Wildwood Cottage

Inching Forward

Getting back into blogging has proven harder than I expected! The combination of re-starting the old habit of posting, getting used to doing it on a Mac, and preparing for the girls' birthdays has made for less than ideal circumstances. I refuse to give up, however! A  quote about perseverance woul be nice here, but I can't think of a good one...

I did manage to re-organize my pantry last week-

I re-adjusted shelf heights and added the cherry shelf paper (that I've had for at least 3 years). I like to do projects like this in winter and summer, when the weather is less than ideal. 

Claire spent one quiet time arranging coins on her dresser-

It never ceases to amaze me what she has patience for and what she doesn't! I'm sure she spent quite some time on this arrangement, but asking her to write a couple sentences about spiders recently was met with outrage.

Carly continues to be fascinated by all things doctor-related-

She was replacing a liver at a trip to the children's museum yesterday. It's interesting to me that as different as she and Claire are (and let me tell you, they are!) , Claire also went through a similar phase around the same age.

Last but not least- sticker dolls. How I love these sticker dolls. The girls have had this pad over and over and OVER and they never seem to get tired of them. A lot of discussion goes into which dolly to do when, and which outfits to put on what dolls.

Now I can pat myself on the back for a completed post!

The Cat Who Went to Heaven

I have recently become interested in Buddhism, so when I came across The Cat Who Went to Heaven on one of my go-to blogs for book recommendations, I read it in about an hour. 

I found the book to be a gentle introduction to many of the stories behind the Buddhist philosophy, as well as telling a classically good story. And at 88 pages long, it was a perfect read after a busy morning organizing. The cup of tea next to me and a cat in my lap made it just about perfect!

Happy New Year

I can't belive that it's been three years since I blogged last. I thought about getting back to blogging many times, but I never quite had the time or motivation to start again until now. Claire and Carly are now almost 8 and 4, and we moved to Kansas City from Oklahoma last year. We're still homeschooling and we still read lots of books! Here is Claire-

and Carly-

As you can see, they've changed quite a bit since my last post. With any luck, It won't take me three more years to post again!

The Girls

Things around here have been busy since my last post, mainly because Claire turned 5 (!) and I've re-done her "curriculum" from scratch. There will hopefully be more about that later- for now, I've picked a couple of recent pictures to share.

Those of you who have been reading this blog for awhile will recognize this furrowed brow-

 

She's intently studying The Scrambled States of America while wearing her favorite "footy" pajamas. This picture is Claire in a nutshell- a book, her CD player, bean bag, and that look of intense concentration I love so much.

Carly is skipping her afternoon nap today, so when I go in to get her shortly, she won't be as happy as she was in this picture.

She only recently discovered how to pull herself up to standing- I still can't believe how big she looks when she does it.

Time for the afternoon shift to start- if I'm lucky, Carly will look at books in her crib so I can look at a few myself!

One Year

Despite my best intentions, it's been longer than I wanted since my last post. I have so many ideas for the blog, but actually doing them is proving harder than I thought. A combination of a cold followed by Matt being out of town for a few days hasn't helped. I am more than ready for life to return to normal!

I have plenty of motivation to post today, though- Carly is 1! Here's what she looked like this time last year...

 

And here she is today (if you think the pictures look odd, they do- our camera is dying, but these were too cute not to post)-

 

I

I've found that I'm enjoying my time with Carly a bit more than I did when Claire was a baby- partly because I have some of idea of what I'm doing, and also because I know there won't be any more babies. I think what I've enjoyed most is seeing how much Carly adores Claire- all her biggest smiles and reactions are reserved for her. I sometimes think of how often we used to say that Claire was going to be an only child- look what we would have missed.

Happy Birthday, sweet girl! We love you!

A New Year

Hello Again! I've decided to try and take up blogging again after my long hiatus. I miss my blog friends and I only recently realized what a great way blogging is to document our day-to-day lives. As Carly's first birthday approaches, it dawned on my that I remember very little of Claire when she was that age, and it mad me sad to think of this part of Carly's life just slipping away in my memory. So, to anyone left who used to read this blog, there will be less lengthy book posts and more "life" posts. That also works better for me- book posts are great to read but a lot of work to compose! I'm changing things around a bit on the blog too, hopefully for the better. I'm looking forward to a fresh start for the new year- better blogging, better eating, better parenting- me, only better. :o)

Books About America

CJ has no interest in fireworks of any sort because they're too noisy, so we checked out a few books from the library to learn about other aspects of the 4th of July.

Are you familiar with Peter Spier? We have several of his books, and CJ adores them all because of the detailed illustrations. She loves to pore over his version of The Star Spangled Banner. It includes all of the verses of the song, and some amazing illustrations of flags on the beginning and end papers. I've already read this one several times!

Another big hit with CJ has been Steven Kellogg's Yankee Doodle. I loved Steven Kellogg's books as a kid, so it pleases me that she does as well. Once again, the detailed drawings really capture her attention, and she goes over them with a fine-toothed comb.

This Land Is Your Land by Woody Guthrie has lovely paintings in it by Kathy Jakobsen. It shows an amazing array of the wonders that make up this country, and CJ loves books that you can sing the words to.

I enjoy the illustrations in The Rooster Crows by Maud and Miska Petersham more than CJ does, but she still enjoys looking at it with me and committing some othe catchier rhymes to memory. This book won the Caldecott medal in 1946, and I can see why- they're lovely. I'll probably be adding this one to our "reference" shelf.

CJ is belting out "The Star Bangled Banner" right now- it's supposed to be quiet time, but I can't tell her to stop singing. Have a wonderful holiday!

Busy Girls

Getting some face-to-face time...

Trying out the high chair...

Singing...

And celebrating a five-month birthday with a bath. :o)

Books to Encourage Listening

May wasn't kind to us here at Wildwood Cottage- everyone except CWH came down with a cold. I nearly had a nervous breakdown when Rose came down with it, but luckily she had the mildest version of all of us. We're all well now, so I'm working on getting life back to normal. After being sick, I'm just happy to have the energy to clean house and update the blog!

CJ is a talker. I mean, she talks a lot. Sometimes, she says the funniest things that make me laugh out loud. Other times, she asks questions she already knows the answer to, which drives me up the wall. In order to work on her listening skills, I gathered a few books (what else?!) to hopefully get my point across in a gentle way.

Nina at Painted Rainbows and Chamomile Tea recommended Quiet in the Garden by Aliki, and we have not been disappointed. It's truly a wonderful book. CJ loves the different sounds in the book, and we've worked on going outside and sitting as still as we can to see what will come along. She was thrilled to see a Tufted Titmouse land on our seed tray not six feet away during one listening exercise. Be sure and check the "Downloads" on the Harper Collins link for some activities connected with the book.

Nina also recommended A Listening Walk by Paul Showers some time ago. The book is illustrated by Aliki, so it has a similar feel to Quiet in the Garden, which is a plus in my opinion! It also nicely points out all of the different sounds you can hear if you just stop and listen- and stop talking. :o)

I wrote about Listen, Listen by Phillis Gershator previously, and it fit nicely with our theme. I adore Alison Jay's illustrations, and the seasonal aspect of the book works well with my renewed interest in Waldorf education.

Finally, we read A Quiet Place by Douglas Wood. I can't recommend this book highly enough. A boy trying to escape grown-ups talking and cleaning up his room finds many different quiet places to escape to in his imagination. The language is amazing- "...far-off thunderheads bloom like sky-flowers over the mesas.", and so are the illustrations. This one is a treasure.

I'll be stopping by to catch up on comments- I'm hoping it won't be another month before I post again!

Trains Again...

I thought I'd share the bulletin board I made for CJ due to her obsession with The Little Red Train books. In case you're wondering why it's on the floor, I've found that CJ enjoys the bulletin boards more when she can get up close and micro-analyze the pictures. Her favorite pictures on the board are the two pictures of The Little Red Train that I found using Google image search- what a surprise! I found the other train pictures, the crossing sign and word wall here. The pictures of Thomas the Train and his friends came from here, and the "sh" and "ch" trains along the bottom came from Sparklebox. I love that all of these are free (except for the ink and paper, of course)! Just in case your child becomes as big of a fan of Duffy as mine has, I stumbled across this. And they do ship to the US- I checked. :o)

CJ has a cold, and in between blowing her nose and keeping her away from Rose, we're reading Blueberries for Sal and doing some fun stuff along with it- I'm hoping to have a post up about that early next week.