I thought the Young Readers Challenge would be great to tackle with my 9 year old daughter. She reads well but doesn’t view reading as “fun”. I hope that will change as she matures and I hope doing this challenge with her will help her along in that area. Here are the list of titles we will read together:

1. Sarah Plain and Tall *Completed 2-1-08*
2. Elsie Dinsmore
3. Elsie’s Holidays at Roselands
4. Bridge to Terabithia
5. Charlotte’s Web
6. The Incredible Journey
7. Missing May
8. The Door in the Wall
9. Snake and Lizard *Completed 1-21-08*
10. Redwall
11. Farmer Boy
12. Unicorns of Balinor

Alternates:

• The Scripture Sleuth 2
• The Case of the Ticklish Tooth
• A Year Down Yonder
• Morning Girl
• Misty of Chincoteague
• Mr. Ape

At Grandma’s ~ Christmas Eve 2007

Guess who is turns 9 years old today? You guessed it! My baby has a birthday today. In honor of this special day, I want to share nine things about her.

1. She has a beautiful singing voice
2. Her favorite color is pink
3. She loves girly things (hairbows, nail polish, etc.)
4. She loves animals
5. She’s a left-handed computer whiz (she once tried to sign up with e-Harmony! LOL!)
6. Her favorite thing to eat is her grandma’s mac ‘n’ cheese (she always reminds me that mine is not quite as good as granny’s)
7. She is an excellent speller
8. She is a great help around the house
9. She has the most southern accent you will ever hear!

Holding a reindeer Webkinz ~ Christmas Day 2007

With her new Liberty doll (from Vision Forum) Christmas morning 2007

Happy Birthday my baby!

Recently, I received a book in the mail that I had won in a blog contest. Sadly, I do not remember who sent the book to me and can’t give them credit because of that. However, I would love to tell you about this book!

The Vase of Many Colors, by Rachel Theone, is a wonderful story geared toward younger children. We read about a young girl who likes to twirl and dance her way around her grandmother’s house. Here’s a description of the book from Amazon:

Twirl and laugh and sing and dance your way through the rooms of the very small house, on the very grand hill, in the very small town in this beautifully written and colorfully illustrated family classic. Walk into the world of the very bouncy girl and her old, crooked grandmother. A world where rainbows appear on the walls and simple flower-gathering is a nightly ritual. A world where broken things are mended with the gentle breath of love…and they become a beautiful masterpiece for all generations to enjoy.

We decided to read the book after lunch one day. With both my daughters (ages 13 and almost 9) gathered around the kitchen table, I read the book aloud to them. Although the book lends itself more to younger children, my oldest daughter and I enjoyed the story. The illustrations were beautiful and only added to our enjoyment of the book. It is a short book, only having about 48 pages and many of those are the illustrations. The granddaughter in the book reminded me of my own younger daughter. She too is bouncy and twirly and often dances her way around our home. She liked the story so much that she read it to her daddy when he came in from work.

Because we enjoyed the book so much, we’d like to pass it along to someone who might enjoy it just as much. If you’d like to have the book, leave a comment and I’ll pick a winner on January 1, 2008.

This week, the Christian Fiction Blog Alliance is introducing

Distant Heart

(Avon Inspire January 2, 2008)

by

Tracey Bateman

Tracey Bateman is the award-winning author of more than twenty-five books, including Defiant Heart, the First in the Westeard Hearts series. She is a member of American Christian Fiction Writers (ACFW) and recently served on the board as President. She loves in Lebanon, Montana, with her husband and their four children.

About The Book:

In the second book in the Westward Hearts trilogy, will the promise of a new life out west heal the scars of Toni’s past?

This series tells the stories of three strong women as they struggle to survive on the rough wagon train and lose their hearts to unlikely heroes along the way/ Thin Little House on the Prairie meets Francine river’s Redeeming Love and you begin to get a sense of the riveting historical series that Tracey Bateman has created.

In this second installment, we follow Toni Rodden, a former prostitute who sought to escape her past and build a new life, and a new reputation, when she joined the wagon train. Despite much resentment and distrust from the other women, Toni has finally earned a place on the wagon train and found a surrogate family in Fannie Caldwell and her two siblings. For the first time in her life, Toni actually feels free.

But while Toni once harbored dreams that her new life might include a husband and family, she soon realizes the stigma that comes with her past is difficult to see beyond and that she’ll never be truly loved or seen as worthy. As the trip out west begins to teach her to survive on her own, she resolves to make her own living as a seamstress when the train finally reaches Oregon.

But despite Toni’s conviction that no man will be able to see beyond her marred past, Sam Two-feathers, the wagon scout and acting preacher for the train seems to know of a love that forgives sins and values much more than outward appearances. Will Sam have the confidence to declare his love? Will Toni be able to trust in a God that can forgive even the darkest past? Faith, love, and courage will be put to the test in Distant Heart.

For more Wordless Wednesday posts, visit 5minutesformom.

Photo courtesy of CBS and the AP 

Did you watch the meteor shower this week? The peak was Friday around 2a.m. I had forgotten about it until a friend emailed me about 12a.m. I yanked hubby up and the two of us went outside to see what we could see. The kids were already sound asleep and I didn’t wake them because it was pretty chilly outside.

Hubby and I watched for at least half an hour and saw several “shooting stars.” It was really neat and we had to be very focused as these things were fast. We live close to an airport and we saw several planes in the air. I wondered if any of the passengers were watching.   I hope you were able to enjoy the shower and if you missed it, you should really make it a point to catch the next one.

To see a few pictures that were captured, visit Spaceweather.  Here are a few facts about geminid meteor showers for those of you who might want to do further study with your children:

• While most meteors come from comets, geminids come from an object called 3200 Phaethon, which is said to be a cross between an asteroid and a burned out comet.
• The Geminid meteors are named for the constellation Gemini, the Twins.
• Geminid meteors stream from a point called the radiant, in the constellation Gemini.
• The first Geminid shower is said to have appeared suddenly in 1862.
• Geminids move slowly, and many leave trails which are visible even after the meteor has faded.

For more information, check out Astronomy.com.

I saw this here and thought it was too cute! In the end, it pretty much answers all of the basic questions parents are asked by people who are new to the idea of homeschooling. Enjoy!

To the tune of “Twelve Days of Christmas.

On the first day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Can you homeschool legally?”

On the second day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the third day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the fourth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “What about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the fifth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “YOU ARE SO STRANGE! What about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the sixth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “How long will you homeschool, YOU ARE S0 STRANGE, what about P.E. , do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the seventh day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE!, what about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, do you homeschool legally?”

On the eighth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE, what about P.E. do you give them tests, are they socialized, do you homeschool legally?”

On the ninth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “They’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE!, what about P.E. do you give them tests, are they socialized, do you homeschool legally?”

On the tenth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “What about graduation, they’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE!, what about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the eleventh day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “I could never do that, what about graduation, they’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE, what about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the twelfth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “Can they go to college, I could never do that, what about graduation, they’ll miss the prom, why do you do this, look at what they’re missing, how long will you homeschool, YOU ARE SO STRANGE, What about P.E., do you give them tests, are they socialized, can you homeschool legally?”

On the thirteenth day of homeschool I thoughtfully replied: “They Can go to college, yes you can do this, they can have graduation, we don’t like the prom, we do it cuz we like it, they are missing nothing, we’ll homeschool forever, WE ARE NOT STRANGE!, We give them P.E., and we give them tests, they are socialized, AND WE HOMESCHOOL LEGALLY!

On the fourteenth day of homeschool my neighbor said to me, “How can I get started, why didn’t you tell me, where do I buy curriculum, when is the next conference, WILL PEOPLE THINK WE’RE STRANGE? I think we can do this, if you will help us, can we join P.E. and we’ll homeschool legally.”

I used to block out all of the hoopla concerning the politically correct way to express “holiday” greetings. You know what I mean. It’s not proper to say “Merry Christmas” anymore because that might offend someone. I just figure people will say what they want and if someone doesn’t like it, well, they can get over it. We’re supposed to have freedom of speech, right? Now, some sort of wave has caught on and lots of major companies have started saying “Happy Holidays” or sending out there “holiday” catalogs. What these companies did was fold like an accordion under the pressure. Well, not me.

Today a friend sent this Stoplight video, and I had to chuckle. I’m a little jealous because I didn’t think of doing this before! What a wonderful idea. So all you major companies out there, just keep on sending me your “holiday” catalogs and I’ll continue to toss them. Better yet, spend all of that money publishing these nice color “holiday” catalogs, and I’ll keep lining our kitty box with them. Oh, and by the way, Merry Christmas to ya!

I have a little notepad on my refrigerator and anytime I run across a neat book or product I’d really like to purchase, I write it down. If hubby wants to buy me a gift at any point, he can just go pick something off the list and viola! The work is done. He appreciates this because it’s hard for us to buy for each other. We just buy things we need as we go. We buy things we want as we can afford it. It works out great, unless you have to buy a birthday gift or an anniversary present. That’s why I think keeping a list is a great idea. Now, if I could just get hubs to keep a list, we’d be all set! Here are thirteen things on my list:

1. A Well Kept Home by Laura Fronty
2. Semi-Homemade Cooking by Sandra Lee
3. Subscription to Martha Stewart Living
4. Just Jane by Nancy Moser
5. The Monstrous Regiment of Women
6. Quiet Strength: A Memoir by Tony Dungy
7. A piano (for our youngest daughter…I’m tired of the keyboard being in my bedroom)
8. A trip to Scotland (HA! This will happen when we have the money saved up)
9. Gutter screens (I hate seeing all of those leaves hanging out of our gutters)
10. Some help sanding our kitchen floor and restaining it
11. For my washer and dryer to be moved to the garage (this requires a lot of work rerouting water lines, etc.)
12. Hardwood floors to replace our 20 year old carpet (in time we will get to this)
13. More children to be born to our family

For more TT’s, go here.

It seems that December is a month filled with parties, family outings, and lots of great holiday shows! Those things have been keeping us busy. I wanted to take a minute and share some of our holiday traditions with you. We love getting our tree each year. We usually get it the day after Thanksgiving and spend the weekend getting it decorated. We’ve had a real tree for as long as I can remember. We love them. They smell wonderful and there is something so special about spending time with your family as you pick out the perfect tree. We usually peruse all the trees on the lot before deciding on one. We used to go to a tree farm about an hour away and get our tree. However, the tree farm hasn’t had any trees for the past few years (they’ve been waiting for new ones to grow) so we found a nice little lot near home that we’ve been going to for the past few years. Again this year, we found the perfect tree for our living room.

We tried to just do orange and white ornaments this year, in honor of our beloved Tennessee Vols. We found some nice orange ball ornaments but could only find one pack. That pack only had six ornaments and we knew that wouldn’t be enough. We did manage to spread them out though and added some of our older ornaments that had orange in them. It worked out fine and I love this tree more than any we’ve had in awhile. It’s very simple this year. We used clear lights, which is a break from our normal colored lights. We usually try and find a couple of special ornaments each year. These ornaments mean something to our family so we look carefully. This year, we chose two special ones that fit us perfectly. The first one is one that JennaG will appreciate:

My daughters and I love Elvis. I learned to love him as a child since my stepfather was a HUGE fan. He listened to Elvis tapes over and over and I heard them so much that I learned almost every Elvis song. I had to be a fan! We picked up this Elvis at Cracker Barrel in Beckley, WV this year. We visited my mom there for Thanksgiving and we happened to see this ornament as we were leaving.

The second ornament is just as special to us. We love animals and we have our fair share of pets, especially cats. We have a very unique story as to how all the cats came to live here. We get strange stray cats with little or no tail. Currently out of five cats, only two have regular tails. The others have no tail, half a tail and 3/4 of a tail. I’ve always heard that cats are great for stress relief. I can attest to that since these kitties do wonders for me. I love them all and couldn’t imagine them not being around. So, in honor of Mr. Tumnus, Lucy, Tabbie, Jasper, and Molly, I give you our favorite ornament for this year:

We found it at Hobby Lobby in Beckley, WV this year.

I thought I’d throw in a few from the past couple of years. All of the ornaments pictured here are hanging on our tree this year. They all mesh well with our orange and white theme except for one. I’m sure you’ll figure out which one from the pictures below.

A ballerina that is special to our youngest daughter, who used to be a ballerina herself.

A Titans ornament that is special to our oldest daughter,a HUGE Titans fan.

A UT ornament given to us by my BIL a couple of years ago.

Clan Forrester ornament. If you look closely, you’ll notice a piece of our hunting tartan draped over the shoulder of the bear.

The orange balls we found in Beckley. Too bad we only found 6!

I hope you enjoyed looking at my tree. This year was all about being simple and I think we accomplished that. We have fewer ornaments on our tree than ever and I’m glad. Each one that hangs on the tree this year has very special meaning to our family and we plan to continue adding to that each year.