I need to wash the walls. I only wash the walls once in a blue moon, so this is quite an accomplishment and I'm going to insist on having a gold star for this one.

Speaking of gold stars, May is quite an adored young lady. Her teachers always pay the highest compliments to her. Her choir teacher gave her excellent marks and left the comment, "Can we clone her?"

Elijah and Brigham got summer haircuts yesterday, but not the usual quarter-inch or eighth-inch type that we used to give. Nathan has asked to grow his hair out like some of the kids at school. I told him yes and he's already practicing the bang flipping technique that he so admires in others.

Sariah went to a birthday party today. She's just ecstatic whenever she gets invited to a party. She has been going around this week telling me that she can't believe she's going to a party, which has shifted this afternoon to, "I can't believe that I got to go to the party." That's gratitude for ya!

That about sums it up for my day.

Joseph and Nathan are off buying lumber for the next exciting project for the summer!

Library Bags

Today, I made library bags for each of their kids. I want them each to have a library card, check out their own books and learn more responsibility. I used canvas bags that Joseph has brought home from conferences he has attended. I made small drawstring bags that are just the right size for library cards. I attached them to the canvas bags and off we went. It was new and exciting! Here's how I did it:

Here are my handy quilting tools, useful for cutting fabric for other projects as well.

First, I cut a 6" by 6 1/2" piece of cloth.

I zigzagged around the edges.

I folded the 6 1/2" side down 3/4" and sewed a seam.

I folded the fabric in half with the seam side out and sewed around the edge.

I stopped before I got to the zig-zag to leave an opening for threading the cord through.

I used a safety pin to thread the cord.

Voila! I decided that I liked cording better than twine.

I just looped the bag through it's own cord onto the handle of the canvas bag.

Off to the library we go!

Reading List for Children

My friend Marni has inspired me with a post she wrote called:

Books We Have Read With the Kids

We have been sporadic over the years with reading and so I can't remember all the titles we have read. One thing we have been doing lately is to pick a topic and research it. Recently we've looked at snowflakes (see Snowflake Bentley--we found out that there is a Field Guide for Snowflakes, how cool is that?). I might read a picture book and then check out more books for their perusal. Another idea we are working on this year is religion. That one will be more detailed and more discussion oriented. We did a little study of "The Pied Piper" due to a reference to it in one of the "Anne of Green Gables" series. We read the actual poem, watched a couple of movies and studied the origins of it.

Recently, I've started being more consistent with nightly reading, so we have a small list of titles that we've gotten through. I try to read a picture book for Sariah so that if she can't sit through the chapters, she can give a kiss and a hug and head up to bed.

Here's our list:

Read Aloud:

James and the Giant Peach

The Endless Steppe

The Little Princess

The Fledgling

1-4 of the Narnia series

My Father’s Dragon

Elmer and the Dragon

The Dragons of Blueland

Tom's Midnight Garden

Mandy

The 100 Dresses

Carry On, Mr. Bowditch

Fablehaven

Listened to:

Harry Potter 1, 3

Anne of Green Gables

Anne of Avonlea

Anne of the Island

Anne of Windy Poplars

Rainbow Valley

Rilla of Ingleside

Room One: A Mystery or Two

Several Junie B. Jones books

Our current list of hopefuls:

The Candy Shop War
Our two missing "Anne" titles
Way to Be! (Gordon B. Hinckley)
Princess Academy


Oprah has a reading list for kids that you can check out here. Looks pretty good from what I can see. I haven't used it before, but I will go back.

Kind of as a side note, but not less important, is our family scripture study which we hold nearly nightly. To date we have read the Book of Mormon and the Gospel of St Matthew; currently we are in St. Mark.

I also think that picture books are really important; even Nathan still likes to read them. For Nathan and May it's still nice to sit down for a quick read and these are often the type that send us into a research spin. Sariah loves to go to the library and pick up several of the new books that are sitting out. A fun one that we recently is "When a Monster is Born." I would probably never have found it on the shelf, I love that the library sets out books. Elijah is in that tricky stage between picture books and chapter books. Any recommendations for him?

I used this list for picture books about a year ago. 100 Picture Books Everyone Should Know. We read some aloud and others were just available for the kids to read. It comes from the New York Public Library. They have a wonderful site and lots of lists.

What are your favorites?